On September 24 Prairie Theatre Exchange kicked off its 2024-25 season with a situation comedy called Bed and Breakfast. This is a true farce that is sure to leave audiences rolling in the aisles.
When the character Brett unexpectedly inherits the historic family home, he and his partner Drew abandon their frustrating careers and move out of fast-paced, high-priced Toronto to set up a B&B in a quiet little tourist town in Ontario. But when they face friction in their new community, they discover that simple life is more complicated than they thought. With more than a few unexpected and hilarious plot twists and dozens of quirky characters, all portrayed by two men, Bed & Breakfast is a theatrical tour-de-force. As riotously funny as it is deeply moving, this is a heartfelt comedy about “being out” in small-town Ontario, skeletons in the closet, and finding a place to call home.
In PTE’s production of Bed and Breakfast, the Character of Brett is portrayed by Kyle Golemba. Kyle Golemba is originally from Saskatchewan. He holds a Bachelor of Musical Theatre Performance degree from Sheridan College and a Master of Arts in Theatre Studies from the University of Guelph. His work on stage has taken him across Canada, including seasons at the Stratford, Shaw, and Charlestown Festivals.
The character of Drew in Bed and Breakfast is portrayed by Amir Haidar. Originally from Lebanon, Amir has travelled across Canada performing in such productions as Sweeny Todd, Rent and Oklahoma for a variety of theatre companies. He holds a BFA in Musical Theatre from Sheridan College and is currently a PhD Student at the University of Toronto.
Bed and Breakfast is a tour-de-force of theatre. Each actor plays several characters, with character switches happening in quick succession. There are 22 characters in the play performed by Golemba and Haidar. As Golemba explains, “In certain scenes we are each playing three of four people at times. A lot of this is based on a technique called vocal mask...basically you create a physical and vocal signature for every character. We have these physicalities that we instantly switch to without costumes or wigs or anything like that...the audience absolutely knows who we’ve become.”
Attitudes of the townsfolk towards an openly gay couple starting a Bed and Breakfast is one of the themes that is in the play, but Mark Crawford the playwright, has done a wonderful job of keeping the play light and funny. “The genius of Mark Crawford is that he always knows when to let the play settle into something more difficult and then immediately follows it with a joke...so that we absolutely deal with the things we have to deal with but we still have a lot of heart and laughter in and around those things,” says Golemba.
Bed and Breakfast is a farce in the truest sense of the word, and one of the more frantic and chaotic scenes of the play is when the characters Drew and Brett have their grand opening of the B&B. As Golemba says, “It is very much the twists and turns...slamming doors, lighting effects all sorts of things... as we become six or seven different characters with Brett and Drew at the heart of it, trying to manage the B&B with all these people and all their foibles and everything that is happening. It is a lot of fun!”
Bed and Breakfast is outrageously funny while dealing with some important life lessons. As Golemba states, “Being yourself and not being able to control how other people view you... you just have to be who you are is a real central theme to the play. It’s about family, it’s about who gets to be your family as opposed to who is officially your family. And it’s also about not judging others as much as not being judged yourself.”
The playwright Mark Crawford has successfully created a vehicle of expression in which serious themes are dealt with, presented in a manner that is sure to keep audiences laughing and entertained.
Bed and Breakfast runs until Sunday, October 6 at PTE for more details click here
