An upcoming production of David King’s comedy The Garage Sale explores midlife hunger for belonging — and one man’s sidewalk-littered scheme to escape the oppressive weight of belongings.
The Driftwood Players will premiere their rendition of King’s award-winning play on Friday, April 14, the first of nine evening and matinee performances at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons.
Anthony Paré directs the two-act production, rounding out a directorial hat trick that began with 2022 stagings of Nothing to be Done and Timepiece (which he co-directed with Mac Dodge).
The eight-member cast reunites Driftwood actors Larry Musser and Ross McKeachie, who last appeared in Timepiece.
McKeachie plays Phil Grady, a father whose exuberant attempt at downsizing throws his nuclear family into literal disarray. Musser portrays Billy Boyce, a homeless rambler and potential catalyst for the restoration of Grady family harmony. Danda Humphreys, another Driftwood Players veteran, is Lois Pettapiece, a local busybody with dour suspicions about her neighbours’ activities.
“This garage sale comes out of nowhere for [Phil’s] family,” said McKeachie. “We’re living in this mid-size town in Canada and I’m tired of living the normal life and feeling the walls caving in on me. Billy and I strike up an unusual friendship. I think we both recognize something in the other. We’re kind of going through something similar and it’s hard to tell who’s got their life more together.”
Two Elphinstone Secondary theatre students — Trey Ingram and Olive Stremlaw — play Phil’s twin children.
“I think this play is very relatable because not a lot of families have perfect relationships and this family is very dysfunctional,” said Ingram. “Here are these two twins who don’t really know how to react most of the time and then strangers start appearing in their house that are buying all the stuff that they’ve known for so many years.”
“For my character,” added Stremlaw, “I think that her trying to take back her things is a way of taking control of what she can in the midst of a very scary situation for her.”
A pair of parts originally written as husband-and-wife yard sale hagglers has been updated to become a same-sex couple played by Lisa Furfaro and Nicole Iversen. Furfaro appeared recently as a lovestruck noblewoman in the Gibsons Library’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, while Iversen portrayed a rapacious realtor in the Driftwood’s A Beetlejuicy Halloween last October.
Sabrina West is a Driftwood newcomer who plays Phil’s wife Anna. West is following through on a New Year’s resolution to make her debut appearance onstage.
When applying for hospital nursing contracts early this year, she searched for a town with dramatic potential. “I was given a list of places in B.C. and I picked the Sunshine Coast because there was theatre in the community,” West said. “I messaged [Driftwood producer] Bill Forst, and it all worked out.”
Because The Garage Sale grapples with homelessness and mental health, the cast plans to collaborate with the Sunshine Coast Community Services Society. All proceeds from the April 22 performance will be directed to the society’s Building Together campaign, which is raising money to build a housing complex for people struggling to find affordable housing. “For a 40-year-old play, these issues remain painfully current,” observed Paré.
Playwright David King, a prolific musician and screenwriter who lived in Gibsons until his death in 2021, earned a Jessie Richardson Theatre award for The Garage Sale. The play was recognized as Vancouver’s best original work in 1984.
The Garage Sale opens on Friday, April 14 at 7:30 p.m. It plays April 14 to 29 on Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., with 2 p.m. matinees on April 16, 23 and 29. Tickets ($20) are available online at driftwoodplayers.ca or at Gibsons Florist, MELOmania Music, and Strait Music (cash only).
