Elkahna Talbi and Jean Marc Dalpé (photo credit: Mathieu Girard)
Reflections from Mulligan's Bay
The journey from Two Rooms to II
by Mansel Robinson
You write a play to give it away.
Two Rooms has been on the road since last Spring, in a French translation by Jean Marc Dalpé, and produced by Sudbury’s Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario and Ottawa’s Théâtre de la Vieille 17. 15 cities and towns. A cheque arrives from time to time, like a post-card from Moncton or Montreal or Sept-Îles. Lovely.
There is a lot of mileage between this play and myself. It was first produced in English at Persephone Theatre in Saskatoon in 2011. Set in a large urban centre, it touches down briefly in the deserts of North Africa, a tourist town in the South Seas, the Muslim region of Thailand. I live in an old cabin on the Chapleau River, in Northern Ontario. Winter neighbours: 17. As I type the temperature has been hitting 30 below, and that’s without the added delight of wind-chill. We had a chimney fire two mornings ago, and I cracked my ankle shovelling our rink on the Bay. I’m just saying that the desert sounds pretty good about now. Sitting in a warm theatre would be nice, too. But not about to happen.
Still, in spite of the distance, a few reflections from Mulligan’s Bay.
