Column: 'Another Home Invasion' thought-provoking, but funny

It would be hard to find a greater contrast than the one between the Sudbury Theatre Centre’s season opener, the flamboyant Rocky Horror Show, and their second production, the one-woman play Another Home Invasion, about the tribulations of senior citizens.

Plays with only one actor aren’t exactly rare in the theatre, but they’re certainly special cases. Memorizing a whole script and keeping it straight is difficult without others to prod you along with regular cues. Yet, the far greater challenge is in holding an audience’s attention for 90 minutes all by yourself.

Both the playwright and the performer have to be talented storytellers to grab our interest and keep it for so long.

Playwright Joan MacLeod has won a number of significant awards for her work, including a Governor General’s Award. Another Home Invasion was shortlisted for the GG in 2009. Actress Lorna Wilson has had a long career performing onstage and teaching the craft of theatre. In Another Home Invasion, she plays octogenarian Jean, but also shows us a half-dozen other people as she relates her encounters with them.

The health problems of Jean’s husband Alec are forcing them to look for a retirement home, and they have one in mind called The Kiwanis. The question is whether they’ll be accepted into the residence as a couple, and that decision depends on a manipulative social worker named Claudia.

They’ve been waiting a long time, and on top of the many regular challenges that come with growing old, the security of the North Vancouver home that has been their sanctuary for decades has been violated in a home invasion, and the security of their relationship is being threatened by Alec’s worsening dementia.

In spite of the serious subject matter, there’s a lot of laugh-out-loud humour as the audience identifies with the petty trials that inflict Jean in her role as parent, wife, caregiver and senior citizen. Wilson is well-cast, expressing both the humour and the pain with total authenticity. She’s like the feisty grandmother we all know who’s never lost her sharp wit.

Stories like Another Home Invasion are bound to be both more relevant and more uncomfortable for those of us in the second half of our lives. With our nation’s aging population, the central story is a disturbingly accurate portrayal of the cruel dilemma faced by so many seniors thanks to the bureaucratic deficiencies of our health-care system, and one can only hope that such stories will eventually trigger much-needed change. Jean and Alec’s predicament might well inspire you to plan ahead for your own arrival at that time of life.

You’ll have to hurry to catch Another Home Invasion. It plays at the Sudbury Theatre Centre only through Nov. 1. The box office number is 705-674-8381 x21 or go online to sudburytheatre.ca.

Scott Overton is the author of the thriller Dead Air. He writes theatre reviews for Northern Life.