Sheila Martindale
Monday Magazine contributor
St. Luke’s Players’ Bedtime Stories is a play divided up into six separate vignettes, which are connected because some of the people in each scene are related or known to each other.
We start out with a middle aged couple who have been paid to be recorded having sex for a radio program; and move on to the bedroom of a young man who is dying and is visited by a girl he used to know at school.
We later see two men who scarcely know each other breaking into a house together. After the interval, an over-the-hill, accident-prone stripper gets fired by her boss, an aging rock star is propositioned by a young fan and the radio announcer decides to attempt to save his marriage.
The set remains the same, so the action moves right along, with each story cleverly linked to the others. Playwright Norm Foster has a very light touch with heavy-sounding topics, the result being a collection of humorous and thought-provoking presentations.
As is usual with St. Luke’s Players, the acting is well done and the 15 cast members do a great job in their roles.
This is a satisfying piece of theatre that stays with you long after the final curtain. I have not witnessed many of Foster’s plays staged in Victoria, so thanks to St. Luke’s for sharing my passion for this writer’s genius, and for doing the play full justice with a very professional – if amateur in status – cast and crew.
Bedtime Stories runs at St. Luke’s Church Hall on Cedar Hill Cross Road at Cedar Hill Road until this Sunday (March 18), with matinees on both Saturday and Sunday, March 17 and 18. Tickets can be purchased at the door or at The Papery, 669 Fort St, or you can call 250-884-5484 to reserve.