MABOU: After three sold out performances earlier this summer in Antigonish, on Oct. 1, a local production company is hitting the Strathspey Performing Arts Centre stage for a one-night-only performance in Cape Breton.
With a spirited and talented cast of 34, ranging in age from six to 84, Duncan MacDonald, a representative with the organization told The Reporter they will bring songs, music, dancing and laugh out loud comedy with a generous portion of sarcasm to the stage.
“We’re pretty sure we’re going to please everybody,” MacDonald said. “In this show, the reason why people collect in the MacLean house is because it’s going to be a polling station, that was another thing; the polling station was always at somebody’s house.”
A Keppoch Election is the Ships of 1801’s ninth official production, and the fifth in their Keppoch-specific series.
“First it was just A Keppoch Ceilidh, and then the next one was A Keppoch Wake; because in the old days, they would have the wake in the house,” MacDonald said. “Then it was A Keppoch Wedding, because the church burned down and they had to have a wedding somewhere, and then there was Save Our Keppoch School, because all these small communities used to have a school.”
He suggested the election story is a good one because everything was so different back then.
“If you were a Tory and I was a Liberal, we wouldn’t be speaking for that week or that month or whatever,” MacDonald said. “As a result, some methods of securing votes were certainly suspect.”
Produced by the Society for the Ships of 1801, MacDonald who would almost be considered as the artistic director, as he comes up with the concept, he writes the script and with music director collects the songs that will be sung, and he produces and promotes the play.
“They also have reason to invite the two candidates to come in and speak to the community in the house, prior to the election,” he said. “There’s a conflict. In the house, the grandfather and the son are obviously big Tories and the mother and the daughter are obviously big Liberals.”
In the show, one of the characters, Dunc MacLean, believes the wife should vote the way of the husband, but MacDonald noted that it just doesn’t happen that way.
“That leads to conflict within the house and within the community. We have the Murphy’s, the Irish family, and we have the MacLean’s and the MacDonald’s, the Scottish families,” he said. “Over the number of shows that we’ve done, we’ve always allowed for some conflict between the two families.”
In what he describes as a “thematic concert,” A Keppoch Election is loosely based on a 1940’s style election; a period of time when a provincial election meant a great deal to rural communities because government jobs, such as road foreman and work at the fish hatchery, were directly related to the winning party.
“Somebody in the community would have a list, as we do in the show, and they would go over that voters list name-by-name,” MacDonald said. “Claiming they could count on this vote because he was on the road last year for us, or would need to buy a pint of rum to secure that vote. They would cheat if they could; both sides did it and they’d fistfight outside the polls.”
He suggested there used to be a saying “An election without rum, is almost the same thing as hunting deer in the daytime, it was just no fun in it.”
Along with the election, the show features the most awkward marriage proposal imaginable.
“Another side story, is there is a community bachelor, we call him Billy the Bochan, in the old Scottish tradition, a Bochan was a ghost-type person who drifted around,” MacDonald said. “At the same time we have Mary Agnes the widow and the two of them live in the community and they’re both interested in finding a partner; him more so, because she’s a good cook and has a nice, neat house.”
Add to that a serious flaring up of tensions within the MacLean family and outright hostility in the community, particularly between the fiddling MacDonald Liberals and the singing, dancing Murphy Tories.
“We started getting this show ready three years ago, the show was almost ready to go before COVID, and we had to cancel it, and then postpone it,” MacDonald said. “We were almost ready to go again, and had to postpone it again, but this summer we said if at all possible we had to go.”
When asked what he hopes people take away from the production, he advised, he hopes they understand and appreciate what those small communities meant to the people in them.
“The other thing is we wanted to keep up the tradition in writing songs and telling stories, where people in the community would see a situation, whether it’s comedy or serious and then write a song or a poem about it,” MacDonald said. “We’re trying to keep up that tradition.”
There will be two fall performances of A Keppoch Election, the first on Oct. 1, at the Strathspey Performing Arts Centre at 7 p.m., with a second performance at 2 p.m. on Oct. 2, at the North Nova Education Centre in New Glasgow.
Tickets are $25 for adults and $10 for youth 16 and under.
For more information and to purchase tickets for the Mabou show, people are asked to visit the Strathspey Performing Arts Centre’s box office or online via www.strathspeyplace.com, while tickets and information for the New Glasgow performance can be located at Antigonish 5¢ to Dollar, the Sharon St John Church in Stellarton or by visiting https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-keppoch-election-tickets-412010022067?aff=ebdssbdestsearch.