A new North Shore play starring a veteran Bowen actress highlights an inevitable challenge of life which every family has likely dealt, or will deal with, at some point.
The Window Outside, written by Belinda Lopez, is now playing at Presentation House in North Vancouver, holding its opening night last Friday and running through June 25. Directed by William B. Davis, the show follows an aging couple and their two children as they navigate the decisions involved with illnesses, caretaking responsibilities, and even discussions on end-of-life options.
One of the characters involved in this struggle – the mother Evelyn – is played by well-known Bowen actress Susan Hogan. Evelyn is suffering from dementia, and at one point in the play even goes missing. Hogan says there were several factors attracting her to the role.
“I think she’s kind of the catalyst that moves the play forward,” says Hogan of her on-stage presence, noting the two daughters, played by Sarah Jane Redmond and Liz Connors, in the play visit home in the first place since Evelyn and her husband Frank, played by Douglas Abel, are developing health issues. Once there, the main theme of the play comes to the surface.
“It’s about choice. It’s about choices that people make, whether it’s the daughters choices when they come home, how they feel they want to deal with the parents, or the parents deciding how they want to deal with their own lives,” says Hogan. “There’s just so many circumstances within the play where it comes down to choice. And everyone has their own ideas and perspectives on these issues.”
Importantly, Hogan says The Window Outside is not meant to offer a definitive stance on what is right or wrong. She expects the choices made by the characters during the play will elicit a range of responses from the audience, especially if they’ve gone through these family situations themselves.
“It’s about time this came out of the closet… these issues are going to start to come up more and more so we’ve got to look at it. We’ve got to talk about it and bring it out into the light,” says Hogan, noting in particular the conversations around end-of-life care and even the potential to pursue medically assisted dying, known in Canada as MAID, are the most likely to invoke passionate responses.
“You’ll probably choose a side, but maybe you haven’t even chosen yet and won’t. But it will definitely make you think about both sides of the issue,” explains Hogan.
How people feel about these choices will likely lead them to identify more or less with the four main characters as well. In fact, Hogan explains that as someone forced into a caretaker role for family members in her own life, she identifies most with the show’s daughters Sharon and Miranda, who themselves are thrust into the taxing role unexpectedly.
“They’re both trying to make their way through this mess of a family situation, not knowing what to do with everyone and trying not to hurt anyone. We’re trying to do what’s best for everyone, it’s very convoluted within families,” says Hogan.
In addition to the challenging subject matter, Hogan says she was also excited to join the play to work with her fellow cast members. “It’s a really strong cast, the four of us. It’s very strong and very safe,” she says of castmates Abel, Redmond, and Connors.
“You really trust that the other actor has your back, and everyone is totally there for the other actors as well as their own stuff,” says Hogan.
She also has strong praise for the show’s director Davis, who Hogan previously worked with when she attended the National Theatre School in Montreal, where he served as artistic director. “He’s a wonderful director, very insightful and he listens, which is a huge thing for a director,” she explains.
“When you’re put in a power position like that it’s so easy to just enforce your own vision on people. But he never did that, if someone said ‘oh I didn’t see it like that’, he’d say ‘oh how did you see it then?’ He’d open a conversation and it was just lovely. I’d work with him again in a heartbeat,” says Hogan.
The Window Outside runs Tuesday to Saturday at 7:30 pm, with a matinee showing on Sundays at 2 pm. Tickets are available at www.phtheatre.org. In keeping with the subject matter, a portion of the show’s proceeds will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Society of British Columbia.
