Friendship and Foolishness

Night three at the Year of the Arts Women’s Play Festival featured The Importance of Being Foolish, written and performed by Amy House and Berni Stapleton.

It’s hard to go higher than these two when it comes to women influential in the development of Newfoundland theatre. Amy is a sought-after performer and playwright, and has and continues to be an important cultural advocate and builder. Berni has a large and impressive playwrighting catalogue with over forty works produced nationally and internationally and, like Amy, has been and continues to be a staunch advocate for women’s issues. As Berni said in the opening comments before the show tonight, “As a matter of fact, when we first began writing about women’s issues, we didn’t even have names for the issues.”

Berni and Amy met in 1982 at the Stephenville Festival, appearing in The Importance of Being Earnest. Over the last 40 years, both together and apart, they have been integral in the development of the province’s cultural mosaic. They are shining examples of longevity and adaptability and have built serious careers in the arts …in large part by not being serious at all.

The Importance of Being Foolish is a retrospective of sorts, playfully looking at their lives, their bodies of work, their personal quirks, and their enduring partnership. In the play, we zoom ahead in time and meet Amy and Berni as retired, unemployed and more than slightly forgetful seniors living in Lady Mackerel’s Retirement Home for Lesser Known Actors. I would love to have seen this performance with all the bells and whistles of costumes and props; characters and moments across a lifetime flew by with Amy and Berni’s characteristic wit and pearls of wisdom faster than I could keep up sometimes!

I don’t remember the first time I saw their iconic fish plant workers, but the beauty of that comedic duo was how effectively they used humour to open our eyes to socio-political issues and raise up the voices of women working in the fishery.  

I think what will stick with me the most from this play, however, is the importance of friendship. 

​Anyone who is lucky enough to have a lifelong friend has probably imagined what they’re going to be like when they “wind up sharing a room in the Home.” If you’re Berni and Amy, that becomes a lovely performance piece.

Night four features A Retrospective, produced by Rising Tide Theatre. If you’re a young artist looking to build a career in the theatre, I encourage you not to miss this show. This event features the works of some of the great female playwrights from our past and our present (including both Amy and Berni!)  and explores how these playwrights brought the voices of past into the present to reflect on how the world has – and has not – changed.

​See you at 7 p.m.