Ursula Pattloch has graced many Edmonton stages as a theatre actor over the years, but recently decided to direct. So she read many Canadian works, but they didn’t speak to her. Then she read a script by Hamilton, Ont.’s Kate Hewlett, and knew she found her first fucking play.
“While I was reading The Swearing Jar, my partner noticed I was killing myself laughing one minute, and then he came by a half hour later, and I was outright bawling. And he was like, ‘You found your play, didn’t you?'” Pattloch says. “When I finished it, an expletive came out of my mouth, but it probably is not one you want to put in print.”
The characters let the expletives fly throughout the story, dutifully filling the jar as they go, and topping it off at about $3,000 by play’s end. But the curse words are just the hook for a much deeper story about life, relationships and hope.
When couple Carey and Simon find out Carey is pregnant, they decide to change their lives for the better — starting with their dirty mouths, and perhaps more exercise. “That’s how it starts,” Pattloch says, “but the story really starts to unfold when you realize Simon has a secret that he’s not sharing, and then Carey meets a rather interesting man at the bookstore named Owen.”
In what’s been called an “intricately constructed script,” many stories build throughout — sometimes through songs performed live by the characters — but the audience only receives glimpses, at first. “It isn’t until later on, when you really understand the full impact of the things that are shared, that it all comes to light in the second act.”
Directing theatre is different from Pattloch’s previous experience directing local newscasts and Oilers games, and she can’t wait to get her first play in front of an audience, especially a play that’s so close to her friggin’ heart. “I did have a swearing jar for my kids, when they were young. But as soon as we realized that I was putting in more money than they were, suddenly the swearing jar disappeared.”
Hear the expletives fly at Walterdale Theatre, April 17 to 27.
