Wingfield Lost and Found

The Wingfield series of plays are about the trials and tribulations of Bay Street stockbroker Walt Wingfield, who decides to quit his job and start a hobby farm in the fictional Ontario township of Persephone. Each play is structured as a set of anecdotes told through letters from Walt which the editor of the local newspaper reads aloud. Each story starts with "Dear Ed..." and ends with "Yours sincerely, Walt".

As a one man show, the talented Rod Beattie plays Walt as well as all the wacky characters that interact with him. Without the use of props or costumes other than the odd hat, he flows seamlessly from character to character, each one with a distinctive voice, tone, vocabulary, mannerisms, posture and facial expressions. In addition to the newspaper editor Ed, some of the recurring characters include Walt's wife Maggie, her stuttering fool of a brother Freddie and his even more idiotic nephews Wilie and Dave. These three characters are the instigators of most of the hilarious antics in Walt's life.

The earlier plays document Walt's journey in learning to farm, marrying a neighbouring farm girl, and having a baby. Wingfield Lost and Found is the 7th play in the series and centres around the themes of climate change and global warming. I found the first story the funniest - it involved Willie and Dave trying to help round up Walt's run-away cattle, using cellphones to text their statuses. There is much spoofing of the texting lingo (e.g. ICM = "I See 'em", GGGG=Geez, FIFO=Frigging Idiot Fell Off"), made all the amusing when Freddy explains them with his stutter. Further stories talk about the long drought that is causing the crops to die, and the sudden loss of water in the family well. Walt tries to find a "water witch" to help find the path of the underwater spring to determine where to drill a hole for a new well. This concept was totally foreign to me, but it turns out that the father of the friend who we watched the play with is actually a water witch!

The Wingfield plays are always good fun, but so totally dependent upon its star that I suspect the plays would just stop being performed if he ever decided to quit. I've often wondered which of the voices most closely reflects that of actor Ron Beattie. I'm suspecting it is the Walt voice, since that seems the least caricaturish.