Wingfield's Folly

Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah! Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah (blah blah blah blah blah) blah blah. (*) It seems that comedians still have a lot of work to do in this world where people definitely talk more than they act: Bla Bla Land.

When a captain of industry trades his pinstripe suit for overalls and retreats to a hundred acre farm, the residents of Persephone Township raise their eyebrows. Weekend farmers are a common enough sight, but this man seems to think he can make a living with a broken down racehorse and a single furrow plough. Letter From Wingfield Farm is the story of one man's attempt to embrace a less complicated world. In a series of letters to the editor of the Larkspur weekly newspaper, Walt Wingfield tells of the people and events of his first year as a man of the soil.

In his fourth season on the farm (and his first as a married man) Walt Wingfield tries to preserve the memory of the old rural community of Persephone Township by promoting the crumbling Hollyhock Mill as a museum site. But the locals say the mill is haunted. Undaunted by such superstitious fears, Walt sets out to prove to the neighbours that there's nothing to this curse business - with near disastrous results.

As the first frosts come to Persephone Township Walt and Maggie Wingfield are all set to welcome new life to the farm. She's expecting, and he's nesting. But Walt is alarmed about the old feuds that divide the neighbours and disturb the tranquillity of the community. His attempts to mend other people's fences meet with a resistance as stiff and cold as the weather itself. And the biggest challenge to them all is looming on the horizon.

A devastating fire at the Orange Hall in Larkpur leaves it a smouldering ruin. Walt Wingfield leads the charge to get it rebuilt, but lighting a fire under his fellow committee members proves a daunting task. Is it courage they lack, or is the devil in the details?

Blanche offers us her new stand-up, creation 2018. She spares no one. Not even her own guts, which she still delivers to us smoking on the altar of self-derision.

In his show La formidable ascension sociale temporaire de G. Verstraeten (The Temporary Social Rise of G. Verstraeten), Guillermo Guiz, whose real name is Guy Verstraeten, reflects on his own journey and on what he sees as problematic in today's society. The main theme of his one-man show is gentrification and how to deal with it in relation to one's desire for social justice.