Liam Oko as Marsh Jost & Maude McInnis as Carrie Hart Photo by Hilary Hendsbee
Last summer Mulgrave Road Theatre staged Laura Teasdale’s play For Love Nor Money at the Bauer Theatre in Antigonish, but this summer they are bringing it home to Guysborough as the soft opening of their new home- the Mulgrave Road Centre for the Arts. It is apt that Artistic Director Emmy Alcorn chose to bring this play back for the opening because it tells a hyper-local story based on the history of the Jost House on Main Street, built by Henry Marshall Jost circa 1865. He was a son from a prosperous family of merchants in the community, and he built the house for himself and his fiancée Carrie Hart to live in once they were married. And yet, all does not end up going as planned. I chatted with Liam Oko and Maude McInnis who star in the play via Zoom about their experience bringing these characters to life onstage.
Oko and McInnis have a long history of working together in the theatre. They met while in Neptune Theatre School’s Youth Performance Company, and then, even though they both took time off between High School and University, they met up again as classmates at Dalhousie’s Fountain School of Performing Arts. Liam Oko grew up in Guysborough County, not far from Mulgrave Theatre. His initial experiences in the theatre were mostly in Antigonish because there were far fewer arts opportunities where he grew up. He didn’t get to perform in plays at school, but he enjoyed his Drama 12 class so much he took it twice.
“That’s why it’s so amazing about this [new building],” he says, “and what Emmy’s done here at Mulgrave Road; it’s an opportunity for the arts to be in more rural communities. If it would have been an option for me growing up, I would have been here all the time.” He credits his mother with allowing him to follow his passion as a young person- coming into Halifax for YPCo, and all the hotel rooms they stayed in, and the gas money it took, and her willingness to travel with him so much while he was growing up. “I did a show at the Bauer when they used to do the One Act Play Festival, and my classmates bussed down to see it. … It was their first time ever being in the Bauer; they had no idea it was there. It’s too bad because you know that those families were going into Antigonish to get groceries and everything else, and you know that they’re going to New Glasgow to go to the movies; it’s too bad that nobody knew about the Bauer at the time.” He says that he hopes that after having that experience that some of his former classmates kept going to see shows at Festival/Theatre Antigonish.
Conversely, Maude McInnis was lucky to spend some time in her childhood living in Ontario, and her parents took her to see shows in Toronto. She started out singing in choir, and when she moved to Nova Scotia her school did musicals, and she made her stage debut at the age of seven as Orphan #9 in Annie. “I got so into it,” she says, “I had dirt on my face, and I had a great time. I remember my principal came up to me afterwards and was like, ‘someday you’re going to be up on the stage’, because as an ensemble member there were too many of us- we were on bleachers on the side of the stage. But I was like, ‘you know what? You’re right.’ And so I started doing community theatre.” She started with UpStage Studios in Dartmouth, and then got into YPCo where she met Oko.
After High School Oko spent some time at the Stratford Shakespeare School before moving to the Cayman Islands where he did theatre for seven years. He then came back to Nova Scotia and studied at the Fountain School. “Never in our wildest dreams did I think that [Maude and I] would get a contract out of school doing something together, and then to get to do it twice,” he says. In between High School and University McInnis went to cosmetology school and became a hairstylist. “It always seemed like people have seen that working connection [with us], and we’re great friends,” says Oko, mentioning that they were also paired up to play love interests in their final production at school. “When we both got the callbacks [for this show] we were doing our fourth year final show, and after the show we were in our dressing room going over the lines, and we were like, ‘how can we make it so that Emmy has to cast both of us? How can we show off the chemistry we have together?” They both laugh.
For McInnis their real life friendship is so pertinent because she sees For Love Nor Money being fundamentally about a life long friendship between Henry Marshall Jost and Carrie Hart. She describes Carrie as “a very strong-willed woman,” saying, “a lot of the conversations that we’ve had in our rehearsals [are about] how she deals with all of the things that she has to sacrifice.” She says that in thinking about the prospect of marriage and moving into this house that Marsh has built for them she is seeing these events in terms of what she is going to have to give up of herself. “She has so many ideas of what her life is going to be, and none of those ideas involve any of that.” Oko says that Marsh really represents familial pressure. “He’s had traumatic things happen to him when he was young that’s caused to him to grow up really fast, and there’s been this kind of expectation throughout his life, and I think that clouds what he wants, what Carrie wants for them both. It’s not until later on in his life that he kind of realizes it, and that’s what’s kind of devastating about it. I think it’s very relatable. I think that happens to a lot of people. We all kind of have that stage in our life when we go, ‘what kind of path am I going down here?…’ Their relationship is so dynamic and intertwined, and it’s Carrie that has that realization so much before Marsh, but, yet, the love is still there between them. How do we still try and make this work? Or can we still make it work? It’s that constant kind of love struggle that I don’t think we see a ton onstage. I think that’s what makes this play so interesting.”
Both McInnis and Oko play their characters as they age in this play. McInnis says, “We’re seen as kids, and then all the way to like 70 years old- to see the things that you do as a child, certain mannerisms that you have, or certain phrases or things that you say, and how that transcends or changes over time… it’s very fun.” Oko enjoys having more freedom to decide who older Marsh and younger Marsh might be. “What parts of Marsh when he gets older are hurting the most?” he asks, as an example. “I think it’s very rare for an actor on stage to both get to bring themselves to [the character], and then to get to make those kinds of decisions of what happens to a character later on in life. It’s often one choice or one time period… but thirteen to eighty- there’s a lot of choices in there that you have to make for that character.”
There are moments in the play where Marsh and Carrie vehemently disagree with one another, where they are at dramatic odds, but Oko says that fundamentally the strength of their loyalty and their love for each other allow them to weather even these storms. McInnis points out that one component of their bond dating back to childhood is that they are both sort of outcasts in the community. “[They] really just had each other [their] entire lives,” she says, “So, even if they fight, they still have that basis with each other where [they’re] each other’s person. So, regardless of whatever comes at them, they’ll find a way to at least try to make it work.”
Oko says that after they did the show last summer he heard from a lot of people who were inspired to want to reconnect with their lost friends. He says that even if for some folks there was a situation that caused them to have a falling out or to lose contact with one another, the play stirred up feelings of nostalgia and contemplating how those childhood friends profoundly affected the person they grew to become. “To have two people [in this play] who almost know each other better than they know themselves… that’s a challenging part of this piece. The journey you take, not just through time but through their personal growth, it’s like a whirlwind. I think a lot of people will take away a lot of different things [from the story], which is something that I love about theatre…. What’s going on in somebody’s personal life is how they’re going to view the piece.” He adds that coming back to the play after a year away has given him further insights into the characters and the way Teasdale has chosen to end the story.
Artistic Director Emmy Alcorn with Ethan Hawke
For Love Nor Money opens July 15th as the first production in the new Mulgrave Road Centre for the Arts. “The space itself is beautiful,” says Oko. McInnis tells me that it’s a proscenium stage, which has meant that they have adjusted their blocking a bit from last year, since the Bauer has a thrust stage. “I find there’s a bit more stillness,” she says. “The whole theatre is absolutely gorgeous,” adds Oko. “The community is so lucky that Emmy’s forged this, and to have it. More and more and more places should have something like this.” He says he hears the excitement from folks in the community when he and McInnis are out and about. He loves the intimacy that is created in the space. “It’s exactly what a show like this needs… The stories become so much more true when you’re in a smaller space.” He says that it’s his favourite way to work as an actor, as he is able to “dig deeper into the character,” and to trust that the audiences will be able to see those nuances because they are sitting so close to the action.
Last Fall it was reported by the CBC that Emmy Alcorn had taken Ethan Hawke, who has a place in the area, on a tour of the new arts centre. His response was unequivocal support for the centre and the future of Mulgrave Road Theatre. He said that the “conversation [he had with Alcorn and Sherry McGee] about the intersection of theatre and community development was inspiring, and something [he] can get behind.” It’s so nice to see someone with Hawke’s impressive breadth of work and experience in the industry showing interest, and care in helping to foster the arts scene in Guysborough and Nova Scotia more broadly.
For folks who are coming to Mulgrave Road from out of town to see the show McInnis and Oko recommend the walking trails, the Hart’s General Store on the way into town, and the Guysborough Waterfront where you can get coffee, ice cream and hot dogs. “They’ll treat you like royalty down there,” says Oko. Both Oko and McInnis encourage folks to come to Guysborough, especially if they have never been there before, to grab this opportunity to see this special show in the place where the story was meant to be told.
For Love Nor Money by Laura Teasdale directed by Emmy Alcorn opens July 15th and plays just until July 19th at the new Mulgrave Road Centre for the Arts (10559 Trunk 16, Guysborough). Performances are Wednesday to Saturday at 7:30pm and Sunday July 19th at 2:00pm. Tickets are $34.20 and are available here.
