Cast members pose while in character Wednesday afternoon. (Michael Joel-Hansen/paNOW Staff)

By Michael Joel-Hansen

An Incident at San Bajo

Carlton High School students ready to take stage

Apr 3, 2019 | 4:08 PM

Students at Carlton Comprehensive High School are ready to debut their newest production.

Drama students will be performing An Incident at San Bajo, written by Brad Korbesmeyer. David Zulkoskey, the drama teacher at Carlton gave paNOW a brief rundown of the play.

“Imagine a trailer park and seven people survive a mass murder because they chose to drink this magic elixir. It is dark comedy and it is filled with fabulous character interpretations,” he said.

The production features students ranging from Grades 9 to 12. Zulkowskey explained the play provides attendees a different experience when compared with the general theatre show.

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“This particular play is very unique in that the characters talk directly to the audience and they really don’t talk to each other, so most plays there’s a sense of dialogue,” he said.

When they are speaking to the audience, the characters speak as if they are being interviewed. There are a variety of characters showcased as part of the story, offering the audience a range of perspectives.

“Couples, husbands and wives will certainly enjoy the two characters Joanie and Derek because there’s some very interesting comments made about marriage,” Zulkowskey said.

However, married couples are not the only people represented. Grade 12 student Kael Pocha-Lafontaine, spoke about portraying the character of Dallas Doral.

“My character is a retired military conspiracy theorist, so he’s always going on about all these rants. He’s always just talking about things that just don’t make sense and nobody believes,” he said.

Pocha-Lafontaine said this role is more challenging than ones he has undertaken in the past in terms of memorization, as his character has no dialogue with any others. He added it has been fun getting his role down.

“It’s been great, I’ve even watched a couple movies on conspiracy theories to get into my character,” he said.

Grade 10 student Dana Ismail who will portray Crystal O’Neill, a psycho scientist, said the format of the performance does provide some unique challenges.

“It’s a bit hard because we have to get into the character a bit more since we don’t have the support of other characters to help, we’re kind of more on our own for this one,” she said. “It’s been a challenge to really get into her character and act the way a psycho scientist would act.”

The performance is set to debut on April 10 at 7:30 p.m. at Carlton. Students will also be taking the show to Melfort for regional competition April 12 to 13.

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MichaelJoel.Hansen@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @mjhskcdn