The Slamming Door Artist Collective presents Terence Rattigan’s Flare Path. Directed by Genevieve Fleming (Of Mice and Men), Flare Path paints an evocative portrait of life in wartime Britain for the RAF bomber crews, waiting for their next mission, and their wives and sweethearts, who are left awaiting their return. Featuring Curtis Tweedie (Bright Blue Future), Yoshié Bancroft (Pride and Prejudice), Jesse Martyn (Red Rock Diner), Sebastian Kroon (Of Mice and Men), Tamara McCarthy (Inside the Seed), Melissa Oei (Bug), Paul Herbert (The North Plan), Ashley O’Connell (Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me), Laura Jaye (Munsch Alley), and Julie Leung (Our Town) in an ensemble, Flare Path is both a funny and a deeply moving portrait of people at war.
Set in 1942 against a backdrop of heartache and quiet bravery, Flare Path takes place at the Falcon Hotel neighboring a Royal Air Force base in Lincolnshire, England. Inspired by Rattigan’s own experiences as a tail gunner in the Second World War, Flare Path depicts the life-and-death tensions, gallows humour, camaraderie, quiet bravery, and surges of fear experienced by the RAF bomber crews and their partners, who fought for their lives while entreated to ‘Keep calm and carry on’.
This production will perform at the Jericho Arts Centre, originally built in 1940 to function as an RAF Rec Hall during the war. The building has since been designated one of the city’s Places that Matter by the Vancouver Heritage Foundation.
Flare Path by Terence Rattigan runs from October 6-22 at The Jericho Arts Centre, 1675 Discovery Street, Vancouver. Tickets are priced from $15 and are available at brownpapertickets.com
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