Letters from Wingfield Farm opens Daysland Concert season

Daysland’s Palace Theatre was filled to capacity on Wednesday evening when the latest concert series started off with “Letter from Wingfield Farm.”
The one-man play was performed by Rod Beattie, and is the flagship show that started an entire series of Wingfield stories.

Written by Dan Needles, and directed by Douglas Beattie, the play is set in Persephone, (pronounced purse-a-phone by the locals,) Ontario.

Beattie plays Walt Wingfield, who sees himself as a gentleman farmer, a present-day Thoreau, if you will.

Wingfield has retired from the financial world to take up farming on 100 acres – much to the amusement of his neighbours -and chronicles his story through a series of letters to the editor to the Larkspur Weekly newspaper.

Beattie plays every character in the play, and does an admirable job of it. By the end of the play, the voice he uses is enough to identify each character speaking; not an easy task.

Daysland’s Concert Series continues to be strongly supported by area patrons, in fact Wednesday’s performance was slightly oversold for the evening.

Ken Eshpeter of the Daysarts Society welcomed the audience, and during intermission reminded all that, “Palace Theatre remains very much a work-in-progress, and I am pleased to point out that our new sign is now lit, as are our sign cases for the Reel Alternative posters.”

Eshpeter credited Vern and Peter Spady with the work, saying, “Vern is an artist extraordinaire, who works all over Alberta.”

Eshpeter said that he had been going over some history books recently, and noted a mention about the Daysland Golf Course, and one particular volunteer, Robert Hanrahan, whose volunteerism, Eshpeter said, was worthy of celebrating.

With the next concert series show being a dinner concert, Dec. 7 at the hall, Eshpeter said, “Sounds like an opportunity for a volunteer appreciation night.”

“Bob (is) our special guest, to be honoured that evening.”

Eshpeter said he’s hoping for a 275 sit-down crowd.

Eshpeter also entertained the crowd with his musical sponsor appreciation, singing a parody of Roger Miller’s, “King of the Road” with the words changed to recognize Key Accounting’s contribution to the evening’s program, to huge applause from the audience.

Leslie Cholowsky, Editor