Joey: The Musical promises to inform and entertain, reports Bruce Deachman
Here's a little game: see if you can figure out the subject of the musical from its song titles.
The first is Those Down and Out Ragged-Assed Blues, a bit of a vague clue unless you were around and politically aware in the 1940s. How about Sinner or Saint? Confederation Crusade? Newfoundland is Dying?
OK, one more: Joey Is Our Man?
Joey: The Musical opens at Centrepointe Theatre tomorrow night, and promises an informative and entertaining glimpse into the life and times of Joey Smallwood, Newfoundland's ruthlessly well-intentioned Father of Confederation and, for 23 years, the province's premier.
Smallwood's reign of farcical controversy makes him an ideal theatrical character. His view that Newfoundland would be better off as part of Canada was widely challenged by many who believed it was better off as a British territory.
But Smallwood - he's the one who said, "We are not a nation, we are a medium-sized municipality... left far behind the march of time." - won a bitter and close referendum in July 1948, transforming Newfoundland into Canada's 10th province.
In many ways, his tenure as premier is best-remembered for its failures: forced industrialization left plants bankrupt and his economic adviser, a mysterious Latvian named Alfred A. Valdmanis, in jail for for embezzlement.
He favoured "resettlement," effectively closing outport communities, and his 1959 decertification of a logger's union, and the ensuing confrontation that resulted in the clubbing death of an RCMP constable, showed the Liberal leader to be less than the social democrat he claimed.
Yet Newfoundlanders, whom he called his "ragged-arsed artillery," returned him to power time and again.
The musical, put on by the newly-formed, not-for-profit Goya Theatre, was written by ACTRA award-winning playwright and composer Gord Carruth. Its debut nine-day run at Centrepointe - the opening night show is to be attended by Newfoundland Premier Roger Tobin and former premier Brian Tobin - is directed by Bob Lackey, who has recently shone - as an actor - in Orpheus's production of Man of La Mancha and Kanata Theatre's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
The opening night show is to be attended by Newfoundland Premier Roger Grimes and former premier Brian Tobin.
Lackey was originally approached by Carruth to act in Joey.
"At first, I couldn't believe that it was a musical about Smallwood," he recalls. "That was my first response: how do you make a musical about Joey Smallwood? A drama, maybe, but not a musical."
Lackey placed just one condition on his involvement. "As long as there's controversy in it, and you deal with that controversy," he told Carruth. "I'I don't want this to be a 'Joey Smallwood, what a wonderful guy' thing.'"
Eventually, Carruth asked Lackey to direct the play and he removed himself from the role. Lackey, who admits he knew little about Smallwood before taking the job, says a knowledge of the subject is not necessary to enjoy the musical.
"It's not just a history lesson," he says. "The music and dance, for example, really capture the different styles and the spirit of the Newfoundland people and their culture."
The musical also captures the essence of Smallwood, a person Lackey admits he's come to respect. "You get a picture of the person who is attracted to power, the person who thinks he has the only vision.
"There were a lot of people who became wealthy because of what he did, but he wasn't one of them. He wasn't an economic genius, but he did what he did out of a love of Newfoundland."