A summer, a fair

August 8, 2017

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The Equity

Matt Selic serenades the crowd at Coronation Cider Hall during a performance of A Summer, A Fair. The play focusses on the days leading up to the Cantley Picnic.

The cast of A Summer, A Fair open the show for the crowd at Coronation Hall in Bristol. Those in attendance were treated to a mix of folk and country songs, all of which were written by the play’s writer and composer Ian Tamblyn.

Chris Lowrey
BRISTOL August 5, 2017
Coronation Hall played host to the third installment of a series of plays that shed light on rural Canada.
A Summer, A Fair rolled through Bristol in its second performance of the day on August 5.
The play looks at the Cantley Community Picnic, which was a mainstay in the community in the Upper Gatineau region, and the efforts of several local residents to get ready for the big event.

“It touches on a sense of community in a rural setting,” said lead performer Matt Selic, who plays the guitar, mandolin, banjo, button accordion and harmonica, making him an expert in folksy country sounds.
The play, now in its second week, was put on by the Wakefield Players and Theatre Wakefield and is touring small towns throughout the Outaouais.
The country fair is something that is familiar to just about anyone living in a rural community. In Cantley, the fair ran for over 100 years before folding up the big white tent.
Because of this familiarity, the subject matter is accessible to anyone in a rural community.
“It could be any fair anywhere in the Outaouais,” said Erik Ewing-Meyer, one of the performers who plays guitar.
Because of the transferability of the play, the performers said they can see audiences sinking their teeth into the material.
“They really engaged with the material,” said Ewing-Meyer.
Many of the play’s characters are based off real people who lived in the community throughout Cantley’s history.
But not all of the characters are grounded in reality, as Guitarist Dylan Phillips pointed out.
“There are a few talking cows that aren’t based on reality,” he said.
The play is the third in a trilogy composed by playwright Ian Tamblyn, who tends to focus on themes of Canadiana in his work.
Tamblyn has written sixteen plays in total and wrote many of the songs included in the play.
The cast had nothing but good things to say about using Coronation Hall as the venue for the performance, especially since they usually perform in the middle of a field.
“The intimate setting makes it easier to relate to the audience,” said Selic.
It was a feeling seconded by Ewing-Meyer. “The acoustics are really good in here,” he said.
The cast said be content itself gets more of a reception from country audiences than it would in the city.
“It’s more relatable for one thing,” Selic said. “People come to these shows up here with a different mindset than they would in the city.

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