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The Lundeens are a dysfunctional family. No doubt about it.

Brother Michael, the ‘successful’ doctor, is repressed and desperate.

Brother Carl, the truck-driving ‘journalist,’ is resentful and sarcastic.

Sister Stacey flutters waif-like around the edges of the family, mostly overlooked.

Michael’s wife Jill teeters on the brink of hormonal hysteria.

Mom Helen appears to be losing all sense of reality.

And Dad? Well, he’s actually dead. Sort of. 

The appeal of Phil Olson’s A Nice Family Gathering, the last show of the Upper Canada Playhouse 2012 summer season, is this. In even the most dysfunctional of families, there remains a deep running thread of loyalty and love which simply can’t be broken. 

In the course of a Thanksgiving dinner, audiences will get to know the Lundeens, laugh with the Lundeens (often and very loudly) and yes, even shed a tear with them. 

A Nice Family Gathering is a great show.

Lovingly directed by Donnie Bowes, it features the “blue chip” cast Bowes said (in an earlier press conference) he needed to bring Olson’s play to the stage. 

Don Ciaschini is Jerry, the neighbour. It’s a smaller role, but Ciaschini brings real personality to it. He was Carl Sr.’s oldest friend: he remains Helen’s friend. And he is a kind of catalyst in the play, setting off unexpected events. As he observes,  ultimately fleeing from the ‘friendly’ dinner he thought he was attending, “Any family with more than three people is dysfunctional.” 

Richard Bauer creates a truly sympathetic character in his Carl Lundeen. Scruffy, resentful of what he believes is the family preference for brother Michael, the doctor, he clings to the hope of becoming a journalist. Unfortunately, his sole output, a weekly column, Observations, runs only in a tiny local paper. Stories focussed, for example, on the time he swerved to miss a gopher and spilled coffee in his crotch, have never gained him much respect at home.

But Bauer’s Carl is also very witty, very funny. He alone is able to see the ‘spirit’ of his late father, who has returned to the family on a mission. And he is the one, to his horror, Dad wants to use to “channel” those efforts. 

Jamie Williams, Dr. Michael, is one half of “the perfect couple.” He’s got a beautiful wife, a beautiful house, a beautiful car and he’s absolutely miserable. His wife, Jill, (Kate Gordon in a role that could have become a caricature, but is instead sympathetic and loving) is “just a little emotional.” She and Michael have been unsuccessfully trying to have children, and the effort has become a burden. And Michael’s finances have taken a bad turn.

Stacey, played with a certain wonderful ditziness by Liz Gilroy, is the too often overlooked child. 

“I don’t think Stacey will ever get married,” Helen proclaims. “She’s just not popular with boys.”

“Mom, I’m right here,” Stacey wails.

“Well, I didn’t think you’d mind my saying it. You like being alone, don’t you?”

However, it is Stacey, delivering two bombshells after dinner, who flings the Lundeen family into comic chaos.

The heart and soul (literally, in Dad’s case) of the Lundeen family are the parents.

Doug Tangney, even as a ghost, is charming, unexpected and incredibly funny. His running commentaries on events, his head to head duels with Carl, the absolute certainty with which he finally admits his family is “a Marx Brothers movie,” endear him to the audience. Yes, he made mistakes as a father, but he utterly adores the wife and the children he had to leave behind. 

That wife is played by Linda Goranson with both pathos and great humour. Her family fears that she is slipping away from reality: turkey dogs for Thanksgiving dinner, boiling water that she never remembers to add coffee to, and confusing comments like ‘Spam makes me laugh’ and ‘I love jumbo shrimp’ suggest there may some truth to their fears. 

They all adore her. So does the audience.

When she and Carl Sr, using son Carl as the intermediary, finally reveal the true, forever depth of their love, we cared. 

It was a wonderful moment.

And this is a wonderful piece of theatre. The play is hilarious, unexpected, touching and, above all, really entertaining. 

Plan to spend some time with the Lundeens at A Nice Family Gathering. You won’t regret it.

Call Upper Canada Playhouse at 1-613-543-3713 for tickets and information or contact www.uppercanadaplayhouse.com 

[…]

 

 It was a fight right to the very finish, but in the end, experience seemed to be the deciding factor as Team Magee captured the Tubie title, King of the River, for the second year in a row, Sunday, August 4.

With a winning time of 5:15, the veteran Magee Team defeated the Katherine Lee team by mere seconds. Lee’s young team came ashore at the Morrisburg beach in a time of 5:35

The other contenders vying for the trophy, title and bragging rights in the final race appeared, like the Lee team, to be largely made up of a new generation of young participants. Consequently, the future of the Tubie Races is looking good. 

Team Barclay/Veinotte pulled ashore in 5:51, the Morrell Sisters team made it in 6:00 and the South Nation Conservation Authority team hit the beach in 6:29.

“I had a great crew,” said captain Gary Magee,  now twice crowned King of the River. Members of his strong, championship team were Philip Pietersma, Sheri Halpenny, Jaime Notman, Susie Wye and Austin Wilcox. “We built the best craft, low in the water, and I had six incredibly fit people paddling.”

Asked the secret of his racing success, Magee claims a lot has to do with  the design of his unique rudder. “‘Black Beauty’ rides low in the water, so the paddlers can dig in. Everyone is able to paddle and steer with the special rudder on our tubie.”

Will Team Magee be back to race next year?

“Absolutely,” said Gary Magee. “We plan to make it three in a row!”

This year’s race, like last year’s, had two qualifying heats, which left the Morrisburg dock at noon and 12:45 respectively. The top two teams from each heat, and the next best time, all took part in the final race at about 1:30 p.m. While they did not make the finals, the Jon Domanko team, the Greg Millard team and the Canadian Tire team helped make the qualifying heats fast and exciting. 

The winning team took home a prize of $400 presented by the Morrisburg & District Lions club, who organized the Tubie weekend under the leadership of Mike Domanko, Matt McCooeye and their team of volunteers. Second place winners received $250, 3rd got $150, with 4th and 5th place finishers taking home $50 per team.

With the weather holding, virtually all weekend (one or two sudden swift downpours on Sunday did not discourage any fans), the Tubie weekend was a bit hit. 

Events kicked off on Saturday, August 3, with the great Tubie parade. The theme of this year’s Tubie weekend was ‘Keep calm and paddle on’. Float designers interpreted that in a number of very entertaining ways.

First prize winner ($400) was  Keep calm and drive on, or Tubie Hot Wheels, the Morrell Sisters’ float. Rednecks everywhere would have been proud of the Barclay/Veinotte Duck Dynasty float which came in second, and was awarded $250. In third spot, with the theme Keep calm – no run! Zombies everywhere! was the float designed by Katherine Lee’s family and friends.

Canadian Tire entered a Gilligan’s Island float where the riders really did have an uncanny resemblance to the old television sitcom castaways.

The Lions Club sponsored float, Keep calm, get your Super on, featured a lot of mini Marvel super heroes, and won $50 which was donated back to the Tubies. 

The Keep calm and Waldo on float carried a collection of identical Waldos of all ages, who somehow found their way through the wide world to Morrisburg. And the Millard team (also $50 winners), brought back fond memories of past great tubie themes with their Tubies Then and Now ‘picture frames.’

Estimates suggest close to 1,000 people came out to watch the 2013 parade, while the shoreline along the pier and the Morrisburg beach were crowded with Tubie fans and supporters on race day. The Sunday morning Lions Great Duck Race also brought lots of hopefuls to the beach to see dog volunteers retrieve winning ducks.

Morrisburg & District Lions Club organizers, who did an outstanding job, thanked sponsors and the community for their support of the 2013 Tubies.

[…]

 

South Dundas manager of public works Hugh Garlough submitted the department’s monthly activity summary for the March 20th South Dundas council meeting.

In the summary, he reported that “Robinson Consultants have been asked to give us a life expectancy for both landfills.” 

The current South Dundas landfill sites are the Church Road Landfill and the Matilda Landfill.

During the March 5th budget meeting, Garlough introduced the landfill life expectancy into the discussion. It was suggested that a new garbage policy may be necessary depending upon the “life” left in each of the landfills.

On March 27th, Garlough reported that Robinson Consultants Inc. are currently “completing the 2011 year-end report. In that report, we will get a projected life expectancy for each of the two landfills.”

“The residents will be affected as we will have to transport our household and any other garbage to an approved landfill site, as well as a tipping fee.”

“The planning will begin when we know for sure what our life expectancy numbers are,” continued Garlough. “Options we have already considered are having our household garbage contractor dispose of the garbage as part of the contract.”

“More options will be considered as we get closer to the end of landfill site life,” he added.

Chief administrative officer Stephen McDonald reported that another possible solution to a short landfill life expectancy is a “100,000 cubic meter expansion in Matilda.”

He said, “we don’t have any other sites once those are filled to capacity.” In that case, McDonald pointed out that the township would have to look outside South Dundas for disposal options.

Once the Robinson report is in, McDonald said the township will have “a better handle on where we need to go in terms of restrictions.” Until then the garbage policy remains the same.

[…]