| Reason 1: It’s cheap. On Wednesday nights, for just $18, you get a pleasant bus ride to the Dr. Betty Mitchell Theatre, admission to the latest Theatre Junction opus, a jaunty bus ride back to the Ship and Anchor and your choice of a frothy pint with your ticket stub.
Reason 2: Theatre and beer are Traditional (pun intended). Shakespeare scholars agree that the Bard found his inspiration for characters like Sir Toby Belch and Sir John Falstaff in a Tudor version of the Ship and Anchor. Theatre historians credit playwright Aristophanes with creating chicken wings in 414 BC to promote his comedy The Birds among beer drinkers at the Festival of Dionysus in Athens, Greece. German dramatist Bertolt Brecht’s masterpiece The Good Woman of Setzuan has been directly related to the introduction of Tsing Tao beer in Berlin in the late 1940s. Lastly, the famous theatre riots associated with the opening of Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre in 1907 had less to do with Irish nationalism than with the price of Guinness in the theatre lobby.
Reason 3: Rub shoulders. Following the production, the Theatre Junction cast often partakes of food and beverages at the Ship. This allows ample opportunity for fans, critics and wanna-be directors to meet the stars, obtain autographs and offer friendly advice on how to improve the current show.
Reason 4: It’s convenient. Whatever the weather, the friendly drivers of the Ship and Anchor bus are happy to negotiate the route between 17th Avenue and the Jubilee Auditorium. The bus seats 40, so you can bring along 39 of your closest friends.
Reason 5: Parking. Forget about competing with the opera crowd for a parking spot at the Jubilee Auditorium. Forget about paying for parking. Forget about remembering where you parked your car. Save your pennies for the pub and your mental process for the play.
Reason 6: Background. Are you shy about going to the theatre because you don’t know Shaw from Shakespeare? Are you unfamiliar with the faces in the local theatre community? There is always someone on the bus who knows all about that sort of thing and is more than willing to provide ample background material. Look for the friendly poindexter with glasses for essential biographical details about the playwright and a chronology of important works. Theatre Junction staff and spouses of actors are excellent sources for a who’s who onstage and off as well as all the dirt on what really went on at rehearsals.
Reason 7: What else are you going to do on a Wednesday night – watch the Flames?
Reason 8: Nostalgia. Who doesn’t bear fond memories of daily school bus rides with smiling fellow students? Or how about those school field trips to the local sewage-treatment facility? The Ship and Anchor bus offers the same kind of conviviality as those long-ago days. Patrons for the current production of The Playboy of the Western World can look forward to the added attraction of a sing-along featuring favourite Irish drinking songs sure to help set the mood for the evening.
Reason 9: Prizes. Following the show, bus riders compete to answer a skill-testing question about the evening’s production in order to win fabulous prizes like stylish Theatre Junction T-Shirts.
Reason 10: The fun goes on and on. Unlike most theatre productions, the curtain call is just the beginning. Usually the bus returns to the pub around 10:30 p.m., and last call is not until 1 a.m. Upon your return to the Ship, ample food and beverages are available at reasonable prices to accompany your deconstruction of the performance. Post-modernists will find particular inspiration in Mutiny Amber Ale, while Kilkenny is the preferred source of encouragement for Structuralists. All patrons are reminded that validity of interpretation does not increase with volume of expression. |
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