HIGH LIFE

Background Notes

by Soulpepper Associate Artist Paula Wing

This play is not autobiographical, though it came from life, and in its preface, Lee MacDougall takes a comic stab at hedging his bets: "The names have been changed to protect me." When the play premiered, Mr. MacDougall needed little protection: it was a phenomenon. It toured across Canada, was translated into multiple foreign languages, and became a film. While all writers may dream of this kind of Cinderella story, no one can set out to create one. There's an (infuriating) element of serendipity to such things.

This production gives us a chance to revisit this theatrical sensation and see why it had such an impact.

First of all, the characters. Dick, the manipulative leader who's dreamed up the big heist; Bug, a recently released career criminal blithely able to defend the indefensible ("just because you hit a guy and he dies doesn't mean you killed him"); Donnie a hopped-up small time thief with a constellation of medical problems; and Billy, the smooth-talking younger addict who's never done any jail time. Four losers, a foolproof plan. Surely, you think, that's been done.

Not quite the way High Life does it and that's the second strength here: details. The time and care the writer takes, his precise observation and breakneck, twisted humour distinguish the play. We're plunged into the story without preamble; the roller coaster takes off and we can only hang on for the ride. It may feel wild and chaotic, but there's a solid, reliable, powerful structure beneath us. These irresistible details ensure that, while we don't exactly identify with these characters, their (skewed? misguided? extremely original?) sense of honour and offhandedly outrageous behavior make it impossible for us to dislike them. These unexpected contradictions make each role a gift for an actor. An example: one of Dick's early lines to Bug is: "I'm clean." Dick knows the recovery vocabulary of Narcotics Anonymous because he goes to meetings - not to deal with his addiction, but to recruit a wheel man for the big job.

The play doesn't dramatise or wring its hands over the characters' addictions either. Fixing in this story is as normal as popping out to the 7-11 for milk. Even now, the play feels authentic. Yes, we nod as we're laughing or shaking our heads, yes, this is what it must be like. That sense of truth along with the way MacDougall constructed the story also make the play stand out. The early, introductory scenes are short, propulsive, full of laughs while the later heist scene is extended placing us at the heist in real time. This canny decision maximizes the tension: the longer the scene goes on, the more likely it is that one of these bumblers will blow it. We know it will happen, just not how, or when.

When he wrote High Life, Lee MacDougall changed the names to protect the identity of the men who'd inspired the piece. Maybe he wanted to protect himself too as a first-time playwright. But this play needs no protection, it stands, wonderfully, on its own, right in your face. We dare you not to laugh.

Playwright Biography

1960s - Lee MacDougall is born in New Liskeard, Ontario though his family does not live there. He is whisked away to the metropolis of Cobalt where he spends his first four years. His family then moves to Kirkland Lake, where he does the rest of his growing up. He gets involved with local musical groups like the Kiwanis Festival. During his high school years he is tapped to play Schroeder in You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, arguably his first big break and certainly the first of many musical roles for him.

1980s - Lee gets a degree from the University of Toronto and auditions for Ryerson Theatre School to give himself some time to figure out his next move. Of course this turns out to be his next move and in short order he embraces a life in the theatre. Upon graduation, he does what actors do: works temp jobs, does musical industrials, summer stock and regional theatre. In the mid-80s he's hired for the Stratford Young Company, beginning a long and fruitful association with the Festival, appearing in Arturo Ui, Macbeth, School for Scandal and Cabaret, among others. Lee also works at the Neptune Theatre in Halifax, where he is billeted in what amounts to a boarding house full of ex-convicts and morphine addicts. This provides the inspiration for his most popular and enduring play, though Lee will not even write a first draft for six years.

1990s - He is kept busy at the Shaw Festival as well as appearing at Stratford, the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton and the National Arts Centre among others. The first reading of High Life happens at the Stratford Festival. The response is very encouraging but even its writer couldn't have predicted how much of a game-changer this play would be. High Life opens at Harbourfront Centre, produced by Crows Theatre in their 1996-97 season. In 1998 it tours to Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary and Victoria. It wins a Dora Award and a Chalmers Award and is a finalist for the Governor General's Award.

2000s - The young century finds High Life produced around the world: New York, Chicago, London, Tokyo and Seoul. Its writer gets around too, appearing in Mamma Mia at the Royal Alex in 2000 and going on the first US National Tour with the show a year later. MacDougall continues to write, act and latterly to direct as well. The film of High Life, with a screenplay by Lee, has the honour of opening the 2009 Toronto Film Festival. In these years Lee finds time to write a book of stories about growing up in Kirkland Lake, and to marry his longtime companion, the director and choreographer Tim French.

2011-2012 - Lee MacDougall continues to be a polymathic creator - in demand as a musical theatre performer (recently in The Light in the Piazza), writer (his new play is called A Winter Thaw), and director (The Producers in Calgary). He and Mr. French make their home in Stratford.

Tidbits

• One early review compared these characters to the denizens of Eugene O'Neill's great bar-room drama The Iceman Cometh. This production runs in rep alongside another of O'Neill's great American tragedies, Long Day's Journey into Night.
• The play was originally published by a small Canadian publisher. Mr. MacDougall loves to tell the story of his first royalty cheque. It was a form letter addressed to him personally that went on at some length about the publishers' pride in putting out new Canadian work and their commitment to new writers, before saying how delighted they were to enclose a cheque in the amount of $0.00. A signed cheque was enclosed. Mr. MacDougall likes to say he had a dilemma: should he frame the cheque and hang it in his office, or should he try to cash it at the bank and risk losing the original in the event that the teller would accept it?
• The original production by Crows Theatre was directed by Jim Millan and starred Brent Carver as Donnie, Ron White as Dick, and Randy Hughson as Bug.
• The 2010 film adapted from the play was directed by Gary Yates and starred Timothy Olyphant (of television's Deadwood) as Dick, Stephen Eric McIntyre as Bug, Joe Anderson as Donnie, and Canada's own Rossif Sutherland as Billy.

Background Notes

by Soulpepper Associate Artist Toby Malone

Lee MacDougall's High Life is a remarkable piece of playwriting, precisely for the challenges that the author picks and manipulates into the charcoal-black comedy. The heist story has become ubiquitous in modern storytelling, as have the figures of ne'er-do-well addict desperados who people the ill-advised scheme, but MacDougall takes what is seemingly pre-programmed and injects vitality and humour which makes it impossible to resist. Vividly drawn characters - the ruthless Dick, the psychotic Bug, the dying Donnie, and the cocky Billy - attempt to craft what appears to be the perfect crime. As Dick unfurls his plan to covertly rob a downtown Toronto ATM, the petty squabbles, long-held grudges, and side-effects of morphine's ravages threaten to derail the scheme before it starts. The play was developed over a two year period in the mid-1990s in readings featuring some of Canada's finest actors, including the late Peter Donaldson and Soulpepper Founding Member Stuart Hughes, who will direct this long overdue revival. An intimate piece for four virtuoso actors, High Life encompasses the desperation, the misplaced optimism, the fear, and the uncontrollable scheming that accompanies each man's addiction. Bug and Donnie bring a running battle of long-standing bad blood, while Billy hustles his way through life, taunting fate to challenge his arrogant use of youth and beauty to get what he wants from the world. At the centre of it all is Dick, an addict with a plan, a man who knows that if only he can organise these disparate characters long enough, they can all move beyond their troubles: of course, rarely is anything that simple. MacDougall's brilliantly humorous play is afforded its first major revival at Soulpepper in 2012, and follows closely on the heels of the 2009 film adaptation starring Timothy Olyphant (Deadwood).