Norm Foster comes to Hudson

By Walter J. Lyng, August 15th, 2012

He may hail from Toronto, but at heart, playwright Norm Foster says he's a small town guy. He's certainly made that attitude abundantly clear through his body of work which includes various plays set in small municipalities. One of those plays is Ned Durango Comes to Big Oak — which, rather appropriately, is currently being staged at the Hudson Village Theatre.
“I just hope they give the show a lot of heart,” says Foster. “Hudson's done a lot of my shows in the past and they've always done good productions so I'm sure that they'll do it again.”
Ned Durango tells the story of an economically-challenged hamlet that turns to aging TV star Durango (Vlasta Vrana) with the hope that his celebrity status will give a boost to the annual Tomato Festival and thus turn around the city's fortunes.
While the play is humorous at points, Foster is quick to point out that it's hardly a laugh riot throughout.
“Ned, as we find out, has a bit of a problem,” he says. “He's approaching Alzheimer's and can't remember things that happened yesterday or this morning. That part of it is pretty serious so no; it's not a flat-out comedy. The sad moments make the comedy better and the comedy makes the sad moments more heartfelt. They really do compliment each other.”
Experiencing his own youth during he '50s, Foster says he enjoys setting his stories during this period as well as filling them with era-appropriate characters, such as Durango.
“I grew up watching people like Roy Rogers and Gene Autry so I just pictured it as if Roy had fallen on hard times and now he was doing car shows in Bangor, Maine,” he says.
His new play, Hilda's Yard, which opens this fall in Fredericton, N.B., does not stray too far from this winning formula, finding itself set in 1956. “It's about a family where the children have finally moved out in their early 30s and the mother and father finally feel like they're alone and can live their own lives, when one day everything falls apart and the kids move back home,” he says.
Ned Durango Comes to Big Oak plays until Sept. 2 at the Hudson Village Theatre. For more info, visit www.villagetheatre.ca n