Aylmer's Back in the Barn

Ted Johns' Barnboozled reprises 1977 rural hit at Blythe fest

Since 1975 the Blyth Festival, located just west of Toronto in the small community of Blyth, Ontario, has been producing original Canadian plays of a very high calibre that reflect the rural experience. Since the early years, playwright and performer Ted Johns has been part of the festival, especially after 1977 when he wrote and performed in He Won't Come in From the Barn, an acute and funny farce about farm life created with the help of Paul Thompson.
Rural issues affect us all; especially these days when even the most urban Canadian can't turn a blind eye to tainted water or Mad Cow Disease. So Johns thought it was time for a sequel to He Won't Come in From the Barn, which he has named Barnboozled. "I just set up the same characters as He Won't Come in From the Barn and moved them forward 10 years," he says. "We have a pig in the cast. It is a kind of farcical fable." Once again Johns plays the lead, Aylmer Clark.
"Aylmer sees the show through the eyes of a traditional farmer," says Johns. "When he planted four acres of corn, his father thought it was a terrible idea. Now he has a son who can't make a living on 1,000 acres of corn." (These days, it's not uncommon for farmers to manage 10,000 acres. Johns points out that one of these giant properties is equivalent to 100 hundred-acre farms, each of which would have sustained an entire family a couple of generations ago.)
Barnboozled takes off from the idea that "He [Aylmer] has been inducted into the Farmer's Hall of Fame, and he has two days to find a fit successor." With so many possible topics to choose from, "I couldn't cover the waterfront, so it focuses on two areas," Johns says: "Genetically modified foods, and these vast hog farms. The politics of all this is rambunctious. It's also very volatile," he adds.
Johns explains the idea of "hog loops", in which a pig farmer will lend money to finance a smaller hog farming operation on condition that the smaller operator pay back the loan and take responsibility for disposing of all of the manure. ("A pig generates about five times as much waste as a person," Johns points out.)
With this system, the rate of growth has no limits. "What starts off being a little problem eventually becomes a big international problem," Johns continues. "If a disease or something comes along, there will be a vast and mighty disaster there," he warns.
"As an actor, and to some degree as a writer, I was intrigued by these very quiet men in the country who observe everything and don't say much," says Johns. He characterizes Aylmer's point of view - the voice of many such quiet men - with the quotation "It's us that built this world, and we should have a say in how you're taking it apart." u
Barnboozled: He Won't Come in From the Barn, Part II runs at the Blyth Festival from August 27 to September 6. For tickets and information, call 1.877.862.5984 or visit www.blythfestival.com.

Publication Date: 2003-08-24
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=3086