Progress and Folly
One of Canada's greatest playwrights is Dan Needles, author of the "Wingfield Farm" series of plays, made famous in thousands of performances by one of Canada's greatest stage actors, Rod Beattie. I was fortunate enough to see all seven plays during my years as a technician, and I count my experience with those plays as amoungst my most formative as a writer, director, and actor (not that I act all that often, but...) The second play in the series is called "Wingfield's Progress," and the third is called "Wingfield's Folly." They relate the further adventures of Walt Wingfield, a stockbroker-turned-farmer, after his tumultuous first year on the land. In "Progress" things go pretty well for Walt, but in "Folly" he lets the pressures of being a farmer get to him, which leads him to do some rather drastic things that he later regrets, and which very nearly cost him his farm, and everyone he holds dear. But since it's a ...