Yellowknife (Oct 29/04) - Yellowknife theatre reaches new heights this weekend. In Lunch Pail Theatre's production of 7 Stories, actor Paul MacDonald spends the play perched on the ledge of an apartment building, seven floors up.

Paul MacDonald contemplates life from a seventh storey ledge in the Lunch Pail Theatre production of 7 Stories. - Jennifer Geens/NNSL photo

"Paul has had a rough morning," said director Michele LeTourneau.

"So he goes and stands out on the ledge and contemplates his future."

MacDonald's character has no name. The script simply calls him "The Man."

"He represents everyone," said MacDonald, who has spent three hours a night standing on his ledge since they started rehearsals. "He's a typical person who's just going through a lot of things."

The audience doesn't find out what drove the man out onto the ledge until about three quarters of the way through the play. In the meantime, his neighbours enact their own little dramas on their balconies, oblivious to the problems of the guy on the ledge.

It's an absurdist comedy from the pen of Canadian playwright Morris Panych, who was shortlisted this week for the Governor General's literary award in drama.

The production also marks Lunch Pail Theatre's 10th anniversary. Vince McCormick, who founded the group with Brian Collins, said Lunch Pail came about as an alternative to the types of plays other companies were performing.

"We were filling a niche," said McCormick.

Where Ptarmigan Ptheatrics still specializes in big musicals, and Kitsch In Sync does popular comedies, Lunch Pail chose dramas that were slightly more controversial.

Their first play was Sexual Perversity In Chicago. Since then Lunch Pail has done Shakespeare twice -- A Midsummer Night's Dream and Macbeth -- White Weddings, Talking Dirty and The Importance of Being Ernest, to name just a few.

Yellowknife audiences came out to support its productions.

"That shows we weren't completely crazy to try and offer it," said McCormick.

Lunch Pail's has always strived for inclusiveness and openness. One of the factors Lunch Pail takes into account when selecting plays is whether it has strong roles for both men and women.

The theatre group also always holds open auditions for its productions.

"Anyone can walk in off the street and get a part," said LeTourneau.

Plays that Lunch Pail would like to put on in the future include a version of Dracula that follows the Bram Stoker novel closely, the comedy Don't Dress For Dinner and a stage adaptation of the Henry James novel The Turn of the Screw.

7 Stories runs tonight and tomorrow at 8 p.m. at NACC. It continues Wednesday to Saturday next week.