Director Daryl Cloran admits Rabbit Hole could be a hard show to sell to an audience on the surface.
The new Neptune Theatre play tells the plight of a family dealing with the loss of their four-year-old son — not exactly date-night material for some.
But dig a little deeper, and you’ll find a lot about this play you might want to take in.
For one, it’s a Pulitzer Prize winner by playwright David Lindsay-Abaire. Secondly, according to Cloran, it has a really good story. And thirdly, and maybe most surprisingly given the subject matter, there are some laughs.
“There are a lot of really rapid-fire comic scenes,” Cloran said of the two-hour play, which at times takes a light-hearted approach to a devastating scenario for a family.
Cloran said he feels he’s the perfect fit to direct Rabbit Hole. While he’s never lost a child, he does have an 18-month-old son, and when putting this play together he thought about how he’d handle this unimaginable situation for a parent.
“I can really get into the mindset for what it means,” the 35-year-old Toronto director said. “It certainly feels very personal to me.”
The cast for Rabbit Hole includes Jeff Meadows, Drew O’Hara, Susan Stackhouse, Genevieve Steele and Patricia Zentilli. It will be the fourth play Cloran has directed at Neptune and his first at Fountain Hall. His last play at Neptune was Ubuntu: The Capetown Project, which was shown last March on the Studio Theatre stage.
Get your tickets
Rabbit Hole officially opens tomorrow and runs through March 28 at Neptune Theatre’s Fountain Hall. For tickets and show times, visit www.neptunetheatre.com.
