Stevie is a roofer. Dave is real estate agent.
Dave discovers he needs a new roof, so he hires Stevie.
Stevie is an aspiring standup comedian. Dave makes self-help videos.
That’s the bare bones of Lucas Myers new show Roof, in which he plays both Stevie and Dave, coming up next month in Nelson.
But there is much more to it than that. The play takes us into some complex (and funny, of course) issues about such things as lack of housing and being a good person.
“Dave prides himself on his success,” says Myers. “In the show he starts doing online self-help videos. He feels like he is fully self-actualized, he has got everything together, so he is going to spread the things he has learned about how to be the best person you can be.
“Dave is living the dream: beautiful kids, nice car, great wife, gorgeous sound system, designer kitchen.”
But Dave is a narcissist and, as Myers points out, narcissists don’t know they are narcissists. Nevertheless, Dave is about to learn some things from his interactions with Stevie.
Stevie the roofer is flawed too, and he knows it.
“When they interact he says to Dave, so you are doing these videos for others but are you really helping? Or are you just helping people who don’t need help that much?”
Stevie sees it this way because he has had some tough experiences with poverty and the housing market.
In the show we get to see Stevie’s first public stand-up performance. And we see Dave setting up his camera and rehearsing his videos.
“You see how Stevie’s relationship with Dave starts to inform his standup,” says Myers. “You see how he incorporates that, you see him learning from that.”
The learning works the other way around, too.
“We get to see Dave set his camera up and practice, and he ends up having difficulty making a video on how to be good, because he has realized that he has work to do.”
Myers says the piece is a kind of sequel to one of his previous pieces, Deck, which was also about renovations.
“Renovations provide a nice container for a show because they are generally upending, they upend your family, your home. Your sense of everything is OK gets destabilized. Your perfect world is affected by the fact that you need a new roof.”
Dave had a cameo appearance in Deck, as a real estate agent stereotype.
“But in this I really want to make you like him. You see who he is, you can’t dismiss him. He’s trying, too. He is not just a jerk who is making money off people and selling expensive houses.”
The show runs March 8 and 9 at 7:30. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at the theatre box office or online at capitoltheatre.ca.
bill.metcalfe@nelsonstar.com
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