by Lin Bennett

Both the charm and the outrageousness of Vigil ’s main character, a misfit bank clerk named Kemp, is that he simply doesn’t care what he says – so he says absolutely anything he wants.

When Theatre Kingston presents Morris Panych’s comedy Vigil, starring Kingston’s acclaimed actors Brett Christopher (I Am My Own Wife) and Carolyn Hetherington (a 40-year theatre veteran), the company joins an impressive roster of more than 50 companies who have produced this bittersweet, sharp-tongued Canadian comedy since it was written nearly 20 years ago. Since then, Panych, one of the most persistently innovative talents we have, has turned into an icon of Canadian theatre and his works have been presented on five continents. But what is it about this former “enfant terrible” that so delights the public, even with his plays’ strong veins of cynicism?

I was first bowled over by Morris Panych as he acted in his own “post-nuclear cabaret” Last Call in Vancouver in 1982. The adjectives “outrageous” and “brilliant” applied then – and continue to mark every work he has written, directed or performed in since.

I learned first-hand what it was like to work with such demanding brilliance and vision, as I publicized a dozen of the works he directed or wrote at Vancouver’s Arts Club Theatre from the late 80’s to 2001. In 1995, Vigil not only inaugurated the new incarnation of the company’s third stage (the Revue Theatre), it had everyone spellbound in delight. ”You gasped and laughed at the same time,” says Kingston-based playwright John Lazarus, who was also there. You suspected then that more was coming – but how much more was anyone’s guess. Panych and his partner in life and work, designer Ken MacDonald, were full of ideas, drive, and certainly uber-perfectionism, but the big world of Toronto and beyond hadn’t quite opened up yet. Vigil would change all that.

Vigil is brilliant and hilarious in its deceptive simplicity. By the time it was created, there was a lot of method behind Panych’s madness. He had written the popular quirky comedies 7 Stories, The Necessary Steps and The Ends of the Earth, which would receive the Governor General’s Award in 1995. Panych’s trademark depiction of everyman’s “daily struggle with life’s minor annoyances” had morphed into an art form.

Both the charm and the outrageousness of Vigil ’s main character, a misfit bank clerk named Kemp, is that he simply doesn’t care what he says – so he says absolutely anything he wants. In return, patient Grace is in no hurry to die. The beauty is that we are freed to share Kemp’s lack of self-censorship – while learning a little about his rather unusual heart. Just as Panych played “bad boy” in the theatre world for decades, but won over thousands of theatregoers and dozens of producing companies, Kemp also grows on us. In a good way.

Now 60, Morris Panych is a regular writer and director for companies such as Shaw Festival, Stratford, Soulpepper and CanStage – and he has written 20 plays and directed 80. Nearly 20 years old, Vigil is a “cheeky classic.” I hope you’ll come and see why.

Vigil plays from April 17 to May 4 2013 at the Baby Grand Theatre.