About four years ago, while Ross Desprez and Tobin Stokes worked on Moodyville Tales — a musical about characters getting stuck in Port Moody on their way to the Klondike Rush — the pair got thinking about west coast folk music.
As the Other Guys Theatre Company, they had created productions weaving history and culture such as Good Timber - Songs and Stories of the Western Logger.
But often, they posed the question: What do our songs say about our us?
After all, they were different from the rollicking east coast folk tunes.
Back in the 1800s, when B.C. was developing, news largely travelled through word of mouth and communal singing.
Still, historical events usually got blown out of proportion and “every time they got told, they were bigger and bigger,” Desprez said.
Soon enough, people, places and happenings were immortalized. And it was through those silly recountings that Flotsam & Jetsam: Life on the West Coast was born.
The musical revue, which opens tomorrow (Tuesday) at Coquitlam’s Evergreen Cultural Centre, bases its name on debris that washes on our shores: Flotsam is wreckage while jetsam refers to material tossed overboard — that is, a whole bunch of lost or discarded history that landed on B.C.’s beaches.
Desprez, the director, said it’s ironic the Flotsam & Jetsam cast also hails largely from outside of province: Colleen Eccelston and her brother, Kelt, are Newfies and Mark Hellman is from Montreal (Rachel Capon is a Gabriola Island native). “It seems almost everybody that’s here comes from somewhere else,” he said.
Together, they sing original songs penned by Stokes, ranging from opera arias to First Nations chants, with titles like Boat People, Village of Skedans, D’Arcy Island, Herring, Tofino’s Only Bugle Boy and Tugboat Blues.
Behind them, a multimedia backdrop exhibits scenes from the west coast.
As for their audience, Desprez said Flotsam & Jetsam is an educational rendering suitable for students and seniors alike. “We believe the theatre should say something so we try to make it fun and entertaining and memorable,” he said.
• Flotsam & Jetsam: Life on the West Coast runs until Sept. 24 at the Evergreen Cultural Centre (1205 Pinetree Way, Coquitlam), with a matinee on Saturday. Call the box office at 604-927-6555 or visit evergreenculturalcentre.ca. The show is a Coquitlam 125 sanctioned event.
