parfumerie miklÓs lÁszlÓ
adapted by adam pettle & brenda Robins
artist note: I’ve had a lot of crappy jobs. Schlepping drinks and serving up quesadillas through high school and theatre school and in the cracks of my early professional life as an actor. In my experience, the service industry is not for the faint of heart. Why is it, then, that when I look back on those days of servitude – of fanny packs, shin splints, and Silkwood showers to wash away the smell of fried onions – it makes me smile? It’s because of the one saving grace: the company I kept. In any retail store, restaurant or rehearsal hall, you are part of a team. And with the common goal of mounting the show or upselling the Cote d’Amour, that team quickly becomes your family. For better or for worse, like the gang at the Parfumerie, we’re all in it together. I look around at the team of actors that make up this cast, this misfit family, and I marvel. How did I get out of the dish pit and land in this room? Is that Oliver Dennis serving up gems of hilarity beside me? How did I get into these 1940’s clothes? Since my first professional job sans tray, when I had the honour of learning to speak the Bard’s words from the late and very great John Neville, Soulpepper has been my artistic home. Lucky me.
Patricia Fagan, Rosie Balaz in Parfumerie