Sure, the devil went down to Georgia, but what if they went to Wild Rose Alberta with a murderer’s row of curlers in tow, instead?

Alberta Theatre Projects’ (ATP) latest production of The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon, the classic Faustian-inspired work from W.O. Mitchell, asks that very question.

What audiences will see at the Martha Cohen Theatre in Arts Commons is a little bit Divine Comedy, and a little bit Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

“I think it’s a really good tonic, in terms of it not taking itself too seriously. It’s food for thought, but also a heck of a lot of fun—and I think it’s really exciting to watch curling onstage,” said Black Bonspiel director Christian Goutsis.

“That is actually live, and we don’t know what’s going to happen. These shots are happening, and we’re trying to make them and we’re trying to nail what we need to nail. I think that makes for a really exciting theatrical experience because it’s things will be different every night.”

The production is ATP’s first of the Mitchell classic, since the 1996–1997 season.

Black Bonspiel tells the story of Willie MacCrimmon, a shoemaker and curler who would just about sell their soul to skip in the MacDonald Brier and is given the opportunity by the devil to do so.

But the tables are turned, and MacCrimmon and his team of Wild Rosers instead face off against Satan, Lizzie Borden, Macbeth, and Judas Iscariot.

Because MacCrimmon has to win, like in any good story involving the devil, that random chance of rocks being curled on stage can’t be too random.

“I challenged Kevin Corey playing Wullie McCrimmon, I said, ‘Kevin, you have to get good. That’s as simple as that.’ So, so we certainly have some fail-safes in play in terms of how we need to end the play, we have a plan based on whatever variables might happen, but I will say that Kevin’s gotten darn good,” said Goutsis.

“He’s tough to beat. He’s more often than not nailing the shots that we need to nail, which is super exciting. It feels like it’s a play, but folks are cheering as if they’re watching a live curling match, and it is very exciting to see.”

Corey himself was a little more modest about his curling skills on stage but said that the cast had worked hard to make the curling look as real as possible because of how familiar audiences were with the sport.

“It’s exciting and scary a bit to throw, and you’re really trying to make it to because the audience can see the ice surface. And if there’s curlers in the audience, they can look at the ice and know what the score is just by looking at where the rocks are,” he said.

Trevor Rueger, playing Reverend Pringle, took a slightly more reverential tone in keeping with the play’s other message, about the on-stage action.

“I just throw the rock and let God do the rest,” he laughed.

What does it mean to have faith in the 21st century

Goutsis said that the play had been modernized in several respects to make it more relevant for modern audiences, particularly in the addition of more female characters and changing some jokes to be more accessible.

In Mitchell’s original work, the devil’s team includes Guy Fawkes who has been replaced by Lizzie Borden.

The devil itself is being played for the first time on a Calgary stage by a woman, Natascha Girgis—although, said Goutsis, the devil was being portrayed as being more genderless than gendered in this production.

“We just treat the devil as if it’s just a thing. But we’ve certainly added some some diversity there, and then contemporized some of the some of the jokes and some of the laughs to tickle a contemporary audience,” he said.

What hasn’t changed however, is the discussion of faith and the way it shapes the characters in the story.

“Certainly religion gets discussed in many different ways, and certainly different sects of Christianity. The challenge was to discuss faith without bogging down in philosophical argument or debate because that’s also not entertaining or funny,” said Goutsis.

“What W.O. wrote really well, is that there’s an inherent respect for each other. So folks are having these discussions—and dare I say debates—about where they come from in terms of religion… I think there’s a lot of folks that will recognize themselves on stage, whatever their sensibilities might be.”

Rueger, who grew up in the country outside of High River, said that he recognized the characters that Mitchell drew upon for Black Bonspiel from the people he met in his own life.

“The beautiful thing about who Mitchell is that he has such reverence because he met all of these people. These people are not just fictional creations, these are people that that he knows, that he knew,” he said.

“High River is ripe with a whole bunch of different denominations, and he has great reverence for everyone’s beliefs. So there’s no particular group that he’s taking shots at. There’s no particular group that he’s trying to make fun of. He really is kind of pointing out the foibles and the foils, and the truth and the passion of kind of every denomination and their beliefs.”

For more details on The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon, and for tickets, see albertatheatreprojects.com/whats-on/black-bonspiel.

The production runs from Feb. 20 to March 10, at Arts Commons.

Photos from The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon