The Patron Saint of Stanley Park

By Hiro Kanagawa

Siblings Josh and Jennifer are coping with the loss of their father, who disappeared in a float plane accident on Christmas Eve one year ago. While Josh scours the Internet for proof that his father is still alive, Jennifer rebels against his denial and their mother Marcia's efforts to return the family to normalcy. When Marcia insists that Josh and Jennifer spend Christmas Eve with relatives, the children instead set out for Stanley Park to honour their father’s memory. Trapped by a catastrophic storm, the children are rescued by Skookum Pete, a strange vagabond who takes them to a fantastical bunker beneath the Prospect Point café, where they experience wondrous visions that help them understand the truth about their father and the healing power of love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781770912656

Hiro Kanagawa

Hiro Kanagawa is a Vancouver-based writer and actor. His play Indian Arm received the 2017 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama. His other plays include The Tiger of Malaya and The Patron Saint of Stanley Park, both of which have been performed across Canada. Also a sought-after script doctor and consultant, Hiro was story editor on the critically acclaimed Canadian series Da Vinci’s Inquest, Da Vinci’s City Hall, Intelligence,and Blackstone. As an actor he is perhaps best-known for his numerous recurring and guest-starring roles on popular television and streaming series such as Star Trek: Discovery, Altered Carbon, The X-Files,and many more.

Book preview

Hiro Kanagawa

Playwrights Canada Press

Toronto

Contents

Introduction

Production History

Characters

Setting

Time

Prologue

Scene One

Scene Two

Scene Three

Scene Four

Scene Five

Scene Six

Scene Seven

Scene Eight

Scene Nine

Scene Ten

Scene Eleven

Scene Twelve

Scene Thirteen

Scene Fourteen

Scene Fifteen

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright

Introduction

As often happens, The Patron Saint of Stanley Park started out as something else. It all began probably ten years ago during a conversation I had with Rachel Ditor, dramaturg and literary manager at Vancouver’s Arts Club Theatre. Rachel mentioned it might be fun to organize a festival of science-fiction plays, sci-fi being a popular literary and cinematic genre that remains under-represented in theatre. Rachel also mentioned the challenge of programming for Christmas given that many theatres need a Christmas-themed play every year, but there are only a handful of good ones around.

Fast-forward a couple years to when I was one of four playwrights chosen for the Arts Club’s Silver Commissions Project. Remembering my conversation with Rachel, I immediately set out to write a science-fiction play. It was called The Dark Divide and concerned a group of scientists who are stranded in a remote research station by an apocalyptic storm. Terrible noises lead the scientists to believe that an injured bigfoot is trapped in the gully behind their cabin. As the scientists debate what to do, a mystical hermit lady shows up and claims the bigfoot came from a space ark. I actually turned in thirty pages or so of a first draft. I’m sure the Arts Club was thrilled! But as fate would have it, The Dark Divide refused to write itself. Sometimes what you think you want to write has nothing to do with what you really want to write.

Around this time my first child was close to a year and a half old, and my wife and I were hoping we’d have another baby on the way in the next six months or so. Being responsible—and who knows, maybe a little morbid—my thoughts naturally turned to making sure the kids would be provided for if some calamity struck and they were orphaned.

It occurred to me that if I died, years would pass before my kids would be able to learn anything about me. Yes, they would have endless gigabytes of family photos and videos as well as various films and TV shows that I’ve been in as an actor. But as a new father, I was—and still am—madly in love with my kids and my family and wanted to make sure they knew it. And so The Dark Divide morphed quite naturally into The Patron Saint of Stanley Park. I set out to write a science-fiction play and wound up with a love letter—a Christmas love letter—to all children and their families and to the jewel of a park that crowns the city of Vancouver.

The Patron Saint of Stanley Park was commissioned by the Arts Club Theatre, Vancouver, BC, as part of its Silver Commissions Project and premiered at the Granville Island Revue Stage on November 25, 2010. The premiere production featured the following cast and creative team:

The play received a second production from the Halifax Theatre for Young People at the Alderney Landing Theatre in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, from December 13 to 22, 2013, with the following cast and creative team:

Characters

Josh: boy; ten to eleven years old; book-smart, not necessarily street-smart

Jennifer: Josh’s sister; thirteen to fourteen years old; struggling with burgeoning adolescence

Skookum Pete: a crusty old urban hermit

Marcia: Josh and Jennifer’s mother; in her forties; recently widowed

Kevin: Josh and Jennifer’s father; in his forties; appears off the top dressed as Santa and is later seen in the form of bigfoot and several other mythical beings before appearing briefly as his human self

Control: voice only; air-traffic control at Vancouver Harbour

Dispatcher: voice only; 911 dispatcher

Setting

Act One: various locations in and around Stanley Park: an apartment, a bus stop, a socialite club, a wooded trail.

Act Two: a secret bunker beneath Prospect Point, the restaurant at Prospect Point, a bookstore, a wooded trail.

Time

The afternoon of Christmas Eve into Christmas Day. The present.

Act One