Waiting on Reno

Written and Directed by Robert Wright

Waiting on Reno was the play that got OutCast Productions started. It was first performed on Bowen Island in November, 1992, and then had a successful sell-out run at the 1993 Vancouver Fringe Festival.

The play is a farcical satire of the new age movement. Anton, the quintessential new age yuppie, faces the acid test of his romance with the lovely, but naive, Maya, when she suggests a visit to a Tarot card reader to truly judge their compatability. The problem is, this wise sage of the cards operates out of a skid-row diner that is peopled with strange card hustlers, silent waiters, and threatening street people. Needless to say, Anton is in for the run of his life.

Filled with bad props, worse puns, and more hooks than you'd find in a west coast troller, the play had the audiences howling. As one Fringe reviewer wrote: "It is filled with karma splitting laughs. An enthusiastic two crystals up!!" Or as another commented: " Waiting on Reno knocks the Birkenstocks off the new age."

The following is an excerpt from one of Anton's pithy diatribes:

Yes, Maya, I too had become cynical and distrustful. I admit it. I'd become a burnt-out sensitive man. I guess it was all those workshops and retreats, men's groups and rebirthings, ... all that money! The New Age didn't make me feel any better!

Was I in recovery or denial? One week I'd be discovering the child within, the next week I'd be some fucking god!! It all left me so confused. I was 'doing work' on so many things, . .. I never got anything done! All those desperate people, Maya, desperately trying to believe in something; and all they really want is love.

But finally I met you, my soul mate. It took a women like you to bring out the Iron John in me. Run with me Maya. Let me be your wolf! Let us bond in co-dependance, harmonize in our auras! Entwined in the Lover's card, we will play in our garden of Pentacles! Let us meet the Tarot of our future. Let us play out the cards!

With thanks for a Home away from home to Wimsey Home Page