A responsible look at living in your parents’ basement
When Steven Owad submitted his play The Basement Boys to Theatre BSMT last year it wasn’t because of the company’s annual playwriting competition. “I sent my script to them because they had the name BSMT. It was a simpatico situation” he says. Regardless the script won the 2013 BSMT Dwellers Playwriting Competition and as a result is the final production of the company’s 2013-14 season.
The central characters in The Basement Boys are men in their early to mid-20s who live in — wait for it — their parents’ basements. While the archetype of the 20-something male who lives at home playing video games and eating chips in his downstairs dungeon is often the butt of jokes in popular culture Owad says the play is looking to go beyond caricature. “I’ve never seen a movie that responsibly portrays them…. This play is meant to be real life real people who want something not just the funny guys who garner the laughs.”
In fact he describes his work as a drama — with lots of comedy in it.
“It’s more costly to get an education to move out more so than it was 20 years ago. It’s not really by choice that people are living at home longer” says Owad adding that 20 years ago when he could have been a “basement boy” a university degree still snagged a person a good job and a ticket out of the family home. ”Now with a degree you can get an interview or work in the service industry.”
In response to this worldly reality the three men in The Basement Boys — the youngest Jamie (Rene Abdon) the ringleader Vinnie (Greg Wilson) and the overlooked member of the trio Daryl (DJ Gellatly) — have a sort-of “screw-it” attitude. “They have adopted this sense of ennui. They’re not lazy but they’re not ambitious” says Owad.
As such they remain in their parents’ basements going through the motions of living. That is until Kate (Jesse Anderson) a woman with a checkered past — and the ex-girlfriend of Vinnie’s absent elder brother Tony — enters the picture prompting them to change. Not only do they all think they’re in love with her “they all start to see their own salvation through the prism of Kate” explains Owad.
The “basement boys” also come to realize their own actions have exacerbated an already difficult societal situation.
The absent Tony — who was the ringleader of the group until he suddenly disappeared to join the army and head to Afghanistan — plays a significant role in the story. “Tony leaves a hole in their lives. He’s one of the catalysts for them to realize that what they are doing is not sustainable” says Owad.
While he’s not trying to make any particular socio-political or economic statement with The Basement Boys he says he hopes audiences will recognize themselves or people they know in the story and come to empathize with their challenges.
“It’s a human play to show the human struggle of how these men become who they are meant to be.”
