Thom Fitzgerald is a busy, busy man! In addition to almost single-handedly saving the Atlantic Fringe Festival, last year Nova Scotia's premiere queer film auteur toured the world with his film, Cloudburst, winning 'Audience Choice' awards at festival after festival. Then, last fall, he began producing the first of two pilot television series, both of which will feature queer characters and content. (Hey, c'mon! We're talking about the man who gave us The Hanging Garden and The Event, not to mention Beefcake). Like all of Mr. Fitzgerald's projects, both series were produced and shot in Atlantic Canada and feature local actors in leading roles, along with his floating ensemble of international stars. More after the Jump!
Forgive Me debuts tonight on Canada's Super Channel (HBO) and has already garnered highly favorable reviews from the Globe and Mail critic John Doyle and in the Winnipeg Free Press. The premise of the half-hour drama is to break the seal of the Catholic confessional. A young Priest becomes engrossed in the very private lives of his congregants while trying to protect a secret of his own that could put his calling in peril (Wayves says, "Hmmmmm ...").
The ensemble of characters are people who struggle to retain their religiosity in the face of sex abuse scandals, reproductive technology, and LGBTQ civil rights-- it's not easy to balance old school religion and this new world. They are ordinary people seeking to a balance between life and - not just their spirituality, but organized religion.
Forgive Me features a cast of highly lauded actors in a format that displays the depth and subtleties of their talent. The charismatic and comely Mike McLeod plays the young insomniac Priest, haunted by dream visions of St. Sebastian (Wayves says, "Hmmmmm ..."). He lives in a rectory with three older priests, played by John Dunsworth, Jeremy Akerman, and Rob Joseph Leonard. He has a lot of responsibility-- the congregation is shrinking-- so when his elders retire he‘ll be doing all three jobs. The Priest has a family-- the grandmother (Olympia Dukakis) who raised him, and his ne'er-do-well brother (Craig Layton).
Each episode focuses on one congregant conveying dark sins inside the confessional booth. It's a tightly intimate, honest space. Jane Alexander plays Bookie, who's returning to the church after a fifty-year absence. Hugh Thompson (one of Canada's finest actors, who just happens to make his home in Nova Scotia) plays Smith, plagued with violent thoughts and Brenda Fricker is Smith's bitter anti-Catholic mother. But outside the booth, the Priest’s secret past is coming back to haunt him with revelations that could end his career and his nightmares start to impede on his waking life.
The strict confines of the Catholic confessional booth put all emphasis on the actors' craft. Like Alan Bennett’s classic Talking Heads or the HBO series In Treatment, Forgive Me focuses on words and performance to tell stories about people’s deepest secrets and fears.
Mr. Fitzgerald's second new series, Sex and Violence (starring Halifax native Jennie Raymond) premieres on OUTtv later this fall. Find out more about Forgive Me on Facebook.
