Bringing her act home

Former Carol Players member hooks leading role

Bev Doyle

By Danette Dooley
Special to The Aurora

During her 23 years living in Wabush, Bev (Porter) Doyle was a long-time member of the Carol Players. She’s taken her experience with her to the island and has recently captured the lead role in Beothuck Street Players latest production Long Day’s Journey into Night.

Doyle looks at her years with the Carol Players as a firm foundation for her acting career. Labrador West has always had a vibrant arts community, she says.

Members of the Carol Players, decades ago, included: Jerry and Clar Doyle, Bev and her husband Gerald, Lorne and Sandy Slaney, Roy Babstock, Paul Rowe, Jerome and Stella Doyle, Anne Marie Barry, Junior Canning, Judy and Paul Kirby, Tommy Barron, Harold Hawco, and Jocelyn Ralph and her husband Gord Ralph (who is directing Long Day’s Journey).

Names like Kevin and the late Peggy Lewis, Jim and Donna Hoskins, Don and Winnie Piercey, Paul Power, the late Reg Harte, Pat Mitchell and Pat and Mary Ellen Doyle are also associated with Carol Players.

“I was 20 when I started and I was involved right up until the time we left the area. There are still some people involved with the Carol Players today that were there when I was with them. And those that are not involved come out all the time to support the group, which is great.”

During her years living in Wabush and performing with the Carol Players, Doyle had four small children— each two years apart in age. She worked in her mother’s Wabush store (Porter’s Cash and Carry) while, at the same time, volunteering at the Labrador City Crisis Shelter.

“We had apartments donated from a source in Lab City. We’d have a beeper and when a women would need to come into the Crisis Shelter, the police would phone us and we’d go to her house and pick her up and bring her to an apartment.”

Doyle was also involved with the local Status of Women Council in the area – all the time rearing four children and taking university courses part-time.

After moving from Wabush to Avondale, she had her fifth child. She was soon on stage again with the Centre Stage theatre group. After that group folded, she moved on to Beothuck Street Players.

Formed in 1995, Beothuck Street is a community theatre group based in St. John’s. Kevin Lewis was instrumental in forming the group named after the street he’d lived in Labrador City for 18 years.

Beothuck Street Players has been awarded Best Production award at three of the last four provincial drama festivals. They will perform Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night in St. John’s later this month before heading to Labrador City for the provincial drama festival.

After having her fifth child, Doyle completed her Memorial University degree in sociology and women’s studies. She now works as a crisis intervention counsellor at Iris Kirby House in St. John’s.

When taking to the stage as a drug-addicted housewife, Doyle draws from her decades of life experiences working with abused women in Labrador City, Wabush and St. John’s.

“A lot of times I see women who are misdiagnosed as being depressed when really their symptoms are all because of the abuse that they’re going through. But it’s so easy for doctors to write out prescriptions for anything from Prozac to OxyContin – anything to dull the pain. And I see women who are addicted coming in with handful of pills when really all they need is someone to listen and to validate what it is they are going through.”

As she polishes her lines working closing with the others on stage, Doyle says she’s looking forward to returning to Labrador City next month as part of the provincial drama festival.

“The Carol Players that were with us 30 years ago may not be with them now but they always come out to the plays. I still have two brothers Craig and Blair (Porter) living there and I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone again. And after all, for me, it is going home.”
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