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SUFFERING FOOLS
Of all my plays, Suffering Fools is the one that turned out to have the best set of legs, so far being picked up for half a dozen different productions, one as far away as San Antonio, Texas. In addition to netting me a gold medal for Best Script at 1990’s New York International Radio Festival, working up the radio adaptation of Suffering Fools for CBC Radio was a very useful exercise for fine-tuning each character’s voice. With each subsequent play I’ve found it helpful to pretend that there will be no visuals; that the only thing to distinguish one character from another will be their voice. Digging through old programs and reviews to compile the info for this website, I was gob-smacked to discover that the scrawny girl who played workshop director, Bertha Winters in the Original Kids’ 1995 production of Suffering Fools was none other than Rachel McAdams. - Herman Goodden REVIEWS “Funny, trenchant, touching and humane, Herman Goodden’s script about a developmentally arrested young man just may be the best new play to come out of London in years.” – Doug Bale, London Free Press “In some ways, Herman Goodden’s Suffering Fools is a familiar play. Its direct theatrical self-presentation, along with its staged resurrection of the dead and gone, have distinct flavours of Our Town. Its central figure, the developmentally challenged Rodney Kincaid, could be an early study for ‘Forrest Gump’. Suffering Fools was first performed in 1988, six years before we met Forrest. But interestingly, 1988 was also the year of Dustin Hoffman’s ‘Rain Man’. The topic was in the air.
- Skip Shand, Seven Short Plays from Theatre Ontario Continue Reading . . . ORIGINAL PRODUCTION
Suffering Fools was first produced at the McManus Studio of London Ontario’s Grand Theatre in May 1988 with the following cast: Rodney Kincaid – Chris Potter Bob Palmer – Alistair McGhee Mrs. Kincaid – Eleanor Ender Mr. Kincaid – John Turner Mary McPherson – Julia Webb Gary Palmer – Bill Meaden Bertha Winters – Anna Khimasia Lighting by Karen Wright Directed by John Gerry PRODUCTIONS 2005 Hall Theatre, San Antonio, Texas 2004 Spriet Family Theatre, London ON 1997 Chatham Cultural Centre, Chatham ON 1995 Original Kids Theatre Co. at London Regional Art & Historical Museums 1988 McManus Studio, Grand Theatre. London ON 
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