Lunchbox offers its audience a trip across Canada.

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Over the past six months, Calgary actor Duval Lang has struggled with four alter egos.

When the Lunchbox Theater's final play of the season opens on April 16, Lang will bring out this quartet, which has taken up much of his inner life.

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French Canadian writer Martin Bellemare's award-winning play The Ballade of Georges Boivin is the story of a recently widowed 77-year-old man who convinces three longtime friends to accompany him on a trip from Montreal to Vancouver. . Having recently lost the love of his life, Germaine, George decides to search for his first love, Juliet. He has an address in Vancouver that dates back 50 years. He doesn't know if he still lives there or if he's alive, but he hopes that this quest will bring back meaning to his broken life.

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Although The Ballade of Georges Boivin has been produced several times in Quebec and Europe, the Lunchbox version, under the direction of artistic director Bronwyn Steinberg, is being performed for the second time in English, translated by Jack Patterson with Johanna Nutter. .

“It was important to me to base the four characters on people I know, so I can distinguish them as much as possible. “I gave each person specific vocal characteristics, specific movements, and unique personalities,” says Lang, who admits he modeled George after himself.

“I dug through my old high school yearbook to find pictures of my first real girlfriend, Marlene. This is my video for Juliet. As with George, it was my first love, and these people will never be forgotten. It was, of course, in love, and to complicate matters, it was very popular. That put me behind the eight ball, but I persevered. I can see why George would go on a quest.”

George picks up his friend Gerard from a nursing home. Lang said: “He's quite a fighter because he has borderline dementia and struggles with his memory. Anger is his way of coping and hiding. Clement was also in a nursing home and he is the aristocrat of the group. People will recognize who I've made him look like because he's a very popular person.”

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Jean Pierre is in a nursing home and physically failing. He's in a wheelchair and nearly deaf, but George couldn't make the trip without him.

“George and Jean-Pierre have been friends for a long time. He is the glue that binds Georges to Juliet, as Jean-Pierre remembers many details about the relationship. Physically, he may be weak, but he is the sharpest of the four.'

Lang also plays six additional characters that the small group meets along the way, and he admits that it's “a little difficult to keep them all in my head and keep them separate.” That's why I started working on the script in October.”

Lang recently saw a filmed version of Vanya, Andrew Scott's solo show for the British National Theatre, and was inspired by “how he was able to pull off all the different characters with so little effort.” Like Scott, I don't change hats or add little costume details to differentiate my characters. What he achieved became my goal.''

Lang's only other solo show was for Quest Theater 40 years ago. It was called a portrait of a young adult, but he welcomed this new assignment from the day Steinberg offered him the role.

Lunchbox's The Ballad of Georges Boivin runs from April 16 to May 5 at the Vertigo Studio Theater at the base of the Calgary Tower. Check lunchboxtheatre.com for performance times and dates.

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