The Hack

Starring H.Benjamin Ellis
Written and directed by Charles Robertson

February 6 - 17 2007

Take a wild ride through city streets as actor H. Benjamin Ellis slips behind the wheel of this one man play written by Charles Robertson.
"Bitter, funny and heart-rending."
The play follows the story of Harris, an intense cabbie, whose dreams are turning to dust as he is being driven mad by the strange passengers riding in the back seat of his cab.

The Hack-Story

Fueled by stories from H, Benjamin Ellis, a real-life cab driver in Kingston, Charles Robertson wrote The Hack for him to star in. A cab driver who has a shaky dream about becoming a Hollywood screen writer. The language is rough like the streets he drives on. The cab is a metaphor for life taking him one way while he dreams about going in a different direction. Harris(Ellis) is having a bad day. He drives nights and the passengers from hell inhabit his cab like ghosts that won't let him alone. Driving cab is one of the most dangerous occupations, so Harris wants to escape his metal cage and live a fantasy. The surreal encounters with his passengers drive him to the edge of madness. The Sweating man, the mysterious girl, the wasted away drug addict he used to date, The cross-dressing prostitute he picks up one drunken night, the belligerent drunk from the bar, the girl who is fighting with her boyfriend, the two gay men going clubbing, the senior couple living in subsidized housing and the drunken teens going to a high school dance all haunt him.

Harris self-medicates to keep his personal demons at bay. He can't sleep and he is cracking up.

Harris' present day life is wrapped around the axle by his past, his drunken father who beat on him and his mom, but would play hockey with him and his brother on the frozen pond, his girlfriend, who he treated poorly, his days of skipping school, and forgoing an education, his drug-dealing days, his string of low-paying jobs.

But he writes; he has a box full of screenplays he has started, started but not finished. The Hack is obviously a play on words. The Hack is a cab-driver, and The Hack is a bad writer. Harris is an intelligent man trapped in a nightmare world which he can't seem to escape. He has created his own personal hell, and his passengers won't let him escape.

Everyone creates their own reality either knowingly or unknowingly. Harris sees his reality and he wishes it were different, but he has built his tomb brick by brick.

Take a trip on the wild side with The Hack

Queen's Journal review 2007
Whig Standard review 2007
Whig Standard review from the original production in 2004

Bottle Tree Productions

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