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What makes one pastime crazy as opposed to another? Is it the time involved? The things you do for your pastime? Would you consider playing World of Warcraft and loving the game as crazy? Probably not, but it's one of the things "House of Cats" will be asking its audience to think about at the end of the day, and it's probably something any able-bodied gamer should be thinking about too.
The premise of this Canadian-made play is that MMO-loving police officer Malcolm Bailey, played by Chris Bullough, has been asked to investigate a cat-filled house owned by two sisters. In the play, we're asked whether playing WoW is crazy, or whether owning a lot of cats is crazy, and the audience is placed into the position that says both can either be crazy or not.
"[Bullough]'s character is obsessed with his blog and World of Warcraft, and we’re obsessed with our cats," continues Davina Stewart, one of the cat sisters. "We can't understand his fascination, then we try to explain why we have all these cats...."
"You always hear about those cat ladies and cat houses," Bullough adds. "But then for some reason it's still acceptable in society to say, 'Oh god, I didn't get any sleep last night. I was up all night playing this fantasy game, roaming around being this other character, discovering new lands, fighting and going on raids.'"
All in all, whether the interesting social exercise will be in thinking about whether playing WoW is crazy or actually getting a WoW fan to see a play is entirely dependent on your own resources. For us, we certainly wish we could adapt the script for our own amateur production.
"House of Cats" plays from February 15 to March 3 at the Varscona theater in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
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