Throw Your Heart Over the Fence

Tamara Jones is Production Stage Manager/Operations Supervisor,
Entertainment Department, Paramount Canada’s Wonderland.

Given recent cuts in government funding for the arts, it is a formidable
challenge for any theatre company to continue to exist and perform both
at home and abroad. Diane Dupuy, founder and president of the Famous
People Players, faces the additional challenge of building “the first
theatre centre in the world for people with special needs.”

Dupuy’s simply written account of the struggle to find a permanent
home for her troupe can easily be read in one sitting, as Don Harron
suggests in the book’s foreword. The group, known for its use of the
black-light technique, life-size puppets, and players who are
developmentally challenged, has many amusing and touching stories to
tell. Dupuy chronicles the successes and failures that ensued when she
was thrust out of the creative realm and into the political and
corporate world of Toronto. Her account of the frustrating bureaucratic
runaround she encountered is simultaneously painful and engaging.

Unfortunately, Dupuy’s intimate relationship with her subject often
causes her to lose perspective. Her tendency to share her own inner
philosophy simply overwhelms the narrative. This leads to excessive
moralizing and sentimentality in the form of repetitive platitudes that
serve only to obscure some otherwise interesting material.

These lapses aside, Throw Your Heart over the Fence makes for a
refreshing change of pace given Dupuy’s honesty as a writer.