About the Play:

Earshot has become a favourite of acting teachers for Male Monologues.

Earshot is a full-length drama by Morris Panych. Doyle lives as a twitchy, paranoid recluse in his apartment, but his extraordinary, hyper-sensitive powers of hearing allow him to keep tabs on the secret lives of the other residents. Eventually he reaches out, in longing, beyond the walls, to Valerie, one apartment away. Earshot is a darkly brilliant work.

Earshot is the very funny story of one man's affliction with unrequited love and super sensitive hearing. Doyle has a very funny problem: he hears too much. He can hear the most intimate details of the lives of everyone living in his apartment building. He can tell the temperature of a young neighbour's bath water by the resonance of her pipes; he knows where the old lady's lost teeth are by the way they rattle in their glass when her appliances turn on; he can hear letters of rejection slip from slackened fingers and settle to the ground like the crashing leaves of autumn. Doyle blames his hyper-sensitive condition on a physical abnormality, on a birth defect in his ears. But we are not so sure. He'd do himself in if it weren't for the beloved gurgle of his next-door neighbour stepping into her bath. All Doyle asks of life is to eavesdrop as she unfolds his love-letter – but sometimes life just isn't listening. Paralysing Doyle with a cacophony of detail and minutiae, Earshot offers us the gift of a comic Hamlet – a perfectly dark comedy for the information age.

Earshot premiered in 2001 at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. The American premiere was later that year at Sacramento's B Street Theatre. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and was remounted in a joint production by Vancouver Playhouse and Alberta Theatre Projects in 2002.

Cast: 1 male

What people say:

"Morris Panych keeps his darkly drawn characters spinning like tops on the way to total frustration, in [his] one-man comedy/drama Earshot." — Backstage

"A superbly mounted Panych attack." — National Post

"Shout it from the rooftops – Morris Panych's Earshot is not to be missed… shocking and engaging theatre." — Vancouver Sun

About the Playwright:

Morris Panych is one of Canada's most significant contemporary playwrights. He has written more than 25 works for the stage and directed nearly 100. He is the winner of two Governor General's Literary Awards for Drama, the country's most prestigious literary honour. He has won 14 Jessie Richardson Awards for acting and directing, three Sidney Riske Writing Awards and five Dora Mavor Moore Awards.