A truck driver’s life on the road has hit the stage with a drama by David Proctor, who gave up life behind the wheel to concentrate on being an actor and playwright.
“Grabbing the Hammer Lane: a Trucker Narrative” is the top results of that transition by Proctor, and praise for the roughly one-hour, one-person play has been extensive.
The Orlando Performer, an internet site dedicated to theater in Central Florida, said this of the play: “Patrons of this show needs to be prepared to feel a big selection of emotions. At first, there may be gentle humor and subtle light jokes scattered throughout. [Later], emotions soar between anger and sadness. It’s genuinely moving. This show deals with addiction, forgiveness and loss and has an ethical of ‘Tell those you’re near, that you just love them.’”
The Roswell Cultural Arts Center outside Atlanta, which recently had Proctor perform the play, said he delivered a “spectacular performance that detoured life within the fast lane into the guts. This one-act play showcased riot, redemption, and the powerful roar of an 18-wheeler, charming audiences with themes of rejection, regret, joy, and redemption.”
Within the background to all of that’s life behind the wheel, a job Proctor had for about 30 years.
Starting with FedEx, followed by many
In an interview with FreightWaves, Proctor said he began driving in 1996 with FedEx (NYSE: FDX). A protracted series of various employers followed — common within the business — but Proctor retired in 2022 from Oakley Transport, based in Lake Price, Florida. He said he had been an organization driver his entire profession.
Proctor said COVID killed each his parents inside two months of one another. The top result, he said, is that “I took an extended, hard take a look at what it cost me being on the road so long and the things I missed.”
His wife asked him if he wanted his children to be his only legacy, “or was it something else I wanted to go away behind as an artifact?”
The result was Proctor’s departure from the road and a change in focus, to writing “Grabbing the Hammer Lane.” He said he wrote the play in about three months after which “workshopped” it with a friend from the theater faculty at Georgia’s Kennesaw State University.
That work behind him, Proctor said the play was able to be introduced. Its first performance was on the Orlando Fringe Festival last May.
Proctor said the festival is one which “showcases all different genres, comedy, musicals, every little thing.” The dramatic nature of “Hammer Lane” meant that Proctor and his wife, who served because the producer, didn’t know what the response can be. Not to fret: It was named the very best solo drama of the festival for 2023.
“We had folks coming out of the theater making comments like, ‘Man, I believed it was going to be about trucker stuff, but I used to be really surprised,’” Proctor said.
That performance was successful enough that Proctor was asked to repeat his performance in January at FestN4, which is produced by the Orlando Fringe Festival. It was that performance that led to the review by The Orlando Performer.
While the play is probably not about trucking per se, the industry is rarely removed from the motion.
Proctor said when the theater goes dark, the audience can hear the sound of CB chatter, with the radio voice reaching out to “all my fellow road warriors.” The voice urges drivers to “grab the hammer lane,” but additionally cautions that in the event that they are fortunate enough to have their parents still alive, “Give them a call today. Don’t put it off.”
Proctor is blunt about mental health challenges facing drivers. “It may possibly be a really lonely existence,” he said. “There’s about 3.5 million truckers on the road today, and about 30% of them admit they suffer from some form of depression due to time spent away from family.”
Proctor said the play is “semi-autobiographical, because a few of it does reflect my experiences on the road.”
Because the actor, he plays two parts: a middle-aged truck driver named Matt, and Matt’s father.
“Trucking is a direct riot by Matt against his father’s expectations,” Proctor said. “His father really wanted him to go in a distinct direction. And so they have a falling out over it.”
Complicating matters is that Matt has an addiction: gambling. Other family secrets are revealed, and the assorted forces pulling at Matt eventually lead him to therapy, “to assist him understand what decisions he has made that directed the course of his life, and the contentious relationship he has had along with his father,” Proctor said.
Give my regards to shut to Broadway
It is probably not Broadway, but “Hammer Lane” is headed to Latest York. It is going to be considered one of a series of one-person performances produced throughout the spring season at United Solo on forty second Street, one night only on April 11.
“Hammer Lane” will not be more likely to be the last play by Proctor with trucking as a theme. He said he’s concerned about “the crossroads between the theater and the trucking industry.”
“You normally don’t see the life and compelling stories of truckers reflected on stage,” Proctor said. “So it is a area of interest that I’m identifying, to develop a series of compelling plays that cope with life on the road.”
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