Lauchie, Liza and Rory at the Herald Theatre

Burgandy Code (left) and Christian Murray play 17 roles between them in Lauchie, Liza and Rory.

Burgandy Code is one versatile woman. She has to be - in the space of one hour and 20 minutes, she plays roles which ordinarily span a lifetime: lover, wife, mother, sister.

Code is one half of the cast of Lauchie, Liza and Rory, an award-winning whimsical comedy in which two actors play 17 characters. There is nothing new in having one or two actors play a cast of many, particularly when it allows budget-conscious performers or companies to produce, stage and tour original work.

What is new is that Lauchie, Liza and Rory could be the first professional theatre production to tour New Zealand from Nova Scotia on Canada's Atlantic coast.

Developed by the Mulgrave Road Theatre company from a shorter piece, the touring show is a new experience for Code, co-star Christian Murray and director Mary-Colin Chisholm.

"I've never been that far from home," says an excited Code. "I can't quite wrap my head around it. In fact, no one quite believed it when we were told we were going to New Zealand. It took ages for it to sink in."

Indeed, the Mulgrave Road Theatre's visit to New Zealand is quite the talking point in its home of Guysborough County where 28 years ago a group of "energetic young artists and playwrights" - to quote the press release - descended on the rural outpost.

Chisholm puts it slightly differently: "We can basically thank the hippies for Mulgrave Road Theatre. About 1977, the government offered small grants for theatre groups so that year a whole bunch of 19 and 20-year-olds came for the summer and started a collective with the aim of telling stories with a sense of place. Most of them stayed and are now very respectable, middle-aged family people."

They have watched their youthful summer folly grow into an award-winning professional touring theatre company. It has attracted some of Canada's top playwrights and has held the original vision of developing, producing and promoting work inspired by living on the rugged Atlantic coast.

Survival in a rural outpost of 600 has depended on becoming an integral part of its home-town. Too small to have its own purpose-built venue, the company stages shows at the local Masonic hall before touring them throughout the rest of the province.

"I don't want to imply that theatre is a religious experience but it's sort of like a church in a small-town which is the focal point for the community," says Code. "Women pick flowers from their gardens to decorate the hall before a show and bake cakes for intermission."

Last year, the theatre was invited to perform Lauchie, Liza and Rory at the Magnetic North Theatre Festival in Edmonton, 4830km away from home. The invitation to New Zealand came on the strength of those performances. Lauchie, Liza and Rory will be performed in Auckland, at the Christchurch Arts Festival (July 20-24), the Taranaki Festival of the Arts (August 5-8) and, in keeping with the story's mining town backdrop, in Greymouth and Westport (July 28, 30).

Set in a Nova Scotian coal mining town in the 1940s, it is about identical twin brothers who both love Liza. Lauchie marries her; Rory worships her from next door. Each day, the twins leave their neighbouring homes and head to work together. On the surface, it's business as usual but Liza is quietly struggling to understand why, when both brothers look the same, she loves Rory and not her husband.

Writer Sheldon Currie uses the identical brothers and their identical homes as a way to investigate themes of duality and difference; how things are often not what they seem from the outside.

The idea of a linked duality could well apply to New Zealand and Canada. We might be a huge ocean away from one another but there is much we share - a British colonial past, farming as the backbone of the national economy, a love of the great outdoors helped by spectacular natural features and, of course, being overshadowed by a dominant neighbour.

Given the similarities, there is surprisingly little enduring cultural contact. Chisholm hopes Mulgrave Road Theatre's visit may help to change that. Because the budget doesn't stretch far, she will stay home but looks forward to hearing how more permanent links between the two communities might be forged.

Both she and Code say they would be more nervous about the visit if they had not journeyed west and seen how audiences outside of Nova Scotia enjoyed Lauchie, Liza and Rory. They are also heartened by the positive reception an amateur community theatre group from neighbouring Cape Breton Island received when it visited New Zealand to explore shared Gaelic bonds and traditions. "I hope people appreciate it for the sincerity of the story and for our home-made theatrical solutions to create the illusion of the actors becoming other characters," says Chisholm.

"It's just so exciting for us to be going so far away."

What: Lauchie, Liza and Rory
Where and when: Herald Theatre, July 12-1