They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” ― Andy Warhol,
This week we present an eclectic triad of works all of which are connected through change and our response to it as artists. Seasonal, societal and technological change is constant, and it seems to be occurring at an increasingly faster pace.
How malleable should we be in the face of these winds? How does once bend and not break? Or is it better not to frame our response as a form of resistance and become the wind itself?
These questions and more are addressed tangentially and directly in this edition. As always, if you have any thoughts, our comments section is open and these pieces are ready to be changed by your interaction with them.
I have had the experience of watching an actress – who I think is very talented – become extremely talented. Her capacities were always evident but her ability to employ them, to follow through, to fulfill her promise were somehow just out of reach. Then she became a runner and all that began to change. It was a mesmerizing transformation. At the moments where I had previously anticipated a flag, fearfulness, this actress now knew how to dig deep and make it to the next mile marker.
20 Mile Marker
At mile 20 of the 2013 NYC ING Marathon, this was a good thing to remember.
I started running because of Mr. Lloyd. Now he was something. Blond hair thinning on top, double-jointed knees and elbows, a funny front tooth, and a plaid sports coat that lapped his tooth pick frame as he walked. I was in love with him. My gay – completely non-flamboyant – teacher who was dying of a mysterious wasting disease that caused him to quietly leave the school and end up in an apartment just down the street from where I was living in Toronto. He had me over for tea. When I was in high school Mr. Lloyd was the first person to actually make me weak in my knees. Mr. Lloyd was one of two drama teachers in my high school. The total population of the school was 296 and we had two drama teacher and two theatres! This captures: “those were the days my friend”. That and privilege.
Yesterday I was surrounded by 50k plus similarly prepared runners making a start at Staten Island. It is amazing to find yourself enveloped by so many who have gotten up in the dark to lace up shoes, or who have headed out after sundown, all in an effort to prepare for one of the biggest community engaged shows on the planet. The respect and love I felt for each of the unknowable people who flanked me was sincere. And the question as to what made them choose to perform there, in New York, on a cold November morning will remain unanswered.
But for me the question takes me back to high-school drama. (Frank Zappa apparently said “the older you get the more life’s like high school”) Mr. Lloyd did the musicals. He also did the Broadway hits. David and Lisa, Butterflies are Free,The Pajama Game, and South Pacific. He was one of those stage-managing directors. He said very little to the actors: always watching, always respectful but never verbose. The other drama teacher, Mr. Lewis, was a lean-in close kind of guy. He would get in your grill, say things to make you mad, and then lean back with a small grin saying: “yeah, that’s right, that’s what I am talking about.” Truth be told, Lewis’ work was always superior.
But there was something about Mr. Lloyd that kept me coming back for more. He was gay. So there was that. I felt safe in his company. And maybe I sensed that his silence was more out of societal expectations than linked to his essential being. Regardless, he was unknowable and this attracted me.
He was also a runner, and not a beautiful one at that. He wore tennis shoes, jeans and a great big blue ski jacket and he would run laps around the school every morning. I know this because these same laps were punishment for any and all indiscretions we in our adolescence got up to. I ran a fair number of laps: horrible, cold, quarter mile hellacious penance for our sins. But there was Mr Lloyd, all double jointed and knock kneed circling the school like someone whose life depended on it. I think of this dependency while I run.
I returned to running when my heart was hurting, my spirit was broken and my connection to the theatre was in tatters. I ran and I ran and I ran. It was a glorious reconnection because there was no finish line, and next to no belief that anything outside of the run itself would make anything feel any different. At the time I was directing a beautiful play by George Rideout called Michel and Ti-Jean. It was a one-night encounter in a Florida bar just after Michel Tremblay’s massive success with Les Belles Soeurs,and days before Jack Kerouac’s liver essentially exploded. I needed to go to Florida. How did this Petit Canadien from Lowell, Massachusetts and his maman, end up in Orlando, and then, finally St. Petersburg? While my need for research was beginning to take shape, so too were my first steps back into the running world. St. Petersburg launched the first women’s half marathon, I signed up and two things, running and research, aligned as they have continued to do ever since.
Yesterday I ran the NYC Marathon. I had this goal in mind from the completion of the half in St. Petersburg. During the lead-up to the opening of Michel and Ti-Jean, I signed up for another half in Austin, Texas. It was to be held on Valentine’s Day and this felt important to the state of my heart. On the mend, thinking about what shape my life and work would now take; it was a perfect thing to do. And now 4 years on, and 3 marathons under my very tired belt, I was given the opportunity to run over the Verrazano Bridge to Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York. And at 20 miles, where the wall showed her face I remembered Mr. Lloyd, and that actress, and my life in the theatre.
Zuccotti Park (Home of Occupy Wall St.)
There is a spine running through this life. Sometimes I lead the charge and sometimes the charge leads me, but the spine, like the route remains. If we are lucky, it is long, with unforeseeable twists and turns, and loads of eccentricities. But it is always there if you are looking for something to follow. 4 years ago, I completed my first 20 mile run and it took me about 4.5 hours to do it. I was aware upon completion, that I had just done the longest consecutive thing (outside sleeping and breathing) in my life. It formed a particular link to the mis-attributed Gladwell 10,000 hour rule.
The link goes something like this: Enter the tunnel, keep moving forward, do the work, if you remain injury free, you line up at he start and you begin the show. Mr Lloyd taught me that 90% of life is rehearsal and 10% is the show. He did this mainly because I was only really ever witness to his attempts, never to his transformations. He was always working at it, and the longer the rehearsal, the better the show. (If you get to live – which he did not) Length is a curious thing. A mile at 25.1 can last a lifetime while a mile at the start can finish before you or your body can grasp it. Mr Lloyd never gave up. He has me for tea, he allowed me entry into what must have been a harrowing last couple of moments in a life. All with an eye to finishing. The show is not over until the show is over. And as with the runner who becomes a runner by being a runner, the show can only end when the finisher makes it to the end. And that can only happen: “by getting up really early in the morning and working really hard all day”[1]
* Sarah completed the marathon in 4:30:09 and because of this she made it onto the top 32,820 list in The New York Times.
[1] Philip Glass in Answer to Denise Clark’s onstage question about how he accomplishes all that she does during High Performance Rodeo 2002
With each production that I create, each new play that I workshop, and each play that I read, I begin with the question, why theatre? Allow me to clarify: We live in an age of consumerism, where the arts are continually asked to justify their existence. My question “why theatre?”, however, has NOTHING to do with validating the worthiness of an artistic response to anti-humanist political agendas. I refuse to engage in discourse around issues such as “the economic and social values” of art, the “creative economy”, and so on. I ask myself “why theatre?” because the attempt to answer that question always connects me to the core human impulse behind what we do.
Over the years of asking myself “why theatre?”, I have come to identify seven primary human needs[1] that I believe the theatre satisfies. In Hebrew, the word seven is from a root word meaning to be “complete or full”. I believe that the theatre, in meeting these seven needs, completes our humanity.
Interdependence: From the rehearsal process to the experience of live performance, the theatre presents the world with a working model of cooperation, collectivity and community. This makes the theatre essential to a world where the pursuit of individual wealth and consumerism is leading us to economic, environmental and cultural collapse. The theatre provides citizens with a space to experience the joy of togetherness.
Empathy: One of the most powerful pieces of theatre that I have seen was a show entitled Rwanda 94 created by a group of survivors from the Rwandan genocide. Over six hours, these survivors, witnesses, musicians and actors told the horrific story of that nation’s encounter with mass murder. The physical presence of these people who had faced unspeakable darkness prevented me from dissociating myself from the experience; I could not hide behind the protective veil of television or film. I left the theatre transformed. This show truly taught me that the proximity, ‘liveness’ and immediacy of the theatre allow us to directly experience the world of another person and to learn – intellectually and emotionally – about others. The theatre taps and develops our capacity for empathy.
Entertainment: One cannot ignore or underestimate the power of entertainment in the theatre. We all seek diversion from the normal patterns of our lives. In being entertained, we escape our daily situations and gain some perspective on our existence. A great piece of theatre that combines entertainment with artistry, intelligence and complexity reveals truth about the human condition and inspires us to become better people.
Spectacle: As humans, we need to believe that things are larger than us. The unique power of spectacle in the theatre lies in the fact that the scale of theatre is limited by the scale of our bodies and that the theatrical event occurs live, in real time, in front of our very eyes. When spectacular things happen on stage, the stunning potential that lies within our own corporeality is revealed.
Ritual: As a young boy, I did not go to church for god – I went to sit, kneel and stand with a group. The repetition of the group event gave my life meaning by creating a sense of familiarity and order to my existence. Similarly, the communal and ceremonial nature of the theatre event fulfills a profound yearning for ritual in our lives. I seek to honor this aspect of the theatre at every juncture of the creative process, from rehearsals to performances.
Engagement of the imagination: Years ago, I created a children’s play. At one point in the show, a character delivered a short monologue that recounted the story of a pirate ship sinking after being attacked by a whale. It was simply told with the usual gusto found in children’s theatre. After each performance, there was a talk-back where the kids were asked to share their favorite moments in the show. Almost always, a child would talk about the moment when the whale came on stage. We never actually had a physical representation of a whale in the show – the actor only spoke about it during his monologue. This taught me a valuable lesson. Theatre does not happen on stage, it happens inside the audience’s head. Great theatre invites an audience’s creative participation by inciting them to build a world around what is happening on stage with their imagination. The theatre allows the audience to be active creators in what is being presented to them as opposed to simply being passive receivers.
Transformation: At its most elemental, theatre is about transformation. The actor is transformed by the character. The character is transformed by the plot. The audience is transformed by the experience. In theatre, we find confirmation that human transformation is possible.
I often choose plays that venture into uncomfortable or unknown territory. I am driven by the desire to find new approaches to performance, to present alternative points of view, to question established norms and to push boundaries. As I delve into the unfamiliar, this list is my anchor. It reminds me that the pursuit of theatrical innovation is, in fact, an attempt to reengage with the original power of the theatre and to renew this gloriously ancient form. The original definition of the word “radical” is relating to, or proceeding from a root – this is my work as a director.
[1] Special thank you to Anne Bogart for inspiring the format of this list and thank you to the countless mentors, thinkers and collaborators who have led me to these notions.
I moved to Montreal in late 2009 after living and working in Toronto for 15 years. I had visited Montreal quite often before, a devotee to the Festival Trans Ameriques since 1997 where I would always see 2-3 shows every couple years. I always found it an exciting, mysterious and beautiful city that I enjoyed immensely every singe time I visited.
I began working here in 2005 and loved it even more, the audiences seemed more engaged, the spaces bigger, more exciting and the work I was seeing was exhilarating, daring and contemporary. Performing in a giant art gallery and then being able to return for the FTA in 2009 and have a dream come true and perform /dance/songs/ with Public Recordings at Theatre La Chapelle.
Montreal is a paradise for many artists
The city seemed like a paradise; rent was way cheaper, there were more bike lanes then anywhere else in Canada, tons of incredible programming for dance and performance and a ton of more spaces for rehearsing and creating. My wife had grown up and lived in Toronto her entire life so was also in need of a change and we both felt that if we didn’t leave in 2009, we never would. Another big attraction to Montreal for me was the availability, size and beauty of most of the apartments I had seen in Montreal over the many years.
One of my goals in moving to Montreal was to focus more on my own practice, creating multi-disciplinary collective creation pieces. In my research I felt confident Montreal was a much better city for experimental and performance based work. What I didn’t have in Montreal was a job, any connections or a grasp at all on French. These were just some of issues I should have guessed would set me back here in a huge way.
Why did you move to Montreal?
This is a question that kept coming up more and more from almost every single person I met and I still get to this day. It is often said in a tone that says “You have made a great mistake and will regret it sooner or later”. While this might be paranoia it did seem strange that so many artists I met here who seemed to love their city in a way I do not usually see in Canada seemed to also not know why any English artists move here.
I have found in the four years I have been here my optimism about this city does get slowly eaten away. The community I thought that would exist here for contemporary performance did not and was a scattered group of incredible artists (Jacob Wren, Alexis O’Hara, 2boystv, Clea Miniker, and many more who I am missing) who toured a lot and were not in Montreal very much.
A couple of places have really saved me while I have been here, Studio 303 and Playwrights Workshop Montreal. Both have been institutions that have continued to support my various projects and ideas over the years. With amazing leadership from Miriam Ginester at 303 and Emma Tabaldo at PWM, I have been able to explore, fail and work out idea’s in a judgment-free environment but also with supportive feedback.
I have been told a few times in Montreal that if you do your own thing (open a space, have a monthly event, make your work) here it is easier then waiting for work to come to you. Montreal does still have some of the most affordable cities to rent spaces in and the thought of running a space here is a possibility that seems more like a dream in Toronto or Vancouver (but obviously still happens).
I am in midst of starting a new performance collective of independent creation makers based here in Montreal and I am really excited to attempt something I have never done before.
Make your own community
I need to make the community that I want to have, a community of idea sharing, resource sharing, help each other tour more, help each other make grants a little easier (proofing, last minute support) and helping around shows when it often feels like we don’t have anyone to help us out. The plan is meet at least monthly and figure out what need each month and how to best use our time, resources and energy.
I love Montreal, miss Toronto dearly (and love going back) and feel blessed to have been able to work in Halifax, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, St.John’s and soon Victoria.
Montreal is a great place to fail and to find out what you want to do. It has a forgiveness that is needed in a time when many artists feel an incredible pressure to make every project a success or fear they may never get another chance.
It is not what it once was in 1993 but 20 years later it still offers a chance to not just survive and get by but to try something you may never have before.
In this edition of the #CdnCult Times, our contributing theatre artists reflect on the why of what they do: Where they have chosen to live, why they practice their craft, what they chose to do with their (theoretically) non-theatre time.
This seems an essential question in the performing arts – so often we are so busy doing, it is easy to forget to ask the question, “But why am I doing this?”
We all have different answers: personal, professional, spiritual. As an increasingly efficient and product-driven world ushers us through space and time, stepping back to ask the question, “Why?” seems crucial.
Iqaluit butchering the first bowhead whale caught in the area in 100 years in 2011
Matthew: Yes, today’s topic. Some artists place protest at the centre of their work. How would you characterize your influences?
Laakkuluk: Are either of you protesters by your own definition?
Matthew: No. Not that I am aware.
Amy: I thought about this a little this aft and I think I am totally inspired by community and women who make a lot from not much!
Amy: I don’t think I am a protester but I make statements in my work for sure.
Matthew: What do you make statements about?
Amy: I mostly make statements about family – husband/wife stuff, mother/children and politics.
Laakkuluk: I find myself being politically active as a performer and in public outside of performance.
Amy: Yeah, I am an advocate for the arts for sure and follow politics in our province closely.
Laakkuluk: In fact in a fun little circular way, I got called a “drama queen” in the comments section of our local paper today.
Matthew: Are you?
Amy: Ha! What did you do to garner that handle?
Laakkuluk: I organized a solidarity march for the anti-fracking protesters in Elzipogtog.
Matthew: Nice.
Amy: We have protests against fracking here in Newfoundland as well, on the west coast.
Fishing Boat Pt. Saunders
Laakkuluk: Probably for the same bodies of water!
Amy: As I would say if I were there, “Frack that!”
Matthew: We heard about that protest all the way out West.
Laakkuluk: It was a pretty startling event.
Amy: Laakkuluk, do you think this will find its way into your work?
Laakkuluk: We made Idle No More statements in our last production, mixing it with raven mythology that was collected by Knud Rasmussen in the 1920s.
Amy: Yeah, I guess that is what happens: big, meaningful events do end up in our work one way or another.
Amy: Matthew, the show you are doing now, is it inspired by your home?
Matthew: It is about a cattle drive through BC in 1864. So yes. The play also recounts three actual British Columbia events, one of which is The Chilcotin War. This was between a First Nation and white Settlers. The war is very relevant today as the Nation has never surrendered and therefore claims rights to their land through this means, as well as others. I guess I worked it in to my work.
Laakkuluk: You do work politics in, but you said you are not a protester?
Amy: I feel if we are aware of what is happening in our community we can’t help but bring it in into our work. It is top of mind when we create.
Matthew: Yes. Maybe I am a protestor.
Amy: We can protest without placards and signs…the mighty pen and the act!
Matthew: Nonviolent resistance. Okay, what about influences?
Laakkuluk: What pictures are you each submitting for this assignment?
Amy: I plan to submit a photo of my Mom, My Aunt Mame and a photo of a boat/fishing village.
Matthew: I am submitting a picture of Joan Mans. She is a little old lady who was a best friend of mine. She lived 1925-2010. My next play is about her. Right now there is a cast of three professional actors and two ensembles. 24 kids and 24 dancers.
Amy: Beautiful! I can’t wait to see it. What inspired you about her?
Matthew: Her journey through extended health care was tough and she struggled to keep her spirit. In the end I think she did. I miss her and think great thoughts of her often.
Amy: Wow. Where will you do this, in Victoria?
Laakkuluk: it sounds like an entire movement around her story. I like it a lot!
Matthew: She was a pretty key figure in the arts here, volunteered everywhere. Yes, Victoria to start, but hope to work with ensembles elsewhere.
Laakkuluk: I’m sending a picture of Iqaluit community members cutting up a bowhead whale.
Amy: OMG. That is fantastic. So we are all influenced by place and great women!
Amy: Did you take part in the bowhead hunt?
Laakkuluk: I wasn’t on the hunting party, but my family went to help butcher after it was caught. I’m looking at a piece of baleen we took right now.
Amy: Will you make something from it? I remember as a child on the beach collecting pothead whale teeth. A big bunch of them ran ashore in Chapel Arm, years ago.
Laakkuluk: Lots of people make amazing jewellery and artwork. But I love just having the raw piece. It’s so big and surreal and lovely.
Amy: Yeah, I know what you mean about having the piece untouched.
Laakkuluk: Maybe we can answer what the characteristics of our influences are.
Amy: Hmmm, what exactly does that mean?
Laakkuluk: I think what we draw from our influences.
Matthew: What are your influences Laakkuluk?
Laakkuluk: If I were to talk about why that whale hunt is an influence, it would be a collaborative connection to the land.
Amy: I draw sustainability. The people who inspire me are usually underdogs of some sort. Persistence in the face of adversity
Laakkuluk: Would you call that resilience?
Amy: Yes, resilience is good. These people I speak of bring me joy and hope.
Matthew: Joan was an underdog for sure, persistent and tenacious. Resilient.
Amy: Yes Matthew, I love her already….
Matthew’s influence – Joan Mans
Laakkuluk: Awesome!
Matthew: OK, I have to go find a new set. See you soon.
Laakkuluk: Good luck! See you!
Amy: Look forward to it. Good luck Matthew with your set and Laakkuluk with the children’s teeth
Laakkuluk: Take care Amy! 🙂
Matthew: Man, someone has to teach me how to do emoticons in this… Ciao
Matthew left the room.
Amy: how do we get out, just close?
Laakkuluk: I believe so
Amy left the room.
Laakkuluk is left alone in the room. She makes funny faces, but no one even sees her. So she leaves too.
I believe I’m here tonight as a good example of the the depth of impact this kind of award can have on one person. I make for a good story – at the time that I won the prize, I was working full time out of my laundry room. All Temperature Cheer served as a paperweight for my scripts and dramaturgical research and I had to unplug my computer to use the iron.
Jillian Keiley, when she won the Siminovitch Prize in 2004
Now, through no small influence of this award, I’ve got an office on the Rideau Canal and I’m one of those arseholes who gets invited to galas. BUT I believe the Siminovitch prize is greater than the good it does for one person. It’s an acknowledgement from the Siminovitch Family, from the founders and the corporate donors, that the Theatre is an important discipline. We can’t empirically define and measure its impact, but we know, we feel that it has an important place in the world. To have Scientists and Financiers acknowledge the immeasurable weight of something people can only feel has a massive value.
Now I will shake my money maker.
This here – my gut – is how I make a living. I watch hundreds of shows a year with my education, professional experience, eyes and ears backing up my analysis of a production. But my most important tool is the one I cursed this morning trying to put on last fall’s jeans.
Jillian Keiley, Lou Siminovitch and Danielle Irvine
The three directors we are celebrating here tonight, are all in the business of making work that impacts your gut, the place where you feel. It’s an alchemy with no formula, and its singular stimulant is the presence or lack of what I’ll call ‘beauty.’ These three directors’ visions couldn’t be more varied, but they’ve all made their mark in Canadian theatre by creating extraordinarily beautiful work. In my new job at the NAC a lot of my task is to try to determine or distill what is beautiful. I think about it all the time.
I’ve got thousands of subscribers. People from all walks of life, young people, very old people – people of different religions, cultural backgrounds, races. What they think is beautiful must be extremely varied and I know that simply by how they present themselves at the theatres, how they dress, the cars they drive or refuse to drive. I make a giant assumption that if my gut is moved by the beauty of something, my audience will be too. We recognize beauty because we feel it, down here. And in the best theatre – I believe that beauty is a recognition of a deeper commonality – our shared experience, and our shared humanity.
Theatre Specializes in showing us the beauty of humanity itself. The visual and aural aspects of a production demonstrate the limitless capacity of human invention and craftsmanship while actors and writers create mirror worlds for us to see ourselves in – to laugh at ourselves, to fall in love with ourselves and to forgive ourselves. I don’t know any great director who doesn’t see great humanity, especially in the least savory characters. They know the adage “Everyone is Lovable once you know their story.” If a director can delight the senses and guide the actors through to an audience’s recognition, I truly believe we have done a good thing for humanity. While that can’t be empirically proven, I feel it, and my feelings have served me well so far. I may even embrace them and move up a Jean size.
To the Founders, BMO who originally sponsored the Siminovitch Prize, the continuing support of the Siminovitch family and now the Royal Bank, I commend you for trusting your gut and the feeling that something beautiful will come out of this night too.
@jillkeiley delivered this speech @siminovitch100k Awards in Toronto, Ontario on Monday October 20, 2013. The recipient was @chrisjabraham and his mentee was Mitchell Cushman
I only knew their first names – didn’t learn they were The Wheeler Family until after they had left.
Jimmy and Zephyr Wheeler had driven from Dawson City to Whitehorse in a school bus on a family vacation with three somewhat-dressed children, homemade toothpaste and hand-rolled cigarettes in tow. Using the library to check email – they saw a call for participants to recreate the conditions in the detention centre at G20 Toronto and felt compelled to participate. With no cell phone, they used the library’s phone to receive a call from The Yukon Arts Centre to discuss their proposal:
Could the entire family be in the show? This included their four and eight-year-olds.
The Wheelers are a few of the approximately three hundred Canadians we anticipate will have participated by the time we conclude our tour of You Should Have Stayed Home: A #G20Romp. Just like the 1000 + people swept up and detained that weekend – our cast has been all genders, ages, ethnicities and classes. Our tour of Whitehorse, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal concludes at The Arts Court Theatre in Ottawa.
Detainees in tech rehearsal at Yukon Arts Centre
It is our hope that on our November 20th opening night in Ottawa, in a theatre that used to be a courtroom, Members of Parliament will also participate in a staging of “The most massive compromise of civil liberties in Canadian history.” We really have no idea whether we will succeed at this goal. We have some leads, it is not impossible, but it is definitely a maybe.
The motivation for this approach to staging and touring a show about police actions at the G20 Summit in Toronto is to broaden the discussion of civil liberties and in particular, Charter rights, in an era when they are being whittled away. The problem isn’t just that the state could declare for a weekend “You’re not in Canada”, when citizens asserted their rights. Because there were no consequences, a precedent has been set: We are primed for a repeat, or worse, in the future.
With this in mind, we have created a production that allows the communities we perform in to include anyone who lives there and shares these concerns. Joining the #G20Romp is not just telling the story of what happened to over 1000 people that weekend, 95% of whom were never charged with a crime; it’s also standing up for the idea that this should never happen again. It is an art-based form of protest, that hopefully won’t get you arrested, that advocates for the position that if you are peacefully protesting on the streets – you also shouldn’t be arrested.
Praxis Artistic Producer Aislinn Rose demonstrates how to be safely zip-tied while writer performer Tommy Taylor looks on.
As a director, this approach has created particular challenges to presenting the work with a rotating cast that changes size on a daily basis. Throughout our run we have performed with anywhere between eight and thirty participant performers (we did one with 40 people at SummerWorks in 2011). To facilitate participation, we have created a system where anyone, regardless of experience, can learn their role by arriving at the theatre one hour before the performance.
We begin by introducing ourselves, our goals with the show, and demonstrating how to safely wear the zip ties that are were worn by prisoners in a cage in violation of The Geneva Convention. The set we perform on is introduced, which is an approximation of one of the 10 x 20 foot cages with open-door portapotties prisoners were detained in during The Summit. Some brief guidelines follow:
No one needs to invent a character to play. Participants play themselves if they were swept up in a mass arrest while writer/performer Tommy Taylor continues his monologue as the narrative arrives at The Detention Centre. In terms of position on the stage, there is no ‘front’ to the cage – it is possible to face any direction, not just the audience. The rehearsal moves through a series of ‘living tableaus’ that depict conditions in the cell. There is also a moment where having been denied water for many hours, the cage comes to life with a water riot. This moment is counterbalanced by a moment of levity when the entire cast plays a game of volleyball with an inflated (industrial) condom – a scene that happens somewhat differently every night.
Some of The Raging Grannies joined the show in Vancouver.
Bottom line is all of this, plus a curtain call rehearsal, has to take place over forty minutes for the audience to be admitted to the space on time. It means being organized and specific, but also open, friendly and willing to answer questions. For some it is the first time they have been on stage since high school. Rushing through isn’t an option. It is an exciting challenge for a director though, to re-direct a scene for every performance. No piece of theatre is ever the same twice; this show had reinforced this inherent characteristic of live performance for me.
When the Wheeler Family performed in the show in Whitehorse, we arrived at an arrangement where their extremely well-behaved children were babysat while they were onstage. Four to eight-year-olds were probably the only kinds of humans not detained at G20 Toronto. As they were leaving the theatre after the show, I ran up to say goodbye and thank them for participating.
Jimmy looked me in the eye, shook my hand and said, “Anything we can do to help.”
I responded, “Well, maybe we’ll get somewhere with this. Or not, you never know.”
He paused looking at the floor, “Well, if not, at least we’ll leave some good looking corpses.”
Then he turned and left. That’s the last thing any of the Wheelers said to me.
This week’s edition of the #CdnCult Times concerns those core factors that motivate us as theatre artists. What is is that pulls us out of bed in the morning? What influences keep us working long after we should have gone to bed? Where do we find meaning? Is it our work, our communities, our collaborators?
These pieces by our Geographic Correspondents, NAC English Theatre AD Jillian Keiley and myself all take a different perspective on art, meaning and making theatre. Please feel free to engage with us about what motivates you if you feel inclined. Our comments section is now up and running.
Collectivity: The quality or condition of being collective. Collaborate: To work together especially in a joint intellectual effort or to cooperate treasonably, as with an enemy occupation force in one’s country.
A 16-year girl knows how to wrench her father’s heart.
Too young to vote, while growing up in Montréal, I placed my fervour in the hands of the Parti Québécois and the cigarettes, women, and hair of René Levesque; a man who refused to be cowed by what my young mind understood to be “the establishment”. My first twist was for the promise of a split Canada. But the real wrench overshadowed this with a cool, even calculated cruelty when I told my fiercely devoted-to-Canada father, that I wanted to move to the United States. Both of my claims remained words on the wind, and ruptures on my dad’s heart, as I did not follow through on either.
I was reminded of this when reading Alexander Offord’s extremely erudite (thank god for online dictionaries), oft-witty and intermittently accurate response to our opening essay for our first edition of #CdnCult Times
“Look, I think we are in very divided times…” says Alain de Botton and I agree. Allow me this unexamined de Botton digression, as he is an interesting guy, worth getting to know.
One of the most compelling things in Offord’s response was the knee-jerk reaction to the use of the word “collectivity”. Internal wiring led my brain to Margaret Thatcher: “There is no such thing as society.” I don’t actually know what she intended with this but together with a series of actions, there is no doubt that her supporters helped to shape a generation suspicious of disparate peoples, from disparate nations (both within and without the geo-politicized borders of Canada) being interested in anything together. This suspicion can’t help but apply to the wish for a National Theatre that might reflect Canada’s uniqueness.
My desire for “collectivity” has been with me for as long as my adolescent drives towards divisiveness. Theatre can –at its greatest – teach us of connection in ways subtle and transformative that few other things can. Its ephemera has us always reaching, always striving, yet its blood, sweat and poverty has us ever clawing, ever clutching to grab hold. It is why I included the second definition for collaboration in this post. There is an underbelly to words and while collectivity is under the microscope, I return to the second definition of collaboration, as a “principles check-up” for the decisions I take. Collaboration is, for me, one of the highest states of creativity, but one must be wary of the shadow. It is why, I trust, in a functioning society, the question of the value of a National Theatre will forever be asked.
I believe in a National Theatre. I use: “believe” with the disclaimer that my conception is not static but contains forward moving action, and that “believe” is essentially neutral: it does not presuppose an agenda as to how things will manifest.
Offord states: “The issue of a National Theatre of Canada (hereafter referred to as NTC), is a perennial one in this country.” This feels true, but I don’t think it diminishes the presence of the question.
He goes on to say: “The fact of the matter is, we Canadians are deeply insecure about most things, & our theatre scene (I’m being hugely Toronto-centric in this, note; Toronto’s all I know, really), … has an inferiority complex for which “Napoleonic” is putting it mildly.
The use of the word “fact” is incredible here and so too is the use of a “we”, or “our”, all of which leads to paradox of the “us”. Howinteresting.
Who the hell are we? Why can’t a Canadian National Theatre help us better understand ourselves?
The world may be a lot smaller than we thought, but if “Cultured Canada” continues to exclude the vast majority of citizens on this planet, than this small-minded sensibility will both literally and figuratively crush us all. It was suggested to me that a National Theatre of Canada keeps getting seen as an unmoving lump of bricks and mortar. Why not, instead, visualize a swath of metal shards blanketing the land: each shard representing some awesome creative practice. While a magnet could pull it all under one roof, the strength exists by allowing this possibility to linger without ever exercising the right to call in the magnetic chips.
To my mind, the SpiderWebShow is an attempt to connect the invisible lines between these metal shards and to illuminate conduits between these pieces so that creative energy can flow through our collective space and bolster the whole damn thing. In this sense my belief in a National Theatre does manifest here in the action of revealing the breadth of Canadian theatre.
Since leaving Toronto, I have come to think of all of Canada as home. My “home” includes Toronto, but it also includes Peterborough, Guysborough, Whitehorse, Cow Head, Edmonton, Armstrong, Sackville, Meacham, Summerside, Yellowknife, Victoriaville, Iqaluit, Norway House, and on and on and on. And my hope is that, with the SpiderWebShow we can reflect a collection of theatrical selves back to ourselves, and create a renewed sensibility as to what our National Theatre looks, sounds, and feels like.
The question and the idea of a National Theatre must reflect the diversity of peoples and their individual expressions and practice, instead of attempting to discern one unifying principle. I am intrigued to discover that France’s governmental system is built on territorial collectivity and am encouraged to further think on Offord’s suggestion of disparate theatrical needs. Evidently I don’t believe that local needs and a National Theatre are mutually exclusive. Our nation is a collection of many nations. As Thomas Mulcair recently said on the House: “We need to speak nation to nation”. And I take this to mean that the government of Canada’s responsibility is to represent many nations within its borders. A National Theatre must reach to do the same.
