ron pederson, naomi snieckus, matt baram

photo by may truong

My favourite thing about The National Theatre of the World is that their shows always seek to bring artists together in collaboration with one another. Ever since its inception almost three years ago, Matt Baram, Naomi Snieckus and Ron Pederson have been fostering and strengthening the Canadian comedy and theatre communities and seeking to unite them ardently together. One of the reasons that I support this company so steadfastly and so zestfully, apart from the obvious fact that the theatre that they create is of an impeccable quality which is both electric and inspiring, is that The National Theatre of the World’s ardent support for the rest of Canada’s theatre and comedy communities and their ability to introduce audiences from different theatrical experiences to actors, singers, playwrights, musicians and a slew of other performance genres and encouraging a collusion of “Improvisers” and “actors”, “directors” and “playwrights” goes hand in hand with the work that I do here at The Way I See It, encouraging the community to come together and to be invincible. To celebrate today, while Snieckus and Baram and Pederson are in Charleston, South Carolina performing a David Mamet Impromptu Splendor (they never stop!) at the Piccolo SpoletoFestival there, I’d just like to take a few moments to adequately appreciate how lucky we are to have these lovely laughter lunatics in our midst.

Matt Baram offstage often exudes this polite, modest affability, but he is the performer who is the most able to, metaphorically speaking (although watch enough Impromptu Splendors and I’m sure this will literally happen someday), pull the rabbit out of the hat. I have seen Matt Baram perform a great number of times, under different circumstances, with different Improv companies, and he is a performer who is continually able to surprise me. I remember this one time he was performing at Monkey Toast with Jan Caruana and they were doing this musical bit and Matt just suddenly burst out into song and together the two of them did this duet straight off the cutting board from Les Miserables. I remember at that moment being so struck, not only by how good Matt was at singing (when Ron’s not there to do it for him), but also the panache he had, the perfect gusto of a Broadway 11 o’clock number. I’ve seen Matt play the sweetest, most charming and pure of heart characters you could ever imagine, ones that would probably make you cry, if they weren’t in the middle of an improvised play. I have seen him play the most vindictive and callous villains, with exactly the same proficiency; characters that you earnestly love to hate. I have seen him do the silliest things too, usually at Carnegie Hall, when one never knows what madness will be conjured forth, but I have also seen him brilliantly improvise a song about Nepean, Ontario in an Impromptu Splendor and I have seen him play a wide array of Nazis and even Hitler, a few too many times! Of course, Matt has to be versatile, he is an Improviser, I’m sure he can do anything, but what makes him stand out so wonderfully is what depth, what commitment, he gives to every moment, and it is that which creates the lovely moments and the complex and sometimes heart rending characters so integral to the NTOW experience and, especially, what helps turn Impromptu Splendor into a play.

Naomi Snieckus has this incredible practical vision that helps to turn a plethora of incredibly great ideas into a reality of splendour. That is what always strikes me most about her. She is so ambitious and she is like the company magic maker, you whisper something to Naomi and POOF, she will see it materialize. It’s truly fascinating to watch. As a performer, and as the only female core member of the company, Naomi often plays all the female characters in any given play, which can sometimes mean developing one of depth, substance and complexity or playing a myriad of different ones, which can sometimes lead to her having her own little one-woman show on the side, constantly flipping in and out of people in a whirlwind. My favourite Naomi memory is from a play that she and Matt improvised together, a long time ago back when they were still at Comedy Bar, I think it was Clifford Odets, it was just the two of them, and it was one of the most beautiful and wistful performances that I have ever seen Naomi give. Since there was just her and Matt there was an intensity and chemistry to this play that was stronger than in others that I have seen and it drew the audience in so close. I also love watching Naomi when she is playing the strongest character onstage, which is often. She has a gift for playing characters whose thorny exteriors are hiding a deep, vulnerable hurt inside, and for striking the perfect balance between maintaining the facade, but also exposing moments that cut right to her heart. It’s fascinating. She is also, obviously, quick to say something that makes everyone laugh until their sides ache. All three of them are whizzes at such things. Naomi is really bright and you can see, especially when she Improvises, but off stage as well, that the wheels of that industrious mind are always turning and quickly. She is passionate about theatre, as all three of them are, but her exuberance and excitement for the playwrights that they are working with or the styles they are working with or the special guests that they have for the evening, resonate and are infectious with the audience. Naomi’s unbridled love for our artists is making Toronto (and indeed, now THE WORLD) fall in love with Canadian theatre and that is something that keeps making my heart burst with joy and pride day after day after day.

      Ron Pederson, I’m sure anyone who has had the great fortune of seeing him onstage would tell you, is a mesmerizing performer to watch. He shines in all of the National Theatre of the World’s ventures, but first I am going to tell you about Carnegie Hall. In Carnegie Hall Naomi, Matt and Chris Gibbs host the evening as sort of “Through the Looking Glass” versions of themselves, but for me, it’s always Ron and his sleazy alter ego “Ronald” who really cement for me the world that this show has emerged from. He exudes this ambiance of New York in 1961, a television broadcast on PBS at 2am that forty five people have seen, and that drunken host, who was famous for something once that no one can remember, who is having a torrid affair with every girl on the set. That’s “Ronald,” he is a gateway to another era, and once you are transported to his place, The Carnegie Hall Show becomes a bit of brilliance. In Impromptu Splendor, Ron is most well known and beloved for penning some of the company’s most beautiful, lyrical, heartfelt and poetic lines. He has a poet’s soul and so too do many of his characters, even the ones that are most unlikely to have them, such as a character he once played in a George F. Walker Splendor at Comedy Bar one time, who amused himself in jail by reading the dictionary. Such brilliant tossing together of seemingly incongruous elements allows a lot of the humour that Ron evokes to rise naturally out of the character and story, which helps to keep the play faithful to its style. That’s not to say that he isn’t known for his silliness, thankfully he knows when to pull that out of his pocket too, but he has a deep respect for playwrights, and story and the heart of the theatre, and this raises the Impromptu Splendors beyond just being witty parodies, but instead create carefully crafted plays of creative and emotional depth in their own right. Ron is exceptionally smart, his knowledge of the Canadian theatre is extensive and thorough and he is meticulous in his ability to capture not only a playwright’s writing style, but also the way these plays would be staged and to look deeper into the guts of narrative and into the heart of the words, so that he is able to play with things like metaphor, irony and subtext. Ron is also an idea machine, always dreaming up new ways to make Improvisation an integral part of the Toronto theatre community and for fun and unique new projects for The National Theatre of the World to embark on. Ron inspires me constantly in his ability to jump into everything and anything the Universe throws at him, whether it be a new play by Catalyst Theatre, a One Man Catch 23 Night, a musical at CanadianStage, a one-man play where he plays a seven year old, a revival of a StewartLemoine play, an Improvised Soap Opera or an Impromptu Splendor and to really be brilliant in each one. He works hard and he loves what he does and the results of that, he proves time and again, are tremendous.

Happy National Theatre of the World Day, Everyone. Be brave, Follow your heart and Read a Play.

If you are in Charleston, South Carolina, and I know some of you fine folks are, check out Impromptu Splendor at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival this week!

Here is the schedule

Tuesday, May 31 at 8:30 p.m. David Mamet

Wednesday, June 1 at 8:30 p.m. Tennessee Williams

Friday, June 3 at 9:00 p.m Oscar Wilde

Saturday, June 4 at 5:30 p.m. Sam Shepard

Sunday, June 5 at 7:00 p.m. Anton Chekhov

All performances are at Theatre 99, 280 Meeting Street (above the Bicycle Shoppe). Buy tickets online here! Read more about thePiccolo Spoleto Festival here!

maiko bae yamamoto & james long

I have said this before under different circumstances, but I firmly believe that YouTube video comments represent some of the worst of humanity. This is not compared to things, of course, like genocide, rape, torture and the dropping of the atomic bomb, although there are YouTube comments that support, glorify and eroticize all these things. WeeTube, “part performance, part parlour game” closing tomorrow May 29th at 5:00pm at “Neptune’s no less important, but tinier space” as part of Eastern Front Theatre’s Supernova Theatre Festival, uses these comments to create a hilarious piece of theatre that both pokes fun at the absurdity of this dialogue and also, potentially, raises questions about what such inane, sometimes hateful, often inarticulate and full of rage comments tell us about our own contemporary culture.

The set for this show is expansive and incorporates various set and costume pieces ransacked from Neptune Theatre’s costume and props department (and other shows running in the festival) by WeeTube’s delightful pair of performers, James Long and Maiko Bae Yamamoto from Theatre Replacement in Vancouver, and set up to create four unique spaces onstage. There is a little oven where Yamamoto bakes cookies for the audience, a microwave for popcorn to share and a refrigerator filled with booze which both our performers drink liberally throughout the show. Most importantly, is their laptop, which projects YouTube videos onto a huge screen dominating the back wall.

These videos are divided into categories that violate the YouTube Safety Guide: 1. If You Feel Unsafe, Tell an Adult 2. The Grandmother Test 3. WTF!?. There are five videos in each category and the audience chooses three of these to be played on the giant projector and enjoyed together. After the video ends, Long and Yamamoto perform the first five or six minute of YouTube comments verbatim in alternating fashion and then move on to the next video. It sounds simplistic, it likely doesn’t even sound like theatre, especially since Yamamoto and Long don’t even memorize their lines, they listen to a pre-recording of the comments on their IPods and recite what they hear as they hear it. Theatrically, however, this is a communal experience like one that is rare in the theatre and the show that these two performers have created is fascinating in its ability to be so superficial, really a celebration almost of the inane, the mindless and uneducated stupidity of some individuals, mostly adolescents, hiding behind the anonymity of the Internet. Yet, as Erin Sheilds (who was in the audience of the performance I attended) acutely pointed out in the Talk Back session following the show, this play does raise pertinent questions for those looking for them about the state of humanity.

The first great aspect of this show is communally watching the YouTube videos, because it really is a bonding experience for the audience to share in something that has become such an inherent cultural tradition, but also one that we recognize as being a very recent sort of phenomenon. We watch videos that nearly the entire audience of strangers have seen before, The Baby PandaSneezing, for example and the Tro Lo Lo Guy. We also watch videos that maybe we haven’t seen before, but that evoke the exact same visceral experience from everyone in the theatre. There was one, entitled “Dog Pukes after Sex” where the entire audience reacted at the exact moment when the dog vomited in a similar way. We also had communal reactions to pain, as in watching a brutal video of a matador getting punctured in the face by the horn of a bull and to the sheer power of terrific awkwardness, as in the Creepy Weird Hippie Yoga TeacherFarmer, which was tense in a painful way, but a tension that bound us all together.

Secondly, as horrifically dumb as most of the comments that are recited to us are, many summed up in misspelled words or Internetspeak and as absolutely ridiculous and childish and completely useless the arguments and “debates” are that the website so often spurs, it is actually hilarious to hear them read aloud. The stupidity of it all is almost triumphant in this context and we are really given a taste of the tone and vernacular of these chosen words from the aggressive adolescent vying to post the nastiest word he knows to the xenophobic and the homophobic sprouting ignorance and hatred and the random university students seeking to contextualize and educate the masses amidst a sea of “lolz” and “faggots” and “hahahahahahahahas” and “awwwwwws” and “epic fails.” It makes me question why they try to engage in an arena that seems so morosely hopeless, and it also makes me wonder what is making these young people so filled with rage and hatred. What makes them use the anonymity that the Internet provides to scream obscenities and bully one another? Is it more prominent among the youth of a certain demographic? What will become of these kids? How seriously should we be examining this issue or is it even an “issue” at all?

When the subject of why our two performers don’t memorize their lines came up, Long suggested that not having to cement a certain pattern for the show in his memory meant that each night could have more fluidity and be a completely different show from the night before. Indeed, the audiences pick different videos each night, and apparently new ones are added to the repertoire frequently. It’s odd to think that having your lines fed to you can make an actor’s performance fresher, but in this case, that argument seems to hold up. There is something really immediate and communal about this show, one that is easy to connect with in a very unpretentious way, but that also is using theatricality and performativity in a way that seem to sometimes undermine the conventions of the theatre but still achieves a lot of the same objectives as a more traditional play.

Imagine if you will, the land of YouTube. You know what kind of vile, nasty, obscene, offensive, racisist, homophobic, masochistic, dirty, disgusting, vomit-inducing videos and comments that are peppered among the kittens, the babies and the videos of people falling over. If this sounds like a World that you would like to examine more closely than WeeTube is surely a show worth seeing. If you feel like you may be offended, you probably will be. 

WeeTube plays one more time at the Neptune Studio Theatre on Sunday May 289h at 5pm. Tickets for adults are $25.00, Seniors/DND/Arts Workers $20.00, Students $15.00. Check the complete schedule of shows here.

May 18-29, 2011

Adults $25, Seniors/DND/Arts Workers $20, Students $15

*Same day, multiple show discount. We encourage you to catch a double (or triple or quadruple!) header. Your first ticket is full price, however if you purchase tickets for a 2nd, 3rd or 4th show on the same day, those tickets are 50% off.

In person: 1593 Argyle Street Phone: 902-429-7070 Online

All prices include HST.
Neptune service charges for phone and online orders not included.

See you at Supernova!

Today I am attempting to gather my exhausted wits and to celebrate a wonderful playwright and a man that I deeply respect and admire, Mr. Brad Fraser, who has written two pages of a brand new play and the rest will be improvised live in 3D tonight at the Theatre Passe Muraille by those mavericks of mischief, those darlings of deviance the incubators of Improv…. THE NATIONAL THEATRE OF THE WORLD!!!
Brad Fraser. I was introduced to Brad’s work late in the game, although I had certainly heard his name bouncing around much earlier. The first Fraser play I saw was, at that time, his latest, True Love Lies at Factory Theatre, where I had a similar reaction, I think, to most people who see Fraser plays. I was obsessed with the dialogue. He is called a “master” of writing dialogue and I don’t care how many plays you have seen, written, directed, acted in, dramaturged or avoided, you see a Fraser play and you immediately have some sort of revelation about how meticulously and accurately the vernacular and rhythms of speech in conversation can be captured for the stage. Fraser’s play made me realize how false and heightened and hugely articulate and poetic most dialogue in plays are written to be. I read somewhere where Fraser’s plays were likened to “overhearing a conversation between two people on the bus” and that seems to me to hit right at the heart of what Fraser’s plays can do. They don’t seem written, but with a keen eye and knowledge of the theatre, one knows the amount of talent it takes to seem almost invisible.
I next play I saw of Fraser’s was one of his first, a recent non-Equity production of Wolf Boy (1981), which was an ambitious but uneven production, but still really fascinating and exciting and I came away wishing that I had seen one of the initial performances. The play still resonates and is still, sadly, relevant, I am sure that it must have been a powerful and provocative piece in the cultural and politically climate of the early 1980s. His plays are not only political but they belong to the moment they’re being written. Fraser assaults the present moment, he exposes its underbelly with a fierce quest to examine and question the things that people hold sacred, the conventions we cling to and the deep complexities and contradictions inherent in all our daily interactions.

Other Brad Fraser plays include Chainsaw Love (1985, Edmonton Fringe Festival), Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love (1989, Alberta Theatre Projects PlayRites Festival, has since been produced in Edmonton, Toronto, Chicago, New York, Sydney, London, Sao Paulo and Cincinnati, among other cities), The Ugly Man (1993, Workshop West Theatre, Edmonton), Poor Super Man (1994, Cincinnati Ensemble Theatre, since produced in Edmonton, Buffalo, Edinburgh, London, Washington D.C, Toronto, Montreal, Sydney and Sao Paulo, Martin Yesterday (1998), Outrageous (2000, Canadian Stage, Toronto), Snake in Fridge (2001, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester) and San Francisco, Cold Meat Party (2003, Royal Exchange Theatre) also Factory Theatre (Toronto), and his most recent play 5 @ 50 which debuted at the Royal Exchange in 2011. His plays are available in print at Theatre Books in Toronto and I recommend checking them out. Also a very early play of his Mutants is included in Robin Whittaker’s anthology of plays that Premiered at the Walterdale Playhouse Hot Thespian Action which is available to read for free here.

Fraser has been internationally honoured and acclaimed for his work. He has twice received the Chalmers Award (Unidentified… and Poor Super Man) and was nominated for the Governor General’s Award for Poor Super Man, 1996). He is a five-time winner of the Alberta Culture Playwriting Competition and five-time winner of the Alberta Writers’ Guild Drama Award. He also received the London Evening Standard Award for best new play and the Los Angeles Critics’ Award. I wish that his plays were given professional revivals more in Toronto because there are a great many that I have not seen and want to very ardently. I’m especially eager to see Snake in Fridge, which is not as well known as much of his other work, which is likely why I want so ardently to see it. Based loosely on the salacious exploits of Michael Alig, here is an excerpt from the description on Fraser’s website, “Led by the steroid abusing, foul mouthed, unbelievably angry club kid, Corbett, seven people, all working in the sex industry, share a house in Toronto.” Sounds like it belongs at Buddies, right? Can we make that happen? Brendan Healey? Yes?
The media loves Brad Fraser. Or, rather, they love to sensationalize the “Brad Fraser: Bad Boy of the Canadian Theatre” image that they constructed decades ago. What bothers me about this is that too often they write off what he says as being, “just Brad Fraser stirring up scandal” or “Brad Fraser, once again, being subversive” that “rebellious, bad, bad, boy”, instead of actually taking a moment to consider the legitimacy of what he is saying. Could it be that the mainstream Canadian media are typically cowardly and self interested… well we all saw what happened with The Globe and Mail during the recent election. So, what do you think? To me, Brad Fraser is a Canadian theatre hero, and one that is not afraid to give voice to the issues that are pertinent in our community. He is smart, he is passionate, he is articulate and he calls out bullshit in a way that is not only refreshing, but necessary for the Canadian theatre to be better, stronger and to bring forth work and artists that are world-class, unique, brave and that fuel and evoke volatile reaction from their audiences. Brad Fraser demands better from all of us, he refuses to give in to complacency; he refuses to settle for mediocre. Yet, it all comes from his faith in what this country and its artists can do. Brad Fraser inspires me to dig deeper, t never stifle my curiosity and to never, ever be afraid, to consent to being bullied or being made to feel intimidated by anyone with power, money or clout. He helps keep me true to my heart and he helps keep my heart searching for the truth.
According to the Canadian Theatre Encylopedia Fraser “was once a contributor to The National Post, considered a right-wing publication. About this he told Edmonton’s Vue Magazine, in June, 2000, “…I’m really tired of preaching to the converted. I could write for a great many publications where they’d agree with everything I say. But I really want to write for the people who don’t agree with everything I say.”” I think that speaks wonders of him as a man and a human being.

I saw The National Theatre of the world perform a Brad Fraser Impromptu Splendor with special guest Chris Craddock over a year and a half ago. Brad was the first playwright that I know of who attended a Splendor in his own style and his reaction was very enthusiastic and he has been an ardent supporter of The National Theatre of the World and their work ever since. Tonight is sure to be a hot and sexy, wild and foul-mouthed adventure, likely with some bare bottoms and booze. Tickets have sold out, but I would still recommend moseying down to Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson Avenue) and lining up early to join the Waiting List.

hannah moscovitch

In preparation for the writing of this blog I just googled Hannah Moscovitch (and it was not my first time) and the first headline that caught my eye was one from The Star from October 2007 (!) that read, “Hannah Moscovitch is Already Famous.” And she is. If you are at all interested in the theatre in Canada, if you have seen plays recently in Toronto, or really, in any city center across the country, you must know who Hannah Moscovitch is, and if you don’t, just go home. No, I’m kidding! Don’t go home in defeat! Go to Theatre Passe Muraille TONIGHT May 26^th, 2011 at 9:30pm to see the first two pages of a play written by Hannah Moscovitch and the rest exuberantly improvised in her distinct style by those mavericks of mischief, those dandies of deliciousness, those impresarios of improvisation THE NATIONAL THEATRE OF THE WORLD!!

It is so beautifully appropriate that someone like Hannah Moscovitch be one of the most hotly anticipated, most readily produced, most “successful,” most exciting and fascinating and famous and destined for greatness young Canadian playwrights of our time. It is so beautifully appropriate because I have never met anyone so devoid of ego, so sweetly, and slightly awkwardly, self deprecating and always so quick to dispel praise with a quick and endearing wave of her hand. I hope this blog doesn’t embarrass her. It makes my heart extra happy to see success come to those who do not court it, but who earn and deserve it. Hannah is one such artist.

If you know Hannah Moscovitch’s work you likely know East Of Berlin, which has been produced so many times at the Tarragon Theatre that Toronto has lost count- and no one is quicker with a dry witty remark at the expense of the surprise smash success of the play about Nazi children with Daddy issues than Hannah herself. I have seen East of Berlin twice, once at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, which was my introduction to Moscovitch’s work, and once at the Bus Stop Theatre in Halifax, produced by 2b Theatre. East of Berlin smacked me, metaphorically speaking, in the face… and I liked it. There is something very assaulting about this play, but far more in tone and in language than in action. There is this distinct energy, and I’ve found it in other plays by Hannah as well, she infuses her words and her characters with this fantastic tension. I don’t know if I would call it inner anger or inner rage, but there is a dissatisfaction there… a desire for something else that manifests itself in grit and strength. Hannah doesn’t write about weak people. Nothing about her work is mediocre or wishy-washy. This is exactly what the theatre needs, she breathes that life into what can be an archaic medium, shaking it up and shaking us up too.

If you have been familiar with Toronto’s independent theatre scene for some time you may have seen two plays before East of Berlin debuted: Essay (2005) and The Russian Play (2006), both which premiered at the Summerworks Festival before I moved from Halifax. Yet, for those of you who did not have a chance to see these plays performed, and for those who liked them so much you would like to revisit them or perhaps even produce one yourself, you can pick up a copy of the published edition of The Russian Play And Other Short Works from Theatre Books and delve into them at your leisure. I read the entire thing in one sitting, delighted, enthralled and impressed and wishing that I had been in the city to have seen them come to life.

I also fell in love with Hannah’s segment of Theatrefront’s The Mill Cycle, which was Part Two: The Huron Bride, directed by Christian Barry. Together these two are a dream team creating magic. I think that Barry’s mastery of lighting and soundscape especially helps to create worlds that accentuate and mirror the tension and tone inherent in Hannah’s work. In The Mill especially I found that the staging seemed to feed off the script especially fervently and vice versa, mostly because together they made such stunning use of silence.

One of her newer plays In This World just ended its run at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre For Young People Studio Theatre. I heard her speak about it early in the development process over a year ago at Canadian Stage and it sounded fascinating. I hope that I will have another opportunity to see it and that it will come soon. 

Hannah is a brilliant writer and one who is still very early in her career and her development as a playwright. I can’t wait to see what she offers up next, but for now, you can revel in some imagined homage as Matt Baram, Ron Pederson and Naomi Snieckus, likely, at least at some point, channelling Brendan Gall, serve up a brand new Moscovitch-inspired dish.

The Script Tease Project plays at Theatre Passe Muraille MAY 24-29. 16 Ryerson Avenue. Tickets are $20.00 ($15.00 for students) Get there early, they will more than likely sell out or book ahead at www.artsboxoffice.ca. Here is the complete schedule. 

MAY 24-29

Thursday, May 26th 8pm Woody Harrelson SOLD OUT!!

Thursday, May 26th 9:30 Hannah Moscovitch

Friday, May 27th 8:pm Brad Fraser

Saturday, May 28th 2pm Morris Panych

Saturday, May 28th 8pm Mark McKinney

Sunday, May 29th 2pm Norm Foster

Sunday, May 29th 8pm John Patrick Shanley

Got Splendor? Come see a play that will make you laugh with your heart.

brendan mcmurtry-howlett

As Attila Clemann, playwright of The Gesamtkunstwerk Project’s (Montreal) ... and stockings for the ladies, now playing at Eastern Front Theatre’s Supernova Festival, points out in his programme notes, there have been a wide multiplicity of work written about The Holocaust and the horrific accounts and tragic tales of unimaginable loss and cruelty from within the Concentration Camps but less is known about what happened to the survivors after the Liberation. As Clemann found out in the creation of this play, one such story of rebirth and the goodness of humanity seeking to heal the wounds inflicted by the evils of another, centers on the work of two Canadians in the displaced persons’ camp of Bergen-Belsen.

The story centers around Ted Applin, a real person, who was a member with the 84^th Disarmament Group of the Royal Canadian Air Forces sent to disarm the Nazi Luftwaffe, who was instrumental for bringing extra supplies, clothes, food and along with it some fun, dignity and humanity to the survivors of Bergen-Belsen. He was especially moved by the Jewish children, 52 of them, who were rescued after being abandoned behind the Concentration Camp and left time die. Camp prisoner Luba Tryszynska found them and valiantly fought the SS Guards for the chance to take care of them among the squalor, the starvation and death at the camp.

I am overwhelmed at the idea of having to somehow capture such a mammoth experience into a brief review, so I will begin by telling you that …and stockings for the ladies is one of the greatest pieces of theatricality I have ever seen. This is the brilliant work, entirely in tight knit collaboration, of three people, Clemann, who has penned the words, Zach Fraser who directs and Brendan McMurtry-Howlett who brings it all to life. The story could be an epic film, as it has a sort of filmic intersection of story lines and a scope that brings into focus characters from varying countries who at times do not appear to be connected, but the through-line is intricately woven and all becomes clear as Clemann ties all the characters irrevocably together. Fraser uses light, sounds, puppets, a few effectively used props and set pieces and most impressively, the body of his one actor, to catapult us into the world of this place and also to hurtle us through time and space within moments between various scenes. Everything onstage is crisp, clear, vibrant, creative and playful in a way that honours the proud, complex and at times heart wrenching story that is being told while treating the audience to a myriad of haunting and staggering images with the power to haunt and immediately captivate.

Onstage, it is all Brendan McMurty-Howlett. He plays 23 different characters throughout the play and always with incredible physicality and specificity, so much so that his physical appearance seems at times to be magically transformative and oddly fluid. He captures so much of each of his characters, from the speech impediment of a little boy, to the lisp of a postal worker, not to mention nailing the accents of people from Germany, Great Britain, Amsterdam and even a young Jewish boy learning Hebrew. What also struck me, beyond pure awe, was that McMurty-Howlett gives so much exuberance and personality to each individual, but he also knows that some will be more uniquely theatrical than others. His vocal intonations sometimes vary drastically, but at other times thy only modify slightly. This keeps the play from turning into a cartoon. 

Quite frankly, McMurty-Howlett was born to do this show. It is the perfect vehicle for him to show off in an environment where one is never aware of that aspect of his performance, but only delighted and enraptured with the way he tells the story and the narrative and characters that emerge. If he keeps working at this calibre for the rest of his career, one can only dream of the heights he will reach.

There is so much to be inspired by in this play and it is brought to life with ingenuity and heart. I would get your tickets fast because this one is sure to sell out. 

…and stockings for the ladies plays one more time at the Neptune Studio Theatre on Saturday May 28th at 3pm. Tickets for adults are $25.00, Seniors/DND/Arts Workers $20.00, Students $15.00. Check the complete schedule of shows here. 

May 18-29, 2011

Adults $25, Seniors/DND/Arts Workers $20, Students $15

*Same day, multiple show discount.  We encourage you to catch a double (or triple or quadruple!) header.  Your first ticket is full price, however if you purchase tickets for a 2nd, 3rd or 4th show on the same day, those tickets are 50% off.

In person: 1593 Argyle Street    Phone: 902-429-7070   Online

All prices include HST.
Neptune service charges for phone and online orders not included.

TORONTO: …and stockings for the ladies will play at the Tarragon Theatre Extra Space (30 Bridgeman Avenue, TORONTO) June 1-5, 2011. For tickets or more information please call 

416.531.1827 or go online!!!!  

andrew chandler, amy reitsma, garry williams

Two years ago I was blown away by DaPoPo Theatre’s original musical offering for the 2009 Fringe Festival, a last-minute song cycle So… What About Love written and performed, almost accidentally, by Andrew Chandler, Amy Reitsma and Garry Williams when their initial performance plans fell through and they decided to throw caution to the wind and create a show from scratch instead. The first show was a triumph, the perfect mixture of quirky, contemporary songs, poignant and humorous monologues and a sweet, endearing heart that beat steadfastly through it all. The vague conceit of So What About Love returns to the Neptune Studio Theatre this week as part of Eastern Front’s Supernova Festival, and while much that was initially great has gotten better, it has sadly lost a lot of the heart that once made it so beautiful.

If you have never seen So What About Love in any of its other incarnations, I think you will be impressed by the panache of its songs and the sometimes brilliant intricate lyrical construction. You will likely be entertained, and maybe a bit steamrolled, by the back-to-back jokes, one more outrageous than the next, and, especially if you have never seen her before, you will likely fall in love with Amy Reitsma. All good things! There is still a lot that works in this musical, beginning right from the strong Opening image (enter, the company, from stage left in their underwear). The song “I Just Want to Have Sex With You” is still delightful and Ann-Marie Kerr’s creative staging of it exemplifies a perfect mixture of endearing heart, odd awkwardness and wry mischief that I wish was indicative of the entire show. Reitsma sings this gorgeous jazzy, bluesy Ella Fitzgerald type number, my favourite in the show, which almost sounds out of place because it is so professionally polished and not pastiching itself. The Ninja Song is still a hilarious and fun romp that also captures and attacks our frustrations surrounding love unrequited and lost and once again, Kerr’s staging has made something that worked well in the Fringe shine even brighter.

              

What struck me most about this rendition of the show, and this also could be exacerbated by the fact that it was Opening Night, was how hard it seemed that Chandler and Williams and Reitsma were trying to make it hilarious. I felt that a lot of time, they were playing the punch lines rather than relaxing into their characters and their stories and trusting that the laughs would immerge organically from both. This was a little frustrating for me to watch because in the Fringe production, the show’s humour was all there, just intrinsically, but this one has lost a lot of the depth of the characters in the vignettes and much of its poignancy at the expense of really overt attempts to make the audience crack up. 

I also think that the main conceit of the show, that dream where you show up unprepared and in your underwear, may be holding back the show’s potential to grow. As I said, there is one song of Reitsma’s that is a perfectly polished, beautifully constructed song that sounds like it belongs in the repertoire of the professional musical theatre. A lot of the other songs are written to sound improvised, bumpy, half-forgotten and awkward to fit the overall concept. I wonder if they allowed the complexity and intricacy of the songs to grow as the play progressed (as though they were learning and improving as they went along), ending, perhaps, with something written to be accompanied by an orchestra, if this would give a more ardent arc to the show and allow these emerging songwriters to keep the self-consciously written less than perfect gems in their score, but also carve out a place for the songs it is clear they are capable of writing that are more refined.

The most curious aspect of this show to me was the choice to have Garry Williams and Andrew Chandler acting so far out of their various elements. Williams isn’t Groucho Marx, Chandler isn’t Humphrey Bogart. Why aren’t they writing material for themselves that showcase their strengths? Amy Reitsma ends up standing out in this incarnation of the show, not because she is “more talented” but just because the material that she has given herself to work with is perfectly tailored to what she is able to do as an actor, as a singer and as a performer. Taking risks and stretching yourself is admirable, of course, and I don’t want to push Williams and Chandler into a comfort zone box at all, only that I think we miss out in this show of seeing Chandler and Williams being perpetually at their best and we miss it.

So What About Love, especially musically, is still one of the most exciting musical theatre shows I have seen come out of Halifax, I still recommend you going to see it, especially if this is your first time, but overall, ironically and oddly, the material seems to not trust its actors inherent ability and likability enough, and it really should, because they’re terrific.

 Week Two: May 24-29: Dedicated to the Revolutions, So…What About Love?, …and stockings for the ladies andWeeTube.

Tickets are on sale at the Neptune Theatre Box Office. Adults $25, Seniors/DND/Arts Workers $20, Students $15. *Same day, multiple show discount. We encourage you to catch a double (or triple or quadruple!) header. Your first ticket is full price, however if you purchase tickets for a 2nd, 3rd or 4th show on the same day, those tickets are 50% off.

In person: 1593 Argyle Street. Phone: 902-429-7070. Online. All prices include HST. Neptune service charges for phone and online orders not included. Check out the full schedule here.

The Carleton Music Bar and Grille on Argyle is the SuperNova Festival HotSpot. You’re invited to mix and mingle with the cast and crew every night after the final performance. Take your Supernova ticket stub with you and get 10% off your order.

See you at the Supernova!

woody harrelson

What can I tell you about Woody Harrelson that you do not already know, and very likely know better than I do? Harrelson is a fascinating artist who has had a very successful career in all three mediums of the performing arts, on television, in film and on stage. With his newest work Bullet for Adolf, which premiered last month at Toronto’s Hart House Theatre, he has now added playwright and director to his ever-expanding resume and he pens two pages of a brand new play which will be taken up, performed and brought to fruition by the master improvisers of the National Theatre of the World in their Script Tease Project, which continues tonight at 8pm at the Theatre Passe Muraille.

As someone whose knowledge of film and television is always dramatically eclipsed by my knowledge of theatre, my first-hand knowledge of Harrelson’s work is minimal, and not at all indicative of his talent as an actor. However, I did grow up watching the famed sitcom Cheers at my Aunt and Uncle’s house. Since I was in elementary school, I was drawn more ardently to the broader humour I could understand, that of Carla, the wisecracking waitress, played by Rhea Pearlman (an early comedic hero of mine) and the naive assistant bartender Woody, played by Harrelson, whose lack of comprehension for anything around him was a running gag of constant glee for my six year old sensibilities. Harrelson was on Cheers for eight seasons, from 1985 to 1993, and the show has continued to play in syndication nearly without pause ever since. The next time that Harrelson came on my radar was when he joined the cast of Will and Grace for a handful of episodes as Grace’s boyfriend, fun-loving and rambunctious Nathan. It was during this short stint, actually, that I remember being struck by Harrelson’s ability to play what could be considered a relatively simply constructed character, but to bring a real sense of poignancy at times to the role.

Harrelson’s accolades for his acting talents have mostly come to him from his film career, especially after starring in the Milos Forman film The People vs. Larry Flynt, in which he played the tit;e role, publisher of Hustler magazine, and for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award for Best Actor. He was also featured in such films as Welcome to Sarajevo (1997), Wag the Dog, (1997), The Thin Red Line (1999), Play It to the Bone (1997), The Walker (2007) and No Country for Old Men (2007) among others, for which he and his cast mates won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Cast. His most highly praised performance as an actor by critics was as Captain Tony Stone in The Messenger (2009) and he was nominated for a Satelite Award, an Independent Spirit Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and an Academy Award for this film and won the Best Supporting Actor award in the 2009 National Board of Review award ceremonies.

On stage, Harrelson directed his own play, Furthest from the Sun at the theater de la Juene Luene in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1999. He then performed in Roundabout’s Broadway rivial of N. Richard Nash’s play The Rainmaker in 2000, Sam Shepard’s The Late Henry Moss in 2001, John Kolvenbach’s On an Average Day in London’s West End in the Fall of 2002 and in the winter of 2005/2006 he directed the Toronto premiere of Kenneth Longergan’s This Is Our Youth at the Berkeley Street Theatre. In 2005 he returned to London’s West End, starring in Tennessee Williams’ Night of the Iguana and recently his play Bullet for Adolph (co-written with Frankie Hyman) opened to tepid reviews at the Hart House Theatre in Toronto and a commotion over his choice to use non union Canadian actors rather than following tradition Professional Theatre protocol and paying actors, whose livelihood is made in the theatre, in accordance with the union guidelines.

Regardless of the reviews and the union kerfuffle, however, what I think is the most exciting thing about Bullet for Adolph is the choice by Harrelson to premiere his new work in Toronto. He did not march into our city with a ready-made American product, usurping our media from adequately covering our own indigenous work, but instead he came to work within our community and with our community in the creation of something new. Harrelson may be a celebrity as an actor, but he doesn’t have a lot of experience as a playwright or as a director, but I have not heard or read any evidence of him touting himself as having all the answers or as being an expert. He is carving out for himself a new means of self expression, and Hart House Theatre, with its rich history of experimentation, amateur theatre turning professional and its ties to the student theatre there, seems like a perfect venue for him to come in and to learn, just as we allow novice Canadian directors and playwrights to learn, and to take risks and we hope, as theatregoers and artists alike, that the plays we see with potential that aren’t quite perfect, and most of the critics in this city state that Bullet for Adolph has potential, will be continually workshopped to grow and flourish. Harrelson has come to Toronto with respect for our own theatre tradition, one that he would like to be a part of, and his stature within the Hollywood and International Arts Scene is bringing interest and recognition to our theatre community and tradition in this city and that is really wonderful. Similarly tonight, as he lends some of his words to our own beloved professional trio of Canadian superstars, Matt Baram, Naomi Snieckus and Ron Pederson, Harrelson is once again showing that he is interested in connecting and collaborating and engaging with us. This is truly terrific and I truly believe is the best possible relationship that can be forged between Canadian actors and those, not just “from” Hollywood, but actors from everywhere all across the world.

I was sad to miss Bullet for Adolf, being in Halifax at the time, but I found this beautiful poem that Harrelson wrote, which is more indicative, I think, of his environmental activism and his beautiful view of the world. It evokes a spirit of Ginsberg and Dylan and the imagery it conjures is lovely. The National Theatre of the World may be in for some poetry tonight! Heaven knows with Ron Pederson in their midst, the evening would be remiss without it!!

thoughts from within

by woody harrelson

i sometimes feel like an alien creature 
for which there is no earthly explanation 
Sure I have human form 
walking erect and opposing digits, 
but my mind is upside down. 
I feel like a run-on sentence 
in a punctuation crazy world. 
and I see the world around me 
like a mad collective dream. 

An endless stream of people 
move like ants from the freeway 
cell phones, pcs, and digital displays 
“In Money We Trust,” 
we’ll find happiness 
the prevailing attitude; 
like a genetically modified irradiated Big Mac 
is somehow symbolic of food. 

Morality is legislated 
prisons over-populated 
religion is incorporated 
the profit-motive has permeated all activity 
we pay our government to let us park on the street 
And war is the biggest money-maker of all 
we all know missile envy only comes from being small. 

Politicians and prostitutes 
are comfortable together 
I wonder if they talk about the strange change in the weather. 
This government was founded by, of, and for the people 
but everybody feels it 
like a giant open sore 
they don’t represent us anymore 
And blaming the President for the country’s woes 
is like yelling at a puppet 
for the way it sings 
Who’s the man behind the curtain pulling the strings? 

A billion people sitting watching their TV 
in the room that they call living 
but as for me 
I see living as loving 
and since there is no loving room 
I sit on the grass under a tree 
dreaming of the way things used to be 
Pre-Industrial Revolution 
which of course is before the rivers and oceans, and skies were polluted 

before Parkinson’s, and mad cows 
and all the convoluted cacophony of bad ideas 
like skyscrapers, and tree paper, and earth rapers 
like Monsanto and Dupont had their way 
as they continue to today. 

This was Pre-us 
back when the buffalo roamed 
and the Indian’s home 
was the forest, and God was nature 
and heaven was here and now 
Can you imagine clean water, food, and air 
living in community with animals and people who care? 

Do you dare to feel responsible for every dollar you lay down 
are you going to make the rich man richer 
or are you going to stand your ground 
You say you want a revolution 
a communal evolution 
to be a part of the solution 
maybe I’ll be seeing you around 

Tonight is the third night of The National Theatre of the World’s Script Tease Project at Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson Avenue, Toronto)Tickets are $20 ($15 Students) and I would recommend getting to TPM early as tickets are selling fast. Or reserve yours online at http://www.artsboxoffice.ca. Catch them while you can. The schedule is as follows.

MAY 24-29

Thursday, May 26th 8pm Woody Harrelson

Thursday, May 26th 9:30 Hannah Moscovitch

Friday, May 27th 8:pm Brad Fraser

Saturday, May 28th 2pm Morris Panych

Saturday, May 28th 8pm Mark McKinney

Sunday, May 29th 2pm Norm Foster

Sunday, May 29th 8pm John Patrick Shanley

Got Splendor? Come see a play that will make you laugh with your heart.

dedicated to the revolutions (photo from 2008 Rhubarb Festival)

Small Wooden Shoe (Toronto)’s production of Dedicated to the Revolutions was inspired by a list of seven scientific revolutions, Guttenberg, Copernicus, Newton, Industrial, Darwin, Nuclear and Information, compiled by performer and co-creator Jacob Zimmer’s eighth grade teacher some time ago in Nova Scotia. With curiosity in their hearts and mischief up their sleeves, six Toronto-based performers (Zimmer, Frank Cox-O’Connell, Erin Sheilds, Evan Webber, Chad Dembski, Ame Henderson) demonstrate these scientific marvels in the spirit of an exuberant and hilarious Junior High Science Fair.

Dedicated to the Revolutions is by no means a narrative play and the six performers are essentially playing heightened and performative renditions of themselves as they take the audience into the world of science, as they, a pack of actors, directors and playwrights, understand it, filling every nook and cranny of the stage with action, investigation, experimentation and demonstration. The show begins with an intense game of Jenga, which is also projected onto the back wall of the stage, so that the audience can see, from different angles, as the tower begins to wobble and sway. Invoking the laws of gravity, five of the performers hold the audience completely captivated with their competitive, joyful and playful reactions to the rapidly intensifying game. They keep track of the “toppler” of the tower, in our show it was Frank Cox-O’Connell, on chart paper with a sharpie, and the show begins in earnest.

We learn that while we have been occupied in the theatre, one of the performers, Evan Webber, who was made, roughly, in 1982, was engaged in a race against a printer in the lobby, also made in 1982, to see who could reproduce The Bible faster. Eerily, the Bible stopped on the verse from Chapter 8 of Genesis, “the imagination of man’s heart is evil,” (so if it wasn’t apparent beforehand, apparently we are all going to Hell). Evan did not make it quite so far, not even finishing Chapter 1. This demonstrated, quite clearly, the advances made possible for us from the invention of Guttenberg’s printing press. Next, using tin cans that actually work, the six performers demonstrated the advancements of communication from telephone lines to the Internet, and sang us two different songs to help us remember the order of the keys on a keyboard.

If I gave you a basic description of this show it might sound dreadfully boring and technical, but it is, in fact, the very opposite. All the demonstrations, using everything from skipping ropes to beach balls, are reminiscent of an exhibit one might find at the Discovery Centre, the ones that are designed for children but that adults always seem to make excuses to play on in the name of “learning” (or sometimes “teaching”). What also works in this show’s favour is the ensemble. There is a perceptible sense of camaraderie and friendship on this stage, which is palpable from the moment they begin to play Jenga together. This immediately endears the audience to them and urges them to want to play along too. None of their lines seem entirely scripted, so in the spirit of Improvisation, they are, in fact always playing, which manifests in the ability to discover jokes as they emerge organically from the action and to be able to make each other laugh. The humour and playful irreverence for science is what truly ties this play together. At times rambling on tirades of stream of consciousness, drawing pictures of random association, feeding off one other and adding dry, sarcastic epitaphs that undercut all that has gone before, nothing is taken seriously or held as solemn or truth.

I was also fascinated by the mixture of various technologies used in this show, which mirror the vast array of time periods that are demonstrated throughout the show. At one point a video camera is used to project pieces from the stage onto the back wall, yet at another point, we are shown lightning rods, as depicted by Cox-O’Connell batting two badminton rackets. Erin Sheilds spends a great deal of time at a wipe-out board doing long division, getting the calculations that could have been immediate if they had chosen to use a cell phone, or even a calculator. Yet, what made me so interested, especially in Sheilds, was that the audience was watching her transfixed as she did her long division, filling the board with numbers and careful calculations. I started to wonder if math fascinates us now because it is, so often, an unused skill, like juggling or riding a unicycle. There are so many little gems in this show, the simplistic wisdom like one would expect from a precocious child.

Dedicated to the Revolutions is a fun show, it is an interesting show and it is really funny. I am not sure what we are supposed to take from it when leaving the theatre, but as an opportunity to let our imagination and curiosity play, it definitely entertains and even enlightens!

The Supernova Festival continues this week with FOUR NEW SHOWS.

Week Two: May 24-29: Dedicated to the Revolutions, So…What About Love?, …and stockings for the ladies and WeeTube.

Tickets are on sale at the Neptune Theatre Box Office. Adults $25, Seniors/DND/Arts Workers $20, Students $15. *Same day, multiple show discount. We encourage you to catch a double (or triple or quadruple!) header. Your first ticket is full price, however if you purchase tickets for a 2nd, 3rd or 4th show on the same day, those tickets are 50% off.

In person: 1593 Argyle Street. Phone: 902-429-7070. Online. All prices include HST. Neptune service charges for phone and online orders not included. Check out the full schedule here.

The Carleton Music Bar and Grille on Argyle is the SuperNova Festival HotSpot. You’re invited to mix and mingle with the cast and crew every night after the final performance. Take your Supernova ticket stub with you and get 10% off your order.

See you at the Supernova!

daniel macivor



When Naomi Snieckus was brainstorming ideas for which playwrights to ask to write two pages for The National Theatre of the World’s Script Tease Project, the first words out of my mouth were, “Daniel MacIvor!!” and so today, TWISI and the NTOW are proudly celebrating International Daniel MacIvor Day and tonight at 8pm at Theatre Passe Muraille is a brand new play, with two pages written by MacIvor, and the rest improvised by Naomi Snieckus, Matt Baram and Ron Pederson in his distinct style.

Daniel MacIvor played an extremely definitive role in shaping my relationship to the theatre because it was in reading, and mostly in watching, MacIvor’s work in my first year as a theatre studies student at Dalhousie University that I realized not only that contemporary theatre was being made by Canadian playwrights, but also that the work that was being created was of a quality comparable to that being produced in world-class theatres everwhere else in the world. This was a huge revelation for me and one that dictated the path that I would embark on for the next eight years and into the infinite future. The first MacIvor play I read was In On It, as part of my Theatre 1000 class, which began with Sophocles and ended with MacIvor and covered a selection of the classics every theatre student should know in the middle. I remember having to write a paper on In On It, in which I proposed a touring production of the play starring two young Haligonian actors, Rhys Bevan-John, who now works primarily with Mermaid Theatre and Bill Wood, who is most well-known as part of Halifax’s infamous sketch comedy troupe Picnicface. I finished the paper with the following sentence that 18 year old me was exorbitantly delighted with, “Through this student tour, we are able to reach those who might have never been able to see a production of any kind and say to them, “You Are Here, This is a Play, A-Two-Man-One-Man-Show, and we wanted to let you In On It.” Obviously, my life calling was clear.

At around the same time Daniel MacIvor was at Dalhousie University directing the fourth year acting students in his play You Are Here, which I was required to see once as part of my program. It was the only DalTheatre show in four years that I did not work on but saw more than once. I would have gone every night if I could have afforded it. I have told this story so many times, but I have to share it again because it is one of my favourite Canadian Theatre stories of all time and to me, it never ever gets old. The first time I saw You Are Here was the invited Dress Rehearsal, basically reserved for all the first year students who had to see the show and write about it for class. In this production the main character, the protagonist, around whom the entire play revolves, was played by the extremely talented Gillian Anderson (not the X-Files star, the Haligonian actor known for playing the White Witch in Neptune Theatre’s Youth Performance Company’s Production of Narnia. She’s a big deal, I swear.). Anyway, big deal or not, Gillian Anderson was sick and there were no understudies, so rather than cancel the show, we got to see Daniel MacIvor, script in hand, in comedic genius overload, play Alison. It is to this day one of the funniest, most meta-theatrical theatre experiences I have ever had in my life and one that I will always cherish.

What really impressed me about You Are Here, however, was that the play was strong enough to work on both these levels. On the one hand, suddenly things that would not have been funny with Gillian playing Alison were immediately hilarious, and it was fascinating to watch Daniel MacIvor perform, even though, or perhaps especially because, he was playing a part that no one would ever cast him in, a part that he would probably never play again. It was especially fascinating for me because I had never seen MacIvor in person, and I was only very freshly introduced to his work, so suddenly to have him burst out onstage, with all that characteristic MacIvor exuberance and self-deprecating humour was almost too good to be true. Yet, You Are Here, still resonated, and resonated strongly, as the play that MacIvor had written, even though it wasn’t being presented the way it had been intended, and at the end of the play I found myself sobbing my eyes out. I had never been so moved by a play in my life, and that intense, visceral experience that I had that night has very rarely been replicated (and I have seen *a lot* of plays!). In that moment You Are Here became my first favourite play, and it remains one of my favourites to this day. I went back and saw Gillian in the role of Alison a few nights later, and fell in love all over again. I would love to see a professional production of this play; it just kills me every time I read it.

Here is a bit of a “review” I wrote from this production that I saw in 2003 (keep in mind, I’m 18 years old), “I personally believe that Daniel MacIvor is a creative genius, some of his observations on the world are so profound and sometimes he has the ability to vocalize ideas that whirl around in everyone’s brain, but that they’ve never given a second thought to. I really respect people who can make their audience go, “Gee I do that too, I just never realized that before.”

I usually use Daniel MacIvor as an example of how odd the theatre culture can be in Nova Scotia. As I said, I didn’t know who Daniel MacIvor was until my first year of University, and only because I was taking a Theatre class, yet, one of my best friends, who grew up in Antigonish, Nova Scotia had been seeing MacIvor perform in his one-man shows all the time when we were teenagers, and yet all the while, I had no idea that any such thing was going on or even existed! I literally had no idea what I was missing. I’m still so jealous of all the amazing MacIvor shows that Kyle has seen that I have only read and read about. Obviously theatre in Nova Scotia needs a marketing strategy and one that targets the young people of the province who are excited and passionate about the theatre. It also helps that Neptune Theatre, under Artistic Director George Pothitos, has renewed its commitment to producing Canadian plays, and it is really fantastic to see MacIvor’s work among their Studio Theatre series recently.

My policy regarding Daniel MacIvor is a simple one. If there is a Daniel MacIvor related something and I am able, I will go. My friend Laurel Green and I took a jaunt up to Stratford during our Masters Degree to see a reading of MacIvor’s then newest play His Greatness, which featured the late great Richard Monette and was the first time I ever saw Allan Hawco (Jake Doyle from Republic of Doyle) onstage. I spent a lot of my student loan money buying every single one of MacIvor’s plays at Theatre Books (I shouldn’t be allowed in there, it is the most dangerous place in the world for my credit card) and I read each one at least twice (and often aloud alone in my dorm room). I went to a reading that MacIvor did of a bunch of plays he was working on in a little parlour room at the University of Toronto a year or so ago, and even in their early forms, I was captivated and so moved by his reading, which is always so animated and hilarious. I saw How It Works, A Beautiful View and Communion at Tarragon Theatre and loved them all, but especially Communion, and I fell in such love with Tracey Wright and Caroline Gillis, what treats and delights they are to watch.

There is something in the way that Daniel MacIvor writes that I have felt, since first seeing You Are Here, that he gives poetic life to the messy thoughts that tumble through my soul like drying laundry. I find myself often yelling, “YES!!!” in silent camaraderie with his characters, and I have also, sometimes, even been able to anticipate his punch lines before they come. Maybe it is because we are from the same crazy ocean, but I have always felt a special affinity to MacIvor’s words. He speaks my language. He tells the stories that I relate to ardently even though, with the exception of Marion Bridge, they are not rooted in any particular Maritime folklore or culture. For me, MacIvor’s plays have always been magical ones that cut right to the heart while making me laugh and think and never fail to inspire me to go home and write something of my own, which is also something I am grateful for.

To this day, I have still only seen one of MacIvor’s iconic, legendary, wildly impressive and sought after one-man shows. I saw the premiere production of This is What Happens Next, directed by Daniel Brooks at Canadian Stage and it was everything that I expected and more. We are so lucky to have Daniel MacIvor and his incredible talent and creativity in our midst. His other plays include House, Cul De Sac, Monster, Here Lies Henry, See Bob Run, Wild Abandon, Yes I Am And Who Are You?, Somewhere I Have Never Travelled, and Never Swim Alone. You can buy his plays individually or in his Governor General Award winning anthology I Still Love You. He has won two Dora Mavor Moore Awards, is a Chalmers Awards laureate and was the recipient of the 2008 Elinore & Lou Siminovitch Prize in Theatre.

He is also connected to some other playwrights of the Script Tease Project: He was an actor in Judith Thompson’s (May 24, 8pm) play White Biting Dog directed by Morris Panych (May 28th, 2pm), and more recently directed Linda Griffith’s (May 25th, 2pm) play The Last Dog of War. MacIvor has also recently worked at the Banff Centre of the Performing Arts, helping artists develop their own one-person plays using their own experiences as a catalyst.

Tonight is the Second Night of The National Theatre of the World’s Script Tease Project at Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson Avenue, Toronto). Tickets are $20 ($15 for students). I would recommend getting to TPM early as tickets are selling quickly or reserving yours online at http://www.artsboxoffice.ca/. Catch Them While You Can. The Schedule is as follows:

MAY 24-29

Wednesday, May 25th 2pm Linda Griffiths

Wednesday, May 25th 8pm Daniel MacIvor

Thursday, May 26th 8pm Woody Harrelson

Thursday, May 26th 9:30 Hannah Moscovitch

Friday, May 27th 8:pm Brad Fraser

Saturday, May 28th 2pm Morris Panych

Saturday, May 28th 8pm Mark McKinney

Sunday, May 29th 2pm Norm Foster

Sunday, May 29th 8pm John Patrick Shanley

Got Splendor? Come see a play that will make you laugh with your heart.

judith thompson

Today is International Judith Thompson Day, as the National Theatre of the World kick-starts their Script-Tease Project at the Theatre Passe Muraille tonight (Tuesday May 24th) at 8pm. Thompson is the first playwright who has written 2 pages of a brand-new play for them to perform tonight- and once they run out of lines, they will triumphantly make up the rest in her distinctive style.

Today is Judith Thompson day! A day to celebrate a woman who has written internationally acclaimed plays that are among the best known, most highly respected, most frequently produced, anthologized and taught plays nationally and internationally. A woman who has won the Governor’s General Award twice, in 1985 for White Biting Dog; and in 1989 for a collection of her plays, The Other Side of the Dark, who has won several Chalmers Canadian Play Awards, several Dora Mavor Moore Awards, was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, in 2008 became the first Canadian to be awarded the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, which recognizes the achievements of outstanding female playwrights from all over the world and also won an Amnesty International Award for her play Palace of the End. Today is a day to celebrate a woman who is passionate about creating high quality theatre, whose warmth and fascination for humanity radiates from her every time she speaks, always poetically, but also candid and from the heart. A day to celebrate a director who has the ability to bring her own work, many plays that break dramaturgical and narrative conventions, to the stage in creative and artful ways that allow them to live theatrically for the audience and who also, most recently, has become a dedicated director/teacher in the creation of two plays Body and Soul and Sick: The Grace Project, in which she worked helping mostly non-performers tell their own true stories in poignant, often humorous, and always imaginative ways.

I keep thinking that I was introduced to Judith Thompson backwards. So many people, especially in Ontario, have followed her rich and vibrant works relatively chronologically, beginning with The Crackwalker (1980) or White Biting Dog (1984) or Lion in the Streets (1990) and then progressing from there to more recent plays like Sled (1997) or Perfect Pie (2000). For this reason, I heard a lot of reaction from these chronological followers of Thompson regarding the stark departure from her earlier work in the construction of Palace of the End (2008).

I saw Palace of the End first, in its inaugural production at Canadian Stage, and I was utterly and magnificently blown away. I remember this production so vividly, even though it was one of the first that I saw in Toronto, very soon after I moved here and before I was writing consistently for TWISI, although it is one of those few plays I saw at this time in my life that I keep wishing I had written about because my initial gut reaction certainly would have been a dramatic and passionate one. In a way, it is actually appropriate that Palace of the End was the first Thompson play I saw, because I think that my reaction to it was similar to the reactions of audience members in 1980 after seeing The Crackwalker. Palace of the End was like a revelation to me because I had never seen theatre being used in such a hard-hitting political way, focusing on contemporary and immediately relevant issues. I remember feeling so proud as I walked out of the Berkeley Street Theatre (I think it was the first show I ever saw in there too) thinking, “Wow. How brave of David Storch to do this play here and now and for this subscription-based audience at a regional theatre. This is what theatre should be. This is what should be being produced everywhere.” I basically floated home by the sheer power of the inspiration of Judith Thompson and David Storch (and I would be remiss not to add here Maev Beaty, whose performance in this play haunts me to this day and stands as an example for me of what truly extraordinary acting can be). Palace of the End remains my favourite Judith Thompson play to this day and it is one that I will always consider to be a pinnacle of courageous, poetic, heartrending Canadian theatre that needs to be seen.

A few months later I saw Staged and Confused’s production of The Crackwalker and had another epiphany when I realized that when most people in the theatre think about “Judith Thompson” this is what comes immediately to mind. What was so great about this production was to see a Canadian play from 1980 being produced so zealously in 2008 by young performers just out of theatre school, and Thompson’s words and the iconic tragic characters that she created gave them a strong foundation for memorable performances and a solid production. The next thing I did was something that I recommend you all doing, I went to Theatre Books and picked up a copy of Judith Thompson’s Late 20th Century Plays (1980-2000) and I read them all from cover to cover. I also had the chance to perform her Pink, which I hope I will have an opportunity to reprise because it is one of my favourite things that I have ever done as an actor. 

I love the way Judith Thompson writes. I love that you can read her words aloud, and you don’t really have to do a lot of acting, because the characters’ distinctive voices are just there, inherent in the words and the way that Thompson has constructed their phrases. Read Theresa’s opening monologue from The Crackwalker aloud, it’s the geekiest kind of fun! I still haven’t gotten the opportunity to see most of Thompson’s plays onstage. I am looking forward ardently to Soulpepper’s upcoming production of White Biting Dog in August, featuring the stellar cast of Fiona Reid, Mike Ross, Michaela Washburn and Joseph Ziegler. Thompson has obviously written these plays to be performed rather than read, which I think most intuitive dramatists do, as they can be challenging to adequately appreciate when stripped of their performative concepts. Yet, they are also exciting for a reader because they offer so many possibilities, and perhaps this is why Judith Thompson’s works are so readily produced, because they ignite that spark of imagination in the minds of so many innovative directors the first time they read them.

I was lucky enough to see Judith Thompson speak at The Drama Centre at the University of Toronto, with David Storch, both of whom gave fascinating lectures on the use of violence onstage. Thompson’s lecture stood in, almost comical, contrast to her plays, in that she presents herself as a very peaceful person, who actually abhors violence, someone who likes to ride her bike and sit in the park, but she said that out of that hatred, she still finds herself exploring this vocabulary of the communities that she’s interested in, but never to glorify or exoticize violence or misogyny. She said that she sees that violence exists and so she feels compelled to write about it because she is horrified by it. This is exactly how I felt about Palace of the End, and how I’m sure initial audiences seeing The Crackwalker, who had never before seen a play give voice to this particular community before, felt, that as difficult as these stories are to watch and to hear, we do have a responsibility as theatre makers and theatregoers to not turn a blind eye to the horrific, but to confront the ethical questions, the complex and difficult ethical questions, that these plays raise. David Storch introduced me to Judith Thompson after this evening and I was struck by how generous she was with her spirit, she immediately buoyed me up and made me excited about my future as part of this glorious community.

The flip side of this, of course, is that Judith Thompson’s plays and her dramatic conventions, make for hilarious and unmistakable material for pastiche and homage by the genius improvisers at The National Theatre of the World. I saw a fantastic Impromptu Splendor in the style of Judith Thompson last year with special guest Jane Spidell (who was in Lion in the Streets at Tarragon Theatre in 1990), which was the perfect rollicking romp of sordid, angry, violent, lost souls trying adamantly to connect with one another and to make a better life for themselves, while the grubby, bloodied hands of the past kept dragging them back down to Hell by the ankles. Really, these photographs of past Thompson Splendors are worth more than a thousand of my words.

a production of The Crackwalker at Tarrgon Theatre & Kayla Lorette and Ron Pederson in a Improvised Judith Thompson Impromptu Splendor called Badger Hopscotch. Photo by Skye Regan.

matt baram, ron pederson

jane spidell and naomi snieckus

photo by frederic solenthaler

Tonight is Opening Night of The National Theatre of the World’s Script Tease Project at Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson Avenue, Toronto). It is SOLD-OUT, but there may be opportunities (Waiting List style) for tickets that become available ($20.00/4.15 (Students) at the Door. If it’s not raining torrentially, I would recommend getting to TPM early and lining up. Regardless, there will be Script-Tease Performances until May 29th so make sure to Catch Them While You Can. The Schedule is as follows:

MAY 24-29

Tuesday, May 24th 8pm Judith Thompson

Wednesday, May 25th 2pm Linda Griffiths

Wednesday, May 25th 8pm Daniel MacIvor

Thursday, May 26th 8pm Woody Harrelson

Thursday, May 26th 9:30 Hannah Moscovitch

Friday, May 27th 8:pm Brad Fraser

Saturday, May 28th 2pm Morris Panych

Saturday, May 28th 8pm Mark McKinney

Sunday, May 29th 2pm Norm Foster

Sunday, May 29th 8pm John Patrick Shanley

Got Splendor? Come see a play that will make you laugh with your heart.