Arts and Culture

Fighting Chance presents “Jesus Christ Superstar”

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Jesus Christ Superstar presented by Fighting Chance Productions in association with Renegade Arts Company at the Waterfront Theatre (Granville Island), now until August 22.

Photography by Tegan Verheul.

Photography: Tegan Verheul.

Whenever a popular show, especially a smash hit, is resurrected, directors, producers, and critical viewers like myself must ask themselves, “Why this play? Why now?” When the show in question is over 40 years old, enjoys worldwide popularity as both a theatre production and a film, and is presenting one of the most pivotal moments in the Christian faith to an increasingly secular audience, this question becomes even more pertinent. Why Jesus Christ Superstar, I wondered, why now? My first exposure to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s gospel-based rock opera was during a North American revival in the 90s–my parents went off to the city to see the show and came home with the soundtrack, singing “Hosanna” in the living room and generally failing to impress seven-year-old me. Having been unable to shake my own original impression of Superstar as a fuddy old relic, and being aware that the show has, over the last four decades of popularity on stage and screen, amassed a following with deeply entrenched ideas of what it should look and sound like, I was intrigued by a relatively young company’s decision to mount such a well-known production, and one so potentially burdened with expectation.

Fortunately, Fighting Chance’s Jesus Christ Superstar does not feel dated at all, nor does it make any attempt to reproduce the iconic performances of Ted Neeley and Carl Anderson (who played Jesus and Judas in the film version of the show and in the 90s Broadway revival). Rather than set the story of Jesus and Judas in 4 B.C. Jerusalem, directors Ryan Mooney and Anna Kuman have placed it in a world and time very much like our own, in a distinctly urban setting (represented by metal scaffolding) where social media, smartphones, and selfies not only exist, but help play into the “rise and fall” celebrity culture in which Jesus and Judas find themselves entangled.

I must confess I was skeptical at first when I saw the screens mounted on the scaffolding, and read about the directorial vision to include 21st-century technological trappings in the show, but it works. The presence of media in this production presents a direct challenge to Judas’ assertion (in the song “Superstar”) that “If you’d come today you could have reached the whole nation/ Israel in four B.C. had no mass communication,”  the assumption being that an increased ability to spread his message and have his motives understood could have saved Jesus from crucifixion. Fighting Chance’s staging of Jesus Christ Superstar isn’t so sure (and neither am I)–when we look at the way celebrities of today are worshiped one day and vilified the next, stripped of their privacy, legacy and livelihood by the social media mob, do we really think a Christ-like figure would have any chance of escaping our scrutiny, caprices, and, eventually, our wrath when they fail to meet our extraordinary expectations? The result of this directorial choice gives Fighting Chance’s Superstar an authenticity that a more faithful visual reproduction would not have had and allows it to reach for what the original Jesus Christ Superstar was always meant to be–a refreshing vision of an old story, and an examination of the ways celebrity can destroy our best intentions.

And the music! It’s just SO GOOD! As a lyricist, Tim Rice’s achievement is not to be understated but Andrew Lloyd Webber is a bloody genius. In true (rock) opera form, Jesus Christ Superstar has no spoken text, but it hardly matters when the music is so electrifying  and expressive–the subtle shifts into minor harmonies in otherwise joyful pieces like “Hosanna” foreshadow the fickleness of the mob and the enormity of the burden they are placing on one man. And indeed, the Jesus of Jesus Christ Superstar, whatever connection he may have to his unseen god, is never more than a good man, and Judas, whatever the outcome of his decisions may have been, is never less. As our troubled world waits for the next revolution, we would do well to remind ourselves how often we destroy those who would be our saviours, and how easily they, or we, can be corrupted.

As for the performances themselves, they leave little to be desired from a vocal perspective. A colour-and-gender-blind casting process for Fighting Chance’s Jesus Christ Superstar gives us Hal Wesley Rogers (an actor of colour with an incredible falsetto) in the title role, and actresses Sara Mayer and Lisa Ricketts as Peter the Apostle and the High Priest Caiaphas respectively. Lovers of the film version may take issue with Caiaphas’ low notes (heard in the film in Bob Bingham’s surreal bass) being bumped up a couple of octaves for Rickett’s menacing and sometimes shrill soprano portrayal, but for me it worked. Vocally, I thought the entire ensemble was strong (together with Rogers, Ray Boulay as Judas and Vanessa Merenda as Mary Magdalene made for a dynamic and engaging trio), but I did want to give props to three cast members with smaller roles that I thought delivered outstanding performances not only vocally but also dramatically in bringing their pieces of the story to life: Sean Anthony, required to fight his better nature in order to uphold Caesar’s law as Pontius Pilate, Riley Qualtieri as the bombastic apostle Simon, and Myles McCarthy as the deliciously sinister and slithering High Priest Annas.

As much as I enjoyed the production, I did not leave the show without regrets. The first is that the live band was not visible onstage but instead played the show from the wings. I know the scaffolding of the set took up a lot of space and that staging a singing and dancing extravaganza like Jesus Christ Superstar in a smaller theatre requires tough decisions and sacrifices, but if the show is ever remounted, I would love to see the band incorporated into the visible stage area. Live music in theatre really adds something special to a performance and I hate to see it hidden. My second complaint is an issue I have experienced in a couple of other Fighting Chance shows–audibility. Off the top of the show, the sound levels seemed a little out of whack, especially in Judas’ more instrumental numbers (with the band often drowning out Judas’ words), and there were some microphone issues in both acts. It’s frustrating as an audience member to see a performer singing the hell out of something, and be able to hear how great their voice is, but be unable to make out what they’re saying. The plot of Jesus Christ Superstar isn’t exactly unfamiliar, but it would have been nice to have had a more full appreciation of Rice’s take on this ancient story. I sincerely hope that for future endeavors Fighting Chance will be able to obtain whatever resources they need to overcome these sound issues (more tech time? better mics?) because these kinds of barriers to audience enjoyment or comprehension undercut the otherwise incredible work being done on the stage.

Apart from those issues, I enjoyed myself immensely. The music has been in my head ever since the performance and it seems that despite my childhood first impressions of the musical, Fighting Chance’s Jesus Christ Superstar has definitely made a convert out of me.

Jesus Christ Superstar runs until August 22 at the Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island. Tickets can be purchased online through Tickets Tonight.

Disclosure: I attended the opening night performance of Jesus Christ Superstar courtesy of Fighting Chance Productions.

Tallinn’s NUKU Puppet Museum is Creepy as F*ck

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I like puppets. I like their colourful costumes and emotive faces. I like the magic that happens when a seasoned puppeteer (or even a passable amateur) interacts with and animates a piece of wood or clay or plaster or cloth. One minute you are looking at a toy–the next, a living object. I like the blurring of the line between the mind/personality of the puppeteer and that of the puppet. It can be creepy, I suppose, but deliciously so. [Note – my admiration of puppets excludes ventriloquist dummies, as a strange veneer of exploitation has always soured that particular puppet-puppeteer relationship for me. The dummies are also scary-looking]. Over the years, I’ve taken an amateur’s interest in puppets and their history (specifically Punch and Judy) and, well, I just think they’re neat.

Three weeks ago, on a sunny afternoon in Estonia’s capital city of Tallinn,  my husband and I were wandering the twisting cobblestone lanes of the Old Town and having a lovely time. On the corner of Nunne and Lai, just out of the shadow of the hilltop area of Toompea, we found a cheery yellow building with a cheery orange sign–the NUKU Theatre and Puppet Museum. We thought about going in, in fact, I even popped my head in to check out the price of admission (5 € for an adult ticket), but for some reason we decided to move on and continue enjoying the exteriors of these medieval buildings, gorgeous in the pale Baltic sunshine, rather than enter the comparative gloom of their interiors. Travelling is like that–full of small choices about what to see or not to see, the gentle violence that occurs as you pursue one possibility and eliminate another. And so it goes.

But fate apparently had a hand to play in favour of the NUKU Museum. Although the sun had set the night before in a pink and cloudless sky (we know because we watched it from our hotel’s 8th-floor relaxation centre), the next morning rain was hurtling onto the city, scuttling our plans to visit the Estonian Open Air Museum (and so it goes). Instead of braving the rains and the open skies of an outdoor museum, we popped into a nearby cinema to watch Mad Max: Fury Road (English with Estonian/Russian subtitles; it was great), and by the time the film was over, the rain had stopped and it was after 2:00 p.m.; too late, we felt, to see the Open Air Museum (which probably would have been extremely muddy after a morning of rain anyways), but certainly enough time to revisit the charming medieval Old Town we had enjoyed so much the day before.

And so that’s how we found ourselves once again under the walls of Toompea, once again on the corner of Nunne and Lai. The Puppet Museum beckoned. Why not?, we thought, so we went inside the yellow building with the orange NUKU sign, paid our admission, and slipped through a narrow hall behind the cashier.

After taking us by an immense and empty cloakroom, red stickers placed on the floor directed us through the dim and empty lobby of the NUKU theatre, where a huge model of the purple dragon from Shrek (I assume from a previous production of Shrek: The Musical) was displayed. Though its website refers to the many interactive exhibits at the museum (both electronic and human), I think we must have been visiting during an off-period. What I mean to say is, on the whole, the museum was empty. The only other visitors we saw that day were a tired looking couple dragging their disappointed toddler away from the light-up buttons he’d been playing with, and of the few NUKU personnel we saw, most appeared to be working for the theatre, not the museum, and their eyes passed right over us as if we were little more than shadows.

Speaking of shadows, the museum was dark. Really dark. After the lobby, the red dots directed us downstairs and into what I assume are the medieval cellars that run beneath the theatre. There, dim blue lights displayed an example of shadow puppetry (the silhouette of an elaborate city on one side of a screen is revealed on the other to be just a collection of carefully arranged junk), and also a “wishing” well, which according to the signage, was part of the original structure of the building. A slit in the well’s plexiglass top allowed visitors drop in coins to make wishes, which TC and I did (in hindsight, perhaps I should have wished to be visiting a less creepy museum, but it’s too late for that now).

Farther along the passage (and again, in what was almost total darkness) there was a small screen mounted in the wall and surrounded by an array of a hundred or so buttons (these were the buttons the toddler was so upset about leaving, and this was the only interactive display that actually worked). Pressing a button would display a video clip of Estonian puppets/puppeteers at work (usually on Estonian children’s television shows, and usually juxtaposed with shots of the bewildered-looking faces of the children in the studio audience). We watched three or so clips and when we stopped, an animation of the NUKU logo appeared, beseeching us in his little Estonian voice to continue pressing buttons. I hope this display was motion-activated, as I hate to think of the poor NUKU logo all alone under the theatre, trapped in his small screen, calling to absent visitors in the dark.

At the end of this passage we found an adequately-lit stairwell (hooray!) taking us above ground into a small atrium (housing a couple of large puppets on display), and presenting us with a choice: go right, and see displays of puppets from different countries and also puppets used in shows throughout the theatre’s history, or go straight, through a black doorway and down a winding staircase into what a small NUKU sign called the “Cellar of Horrors: The sanctuary of unhappy, evil and scary puppets.” A sign like that is more like a dare than a warning–besides, what could possibly be scary about a children’s museum in the middle of the afternoon?

As we descended towards the Cellar, the staircase twisted down into the darkness as long strips of black fabric, hung lower and lower the farther we went, brushed the tops of our heads and arms. We stooped to avoid them and, at the bottom of the stairs, found ourselves in a low vaulted room with a stone pillar in the middle, dimly lit by small halogen lamps and by a single shaft of sunlight that entered the room through a small window near the ceiling (it looked as though this window was actually supposed to be blocked by a piece of cardboard, as the only other window was, but luckily for us this cardboard had fallen off). Though the room was small, the darkness and the pillar meant we could not see all of it at once, and so we did walk slowly around the circumference of the space to see which unhappy, evil and scary puppets had made their home here.

As we stepped out of the stairwell, we heard a whirring and clicking noise to our left, and a light began to flash. It was a three-dimensional zoetrope, motion-activated and fairly sensitive. A circular glass cabinet contained luminescent green stick puppets, dancing as the zoetrope spun and its strobe flashed, occasionally appearing to be missing arms or heads. The machine would begin again every time we moved, even on the other side of the room, and it scared me every time.

Many of the inhabitants of the Cellar were the expected goblins, vampires, and devils. They were small and cartoon-ish, propped up in little coffins, and they didn’t seem that scary. What I found more creepy were the puppets that looked perfectly normal–a sad-looking old woman, a giant face leaning against the wall, a little postman who, on closer inspection, had his feet on the wrong way, but seemed otherwise very ordinary. What are they doing there, I wondered, What have they done? I don’t think I saw every puppet–they crowded in the shadows, tucked into corners and along the walls, hard to see on first glance. Were they there before? I wondered. I really didn’t know. With each step the whirring and clicking and flashing of the zoetrope would begin again, confusing our vision, and as we took no pictures in the Cellar of Horrors, I can’t even say with certainty what was down there.

What I do know is that once we decided to leave the Cellar, we did it fairly quickly. I wouldn’t necessarily say I “ran” back up the stairs, with no concern for the fate of TC, who was following, but it would probably be an accurate statement. I’m nearly 30 years old but I’m not ashamed of not wanting to spend a great deal of time in a sanctuary for unhappy, evil, and scary puppets, especially one where a ghostly machine full of faceless green stick-men sits in the dark, waiting for an unsuspecting visitor to walk by so it can dance its ghoulish dance.

The rest of the museum, being empty of visitors and staff, could not shake the eerie feeling that had crept along our spines down in the catacombs. Life-sized dolls perched on windowsills and around corners. Non-working display screens flashed at us, or made futile clicking noises as we walked by. Everywhere there were eyes peering from behind glass panes. Everywhere seemed abandoned, like a room where children used to play but don’t anymore.

And then it stopped. The museum just stopped. There weren’t any more rooms or anymore passages. To leave we had to go back through the display halls we’d just been in, past the doorway to the Cellar of Horrors (gaping like an open sore in the stillness of the atrium), down the other staircase, back into the tunnels with the buttons and the wishing well and the shadow display, up the stairs again, past the dragon and the empty cloakroom and the girl at her cash register and–phew! Into the sunlight.

I’ve no doubt that on a different day, when it is full of children and their parents and staff leading the puppet-making workshops and holding small puppet shows, and the puppets in their cases have an audience that appreciates them, the NUKU Museum is a neat and magical place. But when it is empty, and dark, and just waiting, the NUKU Puppet Museum is creepy as f*ck.

—

The following are some of TC’s photos from our visit and his captions, which I found quite amusing:

NUKUCellarSign

We went to a bizarre puppet museum. There were some extremely unsettling puppets in the “Cellar of Horrors”. I took no photos there. The following puppets somehow did not qualify for “The sanctuary of unhappy, evil and scary puppets.”

not terrifying at all

Not terrifying at all.

not scary in the least

Not scary in the least.

Nope, not evil.

Nope, not evil.

[Lauren’s note: this last one is Punch, one of my favourite puppets actually.]

Theatre Terrific presents “I Love Mondays” April 17 – 26

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One of the downsides of living in an artistically-active city like Vancouver is that there is so much out there, it can often take me a while to explore theatre companies whose work I haven’t experienced before. I am therefore delighted to have finally fulfilled a theatrical goal of mine to check out Theatre Terrific, Western Canada’s oldest inclusive theatre company. From their website:

Theatre Terrific pioneers inclusive opportunities for artists of all abilities to develop performance skills and collaborate in the production of theatrical works. […]

Vision

Supporting artists of all abilities in the rigorous creation of provocative theatre.

Mandate

Theatre Terrific brings together artists who would normally never work together. Our diverse ensembles include professional and emerging artists with or without developmental, physical, or mental health issues, gender or language challenges.

Good art is often art that examines and challenges our assumptions about the world we live in and the people with whom we share our time on this planet. Issues surrounding race, gender, sexuality, ability, and mental illness are often explored onstage, and yet, the theatre world remains structurally exclusionary in many ways (as a basic example, I was lucky to audition for and be accepted into one of the few theatre programs I knew of that didn’t have set intake numbers based on gender–many schools will only accept a set number of men and women each year, despite the often much higher numbers of women auditioning). Many performance spaces are not fully accessible, and ones that have an accessible front of house often don’t have that same level of accessibility in their backstage areas. Performers are expected to meet certain expectations of physical and vocal ability, and it’s rare to see disability onstage unless the disability is written into the script as a particular aspect of a character, and even then, the character is more often portrayed by an actor who doesn’t have a disability than by one who does.

All this is to say that for a company like Theatre Terrific to have been operating in Vancouver for 30 years is fantastic, and it’s important, for artists and audience members of all backgrounds and abilities, that their work continue to be supported, seen, and enjoyed.

Jonah Killoran and Darlene Brookes. Photo: Alanna Milany

Jonah Killoran and Darlene Brookes. Photo: Alanna Milaney

Theatre Terrific’s current professional production is I Love Mondays, adapted by director Susanna Uchatius from the script by Pamela Boyd and playing at Studio 1398 on Granville Island. I was delighted to receive an invitation to attend their opening night.

Both in form and in theme, I Love Mondays is a quiet play, a story of two isolated people finding in each other the friendship and support they need to pursue their “best dreams”.  While Darlene Brookes (who plays Peggy, a divorcee and visual artist) is a well-known Vancouver performer, her co-star Jonah Killoran (who plays George, the developmentally challenged man Peggy is hired to work with), is an actor with cognitive differences whose experiences and path in the theatre are likely much different from those of most actors. Staging a play with an inclusive cast is certainly a challenge, and one that does require letting go of some of the performance conventions we’re used to.

At first, it may feel that watching I Love Mondays requires a little bit of patience. The pace is a little slower than the clippy, rapid-fire exchanges we tend to associate with a “tight” show. The important thing is that the actors are fully present and the dramatic intentions are all in place in every line, even if some actors need to take a little more time in their delivery than others. I quickly settled into the rhythm of the show and allowed it to take me on its quiet, and ultimately quite rewarding, journey.

What struck me the most about the way in which Theatre Terrific has staged I Love Mondays is the incredible gentleness displayed between the characters in the play and between the actors on stage. It is rare, very rare, I think, to sit in the theatre and see that the performers care for one another, and are taking care of one another in various small ways throughout the evening. As I watched I allowed my preconceptions to fall away, and I realized that just as some of the characters onstage were being limited because of their differences, I had been limiting some of the actors in my mind, and when they emerged, butterfly-like, beyond the boundaries of the limitations I had unconsciously imposed on them, I was both delighted and a little embarrassed of myself. What I mean to say is this: what is happening between the characters onstage is also happening between the actors, and between the actors and the audience. The characters who gain our respect as people in a story are also actors who deserve our respect as performers onstage, whatever their path into the theatre has been.

Theatre Terrific has been pushing beyond its own boundaries in this first-ever production from a scripted play (previous professional productions were collaborative creations), and the result is a unique and gentle story, told in a unique and gentle way. I urge you to challenge your assumptions of what theatre can be–art, and its creation, belong to everyone.

I Love Mondays will be playing at Studio 1398 (1398 Cartwright St., Granville Island) until April 26. Tickets can be purchased online at Brown Paper Tickets.

Disclosure: I attended the opening night performance of I Love Mondays courtesy of Theatre Terrific. I was not asked for a review.

The Troika Collective presents “Nordost” (March 4 – 7)

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Nord Ost_press kit_FINAL

Opening night is finally here.

We spent our tech weekend and dress rehearsals doing what we normally do on tech weekend and dress rehearsals–doing everything we can to make a good show great. We often talk about the “magic” of theatre, as if the nitty-gritty details of putting a show together are just unfortunate necessities (boring stuff like working out blocking, memorizing lines, and fine-tuning technical cues). But preparation is vital in the theatre. We prepare and prepare and prepare so that when we step out onto the stage (or into the booth, or take our seat in the audience, critical eye and notebook at the ready), we can lose ourselves just enough to take our audience with us.

Our phenomenal cast is prepared. When the lights came up on them at last night’s dress rehearsal, magic happened. They’d moved from knowing what they needed to do as actors, to understanding their characters’ motivations, to embodying three brave women trapped in horrific circumstances. It’s in them–in their faces, their voices, their bodies, and their hearts.

Obviously, as the production dramaturg for Nordost and co-artistic director of the Troika Collective, my opinion is extremely biased, but I could not be more proud of these actors, our director, or our designer. What these women gave of themselves to bring this show to life in Vancouver (a North American premiere, no less), is beyond my ability to thank them. I have no idea what good deed I must have done to deserve to add my name to the program alongside them but I could not feel more privileged. This is a damn good show.

And an important show. In the buzzing silent moment after the dress run and before the cast had taken their bows (it’s good to practice them, even with no audience), I couldn’t help but reflect on Nordost‘s story of trauma, terrorism, and desperation, and think, “And we’re doing it all again.” The world is not so different now than it was in 2002–except maybe we’ve become used to things we shouldn’t be used to, and maybe we haven’t learned as much as we should have. This play is serious, yes, but also necessary.

And it’s a great show.

—

Nordost will be playing at the Havana Theatre (1212 Commercial Drive) March 4 – 7. All shows are at 8:00 p.m. Tickets are $20/$17 and can be purchased online at Brown Paper Tickets or at the door (cash only at door).

David Tushingham’s English translation of Torsten Buchsteiner’s Nordost was originally commissioned by Company of Angels, London, and first presented at the Salisbury Playhouse Studio in April 2013.

Please Stand By – Nifty Going Biweekly

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2012-07-13_00001

The sad day has finally arrived–the day on which I finally admit to myself, and confess to you, my much-appreciated readers, that weekly blog posts are no longer sustainable. Between work, my masters program, theatre with the Troika Collective, work on my own creative projects, bathroom renovations, headaches, and trying to actually spend some quality time with my husband now and again, I just can’t guarantee I will always be able to write this blog the way I want to. I’ve never wanted to simply “produce content”, and if I don’t have the time to really engage in the world enough to have something to write about, that’s all I’ll be doing. I’m already embarrassed by some of the navel-gazing, nothing-ish posts I’ve churned out during busy times in the past and I owe you, and this blog, and myself, better than that.

Being a creature who loves form and structure, and wanting everything to be clean cut, I do wish I’d been able to hold out for my next bloggerversary (or even my half-way marker, which would have been at the end of May) to make this change. I wish I wasn’t just throwing up my hands in the middle of any old week and saying, “Okay, that’s it, I’m too busy, I can’t do it this way anymore” on February 27, of all days, a day that means nothing in terms of anniversaries or counting my achievements in a neat and tidy way. My aesthetic sensibilities are chafing as I write and I would almost rather quit the blog altogether, except that when I floated this idea by one of my most loyal fans (i.e., my mother) she said no, and told me to try switching to biweekly posts instead. Seeing as how my mom hasn’t steered me wrong yet, I’m giving it a try.

So you won’t be hearing from me as often anymore. And I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve failed to come through on a promise but please believe me when I say it really truly needs to be this way (and that’s not to say if I’m ever feeling especially inspired I won’t write on an off-week just for fun). Though I don’t always know who’s reading my posts, or how often, please know I am always flattered by and grateful for it, and this is actually breaking my little blogging heart.

So please stand by. I hope it just gets better from here.

[UPDATE: Upon publishing this post, WordPress informed me that it was my 230th post. So I guess I DO get a nice, clean-cut benchmark for weekly posting after all.]

Dispatches from the Rehearsal Hall: Nordost 2

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The online ticketing page is up, the press release has been sent out, and the Troika Collective continues rehearsing for our upcoming production of Torsten Buchsteiner’s Nordost (translated by David Tushingham).

Chelsea MacDonald, Elizabeth Kirkland, and Randi Edmundson. Photo: Liam Griffin.

Chelsea MacDonald, Elizabeth Kirkland, and Randi Edmundson. Photo: Liam Griffin.

After my last dispatch, I received an inquiry as to what a “dramaturg” does. “Is it like an editor?” people sometimes ask. The answer is sort of, and also, it depends. When the dramaturg is a script dramaturg or a new play dramaturg, they will often work with a playwright to bring the playwright’s vision to fruition and prepare the script for production, so yes, it could involve helping a playwright craft a script the way an editor may help an author craft a novel, but not always. So that’s the “sort of” part.

But it depends what kind of dramaturgy we’re talking about. When the dramaturg is a production dramaturg on an already-written play, as I am on Nordost, the dramaturg is there primarily to assist the director with the crafting of their vision. In this role the script is a constant and will not change. In some processes, the dramaturg will supply the director and cast with research materials about the play or the time period or the historical event, etc., but I find I’m not really that kind of dramaturg either. I like to be another set of eyes, generally. I like to attend rehearsals and take notes and occasionally have good-natured fights with directors for or against specific artistic choices. Until recently in this process, we were still blocking out the show (which is very very difficult in the round), so I was making a point of sitting on a different side than the one Aliya, our director, was on, and occasionally pronouncing that I was “seeing a lot of backs of heads”. It’s good to be useful.

Last week we gathered around Aliya’s laptop to watch a video of Nord-Ost, the Russian musical that was being performed in the Dubrovka Theatre when it was taken hostage (the siege itself becoming the premise for this play). Some funny stylistic choices aside (lots of jazz hands), it was rather chilling to think about an audience of nearly 800 watching this play, enjoying the dance numbers and getting involved in the story like any other show, with no idea that a real-life nightmare would begin in the second act. The unsuspecting audience were like passengers on the Titanic, laughing and having a good time while the ship sped towards an iceberg. Like the books the cast has been reading, this slightly sentimental musical will become part of each actor’s internal background, shaping and informing the text as they lift it from the page, bringing it into their voices and bodies.

The weight of the subject matter is always a presence in rehearsals. Levity in the process and jovial interpersonal relations can only take you so far when the words being spoken are so serious and emotionally charged. As a more occasional observer (I don’t attend every rehearsal), it is my privilege to watch these incredible actresses develop this telling of the story, and return to this material again and again, finding nuance and subtlety in rather heavy-handed realities. Both the actors and their characters are finding their resilience, and I know I say the word “exciting” a lot when I talk about this process, but it really really is.

Mark your calendars! Nordost will be performed at the Havana Theatre on Commercial drive March 4 – 7. Tickets can be purchased online at nordost.brownpapertickets.com.

Marcus Aurelius Knows What’s Up

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GLS_Marcus Aurelius_Meditations011After making a new year’s resolution to be kinder (and a more personal one about worrying less), Marcus Aurelius’  collected Meditations could not have come up in my liberal studies curriculum at a better time. Sometimes considered one of the original self-help books, it really only falls into that genre if you consider self-help in the truest sense of the word: the author wrote to help himself, not to instruct other people. Unlike today’s self-proclaimed self-help gurus, Marcus Aurelius was an emperor of Rome and had no need for either wealth or fame. He never intended for his meditations to be published, and had nothing to gain by recording his personal thoughts and philosophies, except actual Self Help, that is, he wrote down his thoughts to reflect on his character and to help himself in his never-ending struggle to be a better human being. Marcus Aurelius more or less tried to follow a Stoic philosophy, and though I’m not 100% convinced that kind of philosophy is for me (I’d rather wish for a loved one not to be ill, for example, than to wish that the illness of a loved one didn’t bother me), the humility and sincerity with which he recorded his private meditations make for a deeply personal read, and many of the struggles he returned to again and again are struggles I am familiar with myself (even though I am not a 70-year-old Roman emperor and seasoned general leading military campaigns in Germany).

Being concerned with your own goodness, not other peoples’:

What ease of mind a person gains if he casts no eye on what his neighbour has said, done, or thought, but looks only to what he himself is doing, to ensure that his own action may be just, and holy, and good in every regard. Do not look back to examine the black character of another, but run straight towards the finishing line, never glancing to right or left.

– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.18

When people endeavor to be kind they often set out to extend themselves beyond the narrow sphere of their own lives. They endeavor to consider the lives of others, whether these “others” are halfway around the world or just around the corner. Kindness is often synonymous with an expansion of awareness of and concern for the lives and actions of other people.

This is fantastic stuff, however, “thinking about others” isn’t always a good thing. Sometimes when I think about others, I end up thinking about climate change skeptics, and Stephen Harper, and Vladimir Putin, and ISIS, and MRA groups, and oil companies, and rotten CEOs who take home huge bonuses while their employees take home pay cuts. I also think about rude people on the bus, or trolls on the Internet, or acquaintances whose behaviours/opinions I disapprove of, or an argument I lost a year ago that still cheeses me off. And it’s not helpful. Teachers used to say “Keep your eyes on your own paper,” and I think I need to do a bit more of that, figuratively speaking. It’s not that other people don’t matter, it’s that my own behaviour does not, and should not, depend on what they do.

Not worrying about dying/when you’re going to die:

There is a stream of things entering into being, and time is a raging torrent; for no sooner does each thing enter our sight than it has been swept away, and another is passing in its place, and that too will be swept away.

– 4.43

All that you see now will very swiftly pass away, and those who have watched it passing will swiftly pass away in their turn, and he who dies in extreme old age will be brought to a level with one who has died before his time.

– 9.33

Whether it happens in sixty days or sixty years from now, I am really afraid of dying. I’m afraid of being in pain or being scared, and I’m afraid of making the people I care about sad. I am afraid that if this life is all there is (and there is so little, or perhaps no, evidence to show that it isn’t), that I will not make it count.

Marcus Aurelius didn’t worry about death, or at the very least, he made a repeated and concerted effort to make his peace with it (and he kind of had to considering he was old and in ill health and waging a war far away from home). Whether you die old or young, virtuous or not, you have lived all the life you are going to live, and after that there’s just nothing to worry about. Marcus Aurelius saw trying to be good as a way to live your life to the fullest while you were here, by acting on and developing the natural goodness he believed existed in every human being. After that–no worries.

[Unfortunately, the Meditations offer very little comfort to those who are afraid of the deaths of other people. Marcus Aurelius did lose several children, and of course he did grieve them, but he tried to avoid dwelling on it–it’s more sensible to try not to be sad about the death of a loved one than to wish it hadn’t happened, and Stoic philosophy considered the welfare of your loved ones, incredibly, to be “indifferent” to the question of your own happiness. Which I don’t agree with. But at least I can try to come to terms with my own eventual death, so, you know, that’s one less thing to worry about.]

Not worrying about achieving fame, praise, or other external measures of success:

Cast everything else aside, then, and hold to these few truths alone; and remember, furthermore, that each of us lives only in the present, this fleeting moment of time, and that the rest of one’s life has either already been lived or lies in an unknowable future. The space of each person’s existence is thus a little thing, and little too is the corner of the earth on which it is lived, and little too even the fame that endures for the longest; and even that is passed on from one poor mortal for another, all of whom will die in no great while, and who have no knowledge even of themselves, let alone of one who has died many long years before.

– 3.10

Does an emerald become any worse if nobody praises it? Or gold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a sword, a blossom, or a bush?

– 4.20

All is ephemeral, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.

– 4.35

Somehow the encouraging phrase, “You can do anything”, which I have heard and read so often in my lifetime, has given birth to the sneaky subconscious follow-up, “Therefore, whatever you do should be Great,” suggesting that a “regular” life is now something of a failure. The reality is that most of us will NOT do something capital-G Great in our lifetimes, that is, something for which we’ll gain recognition. Most of us will live and love and die without anyone outside of our acquaintances ever knowing we existed. At our funerals people will say, “He had a great laugh and he loved practical jokes” or, “She always loved music,” and that is just fine. Not having done something Great does not make what contributions we did make any smaller.

I should point out that the few quotes I’ve included are just examples of Marcus Aurelius’ writings on these issues, when in fact, the Meditations in their entirety repeat these thoughts over and over, in various permutations. If you read the Meditations as if he wrote them for the benefit of others, you’d think that the author had completely accepted death, and bad things happening to loved ones, and bad people existing in the world who will never see the error of their ways (or as I put it to TC, “Some people are going to die never knowing what assholes they really are and I have to be okay with that”). When you remember that Marcus Aurelius wrote for himself, you realize that he returned to the issues of death, and recognition, and his relationships with others again and again because he struggled with them. He would not have written about these issues day after day after day if they weren’t on his mind.

And so what Marcus Aurelius gives me is permission to struggle with life, while at the same time acknowledging that nothing is preventing me from doing my best (my best being whatever I can do before encountering an obstacle that is outside of my control). Throughout, Marcus Aurelius reminds himself that all the retreat he needs from the cares of everyday life can be found in his own mind. And reading him I find, for myself, a serenity that wasn’t there before.

Dispatches from the Rehearsal Hall: Nordost

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This spring I have the privilege of acting as production dramaturg for the play Nordost, by German playwright Torsten Buchsteiner (translated by David Tushingham). The director, Aliya Griffin, and I are good friends and co-artistic directors of Aliya’s performance society brainchild, The Troika Collective (which is to say these dispatches will be somewhat self-serving since obviously I want to spread the word about this amazing show).

This room is "the skinny", where the cast was rehearsing yesterday!

This room is “the skinny”, where the cast was rehearsing yesterday! (This photo is a few years old).

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been involved in a rehearsal process and I must confess my theatrical muscles have gotten a bit stiff lately. This makes me somewhat wistful, remembering a time when life was pretty much one long loop of rehearsing and performing and I got to move and shout and experiment and collaborate and create with my friends a few times a week (there really was something lost when I decided not to make performing a priority anymore). But it’s kind of invigorating too–waking up old sensibilities, watching the creative process unfold, and having it feel fresh again, rather than being the same old slog (which does happen, as much as I enjoyed performing). I think production dramaturgy is a good fit for me, and a fortunate one–not every director will work with a dramaturg (and some who have dramaturgs foisted on them don’t listen to them anyways). There’s something very attractive about dipping my toes in the process but not getting fully immersed. I get to see something different from what the director and cast are seeing (because they are seeing the everyday of it, and I am seeing more like time-lapses), and that’s kind of special.

But still very daunting. In the past, The Troika Collective has created the work we perform, and you’d think mounting a show that has already been written and performed successfully elsewhere would be easier for us, but it really isn’t. When the challenge of writing a new piece is removed, the challenge of working within textual constraints (and with expectations, if the play is well-known) replaces it. Our production will also be the North American premiere of Nordost, and that is a pretty big responsibility, especially when the subject Nordost tackles is so solemn.

Which brings me to the challenge of content. All plays, no matter their subject matter, should be rehearsed and performed with rigour and intention. That being said, some demand this rigour more than others and we are currently rehearsing a pretty rigourous play. From the perspectives of three different women (a Russian mother of two, a Latvian-born paramedic working in Moscow, and a Chechen widow-turned-militant), Nordost tells the story of the 2002 hostage taking of the Dubrovka Theatre in Moscow by Chechen rebels/freedom fighters, and about the Russian government’s duplicitous and bungled response, which left all of the hostage takers and plus 129 Russian civilians dead by Russian actions. This is a heavy play.

So how do you tell this story in a theatrical space? How do you bring such a terrible event to life in a way that engages, rather than exhausts, your audience? How do theatre artists engage with this material for several hours several days a week without becoming nervous wrecks?

Thankfully, Buchsteiner has written a a great deal of strength and humanity into his characters. There is grief in this story, and anger, but also incredible resilience. In many ways, doing the play justice will mean getting out of the story’s way a bit and letting the audience experience it for themselves. As for the artists working on the show, I feel safety and camaraderie in the rehearsal room and that goes a long way. Rehearsals can still be incredibly pleasant, even fun, in spite of the seriousness of the play being worked on.

There are also formal challenges. Nordost will be performed in the round, which I think is one of the more difficult stage configurations. Unlike a proscenium stage, in which the scenes are really moving pictures in a frame, a round stage offers no place to hide and requires each stage picture to be dynamic and interesting from all angles. It’s a configuration not to be taken on lightly, but when it informs the work (as I think it will), it can be a rewarding artistic choice.

Challenges aside, I am getting pretty excited. Everyone involved directly in the show is an excellent person with commitment and vision and it’s sort of like going on a long road trip with your friends–you know you’re going to get tired sometimes but you know it’s going to be so much fun.

Mark your calendars! Nordost will be performed at the Havana Theatre on Commercial drive March 4 – 7.

A Visit from St. Blockbuster

/ Lauren / Leave a comment

argo-pic-1

‘Twas the night after Christmas, and all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even my spouse.

The stockings were hung by the mantle for show

The presents were open; there hadn’t been snow.

The in-laws were chatting and drinking some booze

And looking at smartphones and reading the news.

And TC in his sweater and I in my smock

Were draped on the couch watching holiday schlock.

When on the TV there was shouting and guns–

Time to watch “Argo”–fine holiday fun!

Up to the flat screen I gave my attention

Ready to hold disbelief in suspension

(I’ve seen “Argo” before and I know it has flaws

But that’s kind of what happens when Ben Affleck is boss).

And what did my baby blue eyes now espy

But six Yankees holed up with a Canadian guy,

And a CIA agent with such lame “hero affect”

I knew in a moment it must be Ben Affleck.

More rapid than pigeons the actors they came;

We ate jujubes and heckled and called them by name:

“Now Affleck, now Cranston, now Arkin and Goodman,

Now Garber, now Denham, now Clooney* and Cochrane!

From the top of the Oscars, to the top of the Globes

Congrats to you, all of you Hollywood folks!”

For a story as bold as an InTouch exclusive,

Where the celebs are all named but the source is elusive,

To the power of entertainment did history bow,

Accurate facts are a drag anyhow.

Audiences forgive these exciting transgressions,

When “based on a true story”, truth’s just a suggestion.

And just as the hostages were accused wrongly of spying

A beep told me my laundry was ready for drying.

A quick moment’s pause, then time for proceeding

John Goodman and co. were arranging a reading.

With a bunch of old Hollywood tricks in his pocket,

Alan Arkin played someone who knew how to hock it.

His eyes–how they twinkled! His bald head, so shiny!

How he hit on the actresses, and looked really slimy!

He’d a grumpy demeanor, but much like the Grinch

He came through when he had to, a bonafide mensch.

Back in Tehran things weren’t looking too swell

For the American hostages life was a hell

And for the six who’d escaped and gone into hiding

They had to leave soon–it was time for deciding.

It was sad to be them but I felt a bit blah

America probably shouldn’t have propped up the Shah.

With a glint in his eye and a beard on his head

Affleck told the six hiders they’d nothing to dread;

He gave them fake passports and got straight to work

But that one guy, Joe Stafford, seemed a bit of a jerk.

But due to some hotheaded Hollywood drama,

The mission was go, no thanks to Obama**.

They went to the airport, and with some good luck

The guards believed they were all just film-making Canucks.

And the stewardess said, as to safety they flew–

“We’ve left Iranian airspace; we can now serve you booze!”

 

* George Clooney did not appear in “Argo” but was a producer.

** Jimmy Carter was actually the U.S. president during the Iranian hostage crisis; obviously it was not Barack Obama.

 

Merry Christmas to all! And to all a good night!

 

 

 

 

 

Fighting Chance’s “Little Women” Brings Warm Holiday Fuzzies

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With its quaint 19th-century setting, four memorable heroines (five if you count Marmee), and its emphasis on the importance of family and togetherness in both good times and bad, Louisa May Alcott’s beloved semi-autobiographical novel Little Women, spanning almost a decade during and after the American Civil War, is both an obvious and daunting choice for adaptation to the stage. Obvious, of course, due to the sheer vitality and festive beauty of the March sisters (bedecked as they are in ribbons and lace, even as they stage blood and guts operas in their attic), and the palpable love and loyalty they feel for one another.

In Fighting Chance Productions‘ first holiday show, Little Women The Musical (music by Jason Howland, lyrics by Mindi Dickstein, and book by Allan Knee), the theme of love and loyalty takes centre stage. As the play opens, the adult Josephine March dreams of literary fame but receives only rejection letters from publishers. Dejected in a New York City boarding house, she realizes she was never so brilliant as she was back at home in Concord, Massachusetts, penning lurid tales of adventure and passion for the amusement of her sisters.

It is at this moment that we find ourselves in Orchard House, the home of the March family, many Christmases ago, and it is here that Alcott fans will find their footing. The impetuous Jo cuts down snobbish Mr. Laurence’s Douglas fir, sweet Beth decides to give it to the poor family down the road for a Christmas tree, little Amy complains about the shape of her nose, the romantic Meg hopes to be invited to Annie Moffat’s Valentine’s Day ball, and Marmee is tasked with enveloping all four of her daughters in love and stability while her husband is away at war.

Robin Eder-Warren, Danielle Melvin, Julie Casselman, Roan Shankuruk. Photo: Linda Leong Sum

Robin Eder-Warren, Danielle Melvin, Julie Casselman, Roan Shankuruk. Photo: Linda Leong Sum

The musical adaptation of Alcott’s text is concerned primarily with Jo’s story, and performer Julie Casselman is equal to the task of leading her intrepid band of sisters through the highs and lows of their years together. The March sisters–Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy (Robin Eder-Warren, Casselman, Danielle Melvin, and Roan Shankaruk respectively) whirl around the stage in a flurry of ringlets and flying skirts, their beautiful voices singing in harmony like a chorus of angels, and their highly choreographed blocking creating elegant stage pictures worthy of a Christmas card. Ambitious, high-strung, and fiercely devoted to her family, Jo struggles to come to terms with growing up–and with letting the people she loves do the same. While she relies on them to support her in her dreams, she learns that loving her sisters means accepting that they will sometimes leave her–to get married, to travel Europe, or, in the case of the shy and quiet Beth, to finally give in to the spectre of illness that had been slowly sapping her strength.

Unfortunately, Little Women The Musical‘s focus on Jo means many plot points that don’t include her are left out–Meg, Amy, and Laurie, for example, are not given the benefit of the character development we see in the book, and while Meg does eventually become more mature through marriage and motherhood, we leave Amy just as silly at the end of the play as she was at the beginning. Both the adaptation and this production are highly presentational, and I wanted more moments of subtlety and quiet intimacy to balance out the bombast and musical pomp. Having a pianist and violinist on stage were an incredibly nice touch, but in the relatively small playing space some of the lyrics were occasionally drowned out, and the production may have benefited from more physical distance between the musicians and players.

That being said, Little Women the Musical still has plenty of heart. A particularly sweet and surprising duet between Beth and the curmudgeonly Mr. Laurence (Peter Stainton) stands out, and I saw more than one person wiping their eyes as Beth and Jo said their good-byes to each other (as for me, I was a sniffling mess). The love duet between Meg and Mr. Brooke (Mark Kroeker) is quietly romantic, and Jo’s closing solo in Act I (“Astonishing”) paints a strong picture of a dauntless young woman’s determination to succeed.

A refreshing departure from more thoroughly Christmas-based holiday productions, Fighting Chance’s Little Women The Musical, with its flouncing dresses, musical frolics, and story of love is an entertaining introduction to Alcott’s classic. I know if I had seen the production as a child I would have been absolutely in love with it.

Little Women The Musical runs at Studio 1398 on Granville Island until December 21. Tickets can be purchased online through Tickets Tonight.

Disclosure: I attended Sunday’s performance of Little Women The Musical courtesy of Fighting Chance Productions.