Theatre is Territory

Archive for February, 2008

10 questions: Maja Ardal

Friday, February 29th, 2008

1) What the fuck is going on?
We don’t talk on the phone any more. We silently communicate by email. Is this good? In a way. The phone is a most peculiar instrument; I mean I could be talking to someone who’s making faces at me and I’d never see it.

Emailing can feel like letter writing, which is good. Except that it is so fast, I wonder if the poetry and ruminations of the old writing-by-hand method is being lost. One thing we must never do on email is to get angry. I have learned that angry or passive-aggressive email can do terrible damage. People keep nasty emails, so they can use them for later. Long after the war is over . . .

2) What have been some of your biggest creative challenges since becoming Artistic Director of Nightwood Theatre?
Creative challenges of Nightwood . . . you know, there are so many creative people on standby to be invited to do their shows, or act, or design, that the only real problem is to find the money space and time to let the artists “go at it”.

3) Are there any overarching themes or ideas that are common to the work being presented in Nightwood’s current season?
The theme for this season is, “Women who refuse to behave. A risky business.” Right now, a nanking winter by Marjorie Chan is on at The Factory Theatre. It’s about a writer who exposed a terrible historical event, and then has to face attack for daring to do it.

4) During your time as Artistic Director for Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre, did you arrive at any conclusions about theatre and its relationship to at-risk communities?
Yes. So much TYA is trying to show kids the way the world should be. They paint a politically correct perfect picture. But I think kids at risk, in areas such as poverty, or bullying, or abuse, can see through that crap. I think two kinds of theatre work for communities at risk:

One is to do good theatre that acknowledges their truths, and helps them to discover courage in themselves, and maybe that theatre should come right into their community.

The other way is to make theatre available that gives them a fabulous time, sitting in a big house, with all the bells and whistles, and great acting/singing/dancing/writing . . . a good story that transports them, without patronizing them . . . you know, ENTERTAINMENT!

5) How important is it for theatre makers to be actively challenging systems of oppression in their work?
We shouldn’t be doing theatre unless we have a passion and understanding of how things work in the world, in our world, how others are handling life. Otherwise it is a wank. We should try to influence the thinking of those we do theatre for. It is by acknowledgment of the way things are for people that we can create exciting theatre that promotes the challenge of authority and the bravery we need to demand a better world, justice, truth.

6) Is children’s theatre an effective “gateway drug” for turning kids into long-term theatre patrons?
No. So long as we herd hundreds of children into a theatre, they will behave like a herd, and not like individual theatre patrons. If we come to their school, they will treat us like part of their education.

7) What qualities do you look for when committing to the development of an emerging artist?
An awareness of the world, and a fabulous imagination. A way with words.

8) Do you have any unifying theories about the role of formal education in shaping theatre artists?
It’s great to hang out with other emerging theatre artists. But unfortunately too many professional theatre training programmes are training kids of privilege, because they are the only ones who can afford to dream. Humber College, however, is one program that tries to bring a diversity of students in areas of race and privilege.

9) How do you feel about the fact that so many members of your family are active in the theatre community?
They are hugely gifted people, so I am proud. I used to worry when they were unemployed, but they are so seldom out of work, I now only have to worry about myself.

10) How much of your approach to storytelling is informed by your experience with Icelandic narrative traditions?
My mother told me stories of our family as I was growing up. She kept the whole world of our ancestors and relatives alive in my imagination, and her stories were and are fantastic. Storytelling is what Icelanders did during the long dark winters. And there are more poets and published writers per capita than anywhere else in the world, I understand. It is no wonder that two of my plays are so inspired by storytelling tradition, especially You Fancy Yourself, in which I perform 12 characters on a journey that crosses the cultures of Iceland and Scotland.

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Out and about

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

Courtenay Stevens – who played the Architect/Sailor in CanStage’s The Overcoat – was spotted chatting on his cellphone outside Bread & Circus theatre bar in Toronto’s Kensington Market.
Word on the street is that he’s remounting his production of Lawrence & Holloman at this edgy, downtown theatre in early April.


Spotted any hot theatre talent out and about
in your neighbourhood?
Send us your starstruck theatre photos:
celebrity@praxistheatre.com

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Has Canadian theatre lost the plot?

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Good question. Alec Scott address it and more in his insightful piece on the current state of Toronto theatre in this month’s issue of Toronto Life. A sample:

“In general, there’s too much quirky self-indulgence, not enough committed storytelling; too much about other times, other places, too little about how we live here and now. Some of it is clever, but by and large, the work fails to connect with audiences in a meaningful way.”

Read the full story here.

(Thanks to Alison Broverman for the heads up.)

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January round-up

Monday, February 25th, 2008

A few selections from our January posts:

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10 questions: Autumn Smith

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

1) What the fuck is going on?
21-year-old Bushmills; Curb Your Enthusiasm – Season 6; and my upcoming tickets to Flogging Molly (Toronto) and The Pogues – Shane MacGowan is still breathing – fuck yeah! (Boston).

In between, working on Disco Pigs (MacKenzieRo) and The Rake’s Progress: Do You Know Where Tom Rakewell Is? (Equity Showcase Theatre Artists’ Showcase).

2) Why have you chosen to remount your 2007 Toronto Fringe Festival production of Disco Pigs?
It is by far the most challenging and stimulating play I have ever worked on. I wanted another go at it to develop it even further. I had some unanswered questions at the end of the last run that I wanted to tease out. Now, of course, I will have a bundle of new unanswered questions.

Disco Pigs gives us characters that are spontaneous, mad, full of violent creativity and audacity—and it makes us ache for them. At the Fringe, we had such an immediate reaction to the work that I wanted to bring it to a wider audience.

Part of the audience we are hoping to reach this time around is a youth audience. To me, the play is punk-poetry. Disco Pigs invokes what it is like to live apart. It uses the language of the mainstream and then fills it with slang and obscurity. We cannot wait to see how teens respond.

And finally, I am re-mounting because I wanted to add in a Ramones song.

3) What is pub theatre?
Really, simply put, theatre in a pub. In the UK and Ireland, pub theatres tend to have one resident company (usually indie). The theatre space is a well-appointed black-box often on the second floor of the pub. Productions frequently transfer out to other venues after initial runs. Many of Conor McPherson’s plays debuted in pubs.

Historically, The Public House has acted as the centre of the community. This was a meeting place for the people. With its gritty, sawdust coated floors, The Public House gathered local voices in a shared space.

Ideas and performances are exchanged in this dynamic intersection of theatre and community.

4) What can Canadian theatre makers learn from our contemporaries who are doing it well in Ireland and the United Kingdom?
As MacKenzieRo develops its mandate further, we are finding ourselves more and more drawn to the in-yer-face playwrights from Ireland. Canada certainly has many writers who know how to handle this genre. I think we at MacKenzieRo are compelled by the Irish works because of the heritage of our founding members. What I’ve learned as a Canadian theatre maker from Disco Pigs and Walsh in particular, is that theatre should never compromise, and that there should be a holocaust on complacency.

5) Do you have any unifying theories that inform your approach to directing actors?
No theories in particular, although I am pretty keen on the Uta Hagen specificity-driven exercises.

6) How do you feel about your time at the Oxford School of Drama?
It was an invaluable conservatory experience. David Silby from Out of Joint Theatre made a real impact. He brought a contemporary vision to the studio which urged me to question my preconceptions about classical works. I was also introduced to Complicite’s work when I was in the conservatory in 1997. This re-arranged my cell structure. I am still informed by it.

7) How would you describe the organizational structure of your theatre company, MacKenzieRo?
Cathy Murphy and I, the founding members, choose the plays. We have been operating in the co-op structure. In this sense, each time a play is chosen, the cast and creative team form a co-op with Cathy and I. Really though, it is all pretty traditional and straightforward. I direct. The actors act. Cathy and I co-produce. Other co-op members share duties re publicity, etc. etc. etc. We are a true indie company.

8) How important is it for artists to be actively challenging systems of oppression with their work?
Very important if the work is well written and executed—it better be stimulating, rousing and refreshing. Not important at all if the work is merely a vehicle for a rant and a wank.

9) Do you have a favourite theatre-related quote?
“After a rare snowfall in Florence, Piero de Medici is alleged to have commissioned Michelangelo to make a sculpture in snow. It was said to have been his greatest work, but you had to have been there to have seen it—it was as frail and as ephemeral as a theatre performance, living on only in the memory.” Richard Eyre

10) If you could change just one thing about theatre in Toronto, what would it be?
The select but influential artists and administrators who are refusing the voices of anything deemed non-Canadian—and it is fascinating what gets tossed into this category.

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The Rhubarb Festival is on

Thursday, February 21st, 2008
It’s Hard To Count To A Million
Marc Tellex, Megan Flynn, Frank Colc O’Connell, Evan Webber
(photo by istoica)

Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s awesome Rhubard Festival kicks off this week in Toronto. Week One of the festival brings 1848 Experiment #1, It’s hard to count to a million, HOMOgeius, Where the wild things are: A manifesto, Obscene, as well as Friday late night shorts and Round One of the Young Creators’ Unit.

Click here for more info.

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Build Your Own Theatre – Part II

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

Next steps
by Michael Wheeler

Okay, so, eight months after my original Build Your Own Theatre (BYOT) post, I’m back with a new proposition.

The original proposition, which basically bartered help improving The Lower Ossington Theatre for rehearsal space, went pretty well. We got the building into much better shape over the summer and fall: The entranceway and lobby got a new coat of paint. A dance floor went down in Studio B. A massive 300 sq-ft blackboard wall was installed. The skylight and doorways in the theatre were fitted with removable plugs. All of this was accomplished with the help of people who traded their labour for rehearsal space.

We also changed the name: No longer the Queen West Arts Centre (QWAC), we are now the Lower Ossington Theatre (The LOT). QWAC was whack. The LOT is hot.

Here’s the new idea:
The LOT Workshop Performance Series.

Monday through Thursday evenings many of our studios are booked solid with everything from Capuera to Sexy Strut classes. Friday and Saturday nights past 8pm are free. This building is smack dab in the middle of where everyone in Toronto is going on Friday and Saturday night anyhow (Ossington between Queen and Dundas), so lets put some shows on in the theatre here.

It works like this:
No rental fee. We split the box office 50/50. Ticket price TBD.

You provide whatever you need. We have a few instruments, but not many. Whatever you set up has to be strikeable at the end of the night. You also provide you own box office staff and operators for whatever equipment you will be running.

Schedule is as follows:
Day 1: Thursday. Tech/dress. 6-10pm
Set up whatever you can in a couple of hours and give it a practice go. Our Technical Director, Dennis, works with you to integrate your best ideas with the realities of the space.

Day 2 : Friday Set up 6-8pm Performance 8:30pm

Day 3: Saturday Set up 6-8pm Performance 8:30pm

How do you do this?
Email me at space(at)lowerossingtontheatre.com

We need to know:

1) What the piece is and in general terms how you would stage it.
2) Who the artists involved are with short bios.
3) What the technical requirements would be (remember, we don’t have much).
4) Why you think you can draw an audience.

I will look over all submissions with our TD, let people know what we think is feasible and a good idea.

That’s it. If you think you can run multiple weekends and draw a reasonable sized crowd it is also a possibility. The Toronto Youth Theatre, One Reed Theatre, Geek Girl Productions and even us at Praxis Theatre have transformed the space for exciting performances. We know this is entirely doable. Who’s interested?

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10 questions remixed: Unifying theories – Part II

Friday, February 15th, 2008
1) Do you have any unifying theories when it comes to performing magic?
Only the three rules: to dare, to know, and to will – and (I guess it’s four rules) to keep silent.

Bluemouth Inc. L-R Stephen O’Connell, Richard Windeyer, Lucy Simic, Sabrina Reeves.
2) Do you have any unifying theories about the performer-spectator relationship?
Definitely nothing unifying. The performer-spectator relationship is an aspect of our work which is in constant flux. Part Boal, part Grotowski, part spectator sport. We like it up close and intimate. Each location suggests new opportunities for exploring the dynamics between the viewer and participant. I believe the idea is to eventually remove the fourth wall from the equation entirely. Down with the passive viewer!

Chris Reynolds

3) Do you have any unifying theories when it comes to art?
Safe is for suckers.

Michael Wheeler

4) Do you have any unifying theories when it comes to directing a play?
Don’t be late for rehearsal. Less is more.

Simon Michellepis
5) Do you have any unifying theories about the artist-critic relationship?

The critic provides valuable feedback to the artist and guidance to the audience. However it is the artist who creates. As such, the critic works for, and is dependent upon, the artist and not the other way around.

I think it is tragic when artists define themselves by the comments (or lack thereof) of critics. It should be the artist who gets inside the heart and mind of the critic, and not the other way around.

Bridget MacIntosh

6) Do you have any unifying theories about the artist-producer relationship?
Maybe not a unifying theory but a word of advice: if you find a good producer hang onto them as they are in serious short supply.

David Tompa (L) and Glen McDonald (R).

7) Do you have any unifying theories that have come out of your study of the Meisner Technique?
I’ve read a slew of books of actor’s talking about the craft and the only word or concept that appears without fail is “truth”. There are so many approaches to try to achieve truth; Meisner’s just one of them. Unifying theories or comprehensive “systems” are dangerous. No technique can achieve truth if it’s followed to the letter. They’ll give you a jump start or point you in a direction that is potentially good, but it’s such a complex, yet basic thing to achieve truth, that if you try to force a system on it, it’ll disappear.

Lea Ambros

8) Do you have any unifying theories when it comes to stage management?
I’m more like a jack of all trades (sadly, master of none). It would be a lie to call myself a stage manager. I refuse to do most of that stuff. I think actors are way better at their own blocking notes and presets. Maybe I’m just lazy, but it works for us. Basically, I take care of what needs to be done.

Itai Erdal

9) Do you have any unifying theories that inform your approach to lighting design, generally?
I can think of some: Don’t be afraid to try new things, always take risks. Don’t try to to cut corners. Always do what’s good for the show, remember that your design is just one element in the big picture. Try to remain practical, don’t fall in love with your own work. Trust your instincts. Be very, very organized and do your homework.

I always try to light theatre like I light dance, I use very little front light, and as much side and back light as possible. Low side light (shin busters) and diagonal backs are my favorite lighting positions. I like bold choices with colour and patterns, while maintaining a certain subtlety. I try to do precise lighting so I use a lot of specials and usually have a lot of cues. Having said all that – simplicity is a real key and very often less is more.

Kate Cayley

10) Do you have any unifying theories about the relationship between community and theatre?
Hhhmmm. Be playful, adaptable, and try not to be precious about the work (while at the same time never dumbing it down out of some idea that a mixed, non-theatrical audience can’t grasp subtle or difficult material). To try and create within a community, I think you need to let certain aspects of the work go, and realize that where you are will impinge on the process. And make that a positive thing – to welcome children and crazy people and bikers and dogs as interesting parts of the puzzle, rather than distractions (sometimes easier to preach than practice).

Not sure if that’s a unifying theory. The two things help and feed one another, and need lots of humour and silliness.

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Theatre school in the age of compliance

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

If it’s broke – fix it
By Scott Walters

Hello, Fellow North Americans! Ian Mackenzie has asked me to write a guest post for Theatre is Territory, which I am happy to do. Ian inflated my ego far beyond manageable bounds last spring when he interviewed me here, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to continue to provide abrasive American crankiness for my northern compatriots.

One of the things Ian gave me an opportunity to discuss in that long-ago interview was theatre education. As a college teacher, you can imagine I have a few things to say about it. I mean, beyond that most of it sucks.

As a teacher, I have always harbored the secret belief that we all have to kill Daddy. Education is Oedipal – when you come to a crossroads (also known as graduation), you have to free yourself from the past. If you find, as a teacher, that you have created acolytes who bow to your chariot at the crossroads and ask to follow in your train, you should have your tenure stripped in a ritual ceremony involving honey and ants. That’s not education, that’s evisceration. So when I have students who learn what I have to offer, and then noisily go in a different direction flipping me the bird as they depart, I inwardly celebrate. They’re ready for the world.

I had a group of students who formed a weekly lunch group with me called the Dead Dramatists’ Society, and by the time they graduated they were widely regarded by their peers and the rest of the faculty as loud, opinionated artists who questioned everything, including just about every word I said in class. I loved it. They became independent thinkers who could look at the status quo, decide what worked for them and what didn’t, and take their own paths. To me, that’s what education ought to do.

Instead, most education is about compliance. Teachers try to mold compliant students who do what they’re told the way they’re told to do it. And that, my friends, is how the theatre became what it is today: boring, unimaginative, cautious, and conservative. Everybody is still trying to please Daddy! Even the rebels are that way – their idea of rebellion is to simply reverse whatever the status quo is, which is as mechanical and boring as just following the mold.

Ian asked me: “Why do so many artists graduate from post-secondary education and then flounder for 10 years in the wilderness? Shouldn’t art/drama school be teaching us how to actually making a living at this?”

Hell no. The reason they flounder in the wilderness for 10 years is because it takes that long to get over their addiction to having every idea provided for them by teachers who have made them co-dependent. They keep waiting for somebody to give them a syllabus for their life. Until they take control of their continuing growth, which includes doing a lot of independent reading (theatre people don’t read nearly enough, either within the field or outside of it) and independent thinking (is what Michael Shurtleff says about auditioning really the extent of what I need to know to get a part?), they are stuck.

And let me ask this: how in the heck are we supposed to teach you how to make a living at this when the current system is set up to make sure that there is 80% unemployment so that directors have a “choice” when they cast? You can’t make a living like that, and anybody who says they are “training” you to do so is lying through their teeth while they drain your checking account. It’s like training people how to win at playing the slot machine.

The best thing we could do for young people is to spend the first week of their education showing them the sheer dysfunctionality of the system, and then let them spend the rest of their education trying to figure out a better way to do it.

And that means empowerment. Teach independent thinking (no, that isn’t an oxymoron). For instance, instead of providing a bunch of “mainstage productions” where young people passively do the bidding of the faculty, get the hell out of the way and turn the stage over to the students. Let them follow their passions, let them experiment, let them stink up the place if necessary – the air clears in no time, and none of it is carcinogenic.

And teach collaboration. There are actual techniques that can make collaboration work effectively and powerfully, but nobody teaches them. Instead, we pretend that a hierarchical system where the director allows everybody to share a few ideas before telling them how it’s really going to be done is collaboration. It’s not; it’s just more compliance training. This is especially true in college, where the director is likely to be a faculty member, and everyone else are students. Can you say power differential?

In my opinion, our theatre is floundering because our theatre teachers prefer adoration and obedience to challenge and independence. Until that changes, other changes will rely on a few outliers who somehow emerged with their minds intact. And those people need to speak out, to write blogs, to undertake noisy experiments and show that new ideas are not only possible, but successful.

Maybe that’s you?

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How theatre failed America

Monday, February 11th, 2008

New York-based monologuist Mike Daisey’s scathing indictment of the American theatre machine has been getting a lot of much-deserved attention in the theatrosphere.

Read his entire editorial for Seattle’s The Stranger newspaper here.

(Thanks to Scott Walters and Parabasis for the heads up.)

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10 questions: Erika Batdorf

Friday, February 8th, 2008
Photos by David Leyes.

1) What the fuck is going on?
Not enough really long games of Monopoly and too much caffeine to make it through the grant applications. Not enough skating and too much driving. BUT some kind of internal explosion of creativity and freeing up of some very old internal ice . . . and some really fantastic snuggly time with my kid.

2) What are some of the differences between your original 2005 production of Poetic License, and your upcoming production of it at the Factory Theatre?
I was really happy with two of the three characters, but one was just not right. She was a hard one . . . an angel is hard to research. Know any? If you, do call me. My amazing composer for this piece didn’t have enough time on the first version – Edgardo Moreno – now we can do it right. AND the through line is story AND poetry . . . Too literal a story doesn’t interest me. I think I got it right now!

3) What advantages does poetry have over other modes of narration?
Levels, layers . . . I love levels. I want my work to exist on many levels. I want the audience to have a rich and complex meal. Story is lovely – but for me – I need the mystical, the organic movement of a tree in the wind – so that the audience can’t go, “Oh, I get it, that’s how it ends. It is about a man who . . . ” I want them to question, get a little lost . . . I want to move closer and closer to something that is NOT just words – but is something that can really only exist on stage, live . . . But is not just movement design or raw emotion. I want it to have an elegant container that grows organically from the content.

4) Why is it important to question the meaning of the word “radical”?
Isn’t it obvious? What is radical anymore? We are desperately in need of radical change and we seem paralyzed. We all now accept global warming . . . but . . .

What does one really do? And that is a least a tangible one. What about the disease of materialism? Economic crisis? Spiritual bankruptcy? AND how do I address these things as an artist . . . truthfully in myself and without sentimentality and yet BRAVELY choose to actually have a point of view.

5) How has Canada’s theatre scene changed since you first started making theatre here in the early 1980s?
I really can’t say . . . I was in such a small and particular part of the scene. I was a kid in Montreal in the 80s, hanging out with the physical theatre crowd at a really exciting time. We all had black eyes from trying to run up walls, we were wearing crash helmets in the studios . . . I was working on this piece where I threw myself into the air talking about throwing myself into the arms of angel Gabriel and I’d come crashing down to the floor . . . we were all showing each other our bruises proudly. It was so self-destructive and fun and young!

I was in these workshops with Richard Pochinko. We then started working on a Timothy Findlay play together for a while and he said . . . come to Toronto, we’ll do this play . . . but he was working so intensely and I wasn’t ready.

At the time, I had no idea what was happening anywhere but in that little exciting community. I was too much of a newbie to work in Montreal and my French was not performance-ready. Carbone 14 and Mime Omnibus, where my friends were all getting work, had just started integrated complex French text. It was either Toronto, or guaranteed paid theatre work with a physical theatre company in the US . . . I went south and got stuck down there.

By the time I was ready to come back . . . I wrote Richard and Ian Wallace sent me a postcard saying he had passed away. I was trying to reach him to ask if he’d help with a play I was doing about dealing with death! I was working with folks with AIDS at the time who were dropping like flies and it was starting to get to me, so he became a character in that play . . . I still miss him . . . I can feel him in this city though!

So how is it different now? Well in my little world – less people are dying in the theatre community, I hope, less bruises and maybe the work is a little less vigorous and urgent but maybe a little healthier all around!

6) How much of your work is informed by a sense of anger?
Hmmm, I think that was done several pieces ago. Although sometimes I have to rustle up some righteous indignation to keep me going in the business aspect of the work! But not artistically.

7) What was your favourite part of participating in the 2006 Women Playwrights International Conference in Jakarta?
Wow, there is a whole book in that experience – if anyone wants to make a movie about it – call me . . . I am serious:

  • The women I met who had been in prison or exiled for doing theatre to fight genital mutilation or the sex trade or political oppression (one of whom is back in prison in Egypt)!

  • The woman hosting the conference who had to introduce the government official hosting the fancy dinner at the town hall who had – a few years earlier – been part of the government who had put her in prison for doing the very play she was now producing at this major festival called The President and the Prostitute. Her eyes still burn inside me; her dignity, anger, passion, self-restraint, courage.
  • The young women who followed me around with translators asking me, “How do I find my voice?” My feeling of being completely incapable of answering their question and my new appreciation for the freedom I have as a Canadian woman.
  • The moment after I performed when I was standing on stage during the applause while (in a little nightie being watched mostly by women with head coverings) the Canadian Ambassador’s wife came up through the audience to the stage to give me flowers with her eyes a mess with smeared mascara from crying and she stopped on her way to the stage and hugged this Indonesian man in a wheelchair (who I later found out she did not know at all!) I did not really know what was going on. I was told by the SM back stage to stay where I was . . . I felt so naked and raw and overwhelmed . . . and then leaving the stage and being surrounded by female reporters – many in various degrees of Moslem dress, some in contemporary dress, asking me to speak with them.

Suddenly I no longer took for granted my ability to speak freely and the voice that I do have. It has changed my life and reinvigorated my commitment to my work.

8) What does feminism mean to you?
Justice. A move away from the use of force towards large and small, practical applications of justice and compassion . . . to learn to see with my own eyes.

Perhaps my experience in Indonesia re-inspired my sense of feminism, as there the overt oppression of women is so tangible. I do feel a responsibility to get my voice out there and to take action in that regard. The recent studies on women in theatre in Canada are certainly depressing and speak to the need for more women to be represented.

I was very inspired by an amazing exhibit I saw in the USA years ago called Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West 1890-1945.

Despite this relatively small geographic area and time period, the collection was huge and so impressive. One of the artists was Georgia O’Keefe, and although I am a fan of her work, her work was, for me, not the best in the show. There were countless painters; serious painters I had never heard of. I was in tears by the end, realizing how critical it was for me to take full responsibility for the business of my art and get it out there so that the next generation of men and women would have another female role model that was visible and accessible.

The last time I was at the symphony, the conductor was a woman, as was the first violinist. There was a young girl sitting near me and I thought, “She is going to have a lot more courage than my generation, just from this simple event.”

9) Do you have any unifying theories about the role of formal education in shaping theatre artists?
The old adage, those who can do, do . . . you know the rest . . . is sad. I LOVE the integration of both; and as a teacher I think, teaching and doing should be required. I do not have formal academic education! I learned in studios, on my feet, apprenticing and doing theatre and studying privately with many different people. I have run my own freelance school/studio and taught in so many different kinds of programs . . . there is not one way to train. BUT ONE MUST TRAIN. The dumbing down of the ART FORM of theatre is tragic. Think how long a musician practices daily . . . do actors? THEY MUST. But the allure of TV and film and the fact that hard work and talent are not necessarily related to success in that arena and the financial struggle of surviving in theatre all combine in a negative way to promote – why train?

Well, the art form, the real art form, requires skill and discipline and training. Find a mentor, ask them to advise you in a training program. Ask them . . . what did you do? Then do that. I wrote Don Reider – a brilliant European stage clown – when I was 17 and asked him what to do. He sent me the most amazing letter that I actually used as a manual. (Thanks Don!)

10) What kinds of stories do North American theatre makers seem to consistently neglect telling?
I am not qualified to say. When my kid grows up, maybe I will see more theatre!

One thing I notice is that we are stuck IN story. I started in the tradition of theatre artists reacting against literary theatre (the representation of The Book). This to me is not just about physical theatre, but about the whole idea of theatre that is not something you can read and not something you can film. I have for the last 10 years entered story and language more fully – but most of my work detours from traditional story structure in some way or another. I love story, but I especially love theatre that is not just story telling.

I find North America gets a little stuck in literal story, whereas Europe (and Montreal) tends to be sitting in a wider vision of theatre. (Which doesn’t necessarily make it better!) I, however, want something visceral, present, not historical representation (although that has its place) and I want an experience of something I can’t really describe with words once I have left the theatre, but that I feel in my gut, or heart or messes with my thinking. Maybe, I want – mature passion about something meaningful beautifully articulated metaphorically . . .

But I bet I am not alone in that (story or not) and I think, the older I get, the more I realize that this is rare and quite hard to attain and one day at a time, little by little, we all do our best to move in that direction.

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A new play

Thursday, February 7th, 2008

Pretty Tough
by Brendan Gall

White. A baby sings the highest and lowest audible notes simultaneously for one minute.

Lights fade down. The baby hovers next to an operating Rube Goldberg machine.

(in Basque) This perpetual-motion machine is calculating π.

Time.

The baby whistles. A wolf appears.

This is my pet wolf. (petting him) I’m the only one who can do this. (roughhousing with him) I rescued him from hunters so he’s completely loyal to me.

The wolf sits stage-right.

Time.

A crow lands on the baby’s shoulder.

This is my pet crow. I found it on the ground one day. I set its wing and nursed it back to health. Now it refuses to leave me.

The crow caws and flies to the wolf’s head.

Does anyone have someone they’d like me to murder?

Time.

An audience member points at another audience member, whom the baby kills. Fleeing. Mass panic.

Order restores.

(to the audience member who pointed) It’s lucky you know Basque. It’s a pretty tough language.

One million Grade 8 students enter. A disco-ball lowers. Alphaville’s “Forever Young” plays. The students pair off and slow-dance.

“Forever Young” ends. Everyone has their first kiss, falls in love, and exits.

I’m glad I got to see that.

Time.

The upstage curtain ignites and burns, revealing a blue whale swimming in an aquarium beyond. The water catches fire. The flames shine through the aquarium, filling the theatre.

He’ll be fine as long as he doesn’t surface. Blue whales can hold their breath a pretty long time.

Time.

Does anyone have any questions? I can speak any language.

The Basque-speaking audience member explains this. The baby fields questions in various languages. The answers are true. Tears. Laughter.

The machine dings and starts to spit ticker-tape.

Intermission.

House lights. A sustained recording of a rabbit screaming.

Intermission.

Rabbit screaming ends. Audience returns. The theatre is filled with ticker-tape. The water still burns. House lights out.

Here’s what happens when you die:

Darkness. A PowerPoint presentation plays across the aquarium.

Lights up. The baby reads out π from the ticker-tape.

The crow eats the wolf.

Inside the aquarium, the blue whale begins to thrash…

Time slows down.

Infinity.
(Pretty Tough was inspired by a stage direction in Sam Shepard’s “Buried Child.” Performance rights inquiries can be made to the playwright through Praxis Theatre.)

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Watch this space for new work by playwright Brendan Gall

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008

Coming this Thursday, February 7, Praxis Theatre is thrilled to present a world wide web exclusive: a brand new short dramatic work by Canadian playwright Brendan Gall.

The piece is called Pretty Tough. And we’ll be posting the entire text right here on this blog on Thursday morning.

If you are familiar with Gall’s work, you know to expect the unexpected. You are not going to want to miss this.

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Tonight in Toronto . . .

Monday, February 4th, 2008

Please join Praxis Theatre for the next entry in our series of original play readings. This month, we are pleased to present Taylor Sutherland’s The Sand Factory.

WHAT: Reading of Taylor Sutherland’s The Sand Factory

WHEN: Monday, February 4 @ 8 pm

WHERE: The Concord Café – 937 Bloor St. West
(Just West of Ossington subway station on the south side)

CAST: Shaun McComb, Greta Papageorgiu, Ross McKie, Justin Friesen, Cayle Chernin.

All are welcome. For more information, please contact Laura Nordin.

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10 questions: Alison Broverman

Friday, February 1st, 2008

1) What the fuck is going on?
I’ve been laying pretty low for the past few months, actually, recovering from an intensely exhilarating summer (my first Fringe show! Yikes!). Writing about this and that, seeing as much theatre as I can, very quietly working on my second play. Oh, and a friend of mine and I recently started teaching 8-to-11-year-olds how to write plays, which is probably the greatest thing I have done in my life so far.

2) Do you have any unifying theories that inform your approach to arts reporting for The National Post?
No theories that can be summed up in a tidy little nutshell, but I do try to always be supportive of the artist or event in question without being fawning, and I try to design the story so it will inspire readers to go out and buy a ticket. One thing I find extremely frustrating about writing about theatre in Toronto is how repetitive it often feels: the same people doing the same plays all the time. I try not to encourage that by giving it ink. But I’m hopeful that it’s starting to change, though – a few younger, fresher voices are starting to make their way onto the city’s mainstages, and I hope that the trend keeps up.

3) What can independent theatre companies do to make their stories more appealing to local arts reporters?
Don’t be boring. Have a good angle. My editors love a good angle. And proofread your press releases. Good lord.

4) After spending years reviewing Toronto Fringe shows for Eye Weekly and The Post, how did it feel to mount your own show in last year’s festival?
It was terrifying, but really wonderful. I finally understood why artists treated me the way they did in the years I was working as a reviewer. I felt very exposed, but it was such a great experience – I realized that I want to create art more than I want to write about other people’s art. And ultimately, the show sold out its run and was chosen for the Best of the Fringe series, so that felt pretty damn awesome.

5) How do you feel about a theatre critic’s power to make or break a show?
A critic should not have the power to make or break a show, but unfortunately audiences are extremely cheap and lazy and are all too happy to give them that power. I have been really dissatisfied with how theatre criticism works in this city for quite some time now – the ego surrounding it is so, so huge, and no wonder. In a job like that, where you’re paid to be judgmental, it’s easy to turn into an asshole and develop an inflated sense of your own importance. The challenge is to maintain your modesty and realize that the most important part of your job is to create a tangible record of an ephemeral experience and, maybe, introduce your readers to something new and wonderful that they might otherwise have dismissed. Anton Ego, the ominous food critic in Ratatouille, has a monologue at the end of the film that sums up exactly how I feel about criticism:

“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations, the new needs friends.”

6) How have your experiences with blogs and social media influenced your ideas about theatre?
I don’t know that they have, really. I would really like to see more theatre folks blogging, as Daniel MacIvor does, about their work, about what they think about other work they see, about the conversations they have. The problem with theatre criticism in Toronto, specifically, but in general, is that it’s so unilateral – I would like to see theatre blogs used (as you guys do here) to create more of a conversation about theatre.

In the Post every Friday I edit the Popcorn Panel, where three panelists – film critics, film lovers, whoever – discuss a recent film in a casual, conversational way. I WISH I could do the same thing for theatre – you know, every week round up a few people – a theatre writer, a theatre artist, a theatre student, whoever – and chat about a play. It would be so great to get theatre artists talking about each other’s work more.

7) If you could change one thing about mainstream media’s coverage of theatre in Canada, what would it be?
I’d hire a lot of young, enthusiastic (and mostly female – sometimes I feel like the only girl around) arts reporters who don’t yet feel like they’ve seen it all and who still think theatre is fun and exciting. And I’d start up that theatre version of the Popcorn Panel that I just talked about.

8) As a writer, what are you better at now than you were when you were younger?
Just writing. When I was younger I had a lot of big ideas that never went anywhere. Having a regular writing gig at the Post forced me to write more regularly, and faster, and my brain just got used to a higher output mode. I don’t think it was an accident that I finished my first play that year, when I was writing more frequently than I’d ever written before.

9) How much of your work is informed by a sense of anger?
Honestly, not much. Heartbreak, often, but not anger. At least, not yet.

10) Who are some of your favourite contemporary theatre artists?
I think Hannah Moscovitch is the best thing to happen to Toronto theatre in a long time, and I hope she keeps it up. Mabou Mines’ balls out production of A Doll’s House blew me away at Harbourfront’s New World Stage Festival last year. It feels redundant to say Daniel MacIvor, because who doesn’t think he’s the bees’ knees, but Daniel MacIvor. Oh, and this 8-year-old comic genius from my playwriting class last fall. He wrote the funniest line I have ever heard in my life: “She’s not my girlfriend, she’s a hobo!” And he also wrote a very moving monologue about being in trouble in the principal’s office. Watch out for him.

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