13 ways of looking at Pyramus and Thisbe

Posted on November 6, 2015 by barczablog
  1. If a scientist could slice up love and loss into small specimens and put them onto slides and put them under a microscope it would resemble what we saw at the Four Seasons Centre tonight and in earlier performances from the Canadian Opera Company, of this piece called Pyramus and Thisbe, including two short works by Monteverdi and one by Barbara Monk Feldman.

  2. Christopher Small in his home near Barcelona in 2002. Credit Michele Curel (click for NYTimes obit)

    Opera is often meant to show off the skills of the performers: but not always. Christopher Small, decrying the reification of music, said “performance does not exist in order to present musical works, but rather, musical works exist in order to give performers something to perform”.   In the heyday of the virtuoso the singer could dispose of the new aria offered by the composer, and instead pull their favourite piece out of their suitcase instead.   Yet the periods before and after that had no use for the virtuoso.  BEFORE in Monteverdi’s time –when we begin the COC presentation of Pyramus and Thisbe—the composers still adhered to the dream of the Florentine Camerata, to revive the tragic practices of Ancient Greece, dreaming up a second practice that was more intelligible than the churchy counterpoint that came before. AFTER in Debussy’s time—before Barbara Monk Feldman’s opera but in a century bursting free from the tyranny of the virtuoso—singers again served the text as virtuously as they had in Monteverdi’s time. Yes we’re in a reified place, not unlike that mental space where one would propose to submit 13 ways of looking at something.

  3. The libretto in Monteverdi’s time was the focus, the music being a means to a dramatic end. To that end it must be understood.  Are we past that now? Surtitles aren’t really the point, if one is alluding, speaking indirectly in one’s selection of text.  The words in Pyramus and Thisbe­ are from a variety of sources according to the program.  There are words in English and German, quotes from Jaspers & Rilke alongside Faulkner and others.  Am I a conservative bourgeois in wishing to see the libretto, to read it and to be able to go back to the sources?  I know that if I were in a gallery peering at paintings –which seems relevant in a work with such an echo of visual art—I might have all too little to go on, in making a smidgen of meaning.   I do recall that back in 1981 I was privileged to be invited to the North American premiere of Satyagraha at Artpark, Lewiston NY, after having written an interview of Philip Glass.  I was given a score of the opera to peruse.  I can’t help thinking that when we’re exploring something new, we’re more inclined to be sympathetic to what we can understand.  Sympathetic understanding is more remote when the learning curve is too steep.  I recall the radical move of the COC to invite some of us backstage to see their production of Semele up close (even if one of us went & got all star-struck talking to Jane & Allyson, blush….), whereby it became more comprehensible.  That worked for me at least.
  4. The use of these disparate sources, without attribution and without making the text available? At least frustrating. At worst, pretentious name-dropping.
  5. Death lurks throughout this work, but then again that’s what we see with Pyramus and Thisbe, that’s how it is for Tancredi & Clorinda. If we were to reduce our lives to a single plot arc, it might be birth –intimacy—death, where the intimacy is signified by touching. Director Christopher Alden clearly gets this, and clearly signifies this.
  6. I’ve now seen this opera twice, and don’t really think I want to call it an opera. One can make theatre out of musical sources that aren’t opera, for example Against the Grain Theatre company regularly do so using song cycles and oratorios their Messiah is coming up soon.  If I call Pyramus and Thisbe an opera, can I call Die Schöne Mullerin or Harawi operas?  Do we call Messiah or Mozart’s Requiem  operas, when they’re given an operatic treatment?  Ballet companies take a symphony and make it into a dance work but that doesn’t actually change the symphony into something else, tempting as it is to now see it as a text for another medium.

    Director Matthew Jocelyn and Composer Phillipe Boesmans (photo: ©Isabelle Françaix)

    Director Matthew Jocelyn and Composer Phillipe Boesmans (photo: ©Isabelle Françaix). Boesmans’ JULIE has its North American premiere later this month.

  7. I’m thinking a lot about composition. I’ll be seeing Phillipe Boesmans’ Julie very soon in a co-production from Canadian Stage & Soundstreams.  Adam Scime’s L’homme et le Ciel will be presented in early December by Fawn Opera.
    Sirett & soprano Larissa Koniuk, L'Homme et l'Ange qui a venu du Ciel

    Geoffrey Sirett & soprano Larissa Koniuk, L’Homme et l’Ange qui a venu du Ciel

    I was thrilled to participate in the recent premiere of David Warrack’s Abraham at Metropolitan United Church (an oratorio).  There are lots more that I haven’t mentioned.  At the same time, I’ve tried it myself.  I wrote a piece presented at the University of Toronto back in 2000 called Silence is Golden that was a kind of celebration of some of the stories my mother told me.  I did an adaptation of Venus in Furs in 1999 that is still really the trunk of a longer version of the work, if I ever get back to it, to finish it.  So much time has gone by…(!)  So, while I am in awe –that so much time has passed, that people manage to do so much and be so productive– I am not going to be critical that a work that is not an opera was presented on the COC’s stage.

  8. Louis Riel was premiered almost half a century ago, as was The Luck of Ginger Coffey. We are told we’ll be seeing Riel again on the COC stage, and that leads me to wonder about casting.  Who will play Riel? A baritone who can act, I should think.  Is it right for Russell Braun, or is he more apt for John A Macdonald, (another baritone role)?  While my friends are more likely to bet on who might win the Superbowl or the Stanley Cup, I think it’s fun turning the casting into a matter for a wager.  I am betting that they get Riel on stage and that it’s a huge success.  Will they get Kristina Szabo to portray Riel’s wife, the part played by Roxolana Roslak including the text in Cree (or is it Ojibwa?)? She is the designated power-lifter for the COC & AtG (i will never get her ““Doundou Tchil” out of my head, the most ferociously sexy thing i have ever seen in an “opera”…notice i put the word in QUOTES!).
  9. Love can be terribly arbitrary. One minute you’re sailing away with Theseus, the next minute you’ve been abandoned on an island, lamenting your fate. Art too is arbitrary. One century, people like Franco Corelli or Jon Vickers sing “Lasciatemi morire”, the next, we get all fundamentalist and insist it only be sung by a woman.
  10. The act of touching magically bridges the gap between discreet objects & beings. We seem to be all alone, isolated, alone.  Sometimes we make contact, and in that moment there is another possibility.  The poetry of loneliness is in the dream of contact.
  11. Surtitles are so helpful, whether we’re hearing a foreign language or our own. And when no one onstage is moving, there’s always the title to read.  I wish David Warrack’s piece Abraham had been presented with surtitles, a work that was wonderfully well-received (and i don’t think i am biased…. i heard the loud applause).
  12. The deeper we got into the piece, the more people and the less actual life. We are examining specimens, discreet snapshots or toe-clippings of romance. We begin with passion, Ariadne alone.  We have more passion with Tancredi & Clorinda.  But once we’re talking about Pyramus & Thisbe, that’s just it, we are in meta-territory.  We observe, we contemplate, and the singing is removed from the realm of real romance.  Yes they die.  But for the entire piece we are examining death as though we were that detective onstage.  It is forensic opera.
  13. Performances happen in this reified realm. Krisztina Szabo, Philip Addis, Owen McCausland each move and sing.  The deeper we get into the realm of pure thingified thought, the more I stared at Johannes Debus, his gestures conducting the orchestra, the last vestige of genuine life on the stage.  He was worth the cheers.
Posted in Art, Architecture & Design, Music and musicology, Opera, Personal ruminations & essays | 1 Comment

Hart House Hamlet

Posted on November 5, 2015 by barczablog

I’ve been going to Hart House Theatre for a very long time, going back to my own participation as an undergrad in another century, a place for ambitious productions, a less-than-ideal space built in a lovely old building full of tradition.

The new Hamlet directed by Paolo Santalucia opened Wednesday night to a full house, to begin a three week run.  The cast are already solidly in command, as I can only recall one missed line, in a long wordy play.  Santalucia has given us lots to ponder.

Dan Mousseau as Hamlet

Dan Mousseau as Hamlet, set design by Nancy Perrin

The set design by Nancy Perrin is a curious sculptural construction. If it’s not post-apocalyptic it at least suggests the freight of associations we all bring to any new reading of a Shakespeare play, particularly this one. Can you say “anxiety of influence”?  When I interviewed young Dan Mousseau earlier this week this was one of the things I wondered, as one steps onto a stage that echoes Hamlets of yore, both cinematic and live, heroic and hammy (including Mel Brooks glorious take in To Be or Not to Be).

From his arrival onstage, Mousseau is in command: of his text, of his story, of the evening.  At times I felt as though I was watching a one-man show of soliloquys, interrupted by the occasional bit of business, because his readings were so extraordinary, so original, so confident, so effortless.  I’d asked him about Hamlet’s age, because he’s younger than what we’re accustomed to , even if I have always been bothered by 40 year old Hamlets who are in their mother’s closet, a mother who is presumably still sexual at… 60 or more? Now if Hamlet is 22 (or playing 25, as Mousseau said), this is all that much more plausible.  Claudius and Gertrude are younger, more vital, and Hamlet seems oppressed that much harder by their actions.  His outcome is more tragic, beginning to resemble that of Romeo, as he and Ophelia are pushed by the offenses of their elders. The play is most vivid and alive during Dan’s soliloquys, as the play hits its stride whenever he’s alone.  Perhaps that’s simply because the play itself is working very hard at times.

When the players arrive? Then it’s no longer just on Mousseau’s shoulders.  Whenever there is a musical set-piece –and full marks to Jeremy Hutton, Kristen Zaza and anyone onstage during these magical moments—the piece comes fully alive.  In the oath-swearing, in the funeral for Ophelia, in the fight sequence, Santalucia does well with his management of people onstage.

Alan Shonfield, Dan Mousseau and Dylan Evans

Alan Shonfield, Dan Mousseau and Dylan Evans

I don’t think I’ve ever liked Rosenkrantz & Guildenstern quite so much, the nerdy pair of Alan Shonfield and Dylan Evans, moody, conspiratorial, creepy.  Nate Bitton gave us the different facets of Laertes –as the likeable and loving brother, fierce avenger, and eventually the one to validate Hamlet in the final scene’s reconciliation.  Cameron Johnston gave us an interesting pairing, as the ghost and his brother Claudius, chanelling something a bit like Stephen Harper in his bland friendliness (did I make you shiver at the thought?).  Annemieke Wade’s Gertrude is a sympathetic mother, very powerful in the big closet scene with her son.  Thomas Gough hits the right notes as Polonius.  Sheelagh Daly’s Ophelia,  once given centre stage knew how to take advantage beautifully.  Eric Finlayson was as likeable a Horatio as one could ask, while Andrei Preda’s Gravedigger energized the show just when it needed it.

In the end you will be moved.  “Let the audience look to their eyes.”

Hamlet continues until Nov 21st.

Posted in Dance, theatre & musicals, Reviews, University life | 2 Comments

Honeymoon or Shotgun Wedding?

Posted on November 5, 2015 by barczablog

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, right, goes face-to-face with Finance Minister Bill Morneau at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Nov. 4, 2015. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

If you are a Torontonian, no one can rain on this parade. The swearing in of the Trudeau Cabinet had the kind of breathless following of a Royal Wedding.

Can you say “honeymoon”?

Don’t get me wrong.  I was in Trudeau’s corner way back when he was fighting Brazeau (not literally… a supporter, not a handler or anything), even before the “not ready” attack ads.  I am delighted as the next Liberal supporter.

But recent experience watching the Blue Jays persuades me to be skeptical of the discourse.  This is another bandwagon, and people will be leaping off before too long, and that’s fine.  Democracy requires that. In fact right now it’s not a even a conversation, anymore than the screaming cheers in a bar when the red light comes on can be mistaken for critical thought.

I just had a thought, though.  Toronto? we love the Liberals, and but for the aberration of 2011, rarely let a Conservative represent us, although a few ridings have been hard-core NDP supporters.  So yes, we are in a honeymoon in Toronto. You can tell, when even a Conservative-owned media outlet like CP24 gets onboard.

But lest we forget.  Stephen Harper won a majority with roughly 40% of the vote. As Liberal & NDP supporters were wont to say: “60% voted against him”!

And now, Trudeau is having his honeymoon with Ontarians (and you can see that he gets this, in the number of ministers from Ontario, his true heartland). And this is true for anyone / any place that voted for him.

The other 60%? are they having a honeymoon, or is it perhaps a shotgun wedding? i know that my NDP supporting friends seem kind of irritated that Trudeau has done all these activist things –promising to bring 25000 refugees by the end of 2015, the gender parity in the cabinet, the deficit spending– that used to be the hallmark of the NDP.  Will they be won over?  I think it’s possible, as some of these people are strategic voters who were simply seeking to avoid another Harper term.

The Conservatives surely are waiting.  While they might have felt that their own party was snatched in the night and was replaced by a Reform changeling that they no longer recognize as “conservative”, at least of the old progressive populist style, they’re waiting. They’ll see what becomes of their party. They’ll see what becomes of the liberal promises.

I am reminded of the high hopes when Obama arrived in power, when the energy was also largely the energy of revulsion for the previous regime. Yes Obama was better, but how long can you let that sustain you? And similarly, how long can one smile at the thought of Trudeau replacing Harper?

If the economy does a big downturn, if the credit bubble bursts? We may discover it’s been a short romance.  In the meantime, enjoy the warm sunny glow.

Posted in Personal ruminations & essays, Politics | 2 Comments

10 Questions for Matthew Jocelyn

Posted on November 4, 2015 by barczablog

If you were to read Matthew Jocelyn’s biography on the Canadian Stage website you might be surprised.

Originally from Toronto and later based in France, Jocelyn is an internationally acclaimed producer and director of theatre, dance and opera as well as arts administrator and educator. He was the Artistic and General Director of the Atelier du Rhin in Alsace, France for 10 years. Under his leadership, he was responsible for establishing the organization as a major centre for theatre, opera and contemporary dance – the only multi-disciplinary artistic centre of its kind in France. In addition to his administrative and financial roles, he directed a number of productions at the Atelier du Rhin. As a result of his accomplishments, he was named Chevalier des Art et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters), by the French Ministry of Culture in July 2008, one of the country’s most prestigious arts honours.

His professional credits also include: founding Théâtre de l’Autre Rive and Théâtre Des-Hérités in Paris; directing theatre, dance and opera in Europe’s most revered venues; guest director at Canada’s Stratford Shakespeare Festival where he received critical acclaim for the direction of Pierre Corneille’s The Liar (Le menteur) in 2006; developing and directing original plays, operas and translations in Canada, Switzerland, France, Germany and Brussels; and teaching at the University of Toronto, the American University of Paris, the Université de Toulouse-le Mirail and the Conservatoire National Supérieure d’Art Dramatique in Paris. He was appointed Artistic & General Director of Canadian Stage in February 2009.

We’ve seen a wonderful array of multi-disciplinary productions from Matthew Jocelyn, from brilliant talents such as Crystal Pite / Kidd Pivot and Robert Lepage. And yet it’s only now that we’ll have an opportunity to see Jocelyn direct an opera in Canada. Perhaps his biggest priority was in establishing & strengthening the company, building support before undertaking a modern opera. Jocelyn will direct a production of Phillippe Boesmans’ 2005 opera Julie, a collaboration between Canadian Stage and Soundstreams to be presented Nov 17-29 at the Bluma Appel Theatre.

I asked Jocelyn ten questions: five about himself and five about Julie.

1-Are you more like your father or your mother?

I’m more like my mother. We share the same nose.

I’d say both my parents were great influences on my life. My mother, because she was extremely non-judgmental and very free in her attitudes as to what people could do or be. And my father, well, because at heart he was an artist.

Director Matthew Jocelyn

Matthew Jocelyn (photo: V Tony Hauser)

2-What is the best or worst thing about being a director?

The best thing about being a director, especially an opera director, are those moments in the rehearsal room with only a pianist and two or three singers performing for you; they crack something which creates a moment of truth for a character, which gives meaning to the music. It makes them sing what they’re singing that much better. It’s an incredibly fulfilling experience, being in a rehearsal room with singers.

The worst thing is when you’re not able to communicate an idea in a way that is helpful to the artist you’re working with, when you sense something that’s essential but aren’t able to find the words or the means through which to convey the message.

3- Who do you like to listen to or watch?

I love to listen to Bach. I love to listen to Melissa Laveaux… Annie DiFranco, to Carmel (Carmel always makes me dance).

And I love to watch really good Italian cinema.

4- What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?

I wish that I could play the piano. I wish I spoke ten languages. I wish I could stop wishing that I could do things I can’t.

5- When you’re just relaxing and not working, what is your favourite thing to do?

To hike by the ocean.

*******

Five more about Matthew Jocelyn and Julie

1-Please talk about how you reconcile the different sides of yourself, as you function as a director of the show, where you are also artistic director of the company.

I would like to think that my work as an Artistic Director is a reflection of both the ethical and aesthetic considerations that I bring to my work as a director, and vice versa. So that really, they reinforce each other more than anything else. Luckily, I am surrounded by a team of people that are capable of holding the theatre afloat when I’m in the rehearsal room.

I would add that I think it’s essential for both the team and the company and for the audiences at Canadian Stage, to understand that my perspective is always one of a working artist. I’m always very conscious of the artistry and the nitty-gritty of the craftsmanship that goes into the various projects that we decide to support and collaborate on.

2- You’ve directed Julie before in Europe. Tell us about this opera and why you wanted to bring it here, your first directorial project of an opera in Toronto.

Director Matthew Jocelyn and Composer Phillipe Boesmans (photo: ©Isabelle Françaix)

Director Matthew Jocelyn and Composer Phillipe Boesmans (photo: Isabelle Françaix)

Julie is an absolute masterpiece of a chamber opera. Philippe Boesmans is without question, for me, the most important opera composer in the world today. So the opportunity of doing one of his operas in association with Soundstreams, a company I greatly admire, was an exceptional one.

Philippe is also a very close friend that I’ve been collaborating with for more than 10 years, so it was an opportunity to continue to strengthen our artistic ties.

This production was performed in over a dozen theatres in France, Belgium and Switzerland, which shows the appetite the audiences have for this work.

3- Talk about why you place such a high importance on multi-disciplinary work in your offerings at Canadian Stage.

The Tempest Replica, presented at Canadian Stage by Kidd Pivot in May 2014 (Photo by Jorg Baumann)

What I place a huge importance on is the vocabulary that today’s artists are using in order to recount the world. It so happens that some of the most exciting artists – Crystal Pite, Michèle Anne de Mey, Jaco Van Dormael or Robert Lepage, Stan Douglas – are crossing over the disciplines. Because we are a contemporary performing arts company, what I’m really interested in are the most cutting edge artists and what their languages are.

I didn’t set out to say: “it’s got to be pluridisciplinary.” Many artists no longer feel restricted to simply being theatre makers, dance makers, or music makers in order to recount their worlds; they themselves cross over the boundaries. That’s what we want to share with the audiences.

4-Will we see more opera, whether directed by you or someone else, at Canadian Stage?

I hope we continue to see work that is relevant and fresh, and artistically demanding. If that includes opera, then fantastic! It would have to be chamber opera because there is no other conduit in this city doing this kind of work.

5- Is there a teacher or influence you’d care to name that you especially admire?

I’ve had a huge number of influences in my life. In learning my practice, the three people that had the biggest influence on me as a director were Patrice Chéreau, Mathias Langhoff and Jonathan Miller, all of whom I had the great honour of working with at some point.

I’ve been lucky enough to work with exceptionally talented and demanding artists and to see the work of hundreds of exceptional creators, like Philippe. All of that filters through somehow.

*******

Philippe Boesmans’ Julie will be presented November 17-29, a co-production of Soundstreams and Canadian Stage, directed by Matthew Jocelyn at the Bluma Appel Theatre.

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Mezzo madness at the COC Ensemble Studio Competition

Posted on November 4, 2015 by barczablog

Centre Stage 2015, the Canadian Opera Company’s ensemble competition gala, was a celebration of Canada & Canadian talent. Co-hosted by two former winners, we were treated to both official languages, thanks to Karine Boucher’s exquisite French pronunciation as a charming extra in her partnership with Charles Sy, and a visit from the Lieutenant-Governor herself, Elizabeth Dowdeswell. As a further showcase of domestic talent we were treated to wonderful performances from Andrew Haji & Joyce El-Khoury.

We knew it had to be different from last year, when three men (two tenors & a baritone) won the three prizes at the 2014 Centre Stage competition. If the Ensemble Studio was not to become totally unbalanced we couldn’t have the same sort of results.

A big clue as to what was to come?  the list of the eight finalists.

  • Four of the finalists were mezzo-sopranos
  • Two were sopranos
  • Two were baritones

….and no tenors!

I picked up one obvious clue –no tenors—while missing the even more obvious clue, that half the finalists were mezzo-sopranos. All that was missing was a banner saying “welcome mezzo-sopranos!” perhaps with an apology as well.

And so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that first & second place went to mezzo-sopranos. First place went to mezzo Emily D’Angelo, while second place went to mezzo Lauren Eberwein. D’Angelo, a University of Toronto alumna, was a popular winner with the crowd, who also picked her as the audience favourite.

In a season when we finally see a Canadian composer’s opera grace the stage, it’s a feather in the general director’s cap. Alexander Neef has much to be proud of, along with conductor Johannes Debus leading the COC orchestra. The evening felt like a genuine celebration.

COC Music Director Johannes Debus and COC General Director Alexander Neef. (Photo: bohuang.ca)

COC Music Director Johannes Debus and COC General Director Alexander Neef. (Photo: bohuang.ca)

Posted in Music and musicology, Opera | Tagged , | Leave a comment

10 Questions for Dan Mousseau: Hamlet

Posted on November 4, 2015 by barczablog

I had the pleasure of meeting Dan Mousseau at Ryerson Theatre School, a remarkable training ground for many of the best actors in this country. You can surmise his range from the fact he’s been cast as both John in Miss Julie and Fluther Good in The Plough and the Stars, two of the most divergent parts one could imagine from the same young actor. It’s rare enough for an actor in his early 20s to be cast as Hamlet (although this is surely how I would prefer the casting, not with some virtuoso who is too old for the part), rarer still for an actor to get to do the part twice at such a young age. But so it is for Dan, who has already undertaken the role of Hamlet for Shakespeare at Play, an online compleat Shakespeare.

Dan Mousseau as Hamlet at Hart House Theatre (photo: Scott Gorman)

Dan Mousseau as Hamlet at Hart House Theatre (photo: Scott Gorman)

And he’ll portray the Prince of Denmark at Hart House Theatre beginning November 4th. I was glad to ask Dan ten questions: five about himself and five more about playing Hamlet.

1-Are you more like your father or your mother?

This is a tough question because I think that everyone is inherently a sort of combination of both. I see how I am a lot like both my Mom and my Dad. It’s funny actually as I get older I feel like I’m more like my Dad where I felt more like my mom in my younger years. My Mom has a wonderful compassion and sensitivity that I think I have inherited. My Dad has an incredible spirit, drive and fortitude. My Mom can also be a bit too sensitive and anxious and my Dad has a temper, both of which I’ve also inherited. At the risk of not answering the question, I think I’m a pretty equal serving of both and I am grateful for it!

2-what is the best thing about what you do?

I struggled with this for a long time when I really decided I wanted to be an actor. I desperately wanted to help people as a kid and always saw acting as an extraneous, elite career.

However, the deeper I get into this career the more I realize how absolutely necessary it is for all of us. I’m going to broaden this to all of the arts for right now, because I think that’s the necessary thing. People need art as a reflection of themselves and the world around them. To criticize the world and who we are as individuals in this world.

Hamlet himself says it in his speech about the players. He says the purpose of playing is “to hold, as twere the mirror up to nature; show virtue her own feautre, scorn her own image and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.” I think that says it all. There was a very specific reason that art was created and it fills a very important hole for humanity to see who they are, to escape and to relate with each other through honest communication.

Break that down into acting, the ability to tell these incredible stories with my incredible fellow actors, is the best part. And it’s in these stories that I think people see themselves. To have the job of portraying these things as honestly as possible to connect to someone is a really cool thing. It’s like everyone in that room believes in magic for that one moment of connection.

3-who do you like to listen to or watch?

Surprisingly, I’m not a really avid music listener. I love music but for whatever reason I just never got into listening to it in my day to day life. I do become obsessed with certain songs or albums. I keep listening to Kendrick Lamar, Kings of Leon and Pink Floyd right now. I love George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” actually, as a random side note. But overall, my love for music is just growing, but music is such a huge part of the show it feels like it fit to start listening to more now.

I love movies and TV, I’ve been watching a lot of Parks and Rec, Rick and Morty, Walking Dead, and the Graham Norton Show. I just finished Mad Men, which was a treat, I’m sad its over.

I really love dramatic movies, I have a taste for the drama and the weird, I guess. I just saw Goodnight, Mommy at Tiff Bell Lightbox, which was creepy as hell. But I love watching Sam Rockwell’s work, Daniel Day Lewis, Paul Thomas Anderson, and I really love Ryan Gosling. Haha, I feel like there’s a type that like Ryan Gosling, but I do dig his work. Number one for movies though is Stanley Kubrick, hands down.

4-what ability or skill do you wish you had that you don’t have.

Practically, for my work, I wish I had a photographic memory and a capacity to relate to any person and circumstance.

But I would either love to learn to play an instrument or learn another language. I would love to fill in the holes of my French knowledge. Those may be cliché answers but that’s it for me.

5-when you’re just relaxing and not working what is your favourite thing to do?

Spend time with my girlfriend. Haha, but all mushiness aside, I love videogames and I love reading. It would most definitely be one of the two. And the joy of having an amazing girlfriend is you can do either or both while you’re together.

Dan Mousseau (photo: Scott Gorman

Dan Mousseau (photo: Scott Gorman

Five more about preparing Hamlet.

1-Tell us about the challenges of learning the role of Hamlet, one of the longest roles in the language.

Before doing Hamlet for Hart House, I was fortunate enough to do it for a company called Shakespeare at Play. SAP is an App that combines a filmed video of a Shakespearean play with the text itself, which allows the reader to read along with the video simultaneously.
Doing that version, which is technically educational, we couldn’t cut a single word from Hamlet, which meant I had to learn all 2600 lines, or thereabouts. And each line is up to 10 words. Shakespeare also wrote in what is called Verse, a kind of arrangement of poetry, and prose, which is just like everyday writing. This means that the 2600 line number is a bit relative.

Basically Hamlet is onstage for 85-90% of a 5 hour play, and the majority of the text is him speaking to his friends, parents or the audience. And when he speaks to the audience, and often when he’s speaking to everyone else, he uses monologues (14 or more lines in a row). It’s a ton.

I am fortunate enough to be a bit of a sponge with lines. I find they sink in quite easily, especially when it comes to Shakespeare because the words have a rhythm that finds its way into the actor’s body. Although there were plenty of parts where I had to just repeat, repeat, repeat the lines to get them firmly in my head. I try to repeat one line, then learn the next line and repeat them both and I keep doing that until I’ve made a bit of a tower of lines, if that makes sense.

So having done Hamlet before, uncut, it was nice during this process, in which our amazing director Paolo and dramaturg Susan Bond, have made cuts, that I could just allow some of the lines to come back to me. Sometimes I have to watch that I don’t say too much!

2- Talk about the age of the character of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, and how you feel about portraying him in Paolo Santalucia’s production at Hart House.

This is a great question, as Hamlet is technically 30, it says in the script. There’s an interesting thing that happens as a result of Hamlet being a younger person, I think. So much of what Hamlet does is impulsive, while at the same time being withdrawn or thought out to the point of cowardice.

I’m 22 and we’re playing my Hamlet a little bit older since I think I read a little bit older onstage, 24-5 or so, which means I’m still younger than Hamlet himself and definitely younger than the usual casting of Hamlet. It’s strange to me that usually an older man or woman plays Hamlet. although I understand the need to have an experienced player at the centre of a show, what comes out of a younger or age appropriate actor playing Hamlet is something quite tragic in my opinion.

It’s the difference between seeing a young person with potential, a heart full of love, and a confused mind tossed about between these massive forces versus a middle aged person going through a bit of a crisis. The intensity of the parental relationships makes more sense to me since Hamlet is in the transition of letting go of his parents when this happens, he is going to Wittenburg, but he isn’t fully independent yet, which is a stage that is very vulnerable. To have this all (the play) happen at that stage, a stage we’ve all been at, is heartbreaking. The play happens right when Hamlet is discovering who he is as a person.

And right when he has it, he dies. It’s the loss of a great potential, a young, beautiful person who had their whole life ahead of them but is torn away too soon. I think Shakespeare wrote it that way for a reason.

3- in Shakespeare at Play – a Canadian website where one can see entire plays on video—you play Hamlet. Talk about the differences between the intimacy of a video reading and what you’ll be doing on the Hart House Theatre stage.

There definitely is a huge difference. As I mentioned before I had to know every single word for the video, which was one hell of a challenge but we could take multiple takes and it was broken up into shots.

There is nothing like “doing it live” as they say. Once we started doing the show from start to finish, I actually got to feel in my body what it felt like for Hamlet to go through this play. Who the people around him are and what happens to him. And it’s one hell of a journey, he goes through a lot.

When we filmed Shakespeare at Play, we started with the final scene. On the first day of shooting, I died. If was a challenge, and was an excellent acting challenge, to make that real and give the audience the feeling of what he’s been through before that moment. There are certain realities in shooting a film, who is available and when, that have to be taken into account. It’s different when you do a show top to bottom.


That also means its hard on the body, it has been hard on my voice and it is tiring. I’m swimming in buckets of sweat by the end of the first act. The set we have is amazing and tactile but that also means I’m climbing throughout the show too. And, in terms of vocal performance, I have to make sure every word I say is heard, even to the back row of the theatre. That’s a lot different than when I had a mic attached to me in the filming and I could whisper some lines.

That being said, having the energy of the audience is something that can’t be replaced. And going on the full journey that Hamlet goes through is extremely humbling and touching, plus this is several years later which means I’ve grown as a person and I hope my performance reflects that.

4- Playing Hamlet can be a humbling experience, a role where you are inevitably compared to some great actors from previous generations. Please talk about how it feels stepping into the role at this time in your career.

It is pretty humbling thinking about the amount of actors that have done this before me and the calibre of actors they all were or are. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet is being screened in theatres at the same time, no pressure! He’s amazing! Hopefully people will still want to see ours. Because the thing is, no two Hamlet’s can ever be the same.
I try to limit my intake of interpretations while I’m working on something, because I often worry that I will see something I like and then try to use it for my Hamlet. Doing this will feel fake to the audience and actor alike because it is a thing that didn’t come out of the actor, it isn’t organic, its like doing an impression of someone else playing Hamlet. I just saw Jonathan Goad’s Hamlet at Stratford too, which was hard to get out of my brain!
I try to look at Hamlet in terms of my life and what he means to me. I also look at the different ways I can connect to him, relate to him. We talk about what he wants and I find out what and who is important to him, how he reacts to events and situations and what his hopes and dreams are.

Despite the vast history of this character, the more he is me and mine, I think the more true and resonant it will be with the audience. That’s the goal.

5- Is there a teacher or influence you’d care to name that you especially admire?

There are too many to count! I am always influenced by my parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends and teachers.

I want to say a huge thank you to everyone in the cast, in the crew, Paolo, Susan, Emma our assistant director, Jeremy our stage manager and everyone involved. It’s the people that im surrounded by every day doing this show that inspire me.

*******

Hamlet begins at Hart House Theatre November 4th, running Wednesday – Saturdays until November 21st.

Posted in Books & Literature, Cinema, video & DVDs, Dance, theatre & musicals, Interviews, University life | Leave a comment

Psycho and the art of horror with the Toronto Symphony

Posted on November 1, 2015 by barczablog

For Halloween the Toronto Symphony presented their latest film with a live accompaniment, namely Psycho. A film buff might call it “Hitchcock’s Psycho.“ A film-music buff might prefer “Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho” which is closer to how I see it.

Without Herrmann? You lose one of the most distinctive moments in cinematic history, namely the shower. Hitchcock visualized it as a silent sequence. Herrmann saw it differently: not for the first time.

Yes it was a fun evening, verging on a happening, just like previous films in this series (Back to the Future and Vertigo). Some of us accepted the challenge to dress in costume for the occasion, as did members of the TSO. There were at least two Norman Bates’s, wearing a gray wig, one portrayed by yours truly.me

In the orchestra not only did we see several distinctive characters, but one player even came as the shower, complete with a curtain & curtain rod plus something resembling a shower head; and miraculously the “water” didn’t hit her instrument as she managed to keep playing.

At one time horror films were normally “B” pictures, the trashiest of the trashy. And yet, in the latest British Film Institute poll (in the Sept 2012 issue of Sight & Sound),  Psycho tied for # 35 in the poll, one of four Bernard Herrmann films in the top fifty (Taxi Driver is tied for #31, Citizen Kane is #2, and Vertigo is #1). While I don’t believe Psycho will ever displace Vertigo at the top of that list, I actually think it’s a far better film, and that Herrmann’s score for Psycho might be the best score of all.

How is it that the score for this black and white film can seem to be scored in black and white? (although come to think of it that’s literally true of all musical notation). Herrmann used only strings, severely limiting his expressive vocabulary and in the process, perfectly matching Hitchcock’s film. The dry astringent music was so much more than a commercial product, a daring piece of art that never gets old. Vertigo is a sentimental relic in comparison.

Psycho gives me one of my favourite moments in the film music course I teach at the Royal Conservatory.  We watch the shower scene the way Hitchcock watched it at first, which is to say, silently.  And just like him, we observe that it doesn’t work terribly well without the music.

Cinematic Music: How We Hear Film (click for more information)

Cinematic Music: How We Hear Film (click for more information)

We also do the opposite: listen to that music without any shower or knives. It’s a curious thing, that this music can actually be beautiful and abstract, when lifted out of its Bates Motel context.

Watching this live performance of the Psycho score was hugely instructive. It’s a chamber orchestra this time, a much smaller & tighter ensemble than for either Vertigo or Silvestri’s Back to the Future. In fact the sound is powerful yet never very loud. Wow, amazing that the effects are every bit as powerful –that is, terrifying – as ever.  At the opening it sounds quite a bit different from what I’m accustomed to on the DVD, because in the big Roy Thomson Hall space the balance is slightly different. The basses are more clearly audible than they are on the DVD. The violins are not nearly so edgy, their treble tones sucked up by the hall. I wonder whether the sound on the DVD (and the film) has been corrected, the treble boosted. There is extra presence on that recording, and I suspect it’s an artificial effect, now that I’ve heard the score played. This music is very pretty.

I can’t help noticing similarities to other shows & works I’ve seen lately.

  • The last scene with the psychiatrist is a prototype for so many scenes, so many forensic investigations up to and including the harrowing scene with Allegra Fulton as the lawyer in The Trouble with Mr Adams, and Owen McCausland’s observer in the Canadian Opera Company’s Pyramus & Thisbe.
  • Melodrama is far from dead, I am realizing. There seems to be no choice by any of the main characters in Hitchcock’s great trilogy (Vertigo, North by Northwest, or Psycho), and yet one of the truly brilliant things about Gord Rand’s script (The Trouble with Mr Adams) is how he creates three powerful scenes, carefully shaping the plot so that none of the peronages has any real scope for choice or agency. If you stop and think about it for a moment, while we’re told in our English classes that melodrama is an old genre that’s dead, when we look at film and much of modern drama it ain’t necessarily so
  • Watching a film you’ve seen a zillion times on a big screen? It’s brand new.  There are things you can’t see on a small screen at home.

The film score is the great new musical genre that continues to fly under the radar, a century after its birth. For the TSO to present these films is one of the most exciting things one can see in Toronto, a way to see films as though they were brand new. In this and other projects, the TSO are making good on their promise to give us new ways to hear music.

I’m all ears.

Posted in Cinema, video & DVDs, Music and musicology | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Painting set free by JMW Turner

Posted on October 31, 2015 by barczablog

When I was a teenager I discovered the great English painter Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851) at around the same time that my infatuation began with the other romantic artists in other media. In poetry that meant especially Coleridge, Shelley, Byron and Keats.  In music that meant Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner and Debussy.   In visual art? Turner, Goya, and Gaugin were the ones I admired so much that I plastered their images all over my wall, buying books full of their pictures.  And so for a time i lived with  reproductions of “Rain, Steam & Speed” and “The Fighting Temeraire” on my wall (among others), obsessed with Turner’s approach to light & atmosphere.

The Fighting Temeraire (from http://www.william-turner.org, where you can see a great many more of Turner’s paintings)

When the works of a famous artist suddenly turn up in front of you there are at least two impulses at work.
1. You want to see great art as in: paintings that are done well, that move you somehow, or that are examples of great skill
2. You want to see great art as in: paintings that are famous or influential or that move you because you’ve seen them (or works like them) in art books.

The Turner show that just opened at the AGO “Painting Set Free” brings a great deal of great art to town. You will likely feel that you’re in the presence of amazing art, especially if you look at the date. Nobody in the world was painting this way this early: except of course Turner, a painter who feels like the godfather of the Impressionists, the first 20th century painter, even if he happened to die in 1851.   It’s a juvenile concern, but while I experienced #1 (the delight in great artistry) as far as #2 is concerned (the thrill of seeing a famous painting in person), I was sad that I didn’t see those favourite Turner paintings in this show, possibly because they’re national treasures of incalculable value. But then again he was such a prolific painter that there’s still lots of genius on display.  There are plenty of other images that resonate with the same sort of power in this show, whether it’s the romantic images of “War The Exile and the Rock Limpet” (including a very unique depiction of Napoleon) or the “Snow Storm” painting that is so prominent as you enter the gallery.

Self-portrait (from http://www.william-turner.org ), 1799

This is the sort of show that you can visit over and over, indeed I believe one needs to see it more than once. We’re especially looking at Turner’s last decade, the work from the 1840s, when the painter did some of his most daring work. At times one almost experiences vertigo as Euclidean space is compromised in swirls of wind & rain & surf. If we were to think of the continuum between accurate representation and pure abstraction, we see an artist moving further away from the more conservative style to something so daring as to leave the audience behind. At the time, Turner was ahead of his time, not fully understood & appreciated by the average viewer even if he developed a following among artists.

I must go back for another look.

Posted in Art, Architecture & Design, Personal ruminations & essays | 2 Comments

10 questions for Sarah Thorpe: Heretic

Posted on October 31, 2015 by barczablog

Toronto native Sarah Thorpe studied Theatre at York University, receiving her Bachelor of Arts Degree with Honours in 2007, and also the theatre department’s Mira Friedlander Award for achievements in theatre writing, criticism, world and Canadian theatre studies. Sarah’s affiliation with director/actor/ choreographer Michael Greyeyes at York led to her involvement in the world premiere of Thomson Highway’s Pimooteewin: The Journey, the first opera written in Cree, produced by Soundstreams Canada in February 2008.

In 2009, Sarah co-founded Soup Can Theatre, a Toronto based company dedicated to reinterpreting older works for a modern audience, and new works inspired by older pieces. Their inaugural production – a cabaret homage to the music and artistic influence of 20th century German composer Kurt Weill called Love is a Poverty You Can Sell – was remounted in the 2010 Toronto Fringe Festival, and was selected to be part of the Best of Fringe series at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. Soup Can has continued to have several successful productions, becoming a well-known company in Toronto’s indie theatre community, and Sarah has received local award nominations for her directing work. In 2015, Sarah wrote and performed in Heretic, a solo piece about the life of Joan of Arc, hailed as ‘a stunning one-woman show’. Soup Can produced the premiere production, and Sarah’s performance was met with acclaim from the press and public. Working as an actor, director, producer, and arts administrator, Sarah credits her well-rounded theatre education for giving her the perseverance and knowledge to thrive in Toronto’s artistic community.

On the occasion of the remount of Heretic in November, I asked Sarah ten questions: five about herself and five more about her work with Soup Can Theatre.

1-Are you more like your father or your mother?

I inherited great qualities from both of them. They’re both musicians and business owners, so they get the artist lifestyle and running a small business, and how difficult, unpredictable, and incredibly satisfying such a lifestyle it can be.

Sarah Thorpe– HERETIC

2-What is the best thing or worst thing about being a theatre artist?

Specifically in the indie theatre scene, I’d say that the worst thing is feeling like you constantly have to scrounge, for anything, because there’s so little money so you can rarely just simply pay for something, like a newspaper ad or an expensive prop. And when you wear so many different hats as an indie artist (performer/ writer/ director/ producer/ publicist/etc) it just gets so exhausting. But there’s a flip side to that, of course. Having to scrounge also teaches you how to be resourceful, how to make the most of your budget and stretch your dollars. And certainly, I think the best thing is seeing the final result on stage and (hopefully) how all the hard exhausting work paid off.

3-Who do you like to listen to or watch?

Oh man….. my tastes in entertainment are all over the place. What I watch and listen to really depends on the day, my mood, what I’m doing. Two constants I’d say are Tom Waits, since his music is so varied that there’s always something of his that will suit my mood, and nine times out of ten I have to end my day with an episode of Coronation Street. I find it has a great balance of serious drama, comedy, and banal ‘every day’ plot lines. I’m addicted to it….. and I must be a middle aged British woman at heart.

4-What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?

Other artistic pursuits that I didn’t pursue as much as acting and directing, like music, dance, and visual art. I miss doing those things sometimes.

5-When you’re just relaxing and not working what is your favourite thing to do?

Cooking, going to the movies, going to theatre, and hanging out in my favourite places in the city, like Kensington Market, the Beaches, and Roncesvalles.

Sarah Thorpe

Five more about writing/perfoming HERETIC!

1-Please talk about how you reconcile the different sides of yourself, as you function as a writer, as a performer & co-director.

For this reboot, I focused on the writing first: what parts of the earlier version did work, what didn’t work, what did I want to change, add, or cut? So I was definitely in writer-mode first in order to ensure that I was telling the story the way I wanted to tell it, the way I felt it. Once that was done, it’s in the hands of the rest of the creative team to help make it a living thing, and I’m in actor-mode at that point to put these characters on their feet. My goal as a co-director is to have some say in the execution of the piece, design elements, etc. Our team on this reboot is so fantastic, so talented and hardworking; it was so easy to put what I had written into their hands. There’s a lot of trust and collaboration, which for me has made the process so enjoyable and so easy to jump around in my different roles.

2-HERETIC was presented in another form earlier this year. Please tell us about the work and how it’s changing in this new incarnation.

The first production, more of a workshop, that we did in April 2015, was the first play I had written. The inspiration for even creating a piece about Joan of Arc initially came from being so moved by one of her monologues in Shaw’s Saint Joan (a piece I’ve performed for auditions before) that I felt compelled to explore this emotional connection further. I’m not religious, but I don’t think one needs to be to find her life fascinating. Joan of Arc is often presented and portrayed in this very holy and patriotic light: the courageous martyr who was burned at the stake, a national hero of France. What I find doesn’t really feature in renditions of her (whether artistic, literary, etc.) is that she was a teenage girl, the daughter of farmers, illiterate and uneducated, and how extraordinary it was that she managed to challenge the patriarchic and clergy-dominated status quo of the time. What interested me was finding the vulnerable human beneath the saint. We meet Joan in her afterlife, and she is reflecting on her life and the decisions she made, breaking down the preconceptions of her to say “This is me. This is who I was. This is how I felt. This is why I did the things I did.” I reconstruct her life, playing Joan as well as a number of other characters that play prominently in her story. I set out to create the private, personal moments that people wouldn’t have seen, moments that wouldn’t have been recorded in historical volumes. This new incarnation keeps the same tone and style of the original piece, but I wanted to dig a bit deeper into her private moments. What was going through her mind when she picked up a sword and stepped onto the battlefield for the first time? Did her faith wane at all when she was put in prison and accused of heresy? If it did, how would that have affected her?

3-Please talk about monodrama. How did Joan move you and how do you feel about this as a portrayal…Do you identify closely to her, and why did it feel like the ideal way to tell the story?

What I identify with in Joan’s story is how she never gave up her cause, no matter how dire the situation or impossible the task. While my circumstances certainly aren’t a matter of life and death in a war-torn nation, as an indie artist I identify with that because sometimes creating art, presenting that art, and trying to make a living out of that art seems impossible with little to no administrative infrastructure, no annual operating or project-based grant funding, and no physical ‘home base’. We rely on ticket sales, donations, and fundraising, we rent spaces that we can hopefully afford, we do a lot of bartering, and do all this while working at other jobs and having multiple other commitments. It’s exhausting and does seem impossible at times, even to me. But I love what I do so much that I know I could never give it up for anything. I always want to keep going. I always want to keep getting better. I get a buzz and happiness from it I don’t get from anything else. That’s how I know I’m doing the right thing by not throwing up hands, yelling “Screw this! I quit!”, and walking away.
Heretic is the only solo theatre I’ve done as an actor. What I still find challenging about it is not having another actor to feed off of. When you’re working with other actors, you are (hopefully) tuned in to each other as scene partners, and you simultaneously support and challenge each other; there’s a give and take. There’s play. With doing a solo piece, I’ve found that I’ve had to rely on my own imagination to create that give and take among the multiple characters I play. It’s like I’m still that weird little kid I was playing dress up alone in my room or in the backyard, relying on pure imagination to make it real and immediate.

4-Please talk about the politics of your show, and why it’s important.

This is medieval France, towards the end of the Hundred Years War (essentially an inheritance dispute over the French throne between France and England, and England was winning): a very male-dominated, church-dominated, superstitious, and war-torn time and place. Joan was so devout in her beliefs and so focused on her mission to drive the English out of France that she didn’t let the societal status quo deter her in any way. Even though it was considered a sin, she wore men’s clothing and cut her hair short due to the practicality of such gestures: she was living the life of a soldier, fighting, leading, and working with men, and it was a method of protection against sexual assaults. The Dauphin, who eventually became France’s King Charles VI thanks to Joan, even had a suit of armor made specifically to fit her. Even without education, she had a deep understanding of Catholic doctrine and could hold complex theological debates and discussions with men of the cloth. Priests were peoples’ first point of contact with God, but the people regarded Joan as that point of contact, seeing her as a holy vessel. The time of her joining the French army was when they finally had militaristic successes in the war. People believed in her and that her mission was truly divine, but the English feared her and believed that the voices she claimed she heard were evil. She was a strong, intelligent, and independent young woman who was just doing what she felt was the right thing to do, and that made her a dangerous force in the eyes of many who ultimately did everything in their power to remove this ‘threat’. With the longstanding but renewed focus on women’s rights and equality, this story is still important now because Joan was a woman who was very ahead of her time. Even though it ended up costing her her life, she challenged those who accused her of ‘upsetting the order of things’ until the very end.

5-Is there a teacher or an influence you’d care to name that you especially admire?

I have had so many wonderful teachers and and influences over the years, but I have to give credit to the theatre program at York University. I majored in theatre there, specializing in devised theatre and collective creation, and we did a bit of everything from acting and writing to directing, producing, and other production and administrative duties. Those four years prepared me so well for what I’m doing now as a multitasking artist/wearer of many theatre hats.

*******

Soupcan Theatre’s HERETIC starring Sarah Thorpe opens November 11th at Theatre Pass Muraille Backspace, 16 Ryerson Ave, Toronto, running until November 22nd.

Showtimes:

  • Wednesday to Friday at 7:30pm.
  • Saturday at 2pm and 7:30pm.
  • Sunday at 2pm.

Tickets are available through the Arts Box Office and can be purchased three ways:poster

  • Online at www.artsboxoffice.ca
  • By Phone at 416.504.7529 (Wednesday-Saturday 12pm-6pm, Sunday 11:30am-2:30pm, with hours extended to 7pm on performance nights)
  • In Person at Theatre Passe Muraille, located at 16 Ryerson Ave. (Wednesday-Saturday 3pm-6pm, Sunday 11:30am-2:30pm, with hours extended to 7:30pm on performance nights)
Posted in Dance, theatre & musicals, Interviews | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Explosive Trouble with Mr. Adams

Posted on October 31, 2015 by barczablog

What is the trouble with Mr. Adams? Nothing we haven’t seen before.

As it’s summarized on the Tarragon Theatre website
“The Trouble With Mr Adams is a “brand new play from Tarragon Playwright-in-Residence Gord Rand’ [that] exposes the male mid-life crisis in all its awkward and ruinous glory.”

Every now and then this awkward scenario rears its head in a tawdry news item or on reality TV, a teacher and a student ignoring societal prohibitions to surrender to the call of nature. Nabokov’s novel Lolita and its two film adaptations tell one version of this tale.  The difference between a banal story and a worthwhile play, however, is clearly something Rand thought about long and hard. The exposition is perhaps the least important element, as we are not in a realm of plot & details. Rand puts us into three different conversations, each of which is carried inevitably by the conflict:

  • Scene one: Gary & his wife Peggy
  • Scene two: Gary & lawyer Barbara
  • Scene three: Gary & young Mercedes

What is most exquisite about each scene is the unfolding relationship and how it’s teased out in the writing & the performances. Because it’s a slow-motion train-wreck, we’re not really asking ourselves “what will happen next”, as we might in a film. Instead we’re watching the dynamics between the principals, the pain & suspense, occasional flashes or humour and the inevitable rages, as well as the rationalizations from Gary in each instance. The opening sequence is a bit too wordy, too many long poetic speeches, as it gathers steam, and then when the story shifts –with the discovery of what has transpired—everything is kicked into high gear and we forget all about that literary stuff as the room seems to ignite. From time to time (for instance for an unfortunate half-minute near the end) Rand resorts to that rarefied language, possibly to avert the nastier implications, or maybe because that’s how it’s usually done. But for those contrived moments, his writing is gold, and red-hot with the dynamics between his characters. I could watch it again tomorrow, to see how we get from point A to point B, to observe how each of the characters develops. In that sense this is what one wants in a theatre with live performances, the vulnerable performers aching and suffering before us.

Chris Earle (left) and Philippa Domville in The Trouble with Mr Adams at Tarragon Theatre (Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

Chris Earle (left) and Philippa Domville in The Trouble with Mr Adams at Tarragon Theatre (Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

Chris Earle is onstage for the entire 80 minutes, an everyman trapped in his own sophistry. This is a troubling play, as we are invited to step into the shoes of a pedophile, and it’s a disturbing identification even when the teacher is as innocent as Earle’s Gary. Philippa Domville is not at all what one would expect as the wife who confronts her husband. But if we had to listen to her railing, I don’t think we’d get past the first scene, and no one would identify with Gary for even a moment if he were a monster. I am reminded of the commentary on Paradise Lost that observes how Milton tempts us, making it easy to sympathize with the pompous rhetoric of Satan; who would ever read Milton if he simply preached and told us what to think? and so too Rand & his Gary, seductive and all too human.

The second scene takes us to a very different kind of discourse. Where Domville engages with Earle on every level, as friend, as lover, from the conversational to the blatantly physical, Allegra Fulton as Gary’s lawyer Barbara takes us into another sort of encounter.

Christ Earle & Allegra Fulton (Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

Christ Earle & Allegra Fulton (Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

The story is progressing, and now we’re beginning to see the consequences for Gary in his professional life & in the perception of society, as represented by a colossal deposition sitting on the desk during Gary’s interview with Barbara. Fulton too has a powerful physical presence, although she’s fully clothed throughout, even as the text sometimes challenges us to ignore the polite roles and to regress–with Gary– towards something more purely carnal. The final scene, between Earle and Sydney Owchar as Mercedes, the student who was the focus of the story, is the denouement. I avoid spoilers whenever possible, but suffice it to say that all four players are powerful and convincing throughout.

Director Lisa Peterson has mostly created a kind of seamless production, where one rarely thinks about how it’s done, as we arecaught up in the emotional tangle of the characters. It’s an accomplished piece of work that deserves to be seen & heard.

The Trouble with Mr Adams by Gord Rand continues at Tarragon Theatre’s Extraspace until November 29th.

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