Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Theatre & Company's new AD

And Theatre & Company's new AD is Daryl Cloran, currently AD of TheatreFront (which sounds like MTSpace with a travel budget. Must be nice.)

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Theatre & Company ...

... will be announcing the name of their new Artistic Director tomorrow morning. A name I managed to figure out a full 24-hours before receiving confirmation from the Theatre, based on a few telling phrases in a previous email which I fed to Google. Which I will not repeat here. Years ago I had a reputation for 'blurting things out' but I have learned the wisdom of the Romanian folk saying: "If one knows, one knows; if two know, a hundred know." (Prove using mathematical induction.)

Falling Awake

From Lost & Found comes this announcement:

Falling: A Wake

A new play by Gary Kirkham,

(winner of the Samuel French Canadian Playwrights Award for Queen Milli of Galt)

We have been engaged in play development sessions for several weeks

and now we invite you to be a part of the process.

Please join us for a reading of the play.

DATE: Wednesday, 22 November

TIME: 7:30 pm

PLACE: The Registry Theatre, 122 Frederick Street in downtown Kitchener

RSVP to Kathleen at ksheehy@lostandfoundtheatre.ca

Thursday, November 16, 2006

The New Quarterly

Issue 100 of the New Quarterly is out, with an essay and illustrations by Isabella, The Naked Truth: Reflections on the history, personal and public, of artists' journals and notebooks

Monday, November 13, 2006

Poor Tom

Poor Tom Productions presents "The Kindness of Strangers", two one-act plays: The Visit by Kenneth J. Emberley, and I Can't Imagine Tomorrow by Tennessee Williams, Nov. 16-18, 8:00 PM, at The Registry. With Nicholas Cumming (who was in Yes or No!) and others whom I don't know.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Blyth etc.

Just heard the news that Gary Kirkham's play Queen Milli of Galt will receive its fourth production, as part of the Blyth Festival's 2007 season. It received its first production at Kitchener's Theatre & Company in 2001. (And, of course, Gary was in my play Yes or No! as Branislav, the Beast of the Balkans.)

Also, Nicholas Cumming (who was Wayne in Yes or No!) and Brian Hogg, who are both members of the Pat the Dog writer's collective are featured in this article from the Kitchener Record.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Dual Citizenship

I find myself substantially in agreement with J. Kelly Nestruck on Dual Citizenship and it is not because he is a critic and I am an emerging playwright. Goodness, no.

I was born in Scotland and came to Canada (on a DC-3) at the age of five weeks. I reached the age of sixteen completely unaware that I was not Canadian but in fact British. It was only when we were about to return to Scotland for a vacation that we discovered the misconception. We hastily applied for my citizenship but there was not enough time to get a passport based on it. So I applied for a British passport. And a formidable thing it was at that time, with its stiff dark blue cover, the crest in gold, and the threatening language inside, commanding in the name of her Majesty any foreigners who might impede my travels to hop it.

I met my wife. We went to Romania. In the bad old days. Both on Canadian passports. She had been required to renounce her Romanian citizenship when her family emigrated (and she was able to emigrate because her mother was German -- we have a photo of her stamped "Etnic"). When we tried to visit the country again (when conditions were very much worse) Isabella was informed the law had changed: since she had left as a minor, the renunciation was invalid. But for a sum of $500 she could renounce it for good, or for just $80 she could elect to keep it. (The Romanian bureaucracy was ingenious at finding ways to extract funds from the most unexpected places.) Keeping her citizenship was hardly a bargain at this time, but she could not bring herself to give it up either, and so we did not go.

In the late eighties I was seized with the idea of working in England (because I could). I got a British passport and Isabella a certificate of Right of Abode. I worked in London for six months and then we lived in France for six months. I opened a bank account in France. "Monsieur Campbell est un European." said the clerk. I glowed with pride. Isabella, who speaks four European language, was the Canadian. In the village they referred to us as "le petit couple Americain".

It was on our return to Canada in the queue at immigration that I thought "Shit! I hope this works!" because I had not brought my Canadian passport. The immigration officer looked at my British passport and said with a note of triumph, "Ah hah! Where's your landed immigrant stamp?" I stammered that I was in fact Canadian but had been a year in the U.K. and had used my British passport while there. He seemed disappointed that I did not have a British accent and let me through.

And there. That's how I regard dual citizenship. As a convenience or a nuisance, as circumstances dictate, with some sentimental value. Indeed, I incline to the view that Canada and the United Kingdom (and Romania etc.) are different jurisdictions merely. And that the nation is a fantasy created by the state to perpetuate itself. Or rather, an exploitation of the natural affection people have for home.

At an audition workship for Yes or No! (notice how I worked that in? smooth, eh?) during a break, an actress, Neda was speaking in Arabic to Majdi, the director. She explained to me:

Neda: We are from the same country.

Majdi: No. You are from Syria. I am from Lebanon. They want to swallow us.

Neda: We speak the same language! We eat the same food!

Majdi: We like the Syrian people. But we don't like the regime.

Neda: Regime, regime! All over the world, who likes regime?

Monday, November 06, 2006

Tony Nardi: Two Letters

I want to see this.
Although English Canadians often pride themselves on being the world's third-largest centre of English-language theatre, it's a meaningless distinction, Nardi says. "We have nothing to show for it. We are self-congratulatory about appreciating theatre, but we don't really care for the act of theatre itself. It has no authenticity or rather, we are authentic only in our inauthenticity. Our major festivals celebrate Shaw and Shakespeare. You don't see Quebec mounting festivals for Racine and Molière. I'm not a separatist, but that's a genuine culture. English Canadians live in a country of perceptions, as opposed to seeing what's really there."
(From today's Globe.)

Update: I created a calendar

Saturday, November 04, 2006

the good new playwrights

Where are all the good new playwrights? asks Lyn Gardner on the Guardian's new Theatre & Performing Arts blog.

Short answer: Over here!

But the more interesting question posed by the article: Why aren't new play development schemes in the U.K working?

Answer: No idea.

The article suggests the U.S. model of play development is to blame. And I wonder if there is something to this. Because it is basically a therapeutic model. The playwright is the patient, who is helped by various professionals to come to a better understanding of his own work. The dramaturge asks questions but does not prescribe. The point is to get the playwright to stand on his own two feet. And paradoxically this process can create a combination of egotism and dependency in the playwright. The play remains a private fantasy which can never be adequately represented on stage.

(I am just letting my fingers do the walking, folks. No idea how true this is.)

During rehearsals of Yes or No!, an actor said, we are here to serve the text, and Majdi said, no, we are all (including the playwright) here to serve the production. This stance means we are faced with a number of problems which can be solved by the actors, the director, the playwright. I don't have to do it all on my own!

During rehearsals at Majdi's request I gave him a drastically cut down script and he said he would let the actors make a case for keeping lines from the first script. And the high point of the rehearsals for me was seeing a whole sequence Iva and Daniella had improvised based on a paragraph I had cut. And up on the table Iva said some of my lines, and then to Majdi: "I'm keeping that!" and to me: "Doug?" And I made a gesture I hoped would be interpreted as "Who am I to keep my lines from you, dear Iva?"

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

NU2U Series: Four Ways 'Til Rain

There will be a staged reading of Tony Berto's Four Ways 'Til Rain on November 4th and 5th, 1:00 PM, at the Blair Rehearsal Hall (3rd Floor) of the King Street Theatre Centre in Kitchener.

Admission is free. RSVP the box office at boxoffice@theatreandcompany.org or call 519.571.0928