One Yellow Rabbit’s “Sylvia Plath Must Not Die”

Last night at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts I went to see the Calgary-based theatre collective One Yellow Rabbit perform one of their latest shows “Sylvia Plath Must Not Die”. I was drawn to the piece simply because my graduate performance thesis project was about Sylvia Plath. It was lovely to have a thorough understanding of the material that was unraveling onstage, but that is by no means a requirement for enjoying the richness of the words and the characters brought to life on stage. The piece, despite its title, was actually about both Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. This was a very pleasant surprise! Both Onalea Gilbertson as Plath and Denise Clarke as Sexton gave very powerful performances, inhabiting the essence of the poets in both voice and body.

The majority of the text was Plath and Sexton’s poetry, but there were also some key biographical facts woven into the dialogue. Ted Hughes and Kayo Sexton (played by Michael Green and Andy Curtis) also added an interesting element to the two women’s lives unfolding (and unraveling) on stage. It allowed the audience to jump from the reality of these women’s lives to the truth that was released through their poetry. As the show took you through certain important turning points in their lives, the key moments were marked with their poems. The construction of the piece was very thoughtful because not only did both Plath and Sexton have powerful dramatic arcs in their performances, but the audience was able to weave interesting links (thematically and through parallel choice of words in their poems like ‘panzer man’, for example) between the two women because of the construction of the piece and the placement of the poems. Plath and Sexton’s connection to each other – acknowledged at times or parallel without being aware of each other at others – created effective tension and allowed the audience to feel the painful isolation of both women in their respective worlds.  The show builds to a parallel fight – physical for Sexton and verbal for Plath – between the women and their husbands. The choice to have music played loudly (so you couldn’t hear the shouts) was very powerful.

I found myself wishing I could have been a fly on the wall during the rehearsal process or even have had the opportunity to see the various workshop performances of the piece to watch it evolve into what it is today. Regardless, the show gives its audience a beautiful glimpse into the world of these two female icons, without imposing judgement. Their words are again given life, and that’s what they both lived (and died) for.

The show is playing until Saturday, December 13^th and the link to the company’s website is http://www.oyr.org/index.html

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Top Girls [at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts]

This past Wednesday, I went to see the play Top Girls, showing at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts (55 Mill St, in the Distillery District).  With a star-studded cast including Megan Follows and Ann-Marie MacDonald, I knew I was in for a treat.  What I didn’t realize until I was plunked in my seat perusing the program, was that I had studied this play in a modern drama class in my 3rd (4th?) year, and what’s more,  I had played the same role as Megan Follows in a segment we had performed in class.  This all gave me a rather delightful little academic thrill.  The play itself is one of Churchill’s best known and probably most popularly performed, and is set in a 1980s Margaret Thatcher-ed Britain, during a time of social tension and feminist change. I can’t really say enough about the quality of the performance – Megan Follows is absolutely superb, Ann-Marie MacDonald is hilarious, and Kelli Fox, who plays Isabella, Mrs. Kidd, and Marlene’s sister Joyce is a powerhouse of talent. The entire cast is just excellent.  The play itself has 3 acts - a dinner party, the days after the dinner party, and exactly one year earlier – and 2 intermissions, and for ticket information, go the Yonge Centre for the Performing Arts website.

The guests of the dinner party are a very diverse cross-section of cultures and historical moments, all invited together by the main character Marlene (Megan Follows) to celebrate a work promotion.  The guests include a Victorian lady adventurer,  a Japanese courtesan from the 13th century, a woman who became pope while disguised as a man in the year 854(ish), a fictional character from one of the Canterbury Tales, and a figure from a Brueghel painting in which peasant housewives battle various devils in hell.  The women share their stories, often talking over one another (deliberately so, the play is written so the lines will overlap upon delivery), and often disagreeing, but also coming to see that their histories have some poignant and powerful similarities.  One of the most magnificent things about the first act is its ability to turn on a dime from complete hilarity to absolute devastation. I had never heard an audience shift so quickly from laughter to complete silence.  It’s really remarkable.  

Acts 2 and 3 shift gears by moving from the kind of “suspend your disbelief” at the possibility of a dinner party for dead women, to a more real-life, real-world setting.  Gone are the historical women, and enter now Marlene’s co-workers, sister, and troubled niece.  Marlene, in fact, is the only character who remains constant throughout the play (in both name and actor).  The rest of the characters play new characters in the 2nd and 3rd acts, and this doubling adds (an intentional) richness to the work.  Top Girls is, in many ways, built on the theories of Bertolt Brectht, a German playwright who strove in his works to remind the audience that what it was seeing was  ’a’ reality, not ‘the’ reality, and who wanted the audience to think and to always maintain a sense of critical distance.  To see the same character play a troubled 15 year old girl and a coarse peasant woman from the 16th century offers a wealth of interpretive possibility.  Morevoer, the layering effect of seeing the same body take on different stories, voices, and/or ages adds a powerful visual element and a real complexity to the play and its exploration of what women have to take on, give up, do with, or do without in order to succeed (even while arguing that ”success” itself is a highly contentious and debatable term).

Thought-provoking and entertaining – what more can one want from the theatre?

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See “Norway.Today.” Today!

Last night I saw this fantastic production called “Norway. Today.” produced by Toronto-based company Theatre Smash. The basic premise of this ‘existential romantic comedy’ is that two characters, Julie and August, meet online in a chat room as Julie is searching for someone to commit suicide with her. August ends up being the ideal candidate. Julie flies August to Norway and the rest of the play takes place on the edge of an enormous fjord called Pulpit Rock. On the last night of their lives, what endues is an examination of life, with many trials and tribulations as the two characters try to get along. What results is a new-found trust and the potential for happiness “in the face of death.”

When I first heard the synopsis, I cringed a little (ok, a lot) at the topic of suicide + chat room = play. But I couldn’t have been more mistaken. The production was incredibly thought-provoking and moving. With the smart, poetic, yet blunt language of playwright Igor Bauersima, the strong and effective acting choices of Steven McCarthy and Ieva Lucs, and the polished direction by Sarah Baumann, this a production not to be missed.

The play touched on some rather important ideas and questions. For example, “define reason”, the philosophies of Kant, realities of communication in the modern age and the difference between what we feel is fake versus what is real in our lives. However, what made it so exciting was the theatricality of the production. This is what makes a play a play! I really don’t like going to the theatre and seeing a movie put on stage (i.e. sitting there thinking that this would be more believable on film), or feeling like I’m at a narrated book reading (though this has its place). I love seeing theatre that couldn’t exist anywhere else but on a stage. This was certainly the case with “Norway. Today.” – creative blocking, an imaginative set and justified interplay between actor and audience awareness are just a few examples.

Another element I have yet to mention is the use of technology. The two characters use a video camera to record their last night and say their goodbyes to loved ones. Hanging at the sides of the stage are rectangles, onto which the live feedback is creatively projected in a very organic way. Usually when I see technology used on stage it makes me really nervous becomes I’m so worried that there will be a technical glitch and of course I am then taken out of the action. However instead of worrying, I was so preoccupied thinking about not only the theatrical effectiveness of the camera in the play, but it also made me reassess why we take pictures, why we record moments and why we have the desire hold on to those memories. When you realize how much there is to see in life, it just might make you not want to let go of the things that are potentially still to come. Like witnessing an Aurora Borealis…for example…

“Norway. Today.” runs in the Tarragon Extra-Space every night (except Monday) until September 21.

For tickets go to: www.theatresmash.com

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