We Are Not Alone at the Segal Centre

I'm agnostic when it comes to UFOs. I don't believe in them but I don't disbelieve either. I've never seen a flying saucer or anything resembling one. If there are aliens or life forms on other planets, it has little to nothing to do with me so it rouses no extreme feelings whatsoever in me.

So when I was invited to Segal Centre's opening night of We Are Not Alone, I was a bit apprehensive because I didn't want to be preached to for 90 minutes by someone who passionately believes. The one man show, written and performed by Damien Atkins, starts out without much promise, I thought: a brief "history" of UFOs (albeit a very North America-centric version) in a few remarkable and noteworthy cases. He asserts that the evidence IS there and that it's not particularly controversial. That those who deny UFOs just need to do a little research. This isn't done stridently but with various character voices and personalities that he manages to bring to life though he's alone on that stage. Again, for someone who has no vested interested or emotional need to believe or disbelieve, this started to get to me. Nothing's worse than a work of art with "a message."

Then the play got better: Atkins set up an entire series of scenes where he visited a UFO conference in Phoenix, Arizona, with the play's director, to do research. This is where Atkins' skills as an actor really became apparent: how he could create such a rag-tag collections and freaks and geeks while being funny and evocative. He talks about the bizarre aspects, the belief (and need to believe) that many in this community inhabit. The new age-y links. The oddballs. The goofballs. The nutters. A scene about going out into Sedona in the Arizona desert to "tune" some vortex with two hilarious believers was hilarious but also moving. Though Atkins is no fan of this commodified part of the UFO industry, he still manages to see the humanity in his characters, even characters that are screwball, odd, out there, totally nuts.

Actor/writer Damian Atkins

In the end, he won me over: the story (of a guy writing a play about UFOs) won me over and I wanted more.

But what struck me most (and impressed me) was the fact that the Segal Centre even put this show on. As someone in charge of programming in a cultural organization, I know the eternal tightrope one has to walk in Montreal between giving people what they want and expect but also challenging people, trying new things, experimenting. And this play was certainly more of the latter. I admire, Lisa Rubin, Artistic Director at Segal, for giving it the green light. It's not a 100% successful play and I did feel that another actor on stage might have allowed for more depth and complexity (the actor playing the writer of the play and another actor playing the director of the play would have been wonderfully meta).

One thing about Montreal English theatre is that it's often too safe and takes few to no risks. It's something I think about: because the English community is older on average than the Francophone community (particularly devoted English theatre-goers), there is less of a tendency to challenge and it's much easier to just go with the safe choice, something that English theatre companies are definitely guilty of. So it's nice to see Segal Centre doing something a bit out of their comfort zone.

Whether this pays off and translates into box office is a different question.

We Are Not Alone runs through March 15. Check it out.

Edinburgh and the James Plays

One of the most memorable events I've seen in recent years (yes, years) was Rona Munro's James Plays. A trilogy of plays (each 2 1/2 hours long) the plays each tell about an early Scottish king: James I, James II, and James III.

On Sunday, August 17, sandwiched in between several other events, I managed to find a bit of time to sit down for James II: Day of the Innocents. I was riveted. The play tells the story of the life of this strong if unfortunate king as he grows up a prisoner and puppet of the powerful families who attempt to control his destiny (and the destiny of Scotland). His closest friend, William Douglas, son of a powerful lord, too, is a sort of lost soul and together they form a loving bond as a stalwart bond against the violence that is ever present: death, murder, kidnapping, betrayal all form mini-codas to their young lives.

We were seated on the stage during the performance, a part of the scenery and that made an odd way to view the play, almost as though you were part of it. At one point the actors were so close to us, I could have reached out and touched them and this kind of intimacy gave the performances an incredible kind of power.

It was a fantastic performance: the moments of brutal violence tempered with moments of tenderness. Pain

and pleasure, strength and weakness, faith and betrayal, love and hate. The emotional lives of these characters pulled us along, even to places we didn't want to see. One thing that struck me: to be a woman in these times (1400s) was to be ignored, forgotten, discounted, invisible. But to be a man often meant brutality, blood and death.

I have rarely been so affected by a play. It was one of those performances when everything comes together: excellent writing, solid acting, definitive direction and sets that worked. It was really a wonder and I want to see them again and again.

Anyone who misses a chance to see these plays is doomed doomed doomed.

Chekhov, Chekhov, Chekhov

I can't escape Chekhov recently, which is a good thing. First, it was a trip to Asia and hanging out with a writer who's somewhat of a Chekhov "expert" (translator of his work into Chinese, producer of plays, critic). We had about 10 conversations about him and this expert had the uncanny ability to connect just about any literary topic to some play or short story by Chekhov.

Chekhov: he could be a Mile End hipster

And this article from The Millions about how reading Chekhov can make one more empathetic. They, in fact, issue a challenge to read Chekhov for a more empathetic 2014. The writers do caution, however, "that Chekhov doesn't provide easy answers to becoming a kinder, more caring person. There's no five-step solution, no short prayer that will increase your fortunes and lay waste to the fields of your enemies."

Still, if I do make any resolution (and I rarely do), it's related to books I will read. I haven't read Chekhov in many years and so he is on my list for 2014 (as is re-reading William Styron's Sophie's Choice and Thoreau).

Idea:  a great way to start the  year: see Chekhov on stage:

The Segal Centre is producing a new version of The Seagull by Peter Hinton but you only have two weeks to catch it as it runs February 02 to 16, 2014. Buy tickets here.

The tag line is "In the Winter, don't you wish Summer would go on forever?" and MAN can I relate to that right now (January, cold, blustery, grey).

The Millions writer suggests that Chekhov "doesn't make us better people by restoring our faith in the fundamental goodness of humanity or by charming us with the bright hope of a happy ending." And to me this is what a "good" writer does: create characters that somehow straddle our pat views of good vs evil or happiness vs unhappiness.

After the Segal's performance on the 10th, there will be a post-show opportunity to interact with the artists bringing the play to life.

Sam Shepard

You know how you get kind of obsessed with a writer and try to read as much as you can in one fell swoop?

Lately, for me that writer has been Sam Shepard.

I've read him before and in the spring, I had some very interesting conversations with fans of his work that I met at a few work functions. Over the summer, I picked up a play here, a collection of stories there until I had quite a nice collection which I started reading through in the last couple of months.

I am just blown away. Funny how when you read something in your early 20s, things can just fly by you. Something about re-reading him now in my early 40s has opened up a whole new world for me. The distances between us all, the ways we disconnect, the ways we try to reach out, the pain of isolation.

Also, since I am originally from the Western US, perhaps his setting felt too close to me when I first approached Shepard years ago. Now that time and distance fall in between, the west is almost exotic, like a song that's vaguely familiar but whose melody and words I've long forgotten.

His collection Great Dream of Heaven is one of those books I intentionally have been reading bit by bit because I don't want it to end. Some of the pieces are short, some just two pages, none more than 10, but they are incredibly self-contained with complex snippets of characters that stay with you for days afterwards.

It strikes me, too, that his writing has fallen out of fashion in certain ways because we no longer find it fashionable to explore issues of class in our art. Or at least not in the dominant culture. And it's not done in any overtly political way: but his stories contains lives of those on the margins, living hand to mouth in small towns and cities in the west.

The premise he starts with is often simple: a woman driving through the midwest with her mother's ashes in an urn in the passenger seat, encountering an injured hawk along the highway. A conversation between a woman being evicted for having too many cats and someone trying to help her. A young boy interviewing his father about the 1980s for a school project. A customer in a fast-food restaurant inquiring about the simple yet complex philosophy behind a painted sign at the counter.

Yet despite the simple settings and lives, he richly creates these complex series of thoughts, never pretentiously, somehow putting on the page things we've all felt or thought or pondered.

His plays, too: Buried Child is moving, mysterious, deeply symbolic, painful.

Waiting for the Barbarians at the Segal Centre

A really fascinating production of Waiting for the Barbarians has been playing at the Segal Centre these few weeks and there is just one more week left to catch it. I'd highly recommend it.

The play is an adaptation of the J. M. Coetzee novel, a political thriller which looks at the complexities and realities of the South African political system as they existed in the recent past.

And they are giving any friends of Blue Met a special price: anyone who books 2 business days in advance gets a $6 discount.

More information here on how to get tickets.

The Segal Centre production is written and directed by Alexandre Marine, the world-renowned Russian director who premiered the play in Cape Town in 2012. Montreal's production is its second world showing and it's a rare opportunity to see one of the theatre world's stars at the top of his game doing something innovative, challenging and provocative.

Check it out: it's one of  Coetzee's best-loved and most critically-acclaimed works and the production is absolutely riveting.