Art and our Fears: The Witch and Bus Stops

I saw two events last week that  both seemed to explore our fears as a society but from very different eras and it's been something on my mind all week.

The first piece was the big high profile movie, The Witch, which has been playing for a few weeks. No fan of hardcore horror, I was a bit reluctant to see it but the setting - 15th century Massachusetts - was appealing. It's a very interesting movie though not really a horror film at all in most ways and the way it was marketed was very misleading. The film tells the story of a family - parents, two boys and two girls as well as a newborn baby - who are kicked out of their religiously oriented village for heresy (the father is preaching his own brand of Christian doctrine) and are exiled to the wilderness. They set up their farm there, isolated, next to the woods and things continue until one afternoon when the newborn simply vanishes. It's assumed that a wolf came out from the woods and took him away but there are suggestions of something darker.

What struck me about this film is how we forget today how the word evil used to represent an actual thing: actual spirits or the devil himself. For us, the word evil is used more metaphorically to suggest almost always a person who acts in selfish or incredibly self-serving ways that somehow cause harm to others or society. So we say that a serial killer or terribly manipulative person or someone who exploits the poor, etc., we say those people are evil. It's more about the lack of social empathy or the fact that the person can't act in a way that we accept as normal social behaviour. But in the world of 15th century America, evil was an actual thing that existed. It had little to do with social interaction or being selfish or not understanding how to act in accordance with mores of the day. Evil actually resided deep inside the forest, was a thing or a person that simply meant to cause disorder in the world.

It also struck me that it's so surprise why forests have long been so frightening to people. Today,

forests are almost like the last remnant of the nature we have managed to tame and control. But 500 years ago (and throughout most of human history), forests were terrifying places: full of wild animals and very easy to get lost in. People probably very often did enter forests and never return simply because they were so vast and dark.

The Witch is a good film but it's not a horror film and anyone who goes expecting this will be disappointed. It's a film about evil but also about the fears that we as a society cultivate: in our children, in each other.

I then saw Bus Stops at the Centaur and though the pieces on the surface are very different, they both share commonalities in terms of showing us what we fear. This play, translated from the original French, was written by Marilyn Perrault, and simply shows a collection of various urbanites all killed in a terrorist attack on a public bus in Montreal. The story is framed from the point of view of a coroner trying to piece together what happened after the fact via her imagined interaction with several of the victims, trying to separate the public hysteria from the facts.

The acting was spotty at times  (I saw the opening show so maybe it's gotten better: some players are solid; others were less so) but the play is good, the writing is interesting and engaging and the production itself is innovative and entertaining. But again, the play shows us what we fear as humans: we fear the "unknown" terrorist. Evil. But this kind of evil operates in a vastly different way to the evil in The Witch: this is social evil, people who act in selfish ways that harm others for some bigger political or personal axe to grind. It also gets at another fear: the tendency we have to scapegoat people for crimes because of racism or prejudice.

The Witch is playing downtown for the next couple of weeks and is worth a couple of hours though it's not a fast-moving film in many ways. It's dreary and sad but also scary. The script, too, is written in a very dated English so it's not always easy to follow the dialogue. But it's a good film and gets at the heart of what evil used to represent.

Bus Stops plays at Centaur through March 27 and is a very engaging story about our modern contemporary fears of evil.

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.

Poetry at the Enpuki-ji Zen Centre and a new theatre piece

I love going to readings at different kinds of spaces: former bath houses (St-Michel, where Infinitheatre  has their main space), strip clubs, drag bars, gardens outside, brunch places, even metro cars. The space itself informs the readings in very key ways and the audience relates to the readings in very different ways as well.

Before the reading: the Enpuki-ji Zen Centre

The other night I saw a reading at the Enpuki-ji Zen Centre in Montreal. The space is amazingly simple and very beautiful. And I've seen events here in the past though this was the first reading I've attended here.

The readings were by writers I know and whose work I know as well. Asa Boxer, Gabe Foreman, Darren Bifford. And a writer I didn't know: Talya Rubin. What a wonderful evening! Each poet read a mix of older published work along with work which they are still developing. What stands out for me is the simple uniqueness of each voice: Boxer is a confident, incredibly intelligent reader whose work needs to be seen to appreciated, where one can linger of his images and the juxtaposition of language he excels at. Despite his play with language, he's a physical poet in many ways, focusing on tangibles and the concrete. Foreman is funny, also intelligent, but with a view of the world that is uniquely his own (his collection from Coach House a couple of years ago, A Complete Encyclopedia of Different Kinds of People is one of my favorite most recent poetry collections). Bifford's work I am less familiar with though I've seen him read in the past (a great interview with him on his work here).

Talya Rubin's collection comes out in the spring from Signal Editions, Véhicule Press's poetry imprint. But more immediately, Rubin has a theatre piece about to take the stage at La Chapelle. The piece is called Of the Causes of Wonderful Things (see a trailer here). The show toured all over Australia and Rubin is bringing it to Montreal for the first time (the first time in North America, in fact).

The premise is this (from the Theatre La Chapelle site): when five children mysteriously disappear in a small town in the American South, their aunt begins a search to find them that leads her underground, literally. The work is an installation theatre piece for a limited audience of 50. Immersed in a noir atmospheric world, Of the Causes of Wonderful Things weaves dark comedy with tones of Faulkner and the Southern Gothic. This deeply human, visionary solo work examines the redemptive power of confronting darkness.

I love theatre and the last few years, it's become a major part of my exploration, both in terms of possible Festival events but also personally. So this piece is definitely a  must see for early November. It shows at La Chapelle from November 4 - 9, each performance limited to only 50 seats.

Yet again, Montreal shows its amazing innovation and variety of events and artists. I travel a lot and see artists (writers, dancers, performers) all over the world, and Montreal is up there with some of the best cities to see art. We should all be out taking advantage of it whenever we can!

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.

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.