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PRODUCTION BLOG
Click on this image to read all the great news in our 2011Q2 bilingual newsletter,
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03/11/2009:
TALISMAN WINS THE FRENCH CRITICS AWARD!
Talisman's production of Michel Marc Bouchard's 'Down Dangerous Passes Road' WINS the 2008 French Critics' (ACQT) award. Click here to read the press release (PDF).
25/10/2009:
TALISMAN NOMINATED FOR ACQT AWARD!
Talisman's production of Michel Marc Bouchard's 'Down Dangerous Passes Road' has been nominated in the category 'English Theatre'. Click here to read the full article in Voir (PDF).
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Chris Dilworth on 'Rock, Paper, Jackknife...'"We had a conference about this on Saturday at the Centaur, on the set. And the discussion centered around the question, 'where is the hope in the play?' And we came to the conclusion that the play can do either one of two things: it can ask questions, or it can provide solutions. And this play asks questions. It challenges the audience. It's a really challenging play. [...] This is a play not to be taken lightly. But it is, I think, a very important play. It has been called 'the most challenging play of the season', Montreal's theatre season. And it is a must-see. It is a phenomenal piece of work." |
Interviewer: Ed Yersh, CKUT
Interviewee: Chris Dilworth
Ed Yersh: Good Morning Montreal. It's the Tuesday Morning After. It's October 13th 2009. It's 7:06 in the Morning and there's three of us here in the Studio today. Good morning Zeke...
Chris 'Zeke' Hand: ...Howdy. How're you doing...
Ed: ...and Mr. Christopher Dilworth from 'Rock, Paper, Jackknife...'...
Chris Dilworth: Well, from Talisman Theatre...
Ed: ...which currently has a run of a play called...
Chris: 'Rock, Paper, Jackknife...' at the Centaur Theatre...
Ed: ...So we'll be checking in with you in a couple of minutes oncewe check in with the weather...
...
Ed: ...Now on to Montreal's cultural scene. There's currently a play running at the Centaur theatre until October 17th...
Chris: Yes, it's part of the Brave New Looks programme at the Centaur. The Centaur has this programme where they try to give up-and-coming companies and playwrights the opportunity to have an airing at the Centaur in a professional milieu, and Talisman Theatre is one of the edgiest new companies in Montreal, so last year the Centaur asked us to stage our production of 'Rock, Paper, Jackknife...' as part of their Brave New Looks.
Ed: My understanding is that 'Rock, Paper, Jackknife...' is the translation of a French Play.
Chris: Yes, it was written by Marilyn Perreault, a Quebecoise playwright, and it was originally called 'Roche, Papier, Couteau...' It's a very darkly poetic play. I can give you a synopsis...
Ed: Please do.
Chris: In synopsis... We meet a band of four youngsters after they havespent a month as stowaways in a dark shipping container before being deposited on the icy shore of a northern mining community. They come from a war-torn homeland called Harshinia and they don't speak the local language. They have nothing but the clothes on their back. Their personalities are distorted by trauma and lonliness, and a burning need to be loved. And, abandoned on the icy shore they search desperately for escape, any escape. And when I say 'dark', I mean it's really dark. The subjects are to do with glue and alcohol addiction, prostitution, murder, euthenasia, violence and suicide.
We had a conference about this on Saturday at the Centaur, on the set. And the discussion centered around the question, 'where is the hope in the play?' And we came to the conclusion that the play can do either one of two things: it can ask questions, or it can provide solutions. And this play asks questions. It challenges the audience. It's a really challenging play. I can give you some examples.
Ed: Please do.
Chris: I went to a performance on Friday night and there was a very positive reaction from most of the audience, but some of the invited guests reacted very strangely. One woman seemed very angry at me. She had brought her fourteen year old daughter and she had sat in the front row. And, though I suggested that she sit back, because the impact in the front row is so intense, and it's an intense play, and a fourteen-year-old girl sitting in the front row was not a good idea. Anyway, at the end of the play, the fourteen-year-old was crying her eyes out...
Ed: Oh my god...
Chris: And her mother was angry at me. I went up the steps to greet some of the other guests and I asked one person how he found the play. He stared at me for 30 seconds, and then he said, 'I didn't like the play. I don't like the production.' He stared at me for another 15 seconds, turned on his heel and left. A woman two rows behind me, at the final scene which is quite--I mean 'harrowing' is the word to describe the play--the final scene happens and the woman screams 'Oh my God!'
This is a play not to be taken lightly. But it is, I think, a very important play. It has been called 'the most challenging play of the season', Montreal's theatre season. And it is a must-see. It is a phenomenal piece of work. I've been working on it since last year since I helped write the grant applications for it, and we got the funding from Canada Council to do it...
Ed: Well I'm very intrigued now. We have a couple of MP3s that may give a taste of the experience. Shall we hear them?...
...
Ed: So can you give us a bit of context for what we just heard?
Chris: Yes, sure. That was a very good piece to play actually because it introduces all of the characters. Mielke, played by Julie Tamiko Manning, isa 30-something nurse who came originally from Harshinia to this isolated northern community where they speak Norien, which is a different language. And because she is the only one who speaks the language of the children who arrive on a freighter after having spent a month in a shipping container--so they are completely traumatized--she is given, then, the job of teaching them the local language. Ali is 12-years-old, she's played by Stephanie Buxton. Nox, played by Rockne Corrigan is a 13-year-old boy who has two personalities inside him, 'Nox' and what he calls 'I'. And Sola is 15-years-old, played by Lucinda Davis. Taymor is 17, and he is silent, played by Alex McCooeye.
And the thing about these characters is that they are all using allegorical names: Ali, for example is the ally who tries to keep everybody together; Nox is noxious, in other words, he's very difficult to deal with; Sola, in French she was Lonele, she is lonely; Taymor is 'Je-suis-mort', he's dead, in the original French version it was Iourded, or 'you-are-dead' Which is an English play on words. And I have a great deal of respect for Nadine Desrochers--her translation is incredibly good. The original French is difficult...
You may have noticed that the language is a little strange, but this is because it is coming through the mouths of children who are using a lot of metaphor. This has been compared to Daniel Danis plays where the language is somewhat special as well. But with the use of metaphor, the idea is to destabilize the audience, which it does do very effectively.
Ed: Oh, so is it a kind ofchildrens' pidgen that they are speaking? That they learned in some kind of post-apoccalyptic collapse...
Chris: Yes, it is at one level, but being an allegorical play, one can read it at many different levels. It deepends on who you are as to how you read it. So, yes it is a kind of chidrens' pidgen at one level, it's a foreign language pidgen at another level. Overall, after the first 15 minutes, it becomes relatively transparent and it becomes part of the characters and part of the mode of expression and it ceases to be troubling and actually builds to an amazing cresendo at the end. It's quite an amazing thing.
Ed: I have a question about these difficult parts of the play. Often if pieces ofart elicit such strong reactions from people it's either a sign that it's sensationalist, or it's on theway to becoming a classic--it's significant and relevent. I suppose you would take the latter position?
Chris: Well, howcould I not? I think it is an important work ofart. We, as I said, had a conference on Saturday with a panel of academics who are notable in their fields from UQaM, University of Montreal, McGill, and they were discussing they play. They came to see the play the night before, and they were all deeply affected, and, as a group, deeply polarized. And Talisman's mandate is to bring Quebecois plays depicting Quebecois culture to non-Francophone audiences, plays with deep social significance. That is what Talisman's mandate is. It has a reputation for putting on dark productions, but they are meant to have impact. They are meant to polarize. We are happy when the audience is polarized.
We are also funded, in part, by the Cole Foundation. The Cole Foundation's new theatrical mandate is to promote intercultural conversation, which is exactly what this play did. Barry Cole, who runs the Cole Foundation, came to see the play on the opening night, and he was blown away, he was very, very happy. So we fulfilled our mandate, we fulfilled Bary Cole's mandate.
Ed: This play is running at the Centaur until October 17th. I believe we have a second clip. Shall we hear that?
...
Ed: So the entire play is set in this northern community?
Chris: Yes. It's actually in a setting that was designed by Set Designer Lyne Paquette. She is also the Artistic Director of Talisman and the powerhouse behind the entire operation--she works on it all year. But this particular set is adepiction of a Nissen hut which is kind of exploded with this Le Corbusier type of flare to it. So its a very special set, and, depending on how it's lit, it looks like it's solid zinc-plated corrugated steel on the inside, but then its translucent, so when you light it from the outside you can see all of the graffiti and everything. It is an incredible work of art, the set itself. So, we are very pleased.
And I'd like to say a word about Emma Tibaldo, the Director. Lyne and Emma are both founding members of Talisman, but Emma is also the Executive Director and Artistic Director of Playwrights Workshop Montreal, so she hasa great deal of experience, she is very much sought after. And I think that, in this play she has absolutely excelled herself. She has what she calls a hybrid development process which is a kind of adaptation of the French theatrical process in which she works with her actorsand designers simultaneously, so each designer can intervene in the actual production to assist in its development. The lighting, the sound and set designers can interact with the actors during the development process. So it ends up being a tightly integrated play with, in this case, harrowing effect, and, like I said, it is a must-see play. It's the most challenging play of the season, and I firmly believe that.
Ed: So we have four more days, four runs to get out to the Centaur. What time does it run?
Chris: It usually runs at 7:30, and there may be a matinee, but check the talisman website at www.talisman-theatre.com. And you can buy your tickets from the Centaur website.
Ed: Well I think I'll be trying to head out there before the run is over...
Chris: Great!
Ed: Thank you so much for joining us this early in the morning...
Chris: Bring all of your friends folks...
Ed: Laughing... Chris Dilworth from Talisman Theatre talking to us about a new play in Montreal. Thank you so much for joining us.
Chris: Thank you.
For comments or information :
talisman(at)talisman-theatre dot com
Page last updated on
04-06-2011