Category: theatre

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What’s in a name…or play? Regarding Pig Girl at The Roxy

On Friday, I saw Pig Girl at Theatre Network. I chose to go then because there was a talk-back afterward. I’d very strongly suggest reading the moderator Paula Simons’ account of that. Also, here’s the What It Is podcast, with the playwright, Colleen Murphy, and the director, Brad Moss, discussing the play.

I’ve been trying to sort out in my head since Friday night what I thought/felt about Pig Girl. I’m going the route of picking out three things I was affected by:

1) There’s a lot of debate about the title. The moment I heard what the play was about, and what’s its title was, it gave me pause. Everyone involved in the show has said it’s only loosely based on the murder of women in Port Coquitlam. It was very clear watching the play that those events are what the play is based on. So refering to a victim of this crime by the very animal that…the murderer used to hide the body… That seemed in my head very, very strange.

2) The two female characters are sisters. They actresses playing them look very different from each other – I thought nothing of that, since I was busy watching one sister being tortured by a murderer, and watching the other sister desperately looking for her. During the show it’s revealed the sister being killed had “looked different” at college, and the other sister mentioned adoption. That flew into my head, and I continued watching the one sister being tortured by a murderer. Then during the talk-back, it was said that the implication was that the woman being killed was aboriginal. Call me naive or dim, but I did not assume, because the character was adopted, a street worker, and looked so different from her sister, that she was aboriginal. I know that too many aboriginal women end up being exploited, and I know all of the victims at that farm were sex workers — and I’m disturbed that I was meant to “connect the dots”. I just don’t assume things like that. It was never said in the play, it was implied, and I was expected to assume. And I was aghast.

3) There appears to be NO debate, however, that the actors onstage were all fantastic: they so were. The actors playing Dying Woman and the Killer were Nadien Chu and Randy Hughson. It was hard to watch them, which it had to be. At the talk-back the two of them spoke about all the little things they do onstage, while performing, to check on each other and make sure everything’s okay. As much as I felt genuinely nauseous watching them, in my subconscious I knew for actors to be that good, they had to trust each other implicitly, and they said as much after the show. Having done shows myself where I was stuck onstage with someone I couldn’t trust, I felt a sliver of envy.

That’s what I have to say about Pig Girl . I honestly can’t say if I’d recommend it or not…because I’m still not sure how I feel about it.

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$10,000 to see a bunch of monkeys write?

Nah.

The idea was to get a bunch of playwrights to lock themselves up and write for 24 hours, in the hope that others would show a little mercy and sponsor us to do so. All to support Alberta Playwrights Network, who would, in turn support those playwrights. The goal was a rather whopping $10,000,

We’re at $9,575. So the goal has been pushed UP. To $15,000.

Now that you’ve picked your jaw up off the floor (hey, I had to, and I’m one of the writers!), feel free to tell us monkeys to write even more and donate too. The 24-hour-clock begins at 7pm, on 22 November 2013!

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How to create an Ugly Princess in 24 hours (or less)

I will be writing a new play, The Ugly Princess, almost from scratch, in 24 hours for APN’s Writeathon on 23 November. I say “almost”, because I have two scenes. This post…is about making you want to see the whole thing.

The story is linked – in my head, somehow – to this painting, now at the National Gallery in London, a painting which, the story goes, gave Sir John Tenniel the idea for how the Duchess should look in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

by Sir John Tenniel, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, 1865. Courtesy of eBooks@Adelaide
by Sir John Tenniel, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, 1865. Courtesy of eBooks@Adelaide

When I was asked to provide one scene, no more than ten minutes long, with two characters, for my workshop at Playworks Ink, and I realized I didn’t have anything fitting the bill, that’s when the “squidgies” set in, and I had to write a scene from this play still sitting entirely in my head. And here, exactly, is what happened:

There were twenty of us playwrights in the workshop room the first day. Robert randomly picked one person. Her scene was read out loud by two actors in the middle of the room. Robert asked the playwright what she’d intended, and she explained. Then he said: “Your assignment…is to remove all the dialogue of this character, and give ALL the dialogue in the scene to the other character. Make it a monologue.”

And I could feel everyone else in the room thinking the same thing as me: Holy. Crap.

One playwright brought part of her stage adaptation of Things Fall Apart. He told her to set in the year 3000 and make it Sci-Fi. My fellow tweeter James was told to take his very idyllic scene of a brother and sister between the two World Wars, and transform it into the first level of a violent, gory video game.

I remembered the one brilliant moment in the Muppets Tonight series, when Cindy Crawford (yeah) was on. There were some besotted pigs asking what made her a supermodel, and then laserbeams came out of her eyes and vapourized one pig. The remaining pig ran after her shouting “Cindy! Do me! DO ME!”

I was that pig. Sitting there, in trepidation and glee, thinking “Me! Me next! What do I get to do?!”

So. The two actors got my script, and after glancing at it, they asked if I wanted British accents. Hell yeah. So they read it. Everyone laughed. Robert laughed. When the scene was done, he said, “This is very interesting.” I remained calm. He did not ask me to rewrite what I had, no. My assignment was to write a NEW scene, bring in the prince, and have him meet the two ladies at once, but when he spoke to one, the other answered, so he’d be flipping back and forth between them…for five pages. He said “It’s a bit complicated, but judging by your writing I think you can do it.”

We took a break, and I was vibrating in the hallway. I went off to write, and I had those five pages in 30 minutes.

My intention is to let the rest simmer, and then pound it out in support of the marvelous group that let me go to Playworks and got this to happen. And then enter it into the KidsFringe draw for next year. Want to see it?

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Audacity.

Robert O’Hara used this word a lot in our breakout session, Don’t F*ck with my Play, yesterday at Banff. About we playwrights having the audacity to say to a director:

“No, I can’t work with you.”

To people not in theatre: “No, this is not just a hobby.”

To the director, producer, or actors who want to change what you wrote to suit them. “NO, that is not what I wrote, you’re not doing it.”

About asking the production team what they need from me, the playwright, and informing them what I need, at the start, so that the play doesn’t get screwed up.

And if the situation changes during rehearsal, work to fix it. And if it can’t be fixed, decide if I’m going to shrug, wait for the terrible production to be over and move on. OR, if I’m going to tell the production team I, the person who wrote the play which has given them all work, isn’t happy, and take the crap that comes with being a ‘difficult writer.’

Sometimes, it’s not enough for the show to go on. I did recently pull the plug on a project I was really looking forward to, because it was already making me unhappy. And that’s not the point. I’m still disappointed and miffed, but better that, than insane.

This weekend, an Obie-winning playwright told me I was good. I met Karen Hines and told her about the award I was nominated for and how proud I was to lose to her, and she laughed. I made a whole room of people laugh. I don’t deserve to be f*cked around.

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I am a lucky bunny. For one: I haven’t met a rutting elk.

Not a joke. Genuinely. Getting between a male elk – the ones with the ANTLERS – and the rest of his heard when all he’s thinking of is mating…bad.

I feel a bit bad that I haven’t really put myself in any danger of meeting an elk here in Banff, because I haven’t been outside much. People go to Banff to BE outdoors – to hike, to ski, to climb mountains, to go camping. I’m here to write, and bloody hell. Everything I’ve heard about the Banff Centre for the Arts…it’s like everything I heard about the Edinburgh Fringe before going. It’s all true. Multiplied by a million.

First, you do need to step outside to get from one building to another, and every one of the buildings has enormous windows…so one way or another, you see you’re in a valley surrounded by the Rockies. Yes, they’re snowy, and tall. But it’s like being hugged.

Then: for however long you’re here, you sleep here, eat here, and work here. The rooms are lovely, the food…I’m going to be dreaming about the buffets of EVERY MEAL I’ve had here. Our first dinner back on Friday, one choice was Lamb Shanks. There are at least six kinds of dessert after lunch and dinner: Homemade butterscotch ice cream. Cheesecake. Linzer torte. Everyone’s shocked at how much tea I’m drinking. Hey, if they keep offering, I’m drinking it. I haven’t seen anyone else turn down more free coffee.

food
I haven’t even talked about the Q and A or performance of Mr Christopher Plummer. I asked him a question. I SPOKE TO HIM. (Over a microphone, but whatever!)

I can’t write about my re-writing course with Mr O’Hara until after our session today, Don’t F*ck with my Play. I’m too giddy.

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Oh my God…that WAS amazing.

Twitter has its uses. Oh yes. “Retweet this for your chance to win tickets to War Horse !” said VUE. The touring production at the Jubilee Auditorium. I re-tweeted it without a thought. And that evening after work (because I’m one of those people who puts her phone away during work hours), I got a reply that I had WON. Two tickets, to Opening Night. Of War Horse.

So I invited my Take a Bite director Amy (who’d already seen it in New York!), and I got VERY dressed up — and was shocked at how overdressed I felt on seeing everyone there. Let’s leave that for another post, hmm?

I was slightly afraid that having heard so much about this show already, having seen photos of the puppets, I wouldn’t be as moved by it…or alternatively I’d be washing my own makeup down my face.

But…as I posted earlier, it turned out to be true…this is one of those shows that is perfect.

I actually didn’t cry that much because, I think, I was just in awe.

No in-depth analysis–I believe War Horse is beyond that. But I really recall three things:

1) I normally detest title cards — it’s like I’m being told instead of shown, or, in a historical show, like this, the dates projected onscreen tell me how I should be feeling. But not so in this show. When the words “October 1918” appeared, I sighed in relief…”Thank God, the war is almost over…”
2) You’d think the horses — the puppets, that is — would overtake everything. But even in the scenes where the horses weren’t onstage, I never thought: “People. Boring. Where are the horsies?” EVERYTHING about this show — the script, the acting, the costumes, the staging of this massive touring show — were all bang on.
3) No denying, this show is what it is because of the puppets. There is nothing else like them. At the curtain call, when all the human actors came out, I was applauding, but also regretting that we wouldn’t see the horses take a bow because all their operators must be onstage. Except I was wrong — Joey and Topthorn came out, and took their bows too, and the audience went nuts, because the horses were so REAL to us. Everyone who built, moved, and did the choreography of those horses…they are geniuses, every one.

I need to read the book and movie, I do. But for the love of heaven, everybody on earth, SEE THIS ONSTAGE.

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I’ve got Banff-playwright squidgies

I don’t know how else to describe it.

Oh, there’s been a lack of time, certainly. Partly it’s procrastination – never had I felt a stronger need to wash and sanitize my rubbish bins and change my cat’s litter than this past weekend.

But the greatest enemy is SELF-DOUBT. Never doubt that. And it took a large Second Cup holiday tea, nanaimo bar and 4 HOURS to conquer it enough to get out my scene for Playworks Ink.

You see, besides seeing Mr Christopher Plummer (I can’t stop thinking that), Playworks is also going to have workshops. Classes. Classes which mundane me gets to take, from people who really, REALLY know what they’re doing. Chris Craddock is doing Solo Creation. If your life’s being is meant to be alone, onstage, JUST YOU, this is the man you need to show you how. He’s amazing. Classes with Sharon Pollock, who is among the best playwrights in Canada ever, and planet earth, and wrote Doc one of the plays which made me think “Oh God, let me write something 10 per cent as good as that one day…” I once met her, at another APN event, years ago. I hope she’s forgotten, because on hearing her name I squealed. Dignified.

I myself am taking Facing the Rewrite, with a playwright named Robert O’Hara, from New. York. City. Who has won an Obie Award. These facts would be enough to make my brain melt, but I’m also going to be taking a session with him called Don’t F*ck up my Play! This makes me weep with happiness.

Until this past weekend, on realizing, f*ck, I had to write something new, to rewrite during Facing the Rewrite, with an Obie-winning-playwright from NYC at the BANFF CENTRE. I knew exactly the scene from the new play I wanted to write…it just wouldn’t come out.

In this situation, it doesn’t work to say – “I’ve already paid, they’re not going to NOT let me in.” I’m going because I want to learn and I want to be GOOD because it’s Banff and this writer is good, and I can’t bring…mediocre.

It’s hard to explain the relief, when it did come out. It frightens me a bit that it took so long, that it felt so hard to start…and how relieved I am that once I got going, it was fine.

So. I’m excited again. I’ve heard today there is still a bit of room left in both Facing the Rewrite and Sharon’s course The Playwright as Storyteller. Really, you should sign up. Soon. Because…Don’t F*ck up my Play is full. (And Christopher Plummer is coming.)

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Pulling the plug.

This weekend, I gave up on something.

It hadn’t gotten very far, but it was something I’d been very excited about, and I was forced to admit that I simply don’t have the time or wherewithal to be a producer anymore. It sucks. But I decided I would rather pull the plug now, before too many people had invested a lot of time in something that I couldn’t do well. And I really don’t have the means to do what this project deserves.

Phoo.

I have something much smaller, hopefully more manageable, in the offing. And there’s Playworks Ink to look forward to. So. Much MUCH better news shortly.

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Why I dislike being a “woman writer”.

Besides the fact that “woman” in this case is used as an adjective when it’s a NOUN. I HATE THAT.

This post may seem like I’m looking the gift horse in the mouth, and I genuinely don’t know why this occurred to me today, but it has, so here we go:

This morning, I received an e-mail saying “I’m pleased to inform you that Crushed has made a sale.” I get that same e-mail about every six weeks or so.

I wrote Crushed in 1997. It had its premiere at the Walterdale Playhouse, during their Evening of One-Acts program — it’s now called Cradle to Stage (now accepting submissions…do it!). This program did — and does — get some heavyweight dramaturges to assist the playwrights. Mine was Vern Thiessen. And here it is, my little two-hander one-act, doing quite well in the fledgling world of online publishing. And a sliver of me wonders why.

It’s very short, 18 pages, though its playing time has always been not less than 30 minutes. It’s about two sisters…the younger is an abusive relationship, and she in turn is rather abusive to her older sister. It’s a very, VERY cheerful story.

Does it still have legs because there are still too few really good scripts out there for actresses? Is it because I happened to get it right — how an abused woman thinks, and how she might in turn end up hurting the people around her? Because — very unfortunately — domestic abuse is happening?

I’ve been very lucky. I have never been physically abused by a man — I wouldn’t stand for it. I have never been turned down for a job because I’m female. But maybe it’s because I’m older, and still on my own, or because there does appear to be a true movement to belittle women lately, that I’m pondering how little progress we’re actually making. I’d like to believe there are more men like these in my own sphere, who not only don’t believe I’m lesser, but would step up when another man says I am. I wish Suzanne Moore of The Guardian wasn’t right…but she is.

I hate being a “woman writer” because that implies what I’ve written about couldn’t possibly matter to anyone but other women. So I put it out there, brothers: if your sister is being beaten up by her boyfriend, isn’t that your problem? What about your daughter, or niece, or your best friend’s daughter? If that boyfriend said “She was asking for it,” would you really say “Yeah man. Women“?