Toronto Theatre Scene -- 09.01
eye WEEKLY
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eye WEEKLY September 1 1994
Toronto's arts newspaper .....free every Thursday
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THEATRE THEATRE
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Subject: BACKSTAGE BACKSTAGE :Subject
MY DINNER WITH GAULIER
by
CHRISTOPHER WINSOR
He had the Pad Thai, rice noodles stir-fried with chicken, shrimp,
bean sprouts, scallions, eggs, chopped peanuts and ground, roasted
chilies. I had the house soda. He wore blue jeans, a coarse leather
vest and a very silly Australian rain hat, and looked more like a
butterfly catcher than an internationally venerated theatrical
mentor. I wore my pants above my ankles. He spoke wryly, in a thick
French-inflected English reminiscent of Peter Sellers' Inspector
Clouseau -- short, careful phrases which led to jokes about
Protestants, and the humorless. If words failed, he'd lift his
shoulders tellingly, flail fingers or twist his suddenly animated
face.
Such was my dinner with Gaulier.
For the past quarter-century, Philippe Gaulier has been imparting
bits of mystery -- of what it is that makes some theatre great, and
the rest like undergoing two hours of root canal. During the '70s, he
was the star teacher at the celebrated Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris.
In 1980, the archetypal rupture occurred and he founded his own
school, then moved it to London three years ago. Now, students from
15 countries clamor for one of 50 spots, paying roughly $5,000 for
six months of half-day workshops. "After four hours the students
are very tired," he teases, "and then they ring their mothers."
Gaulier, famous as a performer for a routine that involved breaking
200 plates an evening, teaches movement-based workshops with
names like "The Neutral Mask." In England, he has been asked to work
with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Kenneth Branagh's company
(among others). He's in Toronto for the first time in 15 years,
invited by Sue Morrison and Mary Pat Mombourquette of the Theatre
Resource Centre. The workshops filled up even before the brochure
was printed.
So, what is it that they want from him? What is his method?
"I don't have a method," he says dismissively. "If you know
everything, and are really clever, then you can say you have a
method. I've never known anything. People who have a method are
trendy -- I'd rather work with details. I suppose, having taught for
24 years, it's time to say that I know something. Perhaps, just
before dying, I will raise myself up and ... paaaf!" he concludes,
feigning a stroke.
If not a method, Gaulier does have core beliefs. The idea of
gamesmanship is central, as is complicit‚ -- what happens when
actors create privileged moments of play together.
"The theatre is just game after game," he insists. "If two little
boys want to play games together, they must first try to become
friends. We need a sense of friendship between actors. As friends,
they are ready to play, and in this game we are allowed to play
Shakespeare, Greek tragedy, or a very funny play."
(Hmmm. Robert Lepage said something similar to me once. He said
that there was "far too much acting going on on Canadian stages, and
not enough play.") So important is play to Gaulier that he has
elsewhere referred to himself as the antidote to Stanislawski -- the
slavish turn-of-the-century Russian director who formulated
psychological realism as the acting style appropriate for Chekhov.
What about conflict? "We need conflict for the game," he says. "We
play war, we play that we are unhappy ... A game without conflict is
Club Med. It's boring."
And character? "Afterward we can have the problem of character. If
we start rehearsal sitting around a table speaking about character
before first finding the pleasure of the game, then that is just
wanking theatre."
In the workshop setting, though, all is clearly not fun and games. One
former student likened it to open-heart surgery without anaesthetic.
"My father was a doctor!" says Gaulier, amused by the analogy.
His warmest laugh comes when asked about his relationship to
former mentor Jacques Lecoq. "Lecoq is more of a pope than I am,
but we remain very good friends," he says. "And we are good
drinkers!"
With this, he knocks back a diet Coke, and dinner is done.
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Subject: MALAPROPS MALAPROPS :Subject
THEATRE NEWS
by
CHRISTOPHER WINSOR
ONE-IN-TEN: That was the odds of being chosen for the Summerworks
Showcase, the 11-day best-of-the-fest running at the Tarragon
(Sept. 7-18). The envelope, please ...
In the category of best sexually related murder drama/New Year's
eve revelation featuring an Italian family: The Gospels Accordingly,
written and directed by Fabrizio Filippo. Best monologues from five
women intent on knee-capping some poor bugger who had the
misfortune of getting mixed up with all five: Crazy Luv by Karen
Kemlo. Best remount of an earlier successful Dave Carley play about
the contradictions of moral certitude and small-l liberalism, Taking
Liberties. And best drama inspired by Susan Sontag's trip to
Sarajevo last summer to offer the besieged not bread nor bullets,
but a play by Samuel Beckett: Not Spain by Richard Sanger.
Tickets are $8 per show, $14 for a double bill. Sunday PWYC.
Reservations 531-1827.
HUM ALONG WITH TWEEDLE DUM: Stratford has again waded into the
indie market, releasing a 37-minute CD version of the 1994 musical
Alice Through The Looking Glass (minus the dancing, natch).
Composer/sampler synth-wiz Keith Thomas, aided by a
percussionist, violinist, cellist and a cast of thousands, provides the
noises, ranging from what you'd expect all the way to a kind of
Prozac parody of Tom Waits' Swordfish Trombone. It's worth it just
to hear Douglas Rain do Jabberwocky. Available in better Stratford
lobbies everywhere.
STYLE QUEENS: Sartorial innovators the Forever Plaids take to the
CNE Bandshell at 7:30 p.m. Sunday (Sept. 4) to do their hit doo-wop
'50s show currently playing at the New Yorker Theatre on Yonge St.
These guys are slick, verrry slick, and funny in a forgivably too-cute
way. They're also the best of the Bandshell bill, which this year
included Mel Torme, The Barra MacNeils and Johnny Cash. I'll take the
Plaids' retro harmonies any day.
A PLAYBILL IN EVERY POT: Theatrum Magazine editor and former eye
crit Sarah Hood has declared her intention to run for municipal
council in Ward 7. Instead of vociferously championing the politics
of theatre, Hood now will jump feet first into the theatre of
politics. My advice: wear air-soles.
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Subject: REVIEW REVIEW :Subject
WHAT'S UP?
Featuring Jody Braybrook, David Collins, Paulina Gillis,
Anna Monti di Oro, George Seremba and Viken Tashijian.
Written by James O'Reilly. Directed by Michael Gibson.
Presented by Workman Theatre Project at Pelham Park Gardens.
by
JOHN DEGEN
I've lived in this city for 10 years now. East end, west end,
downtown -- you name it, I've lived it. And still I had to call the TTC
to find out just where in the hell Pelham Park Gardens is.
Pelham Park is a Metro Toronto Housing Authority Project (MTHA),
tucked away in a little corner of the Davenport and Osler area. It has
been used for years as an overflow station for the Queen Street
Mental Health Centre (QSMHC), as well as serving its designated
purpose of providing public housing for the city's poor. This
population mix -- the direct result of apathetic management and
pathetic budgets -- is not always a happy one, and to approach the
building is to absorb its troubled atmosphere.
"Cool, an alternative venue -- the space is the message ..." and all
that. Or so I thought.
Actor/playwright James O'Reilly probably couldn't give a damn
whether or not you or I know where Pelham Park is. His What's Up?
was not written for us, or even with us vaguely in mind. It was
written for them, the people who live there, who did not choose, as I
did, to come to this place. Sure, our ignorance of their lot is part of
the problem, but that's not going to be changed by a single
performance of a 40-minute play. And that wasn't even the
playwright's intent.
As the performance area slowly changed back into the Pelham
Project's lobby after What's Up?'s only performance on Aug. 20,
O'Reilly reflected on how What's Up had come to be.
"This place," he explains, "is basically a repository for the
unwanted of society -- there's a large refugee population in here as
well -- and I wanted to give something to them. As dire as the
situation is, I knew that the best thing I could do was write
something that accurately reflected the life of the tenants, and yet
still make them laugh," he says. "This was the first thing I've ever
written where I thought the audience really needed the work. It
wasn't a bunch of jaded turtlenecks who wanted to know how I got
the grant."
O'Reilly did get a grant, or rather, was commissioned to write the
piece by the Workman Theatre Project (WTP), which did. The WTP is
a non-profit company affiliated with the mental health centre. and
dedicated to integrating mental health service recipients with the
professional theatre community. WTP uses theatre as a practical art
therapy, encouraging its members to use the creative process as a
recovery/discovery vehicle. The grant specified a theatre project for
Pelham Park, and O'Reilly was chosen based on his past work (which
has included the angry social commentaries, Work and Ghetto).
Having spent a good part of his early years living in the Jane-Finch
corridor, O'Reilly is well versed in underprivileged living. For him,
"us" and "them" are just a symptom of "it": the system that designs
and promotes a divided society and creates places like Pelham Park.
Like his earlier work, What's Up? is heavy on message and brutal
reality. But since its intended audience is already all too aware of
what sucks about how and where they live, O'Reilly kept the show as
light as possible, and ultimately quite gentle. What's Up? charted a
process of discovery and tolerance, brought about when six disparate
residents were forced into close quarters while waiting for a broken
elevator.
It contains a message and an urgent spirit that could reach any
audience. For this audience, the reaction was one of delightful
recognition, somewhat oddly positive considering the relative
darkness of the material. Yet for now What's Up? goes no further
than this one performance. Plans for a tour of other MTHA sites were
deep-sixed after the recent shake-up of that organization, and as for
a more conventional Toronto theatre crowd, O'Reilly is not all
interested.
"Can you imagine showing this to a Fringe audience?" he asks with a
laugh. "No, I think that [Fringe audiences] are going to discover
earnestness and sincerity in a couple of years. This show is not for
them."
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