Caryl Churchill’s Gaza Play
Here is a link to Caryl Churchill’s play: Seven Jewish Children. It’s magnificent. Download it. Read it. Think about it. Perform it.
- 11 02 2009 - 01:50
Take a toonie. Look at the polar bear. Now rotate the toonie 45 degress to the right, and put your thumb over the polar bear’s nose. What do you see? A vicious Tyannosaurus Rex, that’s what. And that sums up the situation in the world at the moment: we’ve gone from the familiar to the exotic. Harper’s acting like a fifth-generation Xerox of a coalition leader, The US has gone all hopey and Yes-We-Can-y, David Miller is charging you 5 cents for a grocery bag. And Pinter is gone. It’s time for a what-just-happened, where-are-we-now Wrecking Ball. Call it Shoe Shine the Bovine in ’09, because for the moment, the rules are suspended and the Dadaists are running the show.
WB8: Happy Valentine’s Detonation is ONE PERFORMANCE ONLY
Monday, February 9, 2009
Box Office opens at 7:00pm
Show starts at 8:00pm
Theatre Passe Muraille,
16 Ryerson Ave
Toronto, ON
Pay what you can (No advanced sales)
Proceeds will go to the Actor’s Fund of Canada
- 31 01 2009 - 14:52
Athol Fugard – Coming Home
Athol Fugard’s new play, Coming Home, has just had its world premiere at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, Connecticut – a coup for the company.
The play looks at a young single mother dying of AIDS and the decisions she makes about how to care for her young son. The theatre has tied this production together with a symposium on AIDS and other infectious diseases.
Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein says, “To use a theatrical piece as a springboard for a conversation about a broader political and social question — anybody that knows me knows that’s sort of right up my alley.”
But a dissenting voice is that of Fugard, himself, who says: “What are they going to do? What will they achieve? What immediate positive action is going to come out of this?... I’d be very humbly, humbly astounded and surprised and overjoyed if it was real action.”
Good questions. Fugard later softens up, apparently, on his view of the symposium, whose keynote speaker will be Dr. Gerald Friedland, director of the AIDS program at Yale-New Haven Hospital, professor at the Yale School of Medicine and one of the earliest AIDS researchers in the country:
“My blessing on those who assemble to look at this scourge.”
Ours, too.
- 17 01 2009 - 20:22
“I want to feel useful, not decorative.”
Is it frivolous to be making or talking about theatre while people are dying in Gaza? That’s a question Lyn Gardner asks in her Guardian blog, looking at the difficulties inherent in making good and pertinent political theatre.
- 15 01 2009 - 12:03
(pause) (pause) (pause) (long silence)
24 December 2008. Harold Pinter is gone. We will miss him.
Michael Billington in The Guardian – UK
The Hindu – India’s National Newspaper
Brisbane Courier Mail – Australia
Pinter’s 2005 Nobel Prize Address
2007 Interview with Charlie Rose. A terrific filmed interview with Pinter at the Old Vic, a year before his death – intercut with comments by such luminaries as Tom Stoppard, David Hare, David Mamet, John Patrick Shanley, Sam Mendes, Bill Nighy, and Pinter’s wife, Antonia Fraser.
“I believe in two things: one is, get a laugh, if it’s a natural laugh, the other is, stop it – dead.” – Harold Pinter
“I can’t think of anyone else that has actually changed the way we speak, and the way we write, the way we understand dialogue in the way that Harold has…” – Sam Mendes
“When we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror – for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.” – Harold Pinter
- 27 12 2008 - 11:51
Reaction Across Canada
The crowd at the Stanley Theatre in Vancouver
On Monday, October 6, 2008, Wrecking Balls were hosted in 10 cities across Canada – the first time we’ve gone National. Here’s what was said:
The Globe and Mail
The National Post
The Ottawa Citizen
The Vancouver Sun
The Next Stage – Vancouver coverage with photos!
The Georgia Straight
And informal descriptions from the organizers:
TORONTO:
Hi everyone,
Well we did it. Congratulations to all of you!
It was a really terrific evening in Toronto. The Tarragon was packed; we had to turn lots of people away. And the audience was in brilliant form. As were all the pieces. From Fiona Highet’s hilarious performance whilst wheelchair-bound (it wasn’t an actor choice; she’d hurt her legs and couldn’t walk); to Rick Roberts’/Blair Williams’/ Michael Scholar’s nearly naked Last Day of Sparta to Michael Healey’s brilliant anecdotalizing as we waited and waited for Ottawa to call to Hardee Lineham’s touching unemployed poet to Belladonna’s electric rap- sodies to Gray Powell’s astonishing performance in Nail Biter, this was definitely one of our strongest Balls.
How’d yours go?
VANCOUVER:
Vancouver rocked out as well. The Stanley Theatre (seats 600?) was over capacity. People were spilling out into the lobby watching by live feed t.v. During the all party forum that happened just prior to the wrecking ball, there was a scene at the box office when the conservative MP who’d originally “couldn’t make it” and was replaced, showed up an hour late and demanded to be let in. Front of House wouldn’t budge as the Forum was nearly into closing statements by that point. He flipped and caused a bit of a ruckus. We’re making sure that gets into the news. The wrecking ball was electric. The audience was loud and united and hungry for anything we threw at them. Highlights: drop kicking Stephen Harper sweater vests wrapped in packing tape up into the balcony, the garbled call from Victoria which got our audience frigging roaring, John Mann singing acapella, Joe Shitheads acoustic punk rock, David Blooms reading of Nail Biter, Alan Morgan as an “extraordinary person” who suddenly found himself able to poo famous works of art, and of course Wadji’s words that reminded us of why this was all so important. All of us were commenting after that none of us had seen anything quite like this in Vancouver before. What a night!
EDMONTON:
In only 8 short days, with very little press and scrambling like crazy we were able to fill our venue! We held it at the Varscona Theatre and had over 180 guests sitting, sprawled out in the aisles and standing on the sidelines. Highlights of the event included a standing ovation after Maralyn Ryan read Margaret Atwood’s Open Letter to Harper, Chris Craddock’s Political commercials screened in between each piece we performed. Michael Turner’s piece “A Two Hander” opened the show with lots of laughs. (Hope it’s okay we used Turner’s piece, we were short one at the last moment!) Nailbiter was haunting and powerful with a video of Omar above the actor, Sheldon Elter, at the beginning of the monologue. Our local writer Leslea Kroll wrote a nine person script that filled the whole stage. The audience was very vocal, attentive and positive throughout the evening. We also had a video screened by Mostly Water Theatre targeting the incompetence of our riding’s conservative representative Rahim Jaffer. The phone calls were a great success! Calgary called us right on cue. In fact, I said, “Any moment now, we will be expecting a call from-” RING RING, awesome! The energy was electric. We called Victoria three times! and this only added to the comedy and anticipation. We left sort of a crazy message once, hope we;t sound mean, we were just having a good time! It was hilarious on our end and I hope you could hear us okay! The show closed with John Ulyatt reading Wajdi’s letter and that was indeed the perfect capper to this important event.
This was such a fantatstic intiative, I am grateful to have been a
part of it. Can’t wait to do it again!
CALGARY:
Hey folks,
WB Calgary was a big hit. We had a venue set up for 125 and wound up with over 200 in attendance…not bad for a first go-around, though it did leave lots of folks standing. Many, many folks were asking us when the next one will be.
We had great scripts from Ken Cameron (the PM and GG going head to head over the arts and the legality of the election), Ellen Close (a comedy exploring election issues of prisoner rights…oh prison comedy), Neil Fleming (a hilarious take on the making of the PM Fireside chat commercials) and, of course, Judith’s work, read brilliantly by Rylan Wilkie. We also had the energetic music of Kris Demeanour and wonderful readings of Wajdi and Margaret Atwood’s letters.
The phone calls were a hoot going both ways…yes Winnipeg, our folks were going crazy during your chant, I think they thought you were cueing them, but it was great to connect and have the sense of the cross-country phenomenon. A phone call to our Albertan counterparts to the north was also great.
Here’s hoping the trend in the polls and in the activation of artists continues, it was a thrill to be a part of.
WINNIPEG:
Add Winnipeg to the Standing Room Only list – we had a 110 seat house, crammed another 10 in around the doorway, had to turn away a drama class that showed up late and could have used 20 more seats for the actors. Chris Sable did a gorgeous Nail Biter, Winnipeg legend Rob Slade returned from his new home, London England England just in time to grab the role of Groucho/Harper in Michael Nathanson’s quite brilliant adaptation of Duck Soup, Gord Tanner and Trish Cooper put Harper on the analyst couch to try to dig out the source of his arts anxiety, including flashbacks to the day Casey had to put down Finnegan and Mr. Dressup bites it at the beak of Rusty the Rooster. The mood was amazing—there was a full minute of applause when the house lights went down at the very start of the show – the audience is starving for this kind of show. So, I think, are the actors – I think I had only 5 people say they couldn’t make it out of everyone I asked to play a part. And yet one more highlight was the simplicity of that darn cell phone on the chair lighting up right at the end of our very first piece with a hello from Cornerbrook – I think that, above all, made everyone suddenly realise and believe we were all part of a nationwide phenomenon and ramped up the whole night ten more notches. I don’t think Calgary heard a word Michael Rubenfeld said and vice versa, but it was hilarious, and if the noise I heard while we were screaming “ABC” was the sound of you guys cheering back, something came across. And, like Ottawa, a collaboration of French/English St. Boniface/Winnipeg actors is – absurdly – incredibly rare in this town. Add it to the list of bridges this event has built. And will continue: the appetite to do this again is huge.
Thanks everyone and congratulations.
OTTAWA:
Hey everyone
Congratulations to all – we wrecked ‘em good!
Ottawa was fantastic! Full house, great energy, the pieces and music were all very well received.
Highlights included a wonderfully satirical song about Laureen Harper called “Ordinary People” by Glenn Nuotio; a not-so-naked but
definitely very funny version of the Last Day of Sparta; Richard
Gélinas’ fantastic performance in Nail Biter (even though it got
interrupted by our call from Montreal); Chanda Legroulx’s portrayal of a 15yrold girl in dire circumstances in Canada’s not-so-distant future; Kris Joseph’s stirring rendition of Matthew Payne’s I am a Canadian Artist, and the incomparable Oni the Haitian Sensation.
Everyone seemed particularly pleased with the fact that this was a co-lingual event… we don’t have a great track record with this in Ottawa.
During our call from Montreal, there was a great cry of recognition from the back of the room: “It’s Madame and Matante!!!”
The first time we called Toronto it was their intermission – they asked us to call back. That got a huge laugh from our audience. With both phone calls, even though it was difficult to understand the actual words the sense of connection was amazing and important.
We had both the Ottawa Citizen and CBC radio there – we were on the local news again this morning.
Hope this isn’t the last WB in Ottawa… the appetite for political
theatre is definitely here. Echoing Andrea’s comments on the FB page, special thanks to the original WB team in Toronto for inviting us all in.
woo hoo!
Madame et Matante at Montreal’s Wrecking Ball
MONTREAL:
The Montreal recap –
The electricity before the show was in the air as audience kept buzzing in and artists and musicians around town were still showing up as they heard they could play! At about a quarter to showtime the crowd boomed in and we were certainly at capacity in our 120 seat house.
The Montreal ruckus went a little something like this:
The irreplaceable Madame and Matante (Danette MacKay and Danielle Desormeaux) were indispensable as our mistresses of the evening, the thread to hold this creative chaos together as they bantered as the two Quebecois older madames wondering what all the fuss was about, but way into these ‘cute’ actors and their skills. Quote: “God doesn’t only love Catholics, you know”. Out of the Mouths of Babes was are all women/all actors’ choir who opened the evening with a conquering Oh Canada that the Conservatives would be proud of; M&M shredded politics with their improv skills as they stalled for Halifax’s call – and it came in! Magically so our speaker phone amplified nicely, and our old Madames are giggling uncontrollably with the audiences as we have the Halifax team cheering us on, and we ranting back! Sheer joy at this simple, symnolic act…Greg MacArthur (co-organiser) then got up to deliver the gift of David Fennario’s rant on generations of artists and socialism in Canada, and the symbol was passed on of this younger artist reading his words only recorded that afternoon in David’s residence; our cabaret performers then spiced up our evening with a great clown/flamenco/stomp act that had the audience in childish awe; Greg came back with his own “How to boil an artist alive” (says Stephen Harper – “needs mor salt!); following intermission and much buzzing at the bar (and more fundraising/flyering!), we came back to Montreal musician Amos Joannides who blew an amp! as he played us his ode to this city, appropriately; note: Alon Nashman then stole the mike as he jumped up from his seat in the audience to remind us why he loves The Wrecking Ball, and why he loves Quebec!; then came Madeleine Perrault’s letter adressed to Mr. Harper, read earlier at one of the many French rallies, here by our emerging (and bilingual!) actor-activist Alison Louder; The Spoiled Artist Liberation Army of Endre Farkas and Caroline Marie Squaid (a last-minute addition) reminded us why white people can’t rap, but more importantly, that ”(Stephen Harper) wouldn’t know the people if they bit him in his arts cuts!”; Julian Doucet’s “A Speech Not Given” touchingly reminded us all of what we would have said/should have said when we first had the chance; Anna Fuerstenberg went ballistic! as our 120 year-old Sadie noe reflecting back on a Canada where the arts (and Harper) are extinct!; Harry Standjofksi and his looped guitar mesmerised us; and Graham Cuthbertson read Thompson’s piece to a momentum that reminded us just how much energy is spread across the country on this night. We close with Julie Tamiko Manning’s portrayal of Harper if he ‘only had a heart’ in “Get to Know your artists”, and the choir came back to chant the Harper breakup song of “Why you bein’ a dickhead for” to chant us into the night…
Ottawa we couldn’t hear you, but we made damn sure you could hear us! Madame and Matante had lost it by then ;)
We had such a wave of energy and response from the community, from the artists that just kept flowing in to perform, to the audience that kept coming…we ended up with a 3-hour run!
We here intend to follow up with the media as they continue to eat it up and support our cause. Quebec continues (across communities!) to keep this on everyone’s agenda.
Thank you all for the inspiration of riff-raff across the country, and here’s to what magic we can pull together in so little time!
Montreal loves you,
CORNER BROOK:
And thanks to everyone and all who organized this event from us here in Corner Brook – we had a great time, the speeches were great, the dancing was fantastic- and it was really special to have that live connection on the cellphone (though admittedly difficult to hear!) Congrats all!
- 8 10 2008 - 08:12
GET READY TO SWING: MONDAY OCT 6 2008
ACROSS CANADA:
City by City Listings for the National Wrecking Balls – Political Theatre to turn your Green Plan Purple:
The TORONTO event includes plays by Judith Thompson, Teresa Pavlinek, Pierre Brault and Rick Roberts, and music by Belladonna, with direction by Vikki Anderson, Kate Lynch, David Jansen and David Ferry. Actors include Hardee Lineham, Ieva Lucs, Fiona Highet, Clinton Walker, Bruce Godfree and Gray Powell. The event will be hosted by your local WB crew: David Jansen, Andrew Soren, Lara Robinson, and the incomparably jetlagged Michael Healey. Tarragon Theatre Mainspace Oct 6, 8pm. PWYC.
The VICTORIA edition will take place at the Belfry Arts Centre – 1291 Gladstone Ave – from 8:00-9:30pm. The box office opens at 7:45pm. Hosted by Matthew Payne of Theatre SKAM, local playwrights include Wes Borg and Dennis Eberts and Canadian Theatre icon Judith Thompson. Directors and actors will feature a luminous cross-section of talent from Victoria and Vancouver’s theatre, film and television communities; Kathleen Greenfield, Jeremy Lutter, Tim Sutherland, and Marcus Youssef will direct the readings. Special musical guests include local educator Cam Culham (along with Chantal Gabriell & Donna Williams), and a new song entitled Thank You Stephen Harper from our host.
The VANCOUVER edition will take place at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage – 1250 Granville St. Tickets go on sale at 6:00pm and the show starts at 9:00pm following an All-Party Forum and Press Conference which begins at 7pm. Your host will be John Mann from Spirit of the West! And on stage you’ll see new plays by Lucia Frangioni (Espresso), Canadian theatre giant Judith Thompson (The Crackwalker, Lion in the Streets), local author Michael Turner (Hard Core Logo) and media personality Bill Richardson. The Ball will be directed by The Electric Company’s Kim Collier and Jonathon Young, and Lyric Stage Project’s Michèle Lonsdale Smith, with organization provided by Katrina Dunn and others. Music will be provided by local punk icon Joey Keithley of D.O.A.
Wanna come in CALGARY? Come to the EPCOR CENTRE’s Jack Singer Lobby, 205 8th Avenue SE. Monday, October 6, 2008, 8:00pm (box office opens at 7pm). Home grown Alberta flavour includes Ken Cameron, Neil Fleming and Ellen Close, plus Judith Thompson and readings from letters and other documents that illuminate the importance of arts and culture in the ongoing election campaign. Calgary directors Stephen Hair, Simon Mallett and Stacie Harrison will collaborate on the pieces with many of Calgary’s most notable actors including Trevor Leigh, Doug McKeag, Valerie Planche, Valerie Ann Pearson, Ryan Luhning, Jamie Konchak, Tyrell Crews, Julie Mortensen and many others.
If you’re in EDMONTON, show up at the Varscona Theatre, 10329-8 Ave @ 8pm. New works from Edmonton writers Leslea Kroll and Chris Craddock will be featured along with a special contribution by two-time Governor General’s Award-winning playwright Judith Thompson. Wajdi Mouawad and Margaret Atwood will be channeled before your very eyes! Political videos brought to you by Mostly Water Theatre, You Tube, and Artists across the country will be screened! Edmonton directors Andrea Boyd, Kevin Sutley, and Ian Leung will collaborate on the pieces with a variety of artists from the Edmonton community including Coralie Cairns, Brian Dooley, Sheldon Elter, Michael Kennard, Elena Porter, Maralyn Ryan Trevor Schmidt, Scott Shpeley, Melissa Thingelstad, John Ulyatt and many others.
The WINNIPEG Wrecking Ball will be held at the Prairie Theatre Exchange’s Colin Jackson Studio (Unit Y300-393 Portage Avenue) at 8pm. Check out plays by Judith Thompson, members of the The Royal Liechtenstein Theatre Company, Ellen Peterson, and Michael Nathanson. Box Office opens at 7pm.
OTTAWA will gather at St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and Humanities, 314 St. Patrick St. at 8:00pm (get there by 7pm to get your ticket) on Oct 6th. With pieces by Pierre Brault, Judith Thompson, Sarah Migneron and Oni the Haitian Sensation! Kate Hurman and Pierre Brault will be at the directing helm. This Wrecking Ball will be bilingual.
In MONTREAL, you can head to the MainLine Theatre (3997 St-Laurent Blvd.) to check out the action. Oct 6th, 8pm, box office opens at 7pm. Hosted by Madame and Matante, Le Ball de Montreal will also feature the Montreal Women’s Choir and writing by David Fennario, Judith Thompson, Anna Fuerstenberg, Julia Tamiko Manning and Julian Doucet.
HALIFAX’s Bus Stop Theatre (2203 Gottingen St.) welcomes the crowds to line up for tickets starting at 7pm on Oct 6th. Doors open at 7.30 and the show will start at 8pm.
CORNER BROOK hosts A DEBUTANTES WRECKING BALL! Organized by Jillian Keily, and in partnership with extraordinary Canadians across the country, Corner Brook will participate in this pre-election celebration and affirmation of the arts and artists in Canada with one of our usual GALAS! Hosted at Corner Brook’s premiere Ball Room and student bar – THE BACKLOT, and featuring an orchestra of TWO or THREE extraordinary fiddlers and bodrhan players, we will dance the night away after a privately sponsored supper of CHIPS AND CHEEZIES!!! Join us for a night of frivolity and political rocking out, Monday, October the 6th, starting at 10:30 pm. Hope to see you there!
- 5 10 2008 - 08:47
The National Wrecking Ball Gets National Press
Here’s the ink on us, so far:
NATIONAL:
CBC News
OTTAWA:
The Ottawa Citizen
TORONTO:
Globe and Mail
The Toronto Star
NOW Magazine
The Toronto Star
Rabble.ca
MONTREAL:
The Montreal Mirror
Hour.ca
Stage and Page
CKUT Radio (scroll to 3/4 through the mp3)
LSM Newswire
Focus Montreal on Global TV – airs Saturday October 4th, 6:30PM; Sunday October 5th, 6:30AM
Upcoming: Artthreat magazine, CBC Radio and CIBL
Montréal.
WINNIPEG:
The Winnipeg Free Press
CALGARY:
The Calgary Herald
Fast Forward Weekly
ArtsMart
EDMONTON:
The Edmonton Journal
VANCOUVER:
The Vancouver Sun
The Georgia Straight
The Next Stage, Sept. 30/08
The Next Stage, Sept. 29/ 08
Rabble.ca
City Guide
- 4 10 2008 - 10:10
FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA, THEATRE ARTISTS OF CANADA GET THEIR WRECKING BALLS ON!
This October 6, the Wrecking Ball goes NATIONAL. That means there will be live events in major cities across Canada: All at Once, All on the Same Day, All Political, All New, All Written Expressly FOR the Federal Election. All thrown up by 100% Canadian actors, writers, directors and technicians in their gala niches from coast to coast.
Unprecedented? We like to think so…
Click on each city for details:
Victoria
Vancouver
Calgary
Edmonton
Winnipeg
Toronto
Ottawa
Montreal
Halifax
Stay tuned for details.
And now, a word from one of Canada’s finest theatre artists…
Opinion: Make Our Voices Heard
A speech delivered in Ottawa on September 24th by playwright, director, and Artistic Director of the National Arts Centre French Theatre, Wajdi Mouawad to a political rally, Vote Culture. Published in Le Devoir, on Friday, September 26th.
Not everyone is asked to be an artist, but an artist is asked to be unlike everyone else. This marginality is both envied and feared by those who exercise a certain kind of populist power, who seek, by whatever means, to promote hatred towards artists, with the goal of turning the solidarity between artists and the citizens who support them, to some political advantage. It is precisely this marginality, essential and inevitable, that now underscores the debate that the artistic community is attempting to have with the powers that be.
“Do you accept the difference the act of creation confers upon us? Are you prepared to support it? Do you accept that we insist upon this difference, out of which are born the works that we create? Are you prepared to recognise this?”
These are the questions, which, essentially, we are asking of our fellow citizens today. And these beg the larger question, what is it we want to give to Canada through this gesture of making art? What does this gesture mean? And, especially, do our artists, our citizens, and our politicians agree on the definition, and the meaning of creativity?
What is so wonderful about the passionate times we are going through now is that the discord has never been so clearly named, so clearly articulated. Never has the lack of understanding been so great between Canadian society and its artists, a lack of understanding that is expressed on one hand by the anger of the artists, and on the other by the indifference and cynicism of the political power and certain citizens.
But anger or cynicism aside, we are all, artists, citizens and politicians, the inheritors of a cultural history that has gradually set the table for an indigestible meal, one that our generation is being forced to swallow. Priests taught us to beware creativity and economists taught us to hate it.
Let’s make no mistake. The cultural politics of Canada are built on a contempt for intellectuals and a snickering at the words of artists; this is exacerbated today by the policies of a party with a police state ideology, alienated by the doctrine of might-makes-right, but then, all this is the inheritance of cultural politics that go much further back, and for which there is shared responsibility.
For what federal political party has ever had the courage to make known to the Canadian people the need for creativity, the choice of culture, the importance of its existence on an existential level? At best, this only gets done on the sly: in dribs and drabs; without saying it out loud, for fear of disturbing the base of the population in its convictions as to the uselessness of arts and culture; to not frighten it with the untamed beauty of creativity.
So today, when tongues become untied and we hear from many of our fellow citizens about their hate and their anger for artists, we mustn’t be surprised. Nor should we blame them for this bitterness, for just as we have encouraged them in this direction, so have they been educated into the rejection of art, of culture and of thought, thereby educating their children this way in turn.
Our blame should be directed firmly and clearly at the political party in power today, for exploiting that hatred in such a lamentable manner, all the while stoking it by repeating the most tired clichés about spoiled artists, in order to ensure its re-election and the reinforcement of the despicable footing upon which it will build its future cultural policies, none of which will improve the tendencies of the past.
Today, our duty is to speak together, as one, to make ourselves heard. Not to defend grants, but to stand up for what we believe in, not only for ourselves but for everyone.
However, we must realise that this will be difficult because to defend the common good, as artists, what we need to insist upon today, is our difference. That difference resides in the fact that we are essentially preoccupied with beauty. We must make our poetry heard, our sense of elegance; because we have a talent for elegance, which is why we are detested, we have a talent for poetry, which is why we are mocked, and we have a talent for speech, which is why we are feared.
Today, we must find a way to remind the world that our decision to be artists is accompanied by a deeper choice, which is to not lead the same life as the majority of our fellow citizens; our lot is different because the act of creativity rests upon principles that are utterly contrary to the prevailing view of society, the values of which are so strongly promoted. And in remembering that, in remembering our difference, we must run the very real risk of being detested, of not being heard, of being mocked more bitterly, and hated even more; but those who have loved us already will love us even more, those who stood behind us already will support us even more, and those citizens who need creativity will find great solace in seeing us so committed.
We must be bigger than those who will win, by proving in turn that there is a way of winning which lies in losing. Let us demonstrate not against cuts; let us rather demonstrate that we exist: let us show THAT, make THAT heard, wisely, wildly, by being utterly ourselves in our work, in the way we contest, in the way we speak not only of cuts, but also of what they signify. Let us demonstrate the unbearable – meaning let us show a different way of living, by simply saying who we are and what we do.
For my part, my name is Wajdi Mouawad, I am a writer and a director, and I am an artist.
– translation by John Van Burek- 29 09 2008 - 21:14
THE WRECKING BALL GOES NATIONAL
This October 6, the Wrecking Ball goes NATIONAL.
Each city will add some local flavour, some of the pieces will be performed across the country. Our best and brightest will take on the politicians. 100% Fresh. 100% Caustic. 100% Pure Maple Syrup.
Judith Thompson, Marcus Youseff, Michael Healey, Ken Cameron and MANY more dive into the fray, also known as the 40th Canadian General Election (or as we like to think of it: Rain Man versus Green Plan).
Click on each city for details:
Victoria
Vancouver
Calgary
Winnipeg
Toronto
Ottawa
Montreal
Halifax
And keep checking in because we’ll be updating all the time as October 6th gets closer.
- 25 09 2008 - 13:08
