|review| Hush at Tarragon Theatre

I remember playwright Rosa Laborde’s last play, Leo, having seen it in Ottawa on the GCTC stage. I remember the weaving out of realms of reality – from action to subconscious, distorting our perceptions much like memory distorts our pasts. Complicated with a touch of creepy.

Laborde’s new play, Hush, goes even further and showcases a distinctive curiosity in the activity of the unconscious mind. Discarding the social/historical platform apparent in Leo, Hush becomes a pure expression of humanity’s struggle against death.

Ah, I love a potent play.

Basically, young Lily’s nights are troubled. Her father, Harlem, tries to figure it all out which involves a lot of traveling lucidly through consciousness itself. As the plot progresses, we begin understand that this seemingly quirky and endearing family – dressed constantly funeral-ready by costume designer Patrick Du Wors – appears to be struggling against a ghostly presence that has burrowed itself deeply into their minds.

I’m really into this concept of physically staging the interplay between the subconscious and reality. Directed by Richard Rose – with no shortage of experience behind him – the un-real elements are hinted at early on. Talia, played here by Tara Rosling, wanders offstage when her tryst with Harlem (Graeme Somerville) is interrupted by an untimely phone call. The action is improbable – calculatedly improbable. The discontinuity between typical reactions and subconscious impulses is a playground for the mind of the audience; but one of those creepy playgrounds you only see abandoned in horror flicks, the swing rusted, squeeking as it swings, propelled by an ominous presence…

Leaving the theatre I was caught off-guard with the inaccessibility of this play. A day later and my mind seems to have taken it all in stride. I think the point is for it to be an unclear route from beginning to end. These characters, charting their path as they mourn a death the precedes the action we see on stage, are not clearly defined. It’s fun, if you like complicated. If you like being spoon-fed a unilateral logic, beware.

But, go see it because the dialogue is fun, the acting – by and large – is really really interesting to watch. Young Vivien Endicott-Douglas plays Lily, and she’s great. Look forward to a drugged-out monologue nearing the end of the play.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

I think I’ve just been harpooned through the heart.

I just finished reading George Seremba’s Come Good Rain. I don’t know if I have the words to properly express what effect this play has on me – and, given my (somewhat unfortunate?) penchant for digressing into humour, I hope that this post will properly act as a tribute to the experience of reading this piece.

I’ll start by saying: My knowledge of African politics in general is thin. This is something that I’ve been meaning to rectify, and so when George Seremba’s Come Good Rain appeared on my desk this morning I was instantly pleased that the script is preceded with a bit of a historical breakdown of the major leaders of Uganda dating back to British colonial rule.

The play, in short, deals with Seremba’s personal experience having survived some of the most horrific, terror-based, leaders of Uganda during the 70s-80s. Having been somewhat of an opponent of Milton Obote – or, rather, speculative deaths more generally, and at the very least, speculative acquisitions of power – Seremba landed himself in a world of trouble.

I’m between a rock and a hard place; I want so badly to talk about this, but don’t want to ruin the dramatic arc for you, dear readers! …I am fighting a lump in my throat, wanting so badly to talk about the horror this man survived, the things he has seen, my empathy, how humbling it is to read this and realize that yes, you fight for justice, for your fellow human being,  because some people have fought under much more trying circumstances. This play : it is heartbreaking.

And yes, you should absolutely not hesitate to read it (Fall 2010! as part of a very exciting anthology re: African-Canadian plays)

George Seremba, photo from FOMACS

Seremba – well, he is outstanding. A beautiful writer, a talented actor, a proponent for higher education, a professor, a true role model. Amazing. Just look! Cmon! I am so so happy I thought to google, because my heart (contending with the shrapnel of knowledge handed to me by this amazing, moving play) has been somewhat soothed knowing where this man has come from, and where he is today.

with fuel the fire burns bright.

Not my words today but pieces of thoughts, actions, reactions… I’ve amassed a small collection lately; words that keep this heart ablaze.

” …biologists also see in humans a natural willingness to help.”

“You can belittle and diminish if that’s your bent, but the unvarnished truth is the creative class — artists of all sorts, new media and social entrepreneurs, musicians and all the other disciples of the creative class — are literally transforming and reinvigorating parts of Hamilton’s downtown core.” – Howard Elliot for the Hamilton Spectator

“Un artiste est un scarabée qui trouve, dans les excréments mêmes de la société, les aliments nécessaires pour produire les œuvres qui fascinent et bouleversent ses semblables. L’artiste, tel un scarabée, se nourrit de la merde du monde pour lequel il œuvre, et de cette nourriture abjecte il parvient, parfois, à faire jaillir la beauté.”

- Wajdi Mouawad