Summerworks Previews

By Jon Kaplan

Popping culture

solo RICHARDTHESECOND written and performed by Matthew MacFadzean, directed by Rebecca Brown. Presented by Nation of Aslan at Artword. August 2 at 11 pm, August 5 at 8 pm, August 6 at 3:30 pm, August 9 and 11 at 6:30 pm, August 12 at 5 pm.

Matthew MacFadzean's created the perfect theatre piece for audiences hooked on film and TV screens. And, surprisingly, he's brought Shakespeare into the mix.

Matthew MacFadzean's richardthesecond and debbie young's yagayah kick off annual fest.

richardthesecond is the tale of an inveterate raver seduced into an experiment that could shatter both his self-image and the makeup of society. Its springboard, in part, is the Bard's work about the king who was a pretty good poet but a pretty bad ruler.

"What I like most about Shakespeare is that each play mirrors an era, and Richard II seems to be ours," confides writer/performer MacFadzean, who spent two years at Shaw and whose Toronto work includes Shopping And Fucking, A Buncha Young Artists and The End Of Dancing.

"Like Shakespeare's creation, my modern Richard is increasingly self-aware. By the end, he's wondering if all the cool stuff in his life really contents him.

"I also want to deal with the overwhelming nature of today's technology. Ironically, I think the show can bring in a wider audience, a youth culture that's used to looking at images everywhere. I think of it as a techno-opera."

MacFadzean has brought in artists from different backgrounds, including DJ Iain Miller, filmmaker Brendan Steacey and Collon Brown, who provides visuals for raves.

Working on the classics at Shaw sparked a desire in MacFadzean to do something crazier, more dangerous.

"I realized I might as well make it as big and scary as I could. The more difficult it is, the more I learn."

Yah woman

drama YAGAYAH - TWO.BLACK.WOMYN.GRIOTS written and performed by debbie young and Naila Belvett, directed by ahdri zhina mandiela. Presented by b current at Artword. August 2 at 9:30 pm, August 4 at 11 pm, August 5 and 12 at 2 pm, August 9 at 8 pm, August 11 at 12:30 pm.

Dub poetry is, like theatre, one branch of the storytelling tree, according to writer/performer debbie young. yagayah, the dub-driven piece she's created with Naila Belvett, explores the intertwined lives of two Jamaican women, Mary and Imogene, from childhood through the time when the adult Imogene moves to Montreal.

The title yagayah, a word spoken at the end of a reggae or rap show, translates as "thank you." It's also a way of acknowledging the vital role of the listener.

"From its beginning in late-70s Jamaica, dub has been tied to social change," explains young, who moved audiences with her work in the Fringe show Da Kink In My Hair. "This type of art is linked to political thought and action, and the connection comes from a place of passion and love Ð of self, humanity and life.

"There's no vacuum between the performer and the art," she continues, her energy and warmth pouring across the phone line. "The music-influenced dub artist shares an implication with what's said onstage."

Steeped in the West African storytelling tradition called griot, Belvett and young use a Yoruba folk tale that parallels the story of the two Jamaican women, whose closeness cuts across social classes.

"We're using Mary and Imogene to examine issues that bubble inside each of us. Our poetry explores identity, sexuality and self-esteem for black women. And it's wrapped up in storytelling, with the added twist that we explore what happens when the storyteller's tale is her own."

Gay guide

drama S&M* by Gordon Portman, directed by Nicole Stamp, with Duff MacDonald, Sean Tyson and Alison Lawrence. Presented by Seeing the Emperor at the Factory Studio. August 2 at 10:30 pm, August 4 at 2 pm, August 5 at 8 pm, August 6 at 1 pm, August 9 at 10:30 pm, August 11 at 6 pm.

it's a well-known story. a young man from a small town comes to the big city looking for action and affirmation of his uncertain sexuality. But what if he connects with one of the highest-profile faggots in the theatre community?

That's the premise of Gordon Portman's S&M*, a cleverly satiric piece that takes on the political right, some well-known gay playwrights and fickle public taste. It's packaged as a series of rapidly intercut scenes that deal not only with the central couple but also with the parallel characters in a play invented by one of them.

"The style and structure came as the story did," says the Saskatchewan-born Portman, who's been in playwrights units at Buddies and Theatre Passe Muraille. His script The Watch For Sunrise is on Buddies' schedule for next season.

"I wanted to make a point about the writing style of a particular playwright Ð who remains unnamed. To use it but take it deeper, so that I not only have a series of comic-book panels but also fill in those panels."

In the show, Portman's innocent figure, Jason, finds that whatever his sexuality, he's not the kind of queer his lionized mentor, Greg, thinks is correct.

"I don't intend that the play be a personal rant," Portman confesses, "but part of me wants to expose the emperor for what I experience him to be, and what a fair number of other gay men see him to be. Maybe the preaching and inspiration that someone like Greg offers is too narrow in scope. Why should his politics and style of sexuality define the only correct way to be gay?"

Dream play

drama PAGAN LOVE SONGS FOR THE UNINITIATED by Sue Balint, directed by Eric J. Rose, with Darryl Hinds and Alison Jutzi. Presented by Invisible Elephant at the Factory Mainspace. August 2 at 5:30 pm, August 4 at 4 pm, August 5 at 1:30 pm, August 8 at 8:30 pm, August 9 at 11 pm, August 11 at 2:30 pm.

Sue Balint's first play, Pagan Love Songs For The Uninitiated, keeps comin' home to momma.

She wrote it in 1993, her first year at Queen's, and two years later it won a university prize and was published in a 100-copy chapbook. It went on to a successful high-school staging in 1997 and a lauded revised production at the 2001 U of T drama festival.

"I had no knowledge of how to write a play when I created it," laughs Balint, whose 1999 work, fforward, received a pair of Dora nominations in Daryl Cloran's production. "It came from a sweet and naive place. I think I was reading William Blake at the time."

In a series of sometimes separate, sometimes connected speeches, a young man and woman recount their lives and dreams. The man's had a difficult upbringing, while the woman has had a seemingly perfect childhood. The result? There's a big gap in how they view the world, though their paths cross in unexpected ways.

"In the U of T show, director Eric J. Rose found a through line," she says. "It's the strength of childhood memories and childlike qualities that these two people share. You have to highlight the innocence early on, to make the point that we all grow up into a less than innocent adulthood.

"There's a dreamlike quality to the piece, and that dreaminess Ð or sometimes nightmarishness Ð lets the audience imagine, maybe leap into, a surreal world. That's one of the joys of theatre."

Bear bones

ensemble EAST OF THE SUN, WEST OF THE MOON created by the company, directed by Kate Cayley, with Amy Stewart, Janice Rieger and Simone Rosenberg. Presented by Stranger Theatre at the Factory Studio. August 2 at 9 pm, August 4 at 3:30 pm, August 5 and 10 at 6:30 pm, August 7 at 8:30 pm, August 11 at 12:30 pm.

A woman marries a bear, then betrays him and finally must save him. It could only happen in a folk tale, but what happens when a group of young feminists tell the story?

East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon brings together the various talents of the all-female collective Stranger Theatre.

The creative mix includes director Kate Cayley, who's spent five years as a storyteller, actor Simone Rosenberg and her obsession with fairy tales, and Janice Rieger, who's always wanted to create a play about love.

"We discovered three versions of the story," notes Cayley. "It's about journeys, exile and the renunciation of self, a play about love, but not romantic love."

The result is a piece whose presentation includes masks and a bit of puppetry. Cayley calls it a living folk tale.

"The big inspiration for me was a storytelling festival I attended where a really old female teller was too weak to get up from her chair but held the room spellbound. I realized I was watching the most basic form of theatre.

"I want the audience to have a gut response to universal archetypes, archetypes that we have to make specific through character."

Starry vision

solo VAN GOGH written and performed by Bill Kischuck. Presented by Whiplash Theatre at Artword. August 3 at 9:30 pm, August 4 at 6:30 pm, August 6 at 12:30 pm, August 7 at 10 pm, August 10 at 8 pm, August 11 at 5 pm.

Bill Kischuck is one lucky playwright. He gets double mileage from his works, creating versions for both English- and Japanese-speaking audiences.

Back in the 80s, Kischuck formed Whiplash Theatre, presenting one-person versions of King Lear and Hamlet and a show about Artaud, all of which relied heavily on physical theatre. In 1989 he went to study in Japan Ð "I thought about learning karate, but that didn't last long after my nose was broken" Ð and discovered Noh theatre.

Now he's back in Toronto with van Gogh, which premiered last November in English at a Japanese international drama festival. He's currently translating the show into Japanese.

"My inspiration was paintings by van Gogh, notably The Sower," he says. "I could see that the artist had had the religious experience that I longed for. Putting God on the canvas, he created not a literal picture but rather an ecstatic vision."

Kischuck places that spiritual kernel in the framework of a Noh play, where a travelling monk seeking wisdom Ð a typical Noh figure Ð journeys to the town of Arles and meets a mysterious sower who turns out to be the spirit of van Gogh himself.

"I'm jealous of those who are gifted with visions, just as the monk is envious that van Gogh stayed in the world and was given a spiritual experience, while he's entered a monastery and has had none."

Using Noh chant and dance, Kischuck Ð who's finishing off a PhD in Japanese literature Ð aims for a blend of eastern and western traditions.

"It was a shock when I discovered that Noh was the kind of theatrical experience I'd tried so hard to create. Now I understand its strength, and create work inspired by it. But van Gogh is still a Whiplash show, with its western narrative and perspective on religion."