Sunday 22 May 2016

Theatre Ontario Festival # 6: The Art of Re-Re-Reviewing

One of my favourite authors, Helene Hanff, once said that when everyone else was reading ten books she would read one book ten times.  I'm the same.  It's also the way I watch movies!

With the live performing arts, though, things are a little different.  Once a book is published or a movie is released, its form and content are fixed -- unless the creators later decide to issue revised versions, such as second editions or director's cuts.  But live performances, by their very nature, are always different, one from another.  In the professional arts world, remounting a show usually leads to only slight changes in the appearance, sound, and general atmosphere of the production.  

In community theatre, of course, things can become a little -- okay, a lot -- more challenging.  Inevitably, there are actors or sound/lighting operators or (God forbid) a stage manager who can't go on to the Festival because of unexpected work or family commitments, illness, etc.  Therefore, new people have to be brought in and rehearsed.  The show, in any case, may have been put to bed for anything up to six or seven months before the time rolls around for the Festival.  The sizes and shapes of stages, auditoriums, and lighting grids can vary dramatically from place to place.  Sound characteristics of halls also vary dramatically.  The process of restarting rehearsals can lead to new and startling discoveries of what exactly can be teased out of the script to enhance the performances and give depth to the story. 

I first saw 33 Variations during its initial run at the Imperial Theatre in Sarnia.  That was in February, 2016.  A month later I saw it again at the Woodstock Theatre during the WODL Festival.  Two months after that (this week), I viewed the same production for the third time in the theatre of Saint Joseph's - Scollard Hall high school in North Bay, as part of the Theatre Ontario Festival.  What happened during those three months, and how did the play change each time?  And how did my perceptions of the production also shift across those three months?

That's really all I could ask myself when trying to write my review of this third performance, already posted.  It's the other questions and reflections which came afterwards that together form the subject of this rather different article.

It won't come as much of a surprise to any performing artists reading this essay that the play gained strength, with performances developing additional dimensions and added resonances across time.  To be sure, there were visible changes, such as the number and arrangement of the projection screens which did so much to enhance the performance in lieu of more traditional fixed scenery.  There was only one casting change during that time, as the pianist originally appearing in Sarnia had to be replaced in Woodstock.  However, the original pianist returned for the North Bay performance.

I want to take those screens as a starting point for my own experience or journey with this piece.  On each viewing I noticed new details on the screens which hadn't registered with me before.  In a way, this is a good thing, since the projections -- like all good scenery -- are really at their best when communicating to the audiences subconsciously rather than consciously.  It could, of course, also be partly due to the fact that varying stage sizes forced the screen layout to be changed each time, thereby putting the projections into a different spatial relationship with the actors.

But the same was true with the actors themselves.  On each viewing of the piece, there were new details of the action and the text that struck home for the first time with me.  Others, of course, I welcomed like the old friends that they became.  There would be passages that I could almost quote word for word, and passages that seemed entirely new.  In between were the parts which I didn't recall in advance, but which I instantly recognized as soon as the actor began to speak.

This experience of seeing the play three times in three different halls also sharpened my awareness of the spatial and acoustic differences among those three spaces.

More than anything else, this experience has powerfully drawn my attention to just how much depth of meaning and thought underlies the text of this play.  Each time that I have seen the show, I have found connections in new places, and had different thematic "aha" moments.  In particular, this script keeps digging deeper under my skin, leading me to make connections and find those themes in my own life.

I suppose that's no accident because I've been a passionate lover of classical music all my life.  That one fact certainly explains the intense gravitational pull that Moises Kaufman's script exerts on me.  But there's more to it.  Now that I've reached the time of my life when the deaths of those near and dear to me inevitably occur, this play speaks to places deep inside me that simply weren't awake at all twenty or more years ago.

I think my best example of that is my appreciation of the character of Beethoven.  All my life, I have struggled to create -- although in written form, and certainly nowhere near as significantly as that musical titan of all titans.  When he speaks in the play of how he can't decide how to finish his work, I can dimly appreciate his creative fire and the roadblock of his uncertainty after some of my experiences of struggling to find my way from the point where I am in writing a piece to its conclusion.

Next to Beethoven, the character I relate to most is Clara.  Her practice of continually switching from job to job mirrors my frequent switch-ups of the courses I taught in school.  It's also reflected in my lifelong pattern of indulging in a certain type of reading for a while, and then switching to a whole different type for the next span of months or years.  Clara's relationship with her mother is an edgy one and that also mirrors my sometimes-difficult relationship with my father.  Most of all, though, both of us share one shining commonality: it was that difficult parent who introduced both Clara and myself to the wonderful universe of classical music.  Now, there's a gift that keeps giving and giving.

As a social klutz myself, often seeking forgiveness for my sins of commission and omission, I can definitely identify with the similarly-inept Mike in the play too!

These thoughts didn't spring fully formed into my mind the first time I saw the show.  It took three performances for some of these themes and ideas to rise up above my conscious mental horizon.

If this play had come along twenty years earlier, I would certainly have enjoyed it -- but in a much more superficial way, I think.  Certainly, I could never have written this article in this form when I was still in my late thirties or early forties.

My third viewing of this play in particular, as well as a single remark made by adjudicator Mimi Mekler, has triggered off an interesting series of inward reflections.  This blog article really only covers the Coles Notes version.  The entire production has had a huge impact on me on so many levels that I can't even begin to explain yet.  All of which helps to explain, I think, why I began to cry Friday night during the final emotional moments of the show.

This beautiful, heartfelt, thought-provoking play has indeed come as a gift to me in my own personal and inward life.

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