Marion Bridge

February 2018 

Marion Bridge

Marion Bridge. By Daniel MacIvor. Fire Exit Theatre, Feb. 2018. Engineered Air theatre, Calgary. 

In Theatre History class it was said that having three characters onstage automatically creates conflict, make those three characters sisters and you have massive potential for conflict without even needing to know the story. Marion Bridge unflinchingly dives into the lives of three distinctly different people, held together only by blood. Three sisters, who have all gone their separate ways, are brought together by the upcoming death of their mother. They have to face the demons of their pasts (both together and apart) and learn out how to move forward so they can redefine their broken family. 

What I loved about Marion Bridge was it’s emphasis on memory and story. Each of the three characters have a chance to monologue, sharing with the audience the struggles and dreams that they cannot tell their siblings. They also all have an opportunity to share their version of a memory - their visit to Marion Bridge - and all three of them feel completely different about the event. 

Woven throughout the story is also the comical soap opera “Ryan’s Cove” which offered some lightness to the script and showed, in a different way, the power that story can have over our lives. Even if those stories are not worthy of our attention. It really struck me how three different people can have totally different responses to some stories, and surprisingly similar responses to others. If three characters so unique can be united through story, perhaps there is hope for all of us to find common ground, if we are willing to listen. 

Undercover

January 2018 

Undercover

Undercover.  By Rebecca Northan. Jan. 2018. The Playhouse, Vertigo Theatre. Calgary. 

There’s something sinister going on at an exclusive art auction. A crime of passion, lust and betrayal has been committed, and the only person who can solve this dastardly crime is a detective that was plucked out of the audience right before the show began. Rebecca Northan’s specialty is plays that involve audience members. They all have loosely constructed storylines that are designed to be stumbled across as she deftly guides her clueless companion through the play. Her plays are always a delightful experience, specifically because no one knows what’s going to happen.  Undercover ended up being as funny as it was frustrating.

As an audience member it was so hilariously frustrating to watch the rookie detective stumble around the set looking for clues. He does deserve our sympathy though, I am sure it’s much harder to actually be up there, where you don’t see the big picture. If I was frustrated by this, I can’t imagine how infuriating it must have been for the actors.  Every cast member had to be interrogated for clues that help uncover the mystery. The actors knew they had to talk to the rookie detective, but they had to find a natural way to do so. This challenge really allowed the actors to shine. They represented their characters well and yet were able to respond to the rookie detective’s pitiful attempts to interrogate them. One actor even gave up her clue after being offered a gentle massage, which became an inside joke for the rest of the performance. 

Undercover is a great example of what live theatre can offer that movies cannot - the fact that it is present. In order for this play to be successful it had to be in the moment. The actors could not possibly anticipate the actions of the rookie detective and had to be able to craft the plot around his actions. It was this adaptability by the cast that really made this risky show a huge success. Even if our particular rookie detective was not able to solve the devious crime, and may have ended up getting shot.

Onegin

January 2018

Onegin 

Onegin. By Amiel Gladstone and Veda Hille. Arts Club, Jan. 2018, Max Bell Theatre, Calgary. 

Onegin was touted as one of the best productions of the year, which made me go into it both intrigued and cynical.  Hype can be good for a show, but it can also raise people’s expectations and skew their opinions of it. After seeing Onegin, I understood the hype. It was refreshing in its irreverence, and had a beautiful score. To me, this musical was another example of “the way a story is told is just as important as the story itself,” it was presented as a group of storytellers, jumping between narrating and being the characters in the story, as seamlessly as they jumped about the stage in their beautifully choreographed dance pieces.

 I did enjoy this production, but at the same time I will not remember it. The music was beautiful and the actors sang and danced beautifully. They offered technical precision, but they lacked emotional depth. The music and the party atmosphere was fun, but the actors did not take me on the emotional journey that I hoped for. I see theatre to feel with the actor, to discover something of my humanity through their vulnerability and growth. This show left me feeling nothing.

I walked away from this play feeling that it was about a selfish person who remains selfish and ends up alone. A cautionary tale, and perhaps in Pushkin’s novel there is more of a sense of the tragedy that he created by his choices. Unfortunately, this version did not challenge its audience to change. It left me feeling as if it was actually a celebration of the inability to change, and of the coping mechanisms that we all use to stay exactly where we are. 

The 39 Steps

November 2017

The 39 Steps

The 39 Steps. By Patrick Barlow. Vertigo Theatre, Nov. 2017, Vertigo Theatre Playhouse, Calgary.

The 39 Steps is inspired by the work of Alfred Hitchcock. It paid homage to this legendary filmmaker by taking one of his works and turning it into a delightfully farcical romp.  The classic movie is a serious affair, an action/suspense that includes intrigue and attractive spies. This adaptation of the film is a great example of the many ways one story can be told. It kept the familiar elements: the suspense, the action, the attractive spies. But the play version added fun. There was a small, talented cast that all filled multiple roles (at moments even two roles at the same time). There was extremely clever staging, utilizing everything from shadow puppets, to puppet hands. Problems like creating “wind” outside of a moving train were solved by having actors simply wave their own hats in the air and yell. There were references to Hitchcock movies jammed it at every possible moment, and there was a surprise ending that I could not possibly have seen coming. It was so surprising, and so delightful for the same reason that the rest of the play truly stood out, they took an established convention and turned it on it’s head. And it was that twist on convention that easily made The 39 Steps one of the funniest shows I have ever seen.

Julius Caesar

October 2017 

Julius Caesar by the Shakespeare Company in Calgary

Julius Caesar. By William Shakespeare. The Shakespeare Company, 16 Oct. 2017, Vertigo Studio Theatre, Calgary.

A dynamic and suspenseful presentation of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, I found this performance both interesting for it’s acting and it’s choices in storytelling. Julius Caesar is a play about betrayal, power and the delicate balance that we all must strike between what is right for the whole, and what is right for ourselves. It begins with Caesar returning to Rome triumphant after a military victory that expands his empire. Brutus and other members of the senate see his expanding influence as a threat to the current government and decide that Caesar must be stopped before he crowns himself emperor. This assassination happens early in the play, and Brutus is left to deal with the aftermath of his decisions. 

I found this production gripping from beginning to end. It was compelling in so many ways that challenged my understanding of how Shakespeare should be presented. The actors did not just speak the lines, but were excellent at expressing the meanings behind them. It felt to me like a very present performance, and very true, which I can imagine is difficult when dealing with such well known, yet little understood text such as Shakespeare. 

The choreography, lighting and sound design complemented the acting and further clarified the excellent storytelling.  There were many times in this production that the design elements were intentionally created to grip the audience and build suspense, which we done excellently. Great acting and great stagecraft worked together in this production to create an excellent work of art.

The Story of With

The Story of With

Arnold, Allen. The Story of With. Allen Arnold, 2016. 

While not a literary masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, the Story of With is a thought provoking and unique examination of the intersection of faith and art. It is both a non-fiction and an allegory, with the writer explaining the importance of a chapter after the story has progressed. The allegory follows a young woman named Mia, who dreams of becoming a great chef, but is on the brink of giving up when she encounters a mysterious figure who tells her that she can find her lost father, if she is willing to enter the magical world of Story and find a mysterious blue door. 

Each challenge that Mia has to face to find her father, as well as her own heart, is a picture of what we all must face if we are going to live our lives with open hearts and creativity. The good things like inspiration and fellowship, and the hard things like rejection and failure. I saw myself in many of the situations that Mia was in, and I found good insight in the non-fictional sections of each chapter.

The biggest lesson that I took away from this book was actually in the first part of Mia’s journey, where she opened an elevator door to find herself in the middle of an ocean. The lesson she had to learn was on expectancy, that like the surfer, we do not know when the waves will take us for a ride, but we must sit and wait for what the ocean brings. I can see my own beginning very much like this moment for Mia, and like Mia, the challenge for me is to let go of my expectations, or of forcing the ocean to move, and instead sit in a patient expectancy for what God will do. 

Finish: Give yourself the gift of done

June 2018

Finish: Give yourself the gift of done 

Acuff, John. Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done. Portfolio/Penguin,  2017. https://www.amazon.com/Finish-Give-Yourself-Gift-Done-ebook/dp/B01N4VVT1Z.

Motivational speaker and business mentor Jon Acuff thought that his book “Start” would be all the inspiration that aspiring business leaders and creatives would need to change the world, but the overwhelming response he received was “I have no problem starting, I just can’t seem to finish!” 

“Finish” is his response, it is an entertaining and practical guide to setting goals you can actually accomplish, and getting over the humps and hurdles on the way. His research based approach to finishing projects points to perfectionism as the main reason people struggle with their goals. Each chapter addresses different ways that a person can combat perfectionism and get their projects done. His easy-to-follow and practical advice is made interesting by his unique voice.  The sense of humor that he used throughout the book gives it a conversational quality,  making it a quick and easy read. I really appreciated that the tools offered by this book were immediately applicable to current projects and that John’s clear desire through “Finish” is to set people free in their creative and business pursuits.

The Journey of Desire

November 2018

The Journey of Desire 

Eldredge, John. The Journey of Desire. Thomas Nelson, 2000. 

“The Journey of Desire” is one of John Eldredge’s earlier books. It was written before his bestseller “Wild at Heart,”  and well before his rise to Christian fame, which makes people forget about it when they consider his work and his ministry. Which is unfortunate, because in my opinion this book lays a foundation for all of his other teachings. 

“Journey of Desire” was written very soon after the death of Eldredge's ministry partner Brent Curtis, and it balances his vast head knowledge with his struggles to navigate the ache in his own soul. It is a vulnerable book, diving into grief as he experiences it. Through this vulnerability, and the courage to look desire in the eye, Eldredge lays a foundation for the Christian faith that goes far deeper than many others may want to wander. “Journey of Desire” is so foundational that it should be read and understood by anyone who calls themselves a follower of Jesus, especially artists. 

Created as an antidote for the Christian tendency to deaden our hearts and call it sanctification, Eldredge first develops an argument for the importance of desire in the Christian faith, and then shows us how our desires ultimately point us to God. We were created to be filled and sustained by God, but as a result of the fall we all seek to be filled by other things. Woven into the book is a narrative of a sea lion who is living in the desert. He dreams of the sea, but doesn’t even know if it is real, much like our doubts and struggles to seek God with our lives. We are all like the sea lion, we were not made for the desert that is this world, we were made to be in harmonious relationship with God. But to have desires proves so dangerous for so many people: desire leads us into addiction, failure, or deep disappointment. Motivational speakers may call us to pursue our desires, promising wealth and happiness as the result but Eldredge is much more honest. He does not promise a life of all desires fulfilled, in fact he promises the opposite, saying that a true life of desire is to live in the tension of our disappointment while knowing that a day will come when there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Then and only then will we be truly filled. Until then, it is not sanctification to quell our desires and kill our hearts - the opposite is true. To live a holy life we must desire fully. We must embrace the deep joys of our lives, but we must also make room for those deep disappointments, and learn to grieve on a daily basis. 

Like all of John Eldredge’s work, this book uses arguments from popular media and classical literature, showing the author’s deep understanding of the power of story. Though the book was not intended to speak directly to artists, “The Journey of Desire” speaks deeply to my artists soul because it speaks to my struggle as an artist as well as a Christian. It is possible to create something beautiful, entertaining, or marketable that does not touch down into the ache of the human condition. It is possible to create “dead art,” the way it is possible to quell our human desires. But like “The Journey of Desire” says, this deadened life actually keeps us, and our art, further from God than if we take authentic risks and are willing to show the depths of our soul’s ache.

Creativity Inc

May 2019 

Creativity Inc 

Catmull, Ed, Wallace, Amy. Creativity, Inc. Random House Canada, 2014. 

Is it possible to create a formula for creative success? If any one company has done it, it is Pixar Animation under the leadership of Ed Catmull and John Lassiter. Not only are they continually pioneering innovative animation technology, they also consistently create powerful and well  crafted stories that make audiences laugh, cry and come to a greater understanding of humanity. If Pixar had only created one hit film it would be easy to overlook their business model, but Pixar consistently stands out in the Box office, and even their weaker films will not be called bad by critics or audiences. Creativity, Inc. is the story of what makes Pixar stand out, told by the man who has been there from the very beginning. 

After telling the rocky origin story of Pixar Animation Catmull goes on to talk about what he believes has lead to the companies success and what they had to do when faced with failures. His strategies revolve around an absolute dedication to excellence in storytelling, the importance of trusting his people and creating an environment of collaboration and experimentation, and constantly being able to pivot and to never become “too big” 

Their dedication to excellent storytelling drove them to create the first ever animated short by applying their breakthroughs in technology to a simple story, and to completely rewrite Toy Story 2 even after Disney executives said it was “perfectly fine for a sequel. Because Catmull trusts his people, Pixar has something called the “brain trust” which is a group of decidedly honest directors who constantly tear each storyboard to shreds several times, and a company that is known for Battle of the Bands and pottery classes as much as it is for excellent animation. When Pixar realized it was spending too much money per film, Catmull knew that a pivot would be necessary for future projects, so he created a “notes day” where every single employee at Pixar was able to give advice for what changes might make the most impact. 

Just these few small examples show what a strange and beautiful machine Pixar is, and to me they also show the humility of Catmull, both in his writing and leadership of the company. He thought that the advice he had to offer from Pixar’s successes and mistakes was what would educate people on how to run creative businesses, but I was much more struck by the man himself than by the methods he developed. The reality of this book is that Catmull never once gives himself praise for his work at Pixar - he speaks in glowing appreciation for John Lassiter and for Steve Jobs, but does not speak of his own role very often. It is also completely clear that Catmull loves the people that he works with. This humility and desire to see people flourish is what makes the Pixar business strategy work, not every president of a company could be so bold in their ability to let other people advance past them, but that is exactly what Catmull did again and again. 

This book was an inspiration and I know I will be returning to it again to continue to learn from Pixar Animation and from its humble leader, Ed Catmull.