The Question... Director Jon Lachlin Stewart on Beckett

The Outsider
by Estelle Rosen

Jon Lachlan Stewart is a director, playwright, and performer born in Edmonton, Alberta. He trained as an actor at Studio 58 in Vancouver. Mr Stewart's work explores contemporary and current themes through the creation of new plays that incorporate the use of dance and physical theatre. Currently, his primary focus is on the creation of works that can unite French and English artistic communities across Canada. Directing credits include Keeping Peace (Surreal SoReal Theatre / Azimuth), Guernica (Hidden Harlequin, best director Sterling nomination), as well as being artistic director of his company Surreal SoReal Theatre (2004-present) and various projects while studying at the National Theatre School. Playwriting credits include Little Room (nominated for two Edmonton Sterling Awards) Big Shot (nominated for two Sterling Awards and two Calgary Betty Mitchell Awards), The Gooble Portrait (Théâtre la Seizième; five Vancouver Jessie Awards), Dog (nominated for six Sterling Awards, including Best New Play, and winner of the Best Independent Production Award), and Edith Rex (current commission with Shadow Theatre). Acting credits include The Goat, or Who is Sylvia (Citadel Theatre), The Palace Grand (understudy, Electric Company), The Play About the Baby (Theatre Network), Whale Riding Weather (Zee Zee), Ecran Fumee, Flocons Pour Alicia (Théâtre la Seizième), Des fraises en janvier (LuniTheatre), and the Blue Light (Keyano), as well as many Surreal SoReal productions. 

CHARPO: I understand directing Before Her Time, three plays by Samuel Beckett, marks the end of your training in the National Theatre School  Directors program.  Why did you choose to direct three Beckett plays?

LACHLAN-STEWART: I’m an outsider coming in.

An Albertan in Montreal.

A Francophile trying to make a life in the mixed theatre community of this beautiful city. (cont'd)

Review: (Montreal / Theatre) The Changeling

Megn Walker, Benjamin Wheelwright (photo by Maxime Coté)

The love triangles of wicked people

by Aleksandra Koplik

The graduating classes of the National Theatre School of Canada bring us The Changeling, a dark and twisted romantic story filled with castles, murders, asylums, blackmail and dirty, dirty premarital sex. Director David Latham takes the original text written by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley and gives it a contemporary feel.  Since many of the actors are playing two different characters, it can sometimes be hard to follow, but to break it down; it’s a showdown of two love triangles.
The main character, at first very lovely and Juliet-esque, Beatrice (Megn Walker), is engaged to Alonzo de Piracquo (Stephen Tracey), but is in love with Alsemero (James Daly). So, she uses De Flores (Benjamin Wheelwright), who’s basically her stalker and mother’s servant, to murder Alonzo and in return ends up being blackmailed into giving her virginity to him.

Twisted.

The Question... David Latham on The Changeling at NTS

Not Romeo and Juliet
In The Changeling the fight to keep the relationship going takes a very different turn.
by Estelle Rosen

David Latham is a director, teacher, and actor who has worked in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S. He is in his 14th season as Theatre Training Consultant at Stratford Festival, where his recent directing credits include Othello, Cymbeline, Agamemnon, and The Two Noble Kinsmen. For the Birmingham Conservatory (Stratford), where he was Associate Artist for seven seasons, he has directed The Winter’s Tale, King Lear, Macbeth, Richard III, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, and Love’s Labour’s Lost. He presently oversees the Michael Langham Workshop for Classical Direction at the Birmingham Conservatory. In Canada, David Latham's work has been seen at the Centaur, The Globe, The Vancouver Playhouse, Studio 58 (Vancouver), Alberta Theatre Projects, the Canadian Stage Company, and the Manitoba Theatre Centre. For the National Theatre School, he has directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Love For Love, Richard III, Twelfth Night, The Cherry Orchard and Women Beware Women.

CHARPO: You've been quoted as saying "The Changeling is like Romeo and Juliet on the dark side". Could you expand on that and also discuss the challenges of directing this play with a student cast.

LATHAM: A young woman and a young man meet and immediately fall in love. It is love at first sight. The young woman is already betrothed but she is in love with this new man.

So the story of the play The Changeling by Middleton and Rowley begins and so does the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare begin.

In The Changeling the fight to keep the relationship going takes a very different turn. The young woman takes matters into her own hands and with the help of a servant is complicit in murder, betrayal revenge and adultery. This story has quite a different ending.

Sunday Feature: Interview - Simon Brault, CEO National Theatre School

(photo by Maxime Côté)

Shaping the Future of Theatre
I believe NTS will be powerful as long as it will stay absolutely connected to the pulse of professional theatre.
by David Sklar 

Simon Brault was named the National Theatre School’s CEO in 2008 and has held several key administrative positions with the NTS since 1981. In 1997, he initiated Journées de la culture, a Quebec‐wide cultural event; in 2002, he led a 20‐member delegation at the Sommet de Montréal and founded Culture Montréal. Since 2007, he heads the steering committee of the RV07 – Montreal, Cultural Metropolis. He is Vice‐Chair of the Canada Council, an Officer of the Order of Canada, an Officier de l'Ordre national du Québec, a Fellow of the CGA, and a recipient of the Keith Kelly Award for Cultural Leadership. On September 23, 2009, Mr. Brault launched his first book of essays on the rise of arts and culture on global public agendas. Titled Le FACTEUR C ‐ L'Avenir passe par la culture, it was published by La Presse / Éditions Voix parallèles and was released in English, in May 2010, by Cormorant Books (translation Jonathan Kaplansky) under the title No Culture, No Future. In 2011, the Presses de l'Université du Québec and the Chaire de leadership Pierre‐Péladeau published a monograph about Simon Brault: Prendre fait et cause pour la culture. It is a scholarly thesis on his personal and professional journey in the arts.

CHARPO: How did it begin for you in theatre?

BRAULT: I came to it when I was 26 years old; a long time ago. I was really looking for a job. I studied two years in law but I didn’t finish. I had just had a son and needed a job so I came to NTS (National Theatre School) with the firm intention of staying for ten weeks or so. I really just needed employment insurance. My plan was simple.  

Obviously what happened was when I came here, I immediately discovered a fascinating world. We were teaching theatre here so all of a sudden actors, dancers, musicians, and visual artists surrounded me. It was also a place where people spoke French and English, and having a lot of political debates. I was doing a modest job and wandering around. For me, this became a place to learn and live and make connections. 

Jean-Louis Roux, who recently passed away, was the director general and I had the chance to decode what he was doing. I was lucky because I realized that I could play a role in this institution on the administrative side because the school was facing financial problems. It was a vibrant place from an artistic point of view but they needed a helping hand. My law background didn’t help so I began to study accounting; I never imagined I would end up doing that. But I thought, 'That could be useful'. 

I went to university four nights a week while still working.  I got the degree and was promoted to accounting, then administrative director, then co-director and eventually CEO. It took 15 years. Learning and trying and going through lots of projects.  

While my focus was the law, I came from a family of artists, mostly poets and visual artists. My father was a painter and sculptor so that was the world I grew up in.  

After 32 years, I have seen hundreds of plays, rehearsals and writing projects but I don’t consider myself a theatre person. My passion was to organize and lead this institution. Re-framing and re-positioning the role of the arts in Canadian society.  That is why I decided to also play a role in the Canada Council for the Arts. For me the future of this place and theatre schools are linked with the future of the art form itself. 

I believe NTS will be powerful as long as it will stay absolutely connected to the pulse of professional theatre. Every time I notice there is possibility that we will shape ourselves into an ivory tower, I see that as dangerous. If we isolate ourselves from society, we become irrelevant.      

In a Word... Ravi Jain (Lion in The Streets, NTS)

(photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

A Passion for Story-Telling
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois

Ravi Jain is an actor/creator and award-winning director whose work has been produced extensively around the world. Over the past six years, as artistic director and founder of his international theatre company Why Not Theatre, Mr. Jain has created over 14 productions, performing in 15 different cities on four continents. His devised creations include his own adaptation of Hamlet entitled The Prince, the Dora Award winning Spent (created with Theatre Smith Gilmour and Adam Paolozza), the smash hit A Brimful of Asha - starring his real life mother Asha Jain. His directorial credits include Nicolas Billon’s Governor General’s Award nominated triptych Fault Lines, which include the plays Greenland, Iceland and Faroe Islands. Mr. Jain's varied body of work has established him as a multifaceted artist continually pushing the boundaries. He was the Urjo Kareda Artist in Residence at Tarragon Theatre (2010), is a Resident Artist at Soulpepper Theatre Company and is the inaugural Artistic Director in Residence at the Theatre Centre. He is also on the roster of clowns for Cirque du Soleil, and was awarded the Ken MacDougal and Ontario Arts Council’s Pauline McGibbon Award for Emerging Director.

CHARPO: In the last years, and inasmuch as you have remained active behind the scenes, your name is inextricably linked to Brimful of Asha as a performer with your mother. Has this been an unmitigated joy or does it come with its difficulties both personal and professional and which of those would you be willing to reveal?

JAIN: I often call myself a theatre maker- and that can mean many things.  Actor, director, producer- it’s all part of a passion I have for storytelling.  The success of Brimful of Asha has been so wonderfully surprising.  I love performing in the show, because it’s really the only opportunity I have to spend quality time with my mother.  Also, I love that people have a great time at the show, their reactions to my mother make me feel happy and the experience brings joy to me as a theatre maker. The show is people coming together to share in a good time.  The challenge it presents professionally is that people sometimes expect all my work to look and feel like that show. With my company Why Not Theatre, no two shows look the same- the form and content of the story changes with the material we are working with and the people involved in the creative process. It’s always a surprise.  I like having the freedom as an artist to do many different things and take risks that push me to discover new forms and new stories.

Review: (Montreal) You Can Do Whatever You Want

Darcy Gerhart (photo Maxime Côté)

A Dance With Time
by Caitlin Murphy

In You Can Do Whatever You Want, a shiny red Thunderbird – stuck in place, but roaring through time – connects the lives of Pat, Holly and Donna, three generations of disgruntled Thomas women, living in Burnt River.  Presented as part of the National Theatre School’s New Words Festival, and written by graduating playwright, Jesse Stong, the play is a tender and moving ode to family legacies, women’s relationships, and life’s strangely intoxicating dance with time.

Under the direction of Emma Tibaldo, this production offers a rare treat – a very happy marriage of all production elements, creating a world that feels coherent, inviting and whole.  Technical and design elements were sensitively and adeptly handled:  soundscape and music composed by Brian Kenny, lighting design by Alexander Russ-Hogg, costumes by Naomi Mathieu and set by Shlomit Gopher come together beautifully and with clear commitment to the heart of the play.

Review: (Montreal) Twelfth Night

l-r Jesse LaVercombe, Shannon Currie (by: Maxime Coté)

To Take a Different Tack
by Caitlin Murphy

I think I’ve reached a theatre-going quota.  A sort of saturation point.  I feel sated, full. Perhaps so much so, Mr. Creosote, that it is indeed a good time for that bucket.  The source of this indigestion:  high-concept, low-return subversions of Shakespeare.  The National Theatre School’s graduating class’s production of Twelfth Night, under the direction of Jason Byrne, falls sadly into this category.

The stage here is very consciously stripped back to its bare bones – the doors and exit sign, costume racks, and actors waiting ‘in the wings’ are on view throughout.  The minimal set consists of a round platform with chaise longue, streams of white material hung at stage left, clay faces littered on the ground, and an over-used and under-integrated projection screen.  Costumes seek to provoke:  Orsino topless in heels and leopard-print tights, Olivia seemingly dressed for a naughty figure skating routine.

The Sunday Read: Interview - Alisa Palmer, Artistic Director National Theatre School (English)

(photo credit: David Cooper)

Feeding the Young

Alisa Palmer prepares new theatre people for a new world

by Rebecca Ugolini

@rebeccaugolini

As she leads me up a narrow flight of stairs in the National Theatre School (NTS) and into an office where we chat a little before the interview starts, I learn a few facts about Alisa Palmer that no amount of research could have revealed. The award-winning director, dramaturge, playwright and artistic director is already well-known to The Charlebois Post readers for her diverse repertoire and devotion to women’s theatre companies such as Nightwood Theatre. In-person, Palmer is humble, funny, and welcoming. And as her schedule at the NTS will attest—the receptionist told me Palmer was in a meeting before I arrived, and Palmer herself said she had another lined up afterward—she is busy, busy, busy. That’s because Palmer is set to take over as the school’s Artistic Director in January of 2013. I sat down with her to discuss her new role as Artistic Director, her relationship to young artists, and the future of Montreal theatre. 

CHARPO: So you’ve directed and taught at schools across Canada. What do you hope to bring to the NTS as Artistic Director?

PALMER: I think the really unique opportunity with the NTS is that it’s a conservatory and all the aspects of theatre are under one roof—and it’s bilingual. So there is more than one culture, and more than one area of specialty in theatre. So just as I do a lot of different types of theatre, I’d like to synthesize and take the most of all the different resources of the fields that are here and get a synergy of the place, get the most out of all of them by weaving them together, in a kind of coherent pedagogy.

News: Harper/Moore announce commitment to the arts/NTS

GOVERNMENT INVESTMENT TAKES CENTRE STAGE

joel fishbane

The Canadian government will invest $9.2 million dollars in the National Theatre School over the next two years, Heritage Minister James Moore announced today. 

“To invest in culture is to invest in Canada,” said Moore, speaking at a packed press conference in the lobby of the National Theatre School in Montreal. Quoting politician and gay activist Harvey Milk, Moore said “I am here to recruit you!” – though in his case, Moore was referring to encouraging the private sector to make a firmer financial commitment in arts and culture.