Sunday Feature: Peter Hinton on The Seagull

(photo by David Cooper)

The Seagull at the Segal
I have created my own adaptation of the play in an effort to provide a theatrical language that is fresh and modern
by Peter Hinton

Peter Hinton is an award winning playwright and director. From 2005-2012, he was Artistic Director of English Theatre at Canada's National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Peter was an associate artist at The Stratford Festival for seven seasons, directing The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare’s Universe, The Odyssey, Fanny Kemble, The Duchess of Malfi, Into the Woods, and all three parts of his own verse trilogy entitled,The Swanne. Recently Peter directed the acclaimed productions of Andrew Bovell’s When The Rain Stops Falling and Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan, both for the Shaw Festival. For the Segal Centre, he directed A Night in November by Marie Jones, Buried Child by Sam Shepard, and his own adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House. Peter was the 2012 English recipient of the National Theatre School of Canada’s Gascon/Thomas Award for significant achievement in Canadian Theatre, and in 2009, he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada.

For the last few years, Paul Flicker and I have talked about a production for the Segal Centre that could embody the considerable strengths of its vision and mandate. We wanted to collaborate on a production that would be unique and relevant – combining the very best of innovation and tradition, the classical and the modern – and somehow be both thought-provoking and seriously entertaining. We both love plays that tackle the complexity of the human condition, and at the same time are very funny. We thought about a production that would provide an opportunity for wonderful design, strong writing and great parts for actors. 

Both Paul and I have a deep love for the Russian playwright, Anton Chekhov, who in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century re-imagined the way we see ourselves on stage. Chekhov was a true pioneer of the modern theatre, his plays present life with all its ambiguities and indecision. The people who inhabit a play by Chekhov are driven, haunted, frustrated members of the middle class; doctors, accountants and school teachers, who are often contrasted with actors, writers and philosophers.  Together they share a sense of deep yearning; people torn between an idealized past and the promise of a better future. The plays of Anton Chekhov are characterized by a strong sense of mood, a spare and often ambiguous narrative – and above all, a singular blend of comedy and tragedy. In Chekhov, the tragic and the comic often lie side by side – creating a theatre that is vibrant, surprising and full of life.  

Review: (Montreal) The Mahalia Jackson Musical

Ranee Lee with the IGS Choir (photo by George Allister)

The Sound of God
The music is there, the text is not
by Caitlin Murphy

Musical biographies are tough.  Thus my suspicion heading into the Segal Centre and Copa de Oro’s co-production of The Mahalia Jackson Musical that the piece would succeed more as a concert than a play.  In the hands of celebrated jazz performer Ranee Lee, music fans are indeed generously indulged, but theatre-lovers are left hungry.

Written and directed by Roger Peace, much of this rather bald biography of Mahalia Jackson, “the queen of gospel,” is told through direct-to-audience narration.