The Lover's Acute Accent
by Brett Haynes
Brett Haynes is a producer, director, playwright, and founder of Triangle Pi Productions. He is a graduate of the University of Waterloo, having majored in Drama while apprenticing as a set designer. He then went on to graduate from George Brown Theatre School in 2008. In 2010, Mr. Haynes started Triangle Pi Productions with a drive to produce new Canadian work by emerging artists. Triangle Pi Productions first show, Breaking News, was showcased at the 2011 Toronto Fringe Festival and went on to win Critic’s Pick and Patron’s Pick. Triangle Pi Productions went on to produce Vacant by the emerging playwright Fraser Elsdon and Hatched by Claire Burns. He has directed several shows in Toronto and throughout Ontario, including the new play It All Leads to the Lemon Scene which debuted at the New Ideas Festival in Toronto and then went on to be produced in New York City.
Through my studies, I have had the opportunity to work on some of the greatest texts to have ever been presented on the English stage but one thing always bothered me. Why was I instructed to present each of these plays with a British dialect? Why weren’t we encouraged to take a risk and try something new or different? Why is there so much resistance to taking plays, such as any of Oscar Wilde’s work or Pinter’s and present them in a modern day, Canadian setting without adding accents? I have seen a few productions, since leaving school, who have taken such a risk but I can honestly say that I have rarely seen a Pinter or Wilde play presented outside of its original period and without a British dialect. Why are there not more companies taking risks? If Oscar Wilde, for example, were with us today, would he have had a problem with his work spoken with a Canadian accent? He is quoted for saying “I aim not at doing good or evil, but at making a thing that will have some quality of beauty.”
