Power builds in Children of God THEATRE

CHILDREN OF GOD

2Book, lyrics, music, and direction by Corey Payette. A Cultch presentation of an Urban Ink production in collaboration with National Arts Centre English Theatre in association with Raven Theatre. At the York Theatre on Friday, May 19. Continues until June 3 Children of God takes a while to find traction, but the emotional release it eventually delivers is worth the wait.

The book, lyrics, and music are all by Corey Payette, who also directs this production, slated to open at the National Arts Centre English Theatre in Ottawa immediately following this run. The scope of his ambition is enormous: a number of Canadian plays have addressed the legacy of Canada’s residential-school system, but few have attempted to dramatize the experiences of children in the schools.

Payette’s script zeroes in on Tom, a survivor who is visiting his mother, Rita. A chance encounter with an old classmate, Wilson, unleashes painful memories of the residential school, led by Father Christopher, where Tommy and his sister Julia were sent as children. Father Christopher takes his government- and church-mandated mission of “killing the Indian in the child” seriously, referring to his students as “dirty savages” and to their language as a “devil tongue”. He criticizes the girls’ teacher, Sister Bernadette, for being too soft on her charges, especially after Julia tries to run away. The action shifts between Tom’s present life and the abuse he and the other children endured at the school, often superimposing the two time frames.

At first, events accumulate without a clear narrative trajectory. But the interweaving of past and present narrative threads is echoed in the songs, where voices from different worlds and perspectives come together in polyphonic counterpoint in Payette’s mostly minor-key score. The children’s dreams and their reality coalesce powerfully in a song late in the first act called “Gimkwenden Ina (Do You Remember?)”. One night, the children come to visit Julia in the cellar, where she is being kept as punishment for trying to escape. Tommy reads out a letter he has written in Ojibway, and a vision of his mother joins them. As she drums and sings, the children dance, and the prison of the school is briefly transformed into a place where they can be whole. This tension between hope and sorrow comes more sharply into focus in the second act, culminating in a conclusion that is one of the most powerful moments I’ve ever been part of as a theatregoer.

Payette’s characters are complex: Rita crosses herself when giving Tom a gift from his father, for example, and the school’s nun and priest aren’t one-dimensional villains. And his staging, with help from movement director Raes Calvert, makes inventive use of gesture and image to convey some of the story’s darkest turns.

He’s also been gifted with an excellent cast. Herbie Barnes’s Tommy is innocent as a boy and broken as a man; his soulful vocals, especially in a late number called “Wonderland”, are deeply affecting. Cheyenne Scott is a strong singer who brings a transparent purity to Julia. Kim Harvey provides comic relief in her roles as one of the children, Joanna, and as a curt secretary in the present. And Cathy Elliott’s Rita pushes the emotional impact of the play fathoms deeper: her grief and her determination to heal are the musical’s throbbing heart.

The design elements in this production are exquisite. Marshall Mcmahen’s set is a stunner: the playing area is shrouded by an enormous paper backdrop shaped like a whale’s fluke and painted with dark clouds. Jeff Harrison’s gorgeous lighting plays on that sky, bathing it in moody colours. Musical director Allen Cole leads a four-piece band that ably

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Children of God

supports the songs and adds subtle textures to the scenes in between.

This is a brave work, and a starting point for important conversations. (A facilitated discussion follows every performance.) See it.

> KATHLEEN OLIVER

The most thankless role belongs to Lauren Jackson as Dyanne, Elvis’s girlfriend. While she tears up the joint on a couple of songs, her character exists solely to cheer on the young rockers and cheer them up when they’re down. Though Elvis brought a girlfriend to the Sun studio that night, Dyanne’s inclusion in the cast felt token, and just made the boys’ club all the more conspicuous.

Ted Roberts’s realistic set—all gold records and acoustic tiles—serves as a satisfying backdrop. I did wonder about some of Barbara Clayden’s costume choices. Both Erik Fraser Gow as Elvis and Jackson seemed to be swimming in their outfits. While they may have been historically accurate, some tactical tailoring might have been advised. If the guitars and microphones can be wireless, then no one will complain about slightly more modern profiles for the performers.

As remixes go, Million Dollar Quartet doesn’t ask much of its audience. But if you want to return to a time when rock ’n’ roll was a toddler and snap your fingers to some classics, you could do a lot worse. The openingnight crowd bopped and doo-wopped along from the first song to the last.

> DARREN BAREFOOT END OF THE RAINBOW

By Peter Quilter. Directed by Claude Giroux. A production of Ace Productions. At the Jericho Arts Centre on Thursday, May 11. No remaining performances

Nearly 50 years after her death, 2

Judy Garland is still a legend. As a tribute to an icon, End of the Rainbow comes up short.

The premise of British playwright Peter Quilter’s 2005 script, which tracks a late-career comeback attempt in London by the beloved but unstable American superstar, should make for riveting drama (or at least a decent movie of the week), but this production falls flat.

The play opens with Garland arriving in her London hotel room and complaining about how small it is. Everything in her life has taken a downturn, it seems, except her romance with new fiancé Mickey Deans. (Deans would become her fifth and last husband.) Garland’s accompanist, Anthony Chapman, doesn’t trust Mickey (and neither do we). The action of the play shifts back and forth between the hotel room, where Judy, Mickey, and Anthony engage in power struggles over her ability and willingness to perform, and the performances themselves.

Quilter’s script has problems— clunky exposition, lack of clear dramatic stakes—and director Claude Giroux only compounds them in this production. The hotel-room episodes are agonizingly slow, and his blocking of the concert scenes has Janet Gigliotti, who plays Garland, sitting on the floor for more than one number. Gigliotti is an extremely capable performer, but her singing here lacks the eccentricity that made Garland a legend, and she’s not sufficiently fragile or unhinged in her confrontations with Anthony and Mickey to give us any emotional investment in her character’s unravelling. I can understand the impulse to resist impersonating such a well-known figure, but Judy needs to be more of a train wreck than Gigliotti makes her. Jeffery Hoffman is an unconvincing Mickey: he’s slow to pick up his cues, and while his vocal delivery is often flat, he affects smouldering facial expressions worthy of a silent-film villain. Gordon Roberts fares better as Anthony, whose concern for Judy is genuinely affecting, and his piano-playing is solid.

Giroux also designed the set, which features a handsome arch over the hotel room and its upstage grand piano, behind which we can see the shadows of the other musicians, bassist Matthew Simmons and drummer Colin Parker. Tiffany Bishop’s costumes are period-perfect, and Stephen Bulat’s lighting injects pizzazz into the songs.

But the two-hour running time feels very long. Garland deserves better.

> KATHLEEN OLIVER

ART WALKING Artists in Our Midst celebrates 25 years of opening doors with the West of Main Art Walk on Saturday and Sunday (May 27 and 28), with the festivities stretching all the way from Point Grey to Main Street and from Granville Island to West 41st Avenue. More than 50 visual artists (including Mary Downe, shown here) will be displaying their work in garden studios, cafés, shops, and community centres. It’s a chance to find out the stories behind the works, and to meet the faces behind the art. To plot out your art hunting, see the full map and schedule at

artistsinourmidst.com/.