Memoirs, monologues and Maja Bannerman
Niagara singer and actress Maja Bannerman has played everyone from Laura Secord to Maria Callas to the McFarland sisters in one-woman shows.
For the next one, she’ll wonder what it all means. “First & Third Person: Memoir or Monologue?” revisits the various characters she has played through the years, and whether they were speaking through her or for her. Foremost is Anne Shirley Blythe, discussing the gruelling toll of the First World War after her two sons go overseas to fight.
Bannerman performs the show Nov. 11 at Mahtay Café for a double-feature that also includes Kim Clarke Champniss’s one-man show “Skinheads, Fur Traders and DJs,” based on the former MuchMusic VJ’s years in the ’70s after moving from London, England, to Canada.
“Kim and I knew each other in Toronto, as we were both in the Queen Street music scene in the 1980s, though never met at that time,” says Bannerman. “We were introduced to each other by Joanne Smale — someone we both knew in Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s — at Bunnie Brandt’s celebration in honour of her receiving a Niagara Falls (Arts & Culture) Wall of Fame award last October.”
After meeting over coffee, the two decided to pair up their respective solo shows.
They’ll both be joined by singer/songwriter Rusty McCarthy, whose travels through Canadian music includes playing with Tom Cochrane, Holly Cole, Alannah Myles and Barenaked Ladies.
Bannerman came to Niagara from Toronto’s Queen Street West art scene of the ’80s, performing regularly since with her music, spoken word and solo plays. Last year she released “Signs of Life,” a collection of torch songs jumping from folk to pop to country.
Her collaboration with McCarthy, Junk & Juice, will debut its first show in early 2019.