Soulpepper Theatre taking audiences on a journey,
Soulpepper Theatre is back and is taking its audiences ‘Around the World in 80 Plays’
Soulpepper Theatre has pivoted so many times since the pandemic began last March, they’re now “pirouetting.”
That’s the term offered by Emma Stenning, executive director of Soulpepper, who joined the company in late 2018, shortly before the arrival of Weyni Mengesha as artistic director. The pair took over leadership of Soulpepper at a difficult time, after a major scandal left pervasive rifts, including accusations of abusive power imbalances between historical members of the company and newer hires.
In 2019 they set a solid course to mend those rifts and plot the path forward — and then COVID-19 hit. As did so many performing arts organizations, they lost most of their season and had to push many plans back. But they’ve come out swinging in 2021 with a number of new initiatives that they believe to be, as Mengesha puts it, “COVID-proof,” as well as two new artistic hires in a period of widespread cutbacks.
The latest project, announced exclusively with the Star, is “Around the World in 80 Plays,” which will allow audiences to travel to other lands and cultures without leaving their bubble. Once a week for eight weeks starting on April 21, the theatre will release a new audio recording of a canonical play from a particular country, to be streamed online. As well, there will be an array of content related to that country: a film recommendation from TIFF, a meal pairing from a local restaurant curated by Toronto Life, an artwork selected by the Art Gallery of Ontario, and a documentary on that country’s cultural history from the CBC Radio series “Ideas.” Recommendations each week of nine additional plays from the chosen country will bring the total to the promised 80 plays by the end of the series.
“We were founded as a classical theatre company,” Mengesha told the Star. “The truth is we don’t have a collective European ancestry in this city; we have a collective ancestry that is global. So when we talk about classical work, what centre point are we talking about that work from?”
In this first edition of “Around the World in 80 Plays,” there are a few titles that Toronto theatre lovers may recognize, such as Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull” from Russia, directed by Daniel Brooks; or Luigi Pirandello’s “Six Characters in Search of an Author” from Italy, directed by Daniele Bartolini.
But more so, these weekly cultural “excursions” will expand horizons for arts lovers, including Wole Soyinka’s “Death and the King’s Horseman” from Nigeria, directed by Tawiah M’carthy in partnership with the Stratford Festival, and Griselda Gambaro’s “The Walls” from Argentina, directed by Beatriz Pizano.
The first offering of the series will be Margo Kane’s “Moonlodge” from the Cree, Saulteaux and Métis nations, directed by Jani Lauzon. The choice to start with an Indigenous work was a conscious one, says Mengesha: “We’re starting from home and we’re heading out.”
“It’s the first step in getting all of our audiences more intrigued into that global canon. Maybe these are shows that you’ll see on stages in upcoming years,” Mengesha said. “But like you explore a country, there are many aspects to it … It’s not three-dimensional in the way that theatre used to be, but we’re providing other aspects to get out of that 2D realm.”
As Mengesha states, “Around the World in 80 Plays” dramatically expands the breadth of work available via Soulpepper’s original mandate to produce classical works of theatre. And the approach comes down to a term that’s now so common at Soulpepper it’s written into its 2020-25 strategic plan: “radical inclusion.”
That does not necessarily mean, Mengesha explained, “an additive process to be inclusionary,” as in creating new programs to achieve diversity goals, but fundamentally reframing the theatre’s bread-and-butter activities to involve a broader swath of talent and perspectives than had previously been the case. Six of the eight “80 Plays” directors, for example, are making their Soulpepper debuts with the audio play season.
Included in this rethinking is the relaunch of the Soulpepper Academy in January, a program that was put on hold during the organization’s crisis period in early 2018. The 2021 academy — a rare paid training program in the theatre world — is a smaller but targeted version of its predecessor, including five emerging artists (again representing a global perspective, from Iraq to Jamaica to Croatia to Indigenous Canada) who will train over 26 weeks and then have an artistic residency at the company; at the moment the training is all taking place online.
“I think one might say this is a crazy time to do an academy,” said Mengesha. “To me, I’m like, this is exactly the moment that you need to do it.”
Luke Reece is Soulpepper’s new associate artistic director, a hire announced earlier in February along with that of Métis playwright and director Matthew MacKenzie as the theatre’s Baillie Artistic Fellow. Slam poet and theatre artist Reece connected with Soulpepper’s commitment to radical inclusion because it was also a core value at Obsidian Theatre, where he worked as producer until mid-2020.
At Soulpepper, Reece said, “radical inclusion is in every conversation. Weyni and I looked at the root of the word radical and it actually is the word ‘root.’ It’s at the foundation, it’s at the start of it … it’s in the conversations about the academy, it’s in conversations about Awakenings, in conversations about EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion).”
Awakenings is yet another partnership recently announced by Soulpepper, between the company and the City of Toronto’s history museums. Awakenings focuses on art projects by Indigenous, Black and people of colour, and on principles of anti-oppression, anti-racism and anti-colonialism. Reece is leading its latest phase, which started with an open call for five emerging artists to create site-specific works at five city historical sites including Colborne Lodge in High Park and the Market Gallery in the St. Lawrence Market; the artists in the new academy will create works at an additional five city sites.
“My big question,” said Mengesha, “is how do we in Toronto say ‘diversity is our strength’ if you cannot point to our largest cultural institutions and preserved historic sites and see that?”
With Awakenings, Mengesha invokes the image of the Sankofa bird: a symbol for the African diaspora that represents the need to look back to move forward. Soulpepper, with these multiple initiatives, is enacting that philosophy — looking back while moving forward — yet keeping an emphasis on the present.
“As theatres, we’re usually planning a year ahead,” said Mengesha. “So that has been the main pivot, to go, actually, ‘No, we have to be right here right now.’ ”
That gives Stenning’s idea of “pirouetting” new meaning: the ability to look forward, backwards and stay centred all at the same time.
And all that spinning has given the company, said Stenning, “a new muscle” to be responsive and attentive to whatever the moment demands. Ideally, as muscles do, that will “make us a much stronger company when we reopen.”
Go to soulpepper.ca/80plays for information about “Around the World in 80 Plays,” including the selections from India, Iran and Jamaica. Karen Fricker and Carly Maga are Torontobased theatre critics and freelance contributors for the Star. Follow Fricker on Twitter: @KarenFricker2. Follow Maga on Twitter: @RadioMaga
“(In this city) we have a collective ancestry that is global. So when we talk about classical work, what centre point are we talking about that work from?”
WEYNI MENGESHA
SOULPEPPER ARTISTIC DIRECTOR