The Pipeline Project flows with the times
Dynamic, evolving show takes on cultural conflicts over resources
Not since the heyday of the logging blockade on Lyell Island has an issue entered the public debate as fiercely as proposed pipeline development across B.C. The complex politics of Canada’s oil industry are as murky and sticky as the oilsands and have pitted different communities against each other across the province and nation.
The Pipeline Project is a co-production between Savage Society and Itsazoo Productions examining these ongoing cultural conflicts in a dynamic and moving theatrical work.
Written by Sebastien Archibald, and First Nations artists Kevin Loring (Lytton First Nation) and Quelemia Sparrow (Musqueam Nation), the show premiered at Richmond’s Gateway Theatre in 2016, receiving rave reviews. Now, it is returning to local stages in Vancouver and New Westminster before moving to Ottawa for the Undercurrents Festival in February. While certainly provocative, challenging and confrontational, the Pipeline Project is also funny, inventive and entertaining.
Loring says the new production has continuously evolved, as have the ongoing pipeline debates. Workshopped at both the Talking Stick and B.C. Buds Spring Arts festivals, it took time to get the right model.
“When it began, the Northern Gateway pipeline was looking imminent and the whole idea was to theatrically present the issues around it and also the Vancouver Observer’s publication titled the Pipeline Wars: Enbridge,” said Loring. “That initial literal attempt was two hours and 45 minutes long with a cast of thousands and it was excruciating. So we went back to the drawing board and discovered that even around a table of seemingly like-minded liberal arts types there was a lot of really strongly held different positions and that was the drama.”
Using their own roundtable arguments as a jumping-off point, the trio developed a multimedia show that The Vancouver Sun’s Jerry Wasserman noted “offers an encyclopedic array of arguments, cleverly and vividly theatricalized.”
“It became really apparent that there was this world view disconnect between First Nations and the rest of the country, even if you were a socialist, liberal, ‘woke,’ person you weren’t seeing things the same way,” Loring said. “That was really illuminating and we found the central question was really “how are we going to live?”, and that is a far more interesting conversation.”
In the piece, that interesting conversation is handled onstage through a variety of techniques between the three writer/actors, who come at the script with additional props, puppets, projections and soundtrack.
At many points, the audience is certain to see itself represented and that is where the second act comes in.
Following the show, Act II is a talk forward with a different speaker responding to the play and then participating in a conversation with the audience. The featured speakers at the Firehall Arts Centre include Kai Nagata (Dogwood Initiative), Amie Wolf, PhD (Aboriginal University Bridging Program at Vancouver Island University), and Jenny Uechi (Vancouver Observer).
“In the time that the piece has existed, we have gone from a (B.C.)
Liberal government to the new Green/NDP coalition and many major debates died off as quickly as others rose up and those things get integrated to keep the piece current,” said Archibald. “Ultimately, the targeted issue of the piece largely remains the settler/First Nations relationships and how they reconcile in a very challenging social, political and environmental landscape which is very unique in B.C. on unceded territory.”
It’s not difficult to understand how the first draft was nearly three hours long. All three artists wanted to get in every voice, every angle and every aspect of the economic arguments and keep the production balanced and unbiased. What they settled upon was something that addresses the core issue and examines it from many angles rather than trying to include everything.
As Archibald notes, there was already plenty of information in the news media as well as from special interest groups circulating around that everyone had access to.
“The conversation gets carried forward when settler descendants can somewhat get their heads around the First Nations’ position in enough depth that it’s genuinely understood,” said Archibald. “Without that, you can’t really go anywhere.”
“It’s a tough one, because it’s really looking at how we live and what are the choices that need to be made moving forward,” said Loring. “There are no easy, quick solutions or absolute answers.”
The Pipeline Project aims to keep the conversation flowing freely in a welcoming and safe environment. It’s an ambitious and activist theatre piece of a sort that isn’t seen that often anymore.