NAC covers most bases with 2015-16 season
Baby boomers, teenage cellphone users, and singing Maritimers are among those sharing the NAC English Theatre stage next season.
Artistic director Jillian Keiley unveiled the 2015-16 season Tuesday. It’s the third season she’s programmed since taking over from Peter Hinton in 2012, and it’s promising. Shows range from the opener, The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God by Governor General’s Literary Award-winning Djanet Sears, to the family-focused Anne & Gilbert: The Musical, to Jack Charles V the Crown, a touring production from Australia.
The season shows a “diverse range of theatrical expression,” Keiley said in an interview. For example, “Djanet Sears’ voice was revolutionary in a lot of ways: black plays about black people that weren’t specifically about race in Canada — just about real, human stories.”
Four of the Theatre and Studio productions feature the 2015-16 Ensemble including Ottawa’s Paul Rainville, while that play with the cellphones, Concord Floral by Jordan Tannahill, puts 10 young Ottawa actors on the national stage. It will be interesting to see how the latter pans out in both performance quality and audience reception (asked what the appeal will be for her largely middle-aged audience, Keiley said, “It’s going to tell you what’s going on underneath your noses”).
Artistic directors, especially in large, public institutions like the NAC, get close scrutiny. Keiley has come in for her share, with some audience members unhappy with her programming while others criticize her as a show director.
She has stumbled occasionally. For example, last season’s Oil and Water, written by Robert Chafe and directed by Keiley, proved an unwieldy beast. This year’s opener, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest directed by Ted Dykstra, managed to be at once glib and silly. However, Keiley has also given us reason to celebrate: Last season’s Huff, Cliff Cardinal’s solo piece about an Ontario First Nations community, seared. This year’s Stuff Happens, David Hare’s play about the events leading to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, found the Ensemble in top form.
Attendance numbers seem to support her decisions. As of mid-March, for example, the current season was running an average of 78 per cent of seating capacity. While that’s lower than 2013-14, when The Sound of Music set a 46year record for attendance across all NAC disciplines, it is a healthy number that’s easily in line with Hinton’s record. For my money, Keiley is doing fine, and next season’s lineup should confirm that.
THEATRE SERIES
The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God: written and directed by Djanet Sears, starts Oct. 21. Set in the real-life black community of Negro Creek, Ont., the play tracks Rainey Johnson in the years following her daughter’s demise as she struggles with guilt, forgiveness, and issues of life and death. The 21-member cast includes the Ensemble. Anne & Gilbert: The Musical: by Nancy White and others based on novels by L.M. Montgomery, Dec. 1. Reluctant when first urged to see this show about the adventures of the grown-up Anne Shirley, Keiley said she was “blown away” when she did acquiesce: “Such good writing!” Another Ensemble piece. Twelfth Night: by William Shakespeare, mid-January 2016. Keiley directs this show “imagined” by Calgary’s Old Trout Puppet Workshop but featuring flesh-and-blood performances by the Ensemble. With Old Trout on board, it should be a hoot. BOOM: by Rick Miller, starting Feb. 24. Miller’s solo show revisits the culture, politics and pretty much everything else about 1945-69, the best era ever (at least according to those of us who came of age during it). Belles Soeurs: The Musical: based on the play Les Belles Soeurs by Michel Tremblay, late April. Musicals are “a totally legitimate cultural expression,” Keiley said, while noting Ottawa’s fondness for the form. This English-language take on Tremblay’s working-class play scored big at the box office when it premiered in Montreal last fall.
STUDIO SERIES
The December Man (L’homme de décembre): by Colleen Murphy, mid-November. The aftermath of public violence informs this Governor General’s Award-winning show about a young man who, unlike so many of his fellow female students, survived the 1989 Montreal Massacre. Features the Ensemble and guest artists. Jack Charles V the Crown: cowritten by Jack Charles and John Romeril, Jan. 13. Australian tribal Elder Jack Charles and a threepiece band echo the dark experience of Canada’s indigenous people. “He’s a legend in Aboriginal theatre,” Keiley said. Concord Floral: by Jordan Tannahill, late March. Tannahill, another Governor General’s Award winner, sets his thriller about 10 teens, their cellphones and a mysterious plague in a Canadian suburb. Asked about young performers, Keiley said, “the more honest they are as kids the better they are.”
THE FAMILY SERIES
This includes, in addition to Anne & Gilbert: The Musical, Mieko Ouchi’s I Am For You with the Ensemble in November and December, and Nikki Loach’s Snow Angel in March. For more information, visit nac-cna. ca/englishtheatre
For my money, Keiley is doing fine, and next season’s lineup should confirm that.