GCTC SETS THE STAGE
Topical, a touch subversive
Two former Canadian prime ministers. Dementia. Miss Lillian Lunkhead, a.k.a. “Canada’s oldest and worst actress.”
The varied new program of plays at the Great Canadian Theatre Company very much bears the stamp of artistic director Eric Coates, who in his fourth season of programming continues to show a flair for blending left-leaning political content and social topicality with entertainment and touches of subversion.
It likely won’t push enough boundaries to satisfy theatre youngbloods, but the season is solid with a proven hit or two, the return of familiar names like playwright Michael Healey, and an interesting foray into bilingualism.
Averse to pretending that a theatre season actually has a theme (variables like budgets and the availability of shows generally militate against that), Coates does allow that next year’s lineup responds at least in part to “the political acumen of this audience.”
It also embodies, without being enslaved by, gender equality, which is a special concern of Coates’s. Whether it fulfils the program’s promise of “tackling big ideas of Canadian life” will be better known this time next year.
Worth noting: After experimenting this season with some shorter runs that could be lengthened depending on ticket sales — the goal being to save money and have fuller houses — GCTC will return to uniform, 2 ½-week productions for 2016-17. Analyzing ticket sales quickly enough to extend runs was just too tricky, according to Coates. The shows: The Gravitational Pull of Bernice Trimble, by Beth Graham. The season’s opener deals with earlyonset Alzheimer’s, family and a secret.
Graham, says Coates, “walks a tightrope in terms of sentimentality and sardonic humour and gives us characters who go through a massive change over the arc of the play.” Which, if you’ve ever confronted dementia in a family member, is pretty bang-on. The script is one of many Coates has seen recently that deal with dementia, a scourge of our times. Sept. 22- Oct. 9.
The Last Wife, by Kate Hennig. This co-production with Victoria, B.C.’s Belfry Theatre looks at patriarchy, sexual politics and women’s rights by setting the relationship between Katherine Parr and Henry VIII in contemporary North America. Parr, you may recall, not only outlived Henry but also had four husbands. Hennig, says Coates, is unflinching in demonstrating that the great feminists of history were also human beings. Nov. 3-20.
The Daisy Theatre, by Ronnie Burkett. A holiday show restricted to those 16 and older? It is if it’s Ronnie Burkett and his subversive, raunchy and altogether wonderful marionettes including the aforementioned Lillian Lunkhead. GCTC has programmed family shows during the last few Christmas seasons, but Coates says the NAC with its greater resources is doing that job just fine, so he’s changing things up with Burkett’s improvised, cabaretstyle production. Dec. 1-18.
Trudeau Stories, by Brooke Johnson. Intelligently conceived and compellingly executed, Johnson’s first-hand account of her unlikely friendship as a student with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau is a gem of Canadian theatre that’s only occasionally performed. “I see it as a piece about Trudeau’s ennui that poses the question whether political life fed his intellect and ego or destroyed him,” says Coates. He hopes the current Prime Minister Trudeau will attend the show. Jan. 12-29, 2017.
Les Passants, by Luc Moquin. A co-production with Théâtre la Catapulte, this world premiere is in French with English surtitles and is part of a tri-city, bilingual theatre project. It’s a risk in terms of attendance, agrees Coates — “a throwing down the gauntlet to the bilingual capital city” — but will also draw on the audiences of the two coproducing theatres. The show comprises a series of vignettes about crises large and small, the very things that Coates says create “a life.” Feb. 23-March 12.
1979, by Michael Healey. Joe Clark’s reign as prime minister was brief, but that hasn’t stopped Healey, whose political plays Proud and Generous Coates has also presented, from writing a satire about that brief period in 1979-80. The play, says Coates (who is directing the show), looks at Clark as the last of the red Tories and the end of an era. As he did in Generous, Healey also plays with form and structure in this play, contributing to what Coates says is now a strong trope in contemporary Canadian theatre: fractured time lines. April 13-30.