We Three is tailored to wee audience
> BY JANET SMITH
As a mom, veteran Vancouver actor-playwright Meghan Gardiner moved naturally into the role of creating a script for theatre’s tiniest audiences.
For years, she had been taking her five-year-old son, Fraser, to Carousel Theatre for Young People’s intimate Bee Stage shows, even bringing him as a test-audience member for its first foray into musicals for babies and toddlers a few years ago. At the same time, she had been penning productions for younger and younger audiences, starting with the intense one-woman show Dissolve, which toured universities and high schools; Blind Spot, which was a hit at the secondary level; and then Role Call, for elementaryschool ages (the last two produced by Green Thumb Theatre).
But it turned out writing We Three for the Bee Stage was more difficult than she expected.
“This is deceiving because you think it’s going to be really simple, because it has to be straightforward—two-year-olds don’t really pick up on double-entendres,” Gardiner says with a laugh, speaking to the Straight from her Vancouver home before heading to rehearsal. “But putting it together was anything but simple. I would write too much, and I had to pull back and think, ‘These little beings are just starting to learn about life and to discover their senses.’ ”
In the end, she says, Fraser was her guide. She not only used all her firsthand experience with what he responded to as a toddler, but found inspiration in her son for her subject matter as well. We Three takes the simple concept of three characters named for a number and two letters—3, M, and E—to delve into deeper ideas about how we’re all different yet can all coexist.
“It’s about how letters are different from numbers and we need both of them,” Gardiner says. “My son is really breaking a lot of moulds about what boys are and who girls are. In terms of who they are at their core, they need to show us and we need to let them. He’s fascinating every day with his joy and his wants. His favourite colour is pink. And I think it’s important that kids are allowed to be themselves.
“So here are three separate characters celebrating each other,” she adds, “and encouraging each other to find their truth and their voice.”
Gardiner communicates all this with much more than words, using lo-fi live music, props the audience can touch, and a well-lit, interactive atmosphere that’s the inviting opposite of a dark theatre with strict rules about sitting quietly. Seating is on floor mats.
Her other challenge has been to write material that will appeal equally to the adult parents and caregivers who accompany the kids to the show. “I just like when pieces are crafted that way,” Gardiner says. “I’ve layered in a whole bunch for the adults. It’s entirely possible to engage everybody.”
And, as you might expect, she’s excited about Fraser’s reaction to it.
“I have kind of written it for him,” she admits, “and I can’t wait to have him come see it.”