A very Canadian burden of guilt
Vancouver playwright adapts an Ibsen play with local setting, local issues
Vancouver-based playwright/actor Hiro Kanagawa is a fixture on local stages and TV and film. So much so, it’s hard to imagine how he finds time to write plays such as Slants, Tiger of Malaya, the Patron Saint of Stanley Park and now, Indian Arm.
The Capilano University instructor caught up with The Province to chat about his latest work, a commissioned adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Little Eyolf which Rumble Theatre premières this week.
“I’m probably busier than I’ve ever been before, with recurring work on the series I Zombie and also an interesting series on A&E called The Returned,” says Kanagawa.
“At the moment, I’m mostly working in Toronto with some writing projects on the side as well as teaching one class a term at Capilano. It’s a good experience as it reminds you of, and reinforces, some of those basics you think you’ve memorized.”
Indian Arm began to take shape in 2013 when Rumble Theatre commissioned him to produce the adaptation. The lesser-known work, Little Eyolf, recently adapted by film director Lars von Trier in his Antichrist, portrays the horrible burden two parents face after their child is permanently maimed following a moment of passion.
“The incident leaves them both with a terrible burden, and one which the wife wishes she was rid of,” he says. “Things come to pass that purportedly lift this burden, but the rest of the play is built around how their entire lives have been defined by their guilt over this one moment and its aftermath and now they have to redefine themselves.” Cheerful stuff, to be sure. Kanagawa modernized the content, set it in Indian Arm and brought modern, Canadian realities of the dominant culture’s relationship to First Nations.
He felt that the two characters of Alfred and Rita Allmer could be both experiencing their own personal issues in the context of greater societal ones that Indian Arm also addresses.
There is crossover everywhere, as the couple’s cabin in Indian Arm is on unceded Tsleil-Wautuh land.
“We were very lucky to have band elder Leonard George, who is the son of Chief Dan George, to consult with us on the story and offer valuable insight,” says Kanagawa.
“While Ibsen is most definitely a modern writer, the original work has its issues in a contemporary context. There are plot points which are dated and a lot of conflicts relating to issues of sexuality that are a bit difficult for modern audiences.”
Indian Arm casts these aside for what Kanagawa hopes are greater meanings of the original play which truly seems about those time-honoured subjects of death, redemption and forgiveness.