Pipeline debate becomes play’s focus
TORONTO — When development began on The Pipeline Project more than three years ago, its creative team wondered whether the production would be outdated by the time it hit the stage.
“We kept thinking: ‘Oh, maybe all the pipelines are going to be killed, and then our play won’t be relevant anymore,’ ” director Chelsea Haberlin said. “But what’s interesting is that it keeps being more relevant.”
Vancouver-based theatre company ITSAZOO and aboriginal performance company Savage Society are behind The Pipeline Project. The play was inspired by the book Extract, published by the Vancouver Observer, a news website, about B.C.’s Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline conflicts.
While the federal Liberals rejected Northern Gateway, debate rages over other projects still on the front burner on both sides of the border.
Yet even with the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion in Vancouver and the Dakota Access Pipeline in the United States making headlines, the play will not zero in on any one project.
“What we’re trying to do is focus on the larger issues that come into play with each specific pipeline,” Haberlin said. “Indigenous land claims and the environment and all of that. They’re the same issues, no matter what pipeline you’re looking at.”
The contentious political battles over pipelines will be explored when The Pipeline Project debuts today at the Gateway Theatre in Richmond, in a format that blends stage show with open-forum discussion.
The first half features writer-actors Sebastien Archibald, Kevin Loring and Quelemia Sparrow. The dialogue is drawn from a broad range of conversations while creating the show, and centres on the most heated and divisive discussions that emerged.
“The play is basically them coming together to try to write a piece together, but they can’t write it until they’re able to be on the same page. There’s a certain amount of understanding that needs to happen between them before they can even begin,” Haberlin said.
“While they’re doing that, they also present their monologue about their own personal experience to help inform each other of where they’re coming from.”
Given the fast-changing nature of news surrounding pipelines, the second act will be devoted to topical discussions aimed at engaging the audience.
Each night, a “Talk Forward” speaker will join play creators in an open discussion offering a variety of perspectives.
Invited guests include members of the Unist’ot’en Clan of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, who are seeking to protect their lands from proposed pipelines, and public relations specialist James Hoggan, author of Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming. Environmental campaigners, journalists and activists are also slated to take part as guest speakers.
“Because of what’s happening daily, there’s no way for the play to stay immediate,” Haberlin said. “It can’t be as up-todate as Facebook can be. Theatre just can’t work that way unless you have a part of it that is live and improvised, which is what that second half is.
“I’m really hoping people come in informed and engaged and up-to-the-minute, and we can have a conversation that is relevant to that particular day.”
The Pipeline Project runs until March 18.