Now You See Her says, ‘Look at me’
Where Mouthpiece gave women voice, new show focuses on visibility
Following the 2015 premiere of
Mouthpiece, the debut performance piece from Norah Sadava and Amy Nostbakken about a woman’s struggle to find her voice, a 60-something audience member approached the duo in tears.
“I remember the day I was walking down the street when I realized that I had suddenly become invisible,” she said.
That confession inspired the co-founders of Quote Unquote Collective to create a new show about how women disappear in our world. Now You See Her, now playing at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, features five women’s interwoven stories of erasure, including a scientist left out of history, a pop star drowning in artifice and an Indigenous woman emblematic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
Each of the six performers — Lisa Karen Cox, Maggie Huculak, Raha Javanfar and Cheyenne Scott, in addition to Nostbakken and Sadava — share a creator credit, having contributed their own experiences with marginalization toward crafting their parts.
“As a gigging actor, it’s hard to get a role that is exactly what you want to say,” Sadava says. “So it’s a weird unique opportunity for collaborators to come into a room and say, ‘This is what I want to talk about.’ ”
Nostbakken and Sadava both have Lecoq training, French theatre instructor Jacque Lecoq’s approach to creating theatre through physical improvisation. That process has resulted in a show that mixes text, music and movement. The duo admit their collaborative, improvisational approach is anything but easy.
“It takes six times as long then if it was one writer,” Nostbakken says. “Because you have to give the space to hear someone else speak before you add your own opinion.
“The subject matter is so personal and we are asking them to give their secrets. We’re asking what challenges you as a human being. Let’s dig deep about what that means to you and what drama there is to stage.”
But that lengthy process has yielded stories that carry deeper truths. “No matter how much research you do, I honestly believe that unless you are (for example) a woman living in a Black body, you have no right to say what it’s like,” Sadava says.
That authenticity resonated with audiences who saw Mouthpiece, which has been staged multiple times in Toronto, toured internationally and has been performed at a private show in Los Angeles sponsored by actress-director Jodie Foster and attended by stars including Jennifer Beals and Sandra Oh. The Dora Award-winning show has also been adapted for a film starring Nostbakken and Sadava and directed by Patricia Rozema that premiered at TIFF. “The festival was like, ‘This is our life?’ ” Sadava says. “I’d never been on a movie screen before, ever. That was just a wild ride.”
Nostbakken and Sadava have spent close to four years touring with Mouthpiece, and yet audiences consistently describe it as a timely work, seemingly ripped from the headlines even as the years pass. Now You See Her is similarly being hailed for its cultural relevance by early audiences, who have likened the vanishing women to the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford being glossed over to expedite the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We know because of this political event that it’s necessary for us to still say this, though it may feel that we are repeating ourselves,” Sadava says.
“That’s the fatigue,” Nostbakken adds. “We have been saying the same thing. When are you going to hear it? And then when are you going to believe it?”
“The action is the part that’s missing,” Sadava agrees. “(Theatre) is what we know how to do, so this is our avenue toward action.”
For others who share their frustration, Nostbakken urges them not to hold back. “Speaking rather than not is always the way to go,” she says.
“And the other side of the coin to speaking is listening,” Sadava says. “Profound listening to the voices that are not often being given the space.”