Bare feet add realism to outdoor production
Andersen-inspired tale features six actors playing same part
Match Girl Saturday (Dec. 5), Dec. 11, 18 at 7:25 p.m. | Pacific Theatre
Tickets and info: no reservation needed (audience members are encouraged to bring a donation for Covenant House), pacifictheatre.org
This December, six local actors will brace for the cold.
In Match Girl, the actors portray the title character in various stages of her life. To add verisimilitude to the site-specific, outdoor performances, they will portray the character barefooted.
“There’s not much we can really do to prepare,” said Julia Siedlanowska, one of the actors. “We didn’t choose to do it because it’s method acting. It’s not a gimmick, we’re just being true to the story. I think it’s really striking for people to see that. And as a performer it puts you in the moment, because it’s very real.”
Fortunately for Siedlanowska and her colleagues — Shona Struthers, Carolyn Nakagawa, Mistaya Kryder-Wu, Kaitlyn Pederson, and Kimmie Kidd — the play is only 20 minutes long.
A re-mount of a piece originally performed at Port Moody Arts Centre in 2010, the upcoming show is a collaboration between Port Moody’s Rebel Haunt Theatre and Stone’s Throw Productions.
There will be three performances, all taking place before regular stagings of Pacific Theatre’s A Christmas Carol: On the Air, which runs from Dec. 4 to Dec. 22 at Pacific Theatre.
Sarah Dixon, who wrote this version based on the Hans Christian Andersen tale The Little Match Girl, also directs the show, which begins in the lobby but takes place mostly outside Pacific Theatre’s digs in Holy Trinity Anglican Church on Hemlock.
“We move around the space, and we see different scenes from the match girl’s life,” Siedlanowska said.
“It’s almost like a passion play — it has that kind of structure, where you move from scene to scene.”
Narrators Daryl Wakeham and Andrea Ashton, and musicians Andrew Hartline and Richard Nixon, guide the audience and help set the tone.
“The narrators tell the story as Andersen wrote it,” Siedlanowska said. “And the girls say some of the text.”
Besides appearing in Match Girl, Siedlanowska is also producing the show.
Her previous experience includes the recent Pacific Theatre production of The Drowning Girls, the latter along with two other apprentice producers. She also runs her own dance theatre company, Shakespeare Unchained.
“I have taken to love producing over the last little while,” she said. “I love ideas, and I love seeing other people’s ideas happen. It’s a different way to create.”
Siedlanowska is also the assistant director on A Christmas Carol: A Radio Play.
“I think the shows complement each other,” she said. “Andersen and (Charles) Dickens had some of the same concerns when they were writing — they idolized childhood, that’s why you see characters like Tiny Tim and the Little Match Girl. And they both had sympathy for the poor people of their time.”
For Match Girl, the presenters are partnering with Covenant House to receive donations of food and clothing as well as monetary donations. Pacific Theatre will also have a collection bin out during the entire run of A Christmas Carol: A Radio Play.
No doubt Match Girl’s cast will be wishing for some heavy wool socks by the end of the shows.
“The thing that is most shocking is feeling the cold,” said Siedlanowska, who performed in the 2010 production. “It’s always a shock to feel how cold it is.”
Following performances, hot beverages will be served to cast and audience.
“I’m sure we’ll be warming up after the show,” she said.