DRAMA WRESTLES WITH MENTAL ILLNESS
Policing and family intersect in The Valley
At a SkyTrain station, a man is babbling incoherently and swinging a baton. A Vancouver cop arrives on the scene and, during the ensuing arrest, the man’s jaw is broken, leading his mother to file a complaint against the police force.
The torn-from-the-headlines premise is behind The Valley, a play written by Joan MacLeod and coming to the Arts Club’s Granville Island Stage. The city is a continued source of inspiration, says the playwright.
“Vancouver is a place I keep writing about,” MacLeod said.
“I grew up in North Van, and lived in Kits for years. I know Vancouver well. I don’t know Vancouver in the last 15 or 20 years. I haven’t lived there since 1994. I find it’s a really inspiring place for me to write about. Part of me, it’s in my bones. Part of me doesn’t know this new version of it, and I find that combination really intriguing.”
MacLeod specializes in topical plays. She has received the Governor General’s Award in Drama for Amigo’s Blue Guitar (1990), about a refugee from Central America, and Jessie Richardson and Betty Mitchell Awards for her 2001 play The Shape of a Girl, which was
about a real-life, fatal beating of a 14-year-old girl.
She says that she originally thought about writing something about the 2007 Taser incident at YVR that lead to the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski.
“I followed that story quite carefully,” MacLeod said.
“While researching that story I became interested in policing in general, and how that had changed throughout my lifetime, as well as the intersection between the mentally ill and the police. Now, there’s not even a mention of him (Dziekanski) in the play.”
For the Arts Club production, Mindy Parfitt, co-founder and coartistic director of theatre company Horseshoes & Hand Grenades, is directing. Robert Salvador plays Dan, the cop, and Pippa Mackie plays his wife Janie, a recovering addict.
Daniel Doheny is Conor, the 18-year-old who has the psychotic break, and Kerry Sandomirsky is his mother, Sharon.
“The core of the issue is fairly serious, for sure,” Parfitt said of The Valley.
“But I think Joan dealt with it in a way that has a lot of humour and humanity and compassion. It’s very real. It’s really about the intersection of the two families, the police officer and his wife, and they have a new baby, and the teenager and the mom.
“The incident brings these two families together. I think Joan’s created a piece that deals with a lot of truth about dealing with someone with mental illness.”
The Valley premiered in 2012 in Calgary, and was followed by runs in Toronto, Winnipeg and St. Catharines, Ont. More recently, it was presented at the The Belfry Theatre in MacLeod’s adopted hometown of Victoria.
Though set in Vancouver, The Valley’s themes will hit home in any place where policing and mental illness intersect.
“When we had the play in Toronto, it was two months after (18-year-old) Sammy Yatim was shot (by a Toronto constable) on a streetcar,” MacLeod said.
“So in a way what happens in The Valley could happen in any big city in Canada. But certainly, Vancouver inspired me.”