UNO and OUT

Intrepid Theatre’s May and June theatre festivals liven up the local landscape.

MAY AND JUNE are typically quiet months for theatre companies that produce a season from fall through early spring, but for Intrepid Theatre, the spring months are filled with activity. Intrepid presents their UNO Fest (solo performances) May 9-19, followed by their OUTstages Festival (“a decidedly queer theatre festival”) June 19-24. Theatre-goers can catch over twenty performances from local and national companies, plus an international show from Ireland.

I am always happy to see what these curated festivals have to offer. Similarly to the Belfry’s Spark Festival in March, these touring productions offer me the opportunity to stay in town, yet attend theatre from other places. We have a rich theatre community in Victoria, and it is inspiring and enlivening for local theatre artists and audiences to see work from elsewhere.

I do not have the space here to go through all 20-plus performances that will be onstage in May and June, so here are some “critic’s picks”—these are shows I look forward to seeing, along with some thoughts on what they suggest about trends and topics in Canadian theatre and beyond.

One of the first things I notice when looking over the UNO Fest program is that the majority of shows are performed by women. This is something to celebrate in a theatre culture that is struggling with gender-equity issues. Perhaps it is easier for a younger woman theatre artist to get her foot in the door by writing and/or performing a solo play? Certainly a number of these shows have been seen at various fringe and other kinds of theatre festivals, and have garnered positive reviews along the way. (Note: All quotes below are from the Intrepid Theatre website.)

What kinds of topics or themes are these women bringing to the stage? On the more playful side, Dream Another Day, from Toronto’s Meagan O’Shea, considers the possibilities of a female James Bond through a “signature mash-up of dance, theatre, storytelling and visual spectacle.” Edmonton’s Ainsley Hillyard performs alongside Jezebel, her English bulldog, in Jezebel, at the Still Point as the dog and her human owner “explore the universe trying to unravel the mysteries behind time travel.” And what is described as a “darkly funny” show, Extremophiles features Calgary’s Georgina Beaty performing her play, which envisions a near-future world in which pregnancy rarely occurs. Finally, Ireland’s Margaret McAuliffe performs The Humours of Bandon, her look at the fascinating culture surrounding Irish dance competition.

Left to right: Margerite McAuliffe,  Grace Thompson, Darla Contois

More serious solo plays performed by women this year include Toronto’s Grace Thompson in My Nightmares Wear White, an autobiographical piece about surviving a long illness. Our Fathers, Sons and Little Brothers comes from Makambe Simamba, a Zambian theatre artist now living in Calgary. The play presents the final moments and imagined afterlife of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old African-American young man gunned down by George Zimmerman in Florida in 2012. It will be powerful to see a female African-Canadian artist addressing topics related to the ongoing killings of African-American young men in the United States. Vancouver playwright Kuan Foo’s SELF-ish, performed by Diana Bang, looks at the after-effects of a tragic event on a Korean-Canadian woman.

Another theme that spans both festivals is the inclusion of a significant number of Indigenous plays and performers. This is another more-than-welcome trend as we witness a rise of Indigenous theatre across the country in the wake of the Truth and Reconciliation report. The Only Good Indian, from Toronto’s Pandemic Theatre, is described as “part lecture, part meditation, and part threat; each night a different performer straps themselves into an extreme situation, and takes a raw look at where our similarities begin and where they end, forcing both the performer and the audience to ask themselves: What would I die for?” White Man’s Indian is written and performed by Cree artist Darla Contois from Manitoba. She takes her character Eva on a journey through a White man’s high school with a mix of humour and poetry. And UNO’s guest Indigenous curator, Yolanda Bonnell, performs her play Bug about “the women in an Indigenous family navigating addiction and inter-generational trauma.”

Another theme in the UNO Fest are two shows using technology to create connections between people. We know how alienating technology can be, that our interconnectedness online is creating a social lack in people’s lives. But these two pieces take a look at the possibility of a genuine human encounter via telephone, cell phone and text messaging. In Landline, participants are sent on a guided audio walk and invited to text another real-time participant in Halifax while “prompted to share stories, memories, and secrets as the urban landscape transforms into a back drop for the relationship forming between two strangers.” Created by Halifax’s Secret Theatre, and creators Dustin Harvey and Adrienne Wong, I really like the company’s mandate: “We create meaningful moments that offer new ways of being together while shedding crooked light on how it is we’ve grown apart.”

Boca del Lupo Theatre in Vancouver is bringing their Red Phone project here as part of UNO Fest. Participants are invited to speak to a stranger on a second phone while responding to conversational prompts written by prominent Canadian playwrights and writers. Again the focus is on how technology both connects and creates disconnection. Mindful performances such as these offer deeper reflection on the impact, for better and for worse, of technology on our lives.

OUTstages in June focuses on plays and musical performances with LGBTQ2 topics and themes. Some plays are solo, including Vancouver’s Zee Zee Theatre’s My Funny Valentine and local Two-Spirit Métis artist Eddi Wilson’s Animal Medicine. The former play looks at the real-life 2008 homophobic murder of 15-year-old Lawrence King, and the latter “uses music, monologue and movement to dissect what they (Wilson) have learned from a life spent staring in the microscope.” Pearle Harbour’s Chautauqua, from Toronto’s Justin Miller (in his drag alter-ego Pearle Harbour), comes here with a raft of four-star reviews and promises “an immersive extravaganza: part drag, part tragicomedy, part old-time tent revival.”

Finally, I’m pleased to see a couple of children’s shows included in UNO Fest. Montreal’s Puzzle Theatre brings us Omelette, a comic physical theatre piece performed by Csaba Raduly, a Hungarian-Canadian theatre artist. And Vancouver’s Candice Roberts performs her play Ideas Bobert! that takes us into the world of Bobert, “a shy and curious fellow with a bird that lives in his chest.” Taking children to the theatre is one of the most effective ways to build future theatre audiences, so grab a child and go to these shows. Or grab a partner or friend to see one of the many worthwhile productions that Intrepid Theatre is bringing our way this spring.

Monica is planning to take one or both of her adult children to see an UNO Fest or OUTstages show this year. See intrepidtheatre.com/shows/ for information about the shows she has discussed and more.