The Writerly Life

Joyful Noise

2012-01-13T10:02:00.000-08:00

My review of Joyful Noise is online at WEVancouver.com

JOYFUL NOISE
Starring Dolly Parton, Queen Latifah
Directed by Todd Graff

Do you love a honey-dripping drawl and sassy, senseless sayings? Joyful Noise! Do you like your matriarchs busty and bold, and your young'uns earnest and quick with a harmony? Can I get a Joyful Noise? Have you always hoped Glee would crank up the God and turn down the gay? Joyful Noise!

Beyond the brilliant casting of country icon and geriatric human Barbie Dolly Parton opposite hip hop’s rubanesque royal, Queen Latifah, there’s not that much to praise in writer/director Todd Graff’s formulaic and familiar gospel comedy Joyful Noise.

Strict, single, working mom Vi Rose Hill (Latifah) is made choir master over privileged, plasticized grandma G.G. Sparrow (Parton). But as the town’s businesses buckle under the recession, the choir’s very existence is threatened unless they can win regionals (ugh, Glee!). They can only win if they ditch the Traditionals and modernize, much to Vi Rose’s chagrin. The friction between the two women intensifies when G.G.’s bad boy grandson, Randy (Jeremy Jordan), blows back into town and falls for Vi Rose’s goody-two-shoes daughter, choir star Olivia (Keke Palmer).

We know Randy’s “bad” because he breaks a flower pot busting into his grandma’s home and accidentally lets drop an excited “bitch” bomb in church after Olivia’s singing gets his giblets revved up. Vi Rose warns her daughter to keep her distance, but Randy worms his way into their home when he’s able to form a connection with her son, Walter (Dexter Darden), who has Aspererger’s. This relationship proves to be Joyful Noise’s main highlight: Jordan and Darden have a nice, natural chemistry, and their characters’ interactions have charm and heart to spare. Jordan and Palmer have a spark as the star-crossed lovers, but can’t navigate the character assassination in the final act when they’re forced apart, only to, inevitably, be reunited 20 minutes later.

The plot twists, such as they are, are buoyed by a cast that can actually sing. A few engaging gospel numbers — including the rousing finale — almost make the mash-up craze tolerable. A little more divine intervention like that and Joyful Noise might have genuinely lived up to its name. — Andrea Warner

The Swell Season

2012-01-13T09:54:00.000-08:00

My WE music feature this week is a review of The Swell Season.

The Swell Season

Credit: Supplied

MUSIC: Breaking up is hard to do in ‘The Swell Season’

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová made beautiful music together as will-they-or-won’t-they indie folk-rock musicians in 2006’s Once. Fans connected to the sweet, earnest story of the older Irish busker and the young Czech immigrant pianist, and couldn’t help but notice that the film also captured the pair falling in love off screen as well.

And, as it happens, another set of cameras captured their story as they fell out of love, in the intimate and engaging documentary, The Swell Season.

After Once earned Hansard and Irglová an Academy Award for Best Original Song, the musicians formed their own band, the Swell Season, and took to the road, touring and toiling under their new-found fame. The film opens when the couple are still happy: silly, stripping down for a midday skinny dip into the ocean; posing for pictures and hanging out with fans; enjoying their time together.
But, as Hansard says, “It’s strangely prophetic. You’re singing songs about break-ups in a perfectly happy relationship, and you’re like, this isn’t about me. But then it happens.”

The cameras capture a series of moments that on their own wouldn’t signify the couple’s undoing. Strung together though, it’s like a series of stress fractures on a single bone: Irglová’s discomfort with the implied demands of fame; glimpses of Hansard’s depression as his father dies from alcoholism; the 18-year age gap between them as Irglová grows up and stops, in her own words, simply adopting Hansard’s opinions and starts developing her own. The narrative moves towards an inevitable conclusion, but it’s no less heartbreaking when we finally arrive at the five-minute long argument between the two that shows just how far they’ve grown apart.

But the filmmakers, wisely, err on the more hopeful side of bittersweet as the film draws to a close. The pair take to the stage in front of a theatre full of fans, and Irglová offers an earnest and charmingly awkward intro to a song about how sometimes love isn’t mean to be right now, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worthwhile or won’t be again. Hansard says, with a catch in his voice, that the breakup has brought them closer. Is it true? Well, who knows. But The Swell Season’s final moments — Hansard performs a solo on stage while Irglova watches from the wings, probably for the thousandth time, with an admiring and affectionate smile on her face — give us plenty of hope that this isn’t the end of the story.

The Swell Season plays at Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour), Fri-Sat 8:45pm; Sun, Tues 8:30pm. Tickets and info: VIFF.org.

Jay Baruchel talks about Goon

2012-01-13T09:52:00.000-08:00

My interview with Jay Baruchel is part of this week's WE cover story.

COVER STORY: Canadian Film 2012 preview w/ Jay Baruchel

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Carl Bessai

2012-01-13T09:49:00.000-08:00

My interview with Carl Bessai is part of this week's WE cover story.

Carl Bessai

COVER STORY: Canadian Film 2012 preview w/ Carl Bessai

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Canada’s actors, writers and directors fare well enough in the court of public perception, but too often our films are dismissed as either too highbrow, too dull, too weird or, simply, too Canadian. What does that mean? Well, in 2012, it means a potential Academy Award winner (David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method), a Variety magazine “one to watch” screenwriter (actor/writer Jay Baruchel’s debut, Goon) and an indie darling on the festival circuit (Carl Bessai’s Sisters&Brothers). Get thee to a movie theatre!

CARL BESSAI
At the start of our conversation, Vancouver-based filmmaker Carl Bessai laughingly concedes he’s never done karaoke. He just can’t put himself out there like that. And yet he’s easily one of the country’s most prolific, excitingly experimental filmmakers, cranking out one-to-two movies a year over the last decade. He alternates scripted efforts with largely improvisational films, like his newest feature, Sisters&Brothers, which wraps up his FamilyX trilogy and will hit screens this spring. Bessai, who operates almost giddily without any kind of safety net while filming, and who has swept big names like Glee’s Cory Monteith and 90210’s Dustin Milligan into starring roles in Sisters&Brothers, can’t concieve of singing “Sweet Caroline” at closing time. Luckily, he has no such inhibitions when it comes to taking risks as an indie filmmaker. Bessai spoke with WE over the phone from his office about quantity over quality, improv and Sisters&Brothers’ leading men.

QUANTITY OVER QUALITY
“My hero is [Rainer Werner] Fassbinder, the now-dead German director. He died when he was 47, or it might have been younger, but he made 47 movies. (Laughs) Some years he made three or four films. He was just insane. And not all the films are that good, but I really marveled at the incredible volume and and the way he made films with a company of actors that he really trusted. There was a lot of collaboration and a lot of craziness that went down in their personal lives, but it was really amazing to see the creative output...

“I love the craft of those crazy, imperfect films. You see something like the new Sherlock Holmes movies: they’re beautifully made and they’re stylish, but they lack a kind of truth and beauty, a substance. The thing that I always feel like from a directing point of view is, I guess, my truth, about the truth that I experience with people. Like, in Sisters&Brothers, we really tried to stick to narratives that were related to experiences we’ve had or people we know or things that are close to home. It sounds so heady, it doesn’t sound funny at all, but that’s where the beauty is. You take something that isn’t necessarily all that funny, but you juxtapose these dramatic narratives with these bites of humour, and there’s something so great about that. I really feel like that’s what Sisters&Brothers was.”

THE FRAMEWORK OF IMPROV
“I have to build a framework for a script or it’s impossible to do. The trick is getting everyone together to jam so you can build the outline properly. The only thing we’re really doing here is skipping the writing of dialogue. You do a lot of work-shopping and discussing with the actors so everyone has a really strong idea of how they relate to each other. People have to be able to bring a certain amount of experience to the table. If you look at the story between Cory Monteith and Dustin Milligan, who star as a movie star and his brother, a former actor who wants to start a charity, there’s a ton of the actual actors’ lives in the story. They are relying on shorthand to build their brotherly narrative.

“They were two young men, once upon a time, who lived in Vancouver together. They decided to go to Hollywood. In real life! And Dustin got a job on 90210 and started to take off, and Cory was struggling. And then of course, Cory got onto Glee and Dustin left 90210 and things shifted and their relationship changed. What does fame do to your relationship? And they weren’t brothers, but they had a brotherly relationship, so there was a certain amount of chaos they experienced in real life. I love when you can tap into that stuff, because when they’re on the spot, they know what to say.”

GLEE POWER
“Before I had cast these roles, I knew it was going to be two brothers, one of whom was famous and one who wasn’t, and the rivalry that comes out of that. I come from a family of brothers, and I have a brother who’s really the guy I’m closest to in the world, but he’s an architect. We get together two, three times a year and for a while I was thinking, you know, I should just come in and read my resume, and you should read yours, and once we get that out of the way, we can get on with just kind of getting along. (Laughs) But there’s always this sense that we have to have this pissing contest of who’s doing what before we can relax. I always thought it was a little bit more him than me, I never felt the need to whatever, but it was funny. Like, God, how old are we now? We used to run track together, so we’d always race against each other, and sometimes he’d win and sometimes I’d win and we’d train together and had this crazy rivalry.

“So, I walked in the door with that structural idea. I’d worked with Dustin Milligan on Repeaters, my previous film, and loved working with him. He’s such a great actor and I hadn’t realized how funny he was and how good on his feet he was. I thought he’d be good in this improvising world, so I reached out to him, thinking that he would be a good movie star brother, but he was the one who said, ‘You know, this little outline is interesting. It’s exactly what my relationship with Cory is like. Do you mind if I call him?’ I’m like, ‘Do I mind if you’d call the star of Glee and ask him to come and do our no-money movie? I really mind!’” (Laughs)

TRUST EXERCISES
“The actors have to trust that I’ll put together a narrative that works. And the actors love working like that... but they have to feel safe to be in a place where they can fuck up. When you’re Cory Monteith and pretty famous, you don’t want to be exposed fucking up. There’s a lot of trust there and we can take the bones or the raw materials and put together this film, that at the end has the ability to be well received. It takes a certain amount of faith and luck and all that other stuff to come together. But it’s an exciting way to work. It really puts you on the line.”

David Cronenberg

2012-01-13T09:44:00.000-08:00

My interview with David Cronenberg is part of this week's WE cover story

COVER STORY: Canadian Film 2012 preview w/ David Cronenberg

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Canada’s actors, writers and directors fare well enough in the court of public perception, but too often our films are dismissed as either too highbrow, too dull, too weird or, simply, too Canadian. What does that mean? Well, in 2012, it means a potential Academy Award winner (David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method), a Variety magazine “one to watch” screenwriter (actor/writer Jay Baruchel’s debut, Goon) and an indie darling on the festival circuit (Carl Bessai’s Sisters&Brothers). Get thee to a movie theatre!

DAVID CRONENBERG
Filmmaker David Cronenberg has built an art-house reputation for being the thinking man’s perverse subversive. His weirdest, kinkiest or most disturbingly vicious movies — The Fly, Crash, A History of Violence — have, at their core, an almost obsessive interest in exploring human psychology. Cronenberg admits that his lifelong fascination with the subject isn’t so much about understanding ‘why?’, but in asking ‘why not?’ Much the way the founders of psychoanalysis, doctors Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, do in Cronenberg’s new film, A Dangerous Method, which opens this Friday, Jan.13.

“Someone pointed out to me — I had actually forgotten — that my very first film was a seven-minute short called Transfer, which was about a patient and a psychiatrist, and that was before I made any other fiction films!” Cronenberg laughs, over the phone from his homebase of Toronto. “It’s a very fascinating, strange relationship, which we sort of now take for granted and have absorbed into being a kind of standard human interaction.”

But of course, that wasn’t always the case. Set at the turn of the last century, A Dangerous Method, based on Christopher Hampton’s play, The Talking Cure (itself based on John Kerr’s non-fiction book, A Most Dangerous Method: the story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein) focuses on the push-pull between Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Jung (Michael Fassbender), both respected doctors attempting to cultivate dramatic breakthroughs via talk therapy. Their relationship devolves from that of a father/son, mentor/mentee to bitterly disappointed former friends. The catalyst of their dissolution is Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), Jung’s patient with whom he embarks on an sado-masochistic affair, and who eventually becomes Freud’s patient, protegee and one of the first female psychoanalysts.

“This is at the moment of the invention of psychoanalysis that we’re seeing in the movie,” Cronenberg says. “The boundaries were not at all well established. You can even make a case for Otto Gross [Jung’s colleague] saying, ‘Well, why should we assume having sex with our patients is a bad thing? Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe under the terms of psychoanalysis, maybe it can work under certain circumstances.’ The ethical boundaries and therapeutic boundaries were not at all established, it was all up for grabs and was all being invented at the time.”

Jung’s patient-turned-lover, Spielrein, could be considered one of the guinea pigs of the ethics of psychoanalysis. Fittingly, it’s her story — and the critical response to Knightley’s portrayal — that proves most compelling after the credits roll.

The film opens with a lengthy sequence in which a hysterical Spielrein is forcibly institutionalized. It’s an overwhelmingly physical performance. Knightley’s jaw is practically dislocated by fierce facial tics, her body contorted as she convulses. Contrary to the advertising campaign’s depiction, Knightley’s Speilrien isn’t just a mentally ill seductress; she’s a woman stifled by expectation, attempting to grapple with the intense shame of repressed sexuality. Or, as it was once known, hysteria.

“Women were worshipped as goddesses, in the Victorian style, and put on a pedestal, but that’s not really a great place for a human being to be,” Cronenberg says. “You were worshipped, but you weren’t supposed to have a sex life. You weren’t supposed to have an intellect. Sabina was speaking these unspeakable things, saying things that no one has ever asked her to articulate before, this is the talking cure after all. A young woman, coming from a wealthy family, of a certain class, saying she’s sexually aroused by her father beating her to the point that she masturbates. She could not let these things out of her mouth, but she desperately wants to. That’s where the facial deformity comes from, that she’s trying to speak, but she wants to deform the words, or pull them back into her throat, literally.”

But rather than applaud the young actress, critics have been largely derisive, calling her performance over-the-top and clumsy. One can’t help but wonder: if it had been Daniel Day Lewis giving that performance, wouldn’t there be Oscar talk already?

“I completely agree with you,” Cronenberg says. “All of that talk is just loony. Keira could have dialed it up or down anyway I asked her to, but we both decided we needed to show accurately — because the movie is very accurate, actually, on every level. We had to show what hysteria was. What did they expect? Sabina’s particular version of hysteria was well-documented by Jung himself. There were 50 pages of it, with Jung’s handwriting in the margins, talking about how her face was ravaged by tics and distortions and contortions and deformities and stuff. It’s all very accurate. She couldn’t just sit there and be mildly neurotic, because that’s not what hysteria was. She was completely dysfunctional when they brought her there. That’s why her parents were willing to institutionalize her, so it has to be shown. It was completely accurate.”

Waiting for Godot

2012-01-06T16:58:00.000-08:00

My review of Waiting for Godot in WE this week.

Simon Webb and Anthony F. Ingram star in Waiting for Godot

Great ‘Godot’ worth the wait

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Long, talky and teeming with existentialism, plenty of ink has been spilled in the lengthy debate over Waiting for Godot’s merit. On the surface, it’s easy to understand why so many people find Samuel Beckett’s adaptation of the absurdist French play so polarizing: two men talk over the course of two acts for almost three hours and nothing happens.

Or, at least, it seems like nothing happens. Since its debut in 1953, Godot’s meaning has been analyzed and scrutinized by fevered critics, academics and actors alike. A condemnation of religious devotion? An allegory for the Cold War? An existentialist nightmare? Arguments can and have been made for all. Let’s add to the list then with Blackbird Theatre’s fantastic production, which reminds us that even hundreds of years after the revolution, France’s familiarity with the trials of the 99 per cent may have been a vital — and overlooked — component of Godot’s foundation.

Estragon (the reliably divine Simon Webb) and Vladimir (the masterful Anthony F. Ingram) are tramps who are, literally, waiting for Godot. They bide their time by engaging in a never-ending verbal dance of arguing, philosophizing and contemplation about everything from suicide to the church. But, they’re paralyzed with inaction, depending on the vague promise of something better with Godot’s arrival. Their lives aren’t in their own hands, but in Godot’s.

In both Acts, their solitude is interrupted by the arrival of Pozzo (a delightfully cartoonish William Samples) and Lucky (Adam Henderson, who deserves an award for the physicality of the role alone), a pompous, rich curmudgeon and his faithful, brow-beaten companion/slave, led by a long rope tied around his neck. One gets the sense that Lucky’s spirit has been sucked dry by Pozzo, who takes for granted that his station makes him a person of quality, while Lucky is merely a “pig.” But, he’s held in higher esteem than Gogo, who is forced to ask Lucky for the bones Pozzo discards on the ground after wolfing down chicken and wine in front of the hungry duo.

There’s plenty, though, for the audience to chew on in Blackbird Theatre’s timely production: broad comedic pratfalls and crushing moments of bleak truth work in combination with a stellar cast to make a strong case in favour of Godot as an enduring — and surprisingly relevant — classic. —Andrea Warner

Waiting for Godot runs to Jan. 21 at The Cultch, 8pm. $16 and up from TheCultch.com.

Jim Cuddy

2012-01-05T14:36:00.000-08:00

My interview with Jim Cuddy is in this week's WE.

Jim Cuddy flies solo with his new album, Skyscraper Soul.

Jim Cuddy keeps up his solo streak

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Confession: for me, Blue Rodeo is a source of great national pride. Their songcraft, musicianship and precision make their live shows legendary. And while Greg Keelor and Jim Cuddy may share co-frontman duties, I’ve always been a devoted Cuddy-ite. After all, the lean, blue jean-clad, silver-haired singer/songwriter gets first writing credit on my favourite Blue Rodeo songs (“Lost Together”, “Andrea”). This was among the best ways possible to end 2011 and kick off 2012: an interview with the 56-year-old musician in advance of his stop at the Vogue this Saturday night, Jan. 7, supporting his third solo release, Skyscraper Soul, a love letter/apology for his home and native land — yes, Toronto.

I know you’ve done solo albums before, but what inspires you to break away from Blue Rodeo.
Well, I don’t think that’s a good way of characterizing it, “breaking away from Blue Rodeo.” That always sounds like, “Oh my God, you’re leaving Blue Rodeo.” (Laughs) I understand, but I think what we do — years ago we started, Greg started making a solo record, but he was making a solo record ’cause truly he was sick of being in Blue Rodeo. That was terrifying to us all, because we thought, oh, what the hell do we do now? So I did a solo record just out of self preservation. You know, if he’s never gonna come back, what the hell are we going to do? And I really enjoyed it. I thought it was inspiring and great. Ultimately Greg did not want to leave Blue Rodeo, and we all came back and realized we’d had this great experience that had enriched us and brought us back a lot calmer people. (Laughs) And also with a different experience. Bringing back different recording experiences. Since we’d all been doing this recording together, there was nothing that we had not shared and so you do something on your own; figure out how to do something on an acoustic guitar or work some place that nobody else had worked. That has been — not just from a mechanical point of view, but from a maturing point of view — that was a really watershed moment for us. We make solo records because we can and because we allow each other to and it just broadens our experience of music. I really feel like, especially as I get older, the most valuable thing I can do in my professional life is write and record songs. I don’t particularly want to sit around for a season and rest, or play tennis, or take skating lessons. I want to make music.

Let’s talk a little bit about Skyscraper Soul.
I’d been thinking a lot, in the previous couple years, that it’s been an amazing thing that we’ve lived in a city but written so much about rural landscapes and natural landscapes. It’s a little bit in line with the type of music we play, country rock, and city rockers discovering country and being more smitten than country people. (Laughs) But I also realize that a lot of the creative energy comes from living among so many people. Witnessing so many fragments of so many lives and living amongst so many musicians... And I wrote Skycraper Soul as a little bit of an apology for Toronto, because it’s a bit of a maligned city. (Laughs) I get so tired of it. It didn’t bother me for so long, but the last couple of years it’s just bugged my ass. People sayin’ “Where you from? Oh, Toronto? Too bad.” Well, what do you know about Toronto? It’s so silly.

I’m sure a lot of it comes from people here in Vancouver.
Oh, there’s no doubt. Vancouver says we’re a great city, better than Toronto. I think Toronto is a difficult nut to crack. It’s one of those cities, like a lot of great cities in the world, that require you to take a bit more time and look more closely. Once you do crack the code, there’s a lot of beauty in this city. I’ve always found beauty in city landscapes. That’s part of Skycraper Soul. I know it’s tough here and you think it’s ugly, but it’s part of my soul.

I’ve spoken to a lot of people in the last year who are working hard to rehabilitate Toronto’s image.
That’s a nice thing. Although that “what are you looking at? Stay away” vibe is part of its charm. (Laughs) I used to find that about London, England, when I went. Like, fuck, nobody wants to talk to me. And now I get that! There’s this super friendliness under that veneer. Once you penetrate it, then you’re on the inside looking out and it’s all good.

The Jim Cuddy Band plays Jan. 7 at Vogue, 7pm. $49.50 from Ticketmaster.

Electric Company Theatre's Kim Collier

2012-01-05T14:27:00.000-08:00

My interview with Electric Company Theatre's Kim Collier is in this week's WE.

Kim Collier: “I’ve done things like paddling down the Congo. I found myself in jail in Nigeria. I’ve had an extraordinary life, both in a sense of adventure and risk, and loss and tragedy.”

Credit: Michael Julian Berz photo

STAGE: Electric Company’s new show hits ‘Home’

Posted By: Andrea Warner

For most people, the week between Christmas and New Year’s is a sleepy stretch of holiday recovery. Not so inside the Strathcona gymnasium of the Russian Hall where Electric Company Theatre, arguably Vancouver’s most exciting, innovative company, is approaching its third week of rehearsal for Tad Mosel’s All the Way Home. Director Kim Collier moves around the sprawling set, adjusting her vantage point as her actors, Meg Roe and Jonathon Young (who also happens to be her husband and Electric Company co-founder), take multiple stabs at an emotionally charged scene in Act One.
Collier sits on a low bench in front of the stage, a chair at the dining table, a pillow on the floor next to a beautiful old divan with large rolled arms. These are all places where the audience will sit, in and amongst the set, sentient ghosts for the actors to navigate while also conveying one of the most emotionally resonant texts of modern literature about a family coping with unexpected loss of a father and a grandfather. And, as those few familiar with Collier’s life story know, it’s a theme that resonates off stage as well.

A former Studio 58 grad, Collier began her career as an actor, but shifted to directing, writing and producing since co-founding Electric Company Theatre 13 years ago. In 2010, she was awarded the prestigious $100,000 Siminovitch Prize in Theatre for directing, but this professional triumph came in the wake of huge personal tragedy. In 2009, an accidental fire claimed the lives of Young and Collier’s 14-year-old daughter, Azra, and her two little cousins, Phoebe and Fergus. Collier doesn’t discuss this, but concedes that she’s asked herself where she sits as an artist in relationship to the context of All the Way Home, as well as trying to understand the boundaries between her personal life and her work as an artist.

“I think that life has prepared me for my directing role and I’ve felt that for many years,” Collier says. “I’ve done things like paddling down the Congo. I found myself in jail in Nigeria. I’ve had an extraordinary life, both in a sense of adventure and risk, and loss and tragedy. I lost my friend that I grew up with my entire life and who I adored when I was 19. I lost my father by my early 20s. I’ve always looked at the immensity of my life experience and known that part of the gift of that is to recognize and direct moments of truth on stage… So what I have to say about this material is that this is a good play for me in this time. It’s something at the ground floor of all our lives, these ideas around who we are and how we survive and endure.”

During rehearsal, Roe and Young work out the mechanics of timing — making a cup of coffee, lighting a candle, where best to stash a pipe — with the rhythms and intention of their deliveries. Collier interrupts minimally, but this is a pivotal scene. Young’s tasked with delivering a gut-wrenching monologue repeatedly, about holding his baby, singing and feeling whole again.

“Remember, we get to relive our youth through our children,” Collier advises her husband. “Remember curiosity, delight, presence.” Finally he and Roe nail it. Like, really nail it. Their performances have been great the entire time, but that moment when it really clicks, when something transcends great and becomes wonderful? It happens right here, and one can’t help but feel this is a rare moment: recognizing, first-hand, the architecture of genius. Collier is observing moments between Young and Roe that don’t even exist yet, and guiding them to manifest.

Technically, this is the show she’s wanted to do for six years — immersive, intimate and lo-fi, a complete departure from Electric Company’s multimedia, tech-heavy canon. But it was never her intention to tell this story. Just one hour into reading a stack of Ibsen and Chekov plays, she came across All the Way Home, which had snuck its way into her pile of classics. She says the universe put it into her hands; but what Collier’s done with it is all her own.

“The show is really testing me,” she admits. “I’m being brave in allowing a piece of theatre to behave in a very different way compared to how I normally shape them. Instead of pulling the audience with a series of questions or dynamics, I’m allowing this show to live in relationship to the audience in a different way... It’s a simple idea, there’s nothing really extraordinary about it.”
We’re prepared to argue otherwise.

All the Way Home runs Jan. 10-14 at Queen Elizabeth Theatre, 8pm. $20-$30 from ElectricCompanyTheatre.com.

The Writerly Life

Joyful Noise

JOYFUL NOISEStarring Dolly Parton, Queen LatifahDirected by Todd Graff

The Swell Season

MUSIC: Breaking up is hard to do in ‘The Swell Season’

Jay Baruchel talks about Goon

COVER STORY: Canadian Film 2012 preview w/ Jay Baruchel

Carl Bessai

COVER STORY: Canadian Film 2012 preview w/ Carl Bessai

David Cronenberg

COVER STORY: Canadian Film 2012 preview w/ David Cronenberg

Waiting for Godot

Great ‘Godot’ worth the wait

Jim Cuddy

Jim Cuddy keeps up his solo streak

Electric Company Theatre's Kim Collier

My interview with Electric Company Theatre's Kim Collier is in this week's WE.

STAGE: Electric Company’s new show hits ‘Home’

JOYFUL NOISE
Starring Dolly Parton, Queen Latifah
Directed by Todd Graff