Paper Shines

I love going to theatre. That's the amazing thing about the career I'm pursuing. I can work on my own shows, and enjoy them, and I can support friends, colleagues, and theatre companies. Even if I go to a show where I don't know anyone who worked on it, or am not familiar with the theatre company, I'm supporting the arts. I'm a contributing member of the society I want to live in: A society that cares about the arts.

These past two weekends, I have seen a lot of theatre. This might seem backwards, but I'm going to start with the show that I saw most recently.

This past Saturday, I went to the closing night of paper SERIES, written by David Yee and directed by Nina Lee Aquino. 

I'm familiar with both of these artists, as Nina directed my favourite play, Banana Boys, which David Yee acted in. That was five and a half years ago. I was in first year, and it was the first time I ever saw theatre and realized how different and challenging it could be. I was hooked.

But I'm talking about paper SERIES now. It was performed in the Tank House Theatre at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts. It's a black box type of theatre. The set was extremely minimal, which suits black box very well. There was a desk at centre stage, with a two foot tall stack of paper on the [audience] left side of it. The stack of paper was lit in such a way it looked as though it was lit from within. There were two chairs on stage as well, and these were moved by the actors frequently throughout the performance. Off to one side, there was a record player sitting on two large stacks of paper. There was no real record on it, rather, there was a circular piece of paper. During the scene shifts, an actor would put a new, differently shaped piece of paper on the record player that related to the scene you were about to see. 

paper SERIES is just that. It's a series of six short plays, all connected by paper. There were six performers; each had a scene where they were the main character.

First was PAPER burns, starring Marjorie Chan. It was the story of a woman who goes into the family business of counterfeiting money. As a child, her father taught her that reputation is the most important thing. He built his reputation on being the best counterfeiter. He claims his money is able to pass "the burn test." When their warehouse is raided by cops, he sets everything on fire and goes out the front door, where he is shot down. The Russians, who were paying for this job, are not pleased and want Baht (Chan) to complete the job. She tries to make money that won't burn, and in the process realizes that her father built his reputation on a lie. It simply can't be done. In the end, she comes up with a cunning way to deal with the Russians and maintain her reputation. When they come to pick up the money, she makes them wear masks because the ink fumes are potentially dangerous. What she is really hiding is the smell of gasoline, as she has soaked the place in it. As the Russians are realizing they're unhappy with the money, she walks out the front door and sets the place on fire with the Russians still inside. She has the six pieces of paper needed to start a new life — a driver's license, a birth certificate, a SIN card, a health card, a passport, and a credit card — and on she goes.

The second play was PAPER cuts, with Rosa Laborde as Hope. This one was possibly the funniest as Hope tries to write a break-up letter to her boyfriend, John. "Dear John, It's not me, it's you. That's a lie, it's you. Love, Hope." She writes letter after letter, as John sleeps. She tries different tactics. Brutal honesty, gentle lies, and most hilarious of all, she re-adopts her Russian accent from PAPER burns, and writes "Dear John, We are international group of terrorists. We have kidnapped your girlfriend. If you ever want to see her again, bring $500,000 to locker... 19 at the bus station. But actually, that probably won't work, so just assume that you will never see her again. Love, ... nameless group of international terrorists..." In the end, she uses a metaphor to convey the truth honestly. She writes that she has a papercut, so small you can't even see it, but it hurts.

Next was PAPER dolls, starring Rebecca Applebaum as Mutt. She is a young girl, who has been shunted about from foster home to foster home. She makes paper dolls, and imagines them to be her Scottish father and Chinese mother. The dolls tell her the story of how they lived in the Annex and were happy, how they died in a car crash, went to heaven and made a deal with god, who prefers the name Angus ("God is Scottish!?"), to watch over and protect their daughter until she's 20. It was a very funny piece, with paper cut outs of cars, a dog, a house. When the cars collide in the crash, a handful of shredded paper gets thrown in the air. It also touched on issues of racism, with Mutt talking about how the nun at the orphanage says Mutt is unwanted because she's a half breed. Also, the character has no other name besides "Mutt." I found this aspect interesting, as I know the playwright, David Yee, is of Scottish and Chinese descent. 

The next piece was the most physically comedic, PAPER tears starring Nico Lorenzo Garcia, a waiter in a Chinese restaurant, named Wisdom, (his co-workers' names are King, Calm, and Love,) who decides to personalize the fortunes in the fortune cookies when he overhears a man who is on a date in the restaurant on the phone with his wife. His co-workers join in the fun, and the restaurant gets a reputation for having the most uncanny fortunes. This piece had hilarious sound effects, including the repeated sound of a wink. That was also the moment where my stage management sense started tingling, and I thought, "This would be difficult to call!" The climax comes about when Love writes a fortune to an attractive girl, whose boyfriend receives it instead. The boyfriend pulls a gun on Love, King comes out and pulls a gun on the boyfriend, a friend of the boyfriend comes in and pulls a gun on King, Calm pulls a gun on the friend, and the friend pulls out another gun on Calm. "It was a Mexican standoff in a Chinese restaurant!" Wisdom tells this whole story in response to an interviewer's question about whether or not he has any restaurant experience.

PAPER folds followed that piece, completely changing the pace. Byron Abalos delivers this monologue in response to his girlfriend who has just broken up with him. Interesting note: his girlfriend is played by Laborde, and Abalos played the sleeping boyfriend in PAPER cuts, so this piece is an alternative break up between the same actors. In PAPER folds Symbol's (Abalos) girlfriend is breaking up with him because he didn't kiss her one time, several months ago. Symbol reminds her of how when they met, he gave her his phone number inside an origami crane. He says that that one time he didn't kiss her was just one paper fold, and it takes so many more folds to build a relationship, or an origami crane. He makes her one last origami crane, and every fold he makes he labels as a part of their relationship, "our first kiss, the first night we slept together, meeting the parents..." and so on. In the end, he leaves her with the crane. PAPER folds might have been the weakest piece of the evening, but that doesn't mean it was bad. It was much slower paced, much less comedic. It was also the starting point for the entire series. In the playwright's note, Yee writes that he wrote Paper Folds for a fundraiser after becoming obsessed with a book on origami. From there, he became obsessed with paper, and wrote several short pieces, many of which didn't make it into paper SERIES. 

From the weakest, we went to the strongest for the final piece. PAPER route could be expanded to a full length play, and if it ever is, Kawa Ada should be cast in the role of Isaac again. Isaac is an immigrant to Canada from India, where he was a doctor. In Canada, he is a taxi driver. He tells his story to his fare, when she notices that his taxi driver license has been replaced with his medical credentials. He tells the story of how he met his closest friends, who are all taxi drivers in Canada who had been doctors in India. One day, they are driving along the DVP in two cars, a limo and Isaac's newly paid off, waxed taxi cab, on their way to pick up one of their friends from the airport. A truck jackknifes across all three lanes of traffic, and the friends narrowly escape being crushed. But then they notice that the man who had been driving behind them was thrown from his car and landed on the trunk of Isaac's cab. The man is a doctor in a Toronto hospital. His pulse is weak, and the ambulance won't be arriving anytime soon. Isaac performs a tracheotomy on the doctor to open his airway, but he has lost a lot of blood. The doctor's blood type is on his donor card, and one of them is a match. They find syringes in the doctor's car, and perform a transfusion. The police arrive and arrest the men; they are detained for a few hours and then released. The doctor doesn't press charges. He is, in fact, grateful to the men for saving his life. In celebration of their feat, all of the men replace their taxi licenses with their medical credentials. It was played mostly as a one man show, with Isaac impersonating his friends for his audience. It was a thought provoking piece. It was funny, poignant, sad, happy. It was a high note.

All six of the actors were commendable. They supported each other well, and owned their pieces in their own right. 

I seriously hope this play gets remounted or goes on tour. It deserves a longer life. It's definitely one for the books.

Omelets and Clocks

So, continuing on. 

After my blog post, rehearsals continued as scheduled. Then, at exactly the halfway point between first rehearsal and final performance, the stage manager had to step down from the production for health reasons.

That was stressful. It was especially difficult because I liked the stage manager so much, had been happy to be learning from her, and was worried about her. 

There were four rehearsal days where we didn't have an official stage manager, during which time I tried to be both stage manager and assistant stage manager. I continued to take blocking notes, set the space up for rehearsal, and prepare myself for when I'd be backstage during the production. I also wrote up the schedules, sent tons of emails, and started the rehearsal, called breaks, and started the rehearsal again. This is stuff I've done in the past, but it was the first time I'd been unexpectedly thrown into it. I was relieved when the new stage manager arrived at the beginning of tech week.

Kristin McCollum was the new SM, and she was wonderful too, in a very different way from the previous SM. In some ways, it's hard to know the exact differences between them because tech and show week are so different from standard rehearsals. It's also actually not uncommon to have a rehearsal stage manager and a production stage manager.

Tech week was crazy. I was in the theatre for sixty hours that week. I was tired, to be sure, but I also knew one thing that kept me going: I would rather work long hours in the theatre day after day, then spend one more hour working in a shoe store. It was long, to be sure, but it was a pretty smooth tech week all things considered. I did my part, taping out a props table, setting spike tape, labelling dressing rooms, and light walking. Then in the evenings, we had our various rehearsals.

In the first opera, Bizet's Le Docteur Miracle, there were four singers, two non-speaking extras (or "supers"), and three ballet dancers. There were probably upwards of twenty props, and about six or seven quick changes. During the overture alone, the set doors probably opened and closed twenty times. Backstage was a flurry of activity, that had to disappear every time a door was opened.

The set for both operas was a wall, approximately twelve feet high and thirty feet wide, with double doors in the centre, and another door on either side of the double doors. Sight lines were a bit of a nightmare. Especially during the first opera, when we had nine performers backstage and two ASMs. Not to mention the size of the costumes! The girls' skirts were very wide, as the design of Docteur was eighteenth century. The costumes were borrowed from Stratford, and they were beautiful. The singers all wore wigs, too. Our soprano lead wore a wig that was made to look like her own hair. Instead of having to style her hair every night, the wig and make up ladies (excuse me, the wonderful wig and make up ladies) could just stick the wig on her head, and voila! Hairstyle.

Allow me to summarize Le Docteur Miracle. Laurette is the daughter of the mayor, or Le Podestat, and she is in love with Captain Silvio. Le Podestat will absolutely not allow his daughter to marry a soldier, and he despises Silvio. Silvio, banished from Laurette's house, hatches a plan to win her hand. He poses as a servant in Le Podestat's household. He prepares an omelet for Le Podestat. When Le Podestat and his wife, Veronique, leave for an after breakfast walk, Silvio reveals himself to Laurette. Of course, Le Podestat discovers them and chases Silvio from the house once more. Veronique enters with a letter from Silvio, in which he claims to have poisoned the omelet so recently eaten by Le Podestat. Enter le Docteur. Early on in the opera, we are made aware of Docteur Miracle's presence as a traveling charlatan, selling remedies for what ails ya. He tells Le Podestat that his death is imminent, and demands a ridiculous amount of money for the cure. When Le Podestat is hesitant to pay, Miracle says that in lieu of pay, he will instead take the hand of Laurette in marriage. Le Podestat agrees, since Miracle isn't a soldier. Miracle gives the remedy, and exits quickly with Laurette. The remedy reads, "You are now cured by your son-in-law, Captain Silvio, who never poisoned you." Le Docteur, of course, was Silvio the whole time. Laurette and Silvio enter once more, and are forgiven and blessed by Laurette's parents.

So, if you can imagine the singer who played Silvio, changing to a servant, changing to le Docteur, changing back to Silvio, you can begin to imagine how busy it was backstage. Silvio had a coat and a hat, the servant had an apron, a vest, an eye patch and a hat. Le Docteur had a coat, a hat, and glasses. And he was wearing a pony tailed wig.

The second opera, Ravel's L'heure espagnole, was a complete breeze by comparison. For L'heure we had five singers and five or ten props. We had the same wall with three doors, but whereas for Docteur the doors were magical (people would exit stage left and immediately enter stage right), for L'heure they were set. Stage right was the entrance from the street, center stage went into the rest of the house, stage left went to the clockmaker's tool shop. The stage itself was the clockmaker's shop. There were three large clocks onstage. Two were upright and one was prone and was used as a seat. The design for L'heure was 1950s, and it was beautiful. The clocks, which in the original script were grandfather clocks, were gigantic alarm clocks.

To summarize L'heure espagnole, it's about a woman whose husband, the clockmaker, is not particularly interested in sex. Every Thursday, he tends to the municipal clocks, and she has an hour to spend with her lover. However, this week a client, a muleteer, arrives at the clockmaker's shop before he leaves, and the muleteer stays to wait for the clockmaker. The clockmaker's wife, Concepcion, has to figure out a way to get rid of the muleteer, Ramiro, before her lover arrives. She asks him to take a clock up to her bedroom. He exits with the clock as the lover, Gonzalve, enters.  Concepcion realizes her plan is flawed, as Ramiro will return once he's done. She convinces Gonzalve to get into a clock, and when Ramiro returns she tells him she changed her mind, and she now wants this clock taken to her bedroom. While he goes to get the clock he just took out, Don Inigo Gomez, a banker, enters the shop. He hits on Concepcion and she rejects his advances. Ramiro re-enters with the first clock, and then takes the clock containing Gonzalve out, Concepcion follows. On his own in the clock shop, Don Inigo decides to get into a clock and wait for Concepcion to come back. Instead, Ramiro comes back to watch the shop. Soon after, Concepcion re-enters and claims that the clock is going backwards, and she simply can't have that. Ramiro exits to get the clock containing Gonzalve. The real reason Concepcion is trying to get rid of Gonzalve is because he keeps composing poetry, rather than getting on with it. Don Inigo reveals himself to Concepcion, and at first she thinks he's crazy for being in the clock, and just wishes he would go away. Then the things he says start to hit close to home for Concepcion, as Don Inigo says that young, poetical lovers are often inexperienced. Ramiro comes back with Gonzalve in the clock, and asks if he should bring the clock containing Don Inigo up to the room. Concepcion agrees, and Ramiro unwittingly takes Don Inigo to her room. Concepcion asks Gonzalve to leave, but he doesn't. She goes up to Don Inigo. Ramiro enters again, and shortly after Concepcion follows, again unhappy with the clock. Don Inigo was stuck in it. Ramiro fetches Don Inigo and the clock down again. Concepcion suddenly realizes how sexy Ramiro is, and she invites him up to her room, without any clock. The clockmaker returns to find two men in his shop, one of whom is stuck in a clock. The clockmaker sells his clocks to Don Inigo and Gonzalve, who don't want the clockmaker to realize their real reason for being there. Concepcion and Ramiro enter together, and the clockmaker apologizes to his wife since she doesn't have a clock for her room. Luckily, Ramiro passes by every day, regular as clockwork, so he will tell her the time. 

The challenge for this opera was obviously the clocks. They had to be light enough for one person to carry, and big and strong enough to enclose a person. They had false backs that went up against trap doors hidden in the walls, so that the singers could escape to backstage, and re-enter the clocks from backstage. The clocks had large doors on the sides for the singers to get in and out of onstage too, of course. There were also little circular doors where the number 12 was, so that while the singers were in the clocks, they could open this small door to see what was going on and to sing, of course. So, while L'heure espagnole was much easier than Le Docteur Miracle, I had to help singers get in and out of trap door/clocks, and move the clocks about backstage. 

So, that was it. My first apprenticeship credit, and my first time ever working on an opera. It was a really fantastic experience, with great people all around. 

It's been a week and a half since the final performance, and I think I finally have the music out of my head.