Small room hosts play about big ideas
Credit to Author: Dana Gee| Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 01:16:01 +0000
Spine
When: Jan. 24 & 25
Where: Peninsula Theatre, White Rock
When: Jan. 30-Feb. 8
Where: Havana Theatre
Tickets and info: $20, showpass.com
While there is always a good case for going out to see big buzz worthy theatre shows — who doesn’t love a little Dear Evan Hansen or the never closing Wicked — there should also be room in our entertainment worlds for the productions that are staged for less people than there are in a modern full-scale symphony orchestra.
Fringe festivals are always welcome homes to tiny theatre productions as are local theatre companies.
Case in point is the Backbone Theatre Collective’s new production of Spine that will run at the Havana Theatre from Jan. 30 to Feb. 8. Written by Clara Brennan, Spine was a big hit at the Edinburgh Fringe festival before moving onto London.
The play is a pan-generational story about the freedom and need for public learning, the evils of austerity and the importance of inspiring a younger generation as Glenda a senior cockney woman does here with Amy a tough-talking teenager from Yorkshire.
Actor Kate Besworth plays Amy but also channels Glenda in the one-woman play.
For those who haven’t been to the Havana Theatre it is a 60-seat venue situated in the back of the venerable Commercial Drive restaurant.
The intimate nature of this small theatre experience can be a bit intimidating as the artists are almost in your lap. It can take a beat to get used to, but in the end the experience is different in a very good and interesting way. It is also very affordable at $20 a ticket.
A veteran of Bard on the Beach productions — last year’s Taming of the Shrew and Shakespeare in Love — Besworth has never performed professionally in such an intimate venue but she is looking forward to the experience.
In the play Spine actor Kate Besworth, seen here during a recent rehearsal, plays a teenager named Amy who learns some life lessons from a senior named Glenda. Besworth plays Amy and channels Glenda for this new production on at the Havana Theatre Jan. 30-Feb. 8.
“In this I can see everyone. It is really intensely intimate and I’s so looking forward to it,” said Besworth who grew up in Canada’s theatre town of Stratford, Ont. before moving to Toronto then Vancouver four years ago. “I don’t have to project. They will hear and see everything I want to do. I don’t have to make anything bigger than it already is.
“There’s no heightening. It’s just real,” added Besworth. “On top of that it is seeing the eyes. There is nothing more humble or vulnerable then seeing into someone’s eyes when you are on stage. That’s the thing we get over any other medium.”
Audience members rest assured Besworth will not drill into your soul through your eyes.
“You can tell when you look at someone if they want you to do that,” said Besworth with a laugh. “We don’t do it if the person turns away or is obviously uncomfortable.”
Bollard, who lives in London and Vancouver and works around the world teaching acting for the International College of Musical Theatre, sees the small Vancouver production as a big opportunity for creativity.
“The exciting thing for me is when you don’t have a big budget and you don’t have a theatre with all the bells and whistles it really means that you have to be more creative and you have to co-create with all your designers,” said Bollard. “It forces you to be more creative.”
Bollard first saw Spine about five years ago in a student production in London. She “fell in love” with the play and carried it around with her for a handful of years.
Then a couple of years ago while she was an assistant director on Bard on the Beach’s Merchant of Venice she saw her Amy and quickly took action.
“Kate is a director’s dream. She walks into rehearsals with big bold choices and she fully commits to them. She is a great actor,” said Bollard. “I sat there in the rehearsal hall and thought: ‘oh my God she’s perfect. I really want her to play this role.’”
Bollard gave Besworth the script and it took the actor just an afternoon to say yes. But as usual things don’t just happen with the snap of the fingers. There are lots of moving parts that go into taking a play from the page to the stage.
However, in this case, the delay was quite fortuitous as the timing for a story about a young woman learning how to stand up to the powers that be seems pretty on the nose for today’s Greta Thunberg world.
“It feels beautifully synchronistic,” said Besworth.
Bollard agrees the wait was worth it when it came to staging Spine and she believes that while it challenges the status quo it reminds us of the importance of connecting with others you may not think to reach out to.
“Yes it is really good timing. I think it is perfect,” said Bollard. “I think all of these other things with young women hadn’t really started to hit as big a few years ago. It is perfect timing. But what I really love is the fact that there is a friendship of a senior citizen and a young woman and I think what is going on now is people are getting more and more divided, especially people of different ages. You know the OK Boomer and all that kind of stuff is going on. I think it is important to bring people together and show that we are so much alike and that older people have lived a life too and they have something to offer. I love that part of the play.”
Besworth loves the relationship too and she loves the chance to play a young woman who is so on the cusp of her life, a life that she intends to make matter.
“She’s so wonderful. She has way more attitude than I do,” said Besworth, 31, about her teenage character. “The energy is different. She is very chest forward, chin forward. He movements are sharp. She is fierce. She’s indelicate. One of my favourite things about Amy is she has no filter. She doesn’t give a f–k.
“I want everyone to see Amy, not me,” said Besworth. “Meet this girl and be inspired. She is calling us forward. Is not only saying it is possible to act but she’s kind of demanding that it is important to as well.”
For Besworth the chance to play both women and have the stage all to herself is a pretty big and exciting deal.
“It’s just me. There is no one there to help or catch me or make the plot go the way it is supposed to go. But that is also extremely freeing as I get to chart the journey myself from the beginning to the end and if something feels wonky one night I can change directions and no one is going to yell at me,” said Besworth. “I don’t have to check in beforehand. I have to just check in with myself. Which is very cool.
“This is both challenging and exciting. It’s a dream gig.”