Request Programme, Northern Light Theatre. Graphic supplied.
By Liz Nicholls, .ca
Northern Light Theatre artistic director Trevo Schmidt, Northern Light Theatrel. Photo supplied.
When the director says “it’s not really directing,” you know something’s up.
“It’s more like supervision, or guidance, or something … or air traffic control?” says Trevor Schmidt of his production of Request Programme, the highly unusual finale of Northern Light’s 50th anniversary season, starting performances Friday.
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That, he thinks, is the exciting, and terrifying thing about the complicated way he’s producing the wordless solo theatre piece (a play? performance art?) from the early 1970s, by the German avant-gardiste Franz Xaver Kroetz. “So many parts, so much of it I have no control over. And that is super-stressful,” said Schmidt last week.
Even “rehearsing” has shape-shifted its traditional meaning, since the actors have no lines to learn, and a different actor takes to the stage, alone, at every performance. “So many variables, so many questions from people I don’t know how to answer yet…. We won’t know the answers until we’re actually doing it!”
Vanessa Sabourin, in Request Programme, night #1 of the run. Northern Light Theatre. Photo supplied.
The production history of Request Programme since its 1973 Stuttgart premiere is to have a single actor star for the duration of the run. It was Schmidt’s own inspiration to have a different cast of one every night at NLT: 16 actors, all women, of different ethnicities and ages, 20-something to 80-something, one t a time. Call it a veritable who’s who of Edmonton faves, starting Friday with Vanessa Sabourin and ending May 16 with Linda Grass.
In honour of the theatre’s milestone birthday, what the performers have in common is that they all have an NLT credit in their resumés. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the women who’ve worked here. And an interesting experimental challenge for actors to come in and take a risk… I’ve worked with all of them. And some of them are returning to the stage after an extended period away.”
“It’s one night of your life,” says Schmidt of the proposition he offered the actors. “There’s a bit of prep work involved. But it’s not learning a bunch of lines, you’re getting paid. (The character) eats during the show, so we’ll buy you dinner!” Persuasive as he is, Schmidt says he got turned down a few times by actors who found the prospect too scary.
playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz. Photo supplied.
The script, as he describes, “reads very much like a story” — the mundane details of an ordinary evening in the life of an “ordinary” woman that starts when she comes home from work. “She comes in. She’s tired. She takes off her coat and checks her mail. She notices a spot on her coat the gets a cloth from the kitchen and tries to wipe it away. She decides it’s good enough and moves on.” She cooks and eats dinner, cleans up, at some point tunes in to a call-in radio show, gets ready for bed. And something happens that turns the quotidian into the momentous and the gut-wrenching.
Despite the amount of detail, says Schmidt, “there’s not much (in the script) about what is happening here, who she is, or what she’s thinking…. What are we meant to be seeing? What is the insight we’re getting into this person?.” That, he says, is for each actor, and the audience, to figure out.
“On the first night we’ve not going to have a lot of insights or advice for the actors. By the end (of the run) we can say ‘hey, here’s something to watch for. Or ‘don’t do this!’.”
Every show will be different, and undoubtedly a different length (“we’re thinking about an hour, but we’re not sure”). And even what the actor prepares onstage and eats won’t be the same night to night. “Mostly microwave stuff or sandwiches,” says Schmidt. But at least one of his cast had said they want to bring in their own leftovers. In the course of the show, three cigarettes will get smoked — but when? how?.
And Schmidt has invited the actors, if they want, to bring onto the set “a personal object, a photo of someone you know, or someone you’ve loved, something about their childhood.”
“What each show does have in common in the soundtrack of the radio show the woman tunes in to, sound designer Dave Clarke’s department. “The intention is to have the actor genuinely respond to something they’re hearing for the first time.”
Even the sound track is custom-tailored for anniversary audiences. Clarke is recording songs for the phone-in radio request program from 10 local women singer-songwriters, including Alex Dawkins, Ellie Heath, Andrea House, Marissa K, Holly Sangster, Cayley Thomas, Lindsey Walker, Kaeley Jade, Dana Wylie, Patricia Zentilli. Not coincidentally, most are involved in Edmonton theatre. “We’re trying to bridge the two art forms,” says Schmidt.
He plans to tell each actor before the show that if they’re relaxed enough to respond to the music, it adds a layer. But “they don’t have to feel anything…. An audience will project things onto them, based on what they’re feeling, and what story they’re building.”
“There something inherently dangerous about it, something inherently theatrical.”
PREVIEW
Request Programme
Theatre: Northern Light Theatre
Written by: Franz Xaver Kroetz
Directed and designed by: Trevor Schmidt
Starring: One actor per night: Nadien Chu, Patricia Darbasie, Beth Graham, Linda Grass, Sue Huff, Cheryl Jameson, Kristin Johnston, Janelle Jorde, Namet Kanji, Larissa Poho, Vanessa Sabourin, Nicole St. Martin, Davina Stewart, Melissa Thingelstad, Michelle Todd, Holly Turner
Where: Studio Theatre, Fringe Arts Barns, 10330 84 Ave.
Running: Friday through May 16
Tickets and full schedule of actors: northernlighttheatre.com (ticket-buyers can access $10 tickets for subsequent performances).
