Melissa MacPherson, front, in The Invisible – Agents of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Catalyst Theatre at the Grand Theatre. Photo by Dahlia Katz. .
By Liz Nicholls, .ca
The Catalyst hit spy musical that opens Thursday at the Eva O. Howard Theatre returns to us Jonathan Christenson’s compelling all-female World War II espionage story, pried from history and imagined in a high-style, thrillingly theatrical way.
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And as a bonus, The Invisible – Agents of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which launches a three-city tour (Vernon B.C., Saskatoon, Regina) here, rediscovers for Edmonton audiences “a great theatre,” as Catalyst artistic director Jonathan Christenson declares it. A theatre they may well not know about.
The Eva O. Howard, with its big stage, inviting raked seats, and full fly-tower, lies embedded in the Victoria School of The Arts. Until the Jubilee Auditorium was built in 1957, it was Edmonton’s largest theatre, a traditional 800-seat proscenium house. And by artistic happenstance it dates from the same era, the ’40s, as the 2019 musical by Christenson (book, music, and direction) and Bretta Gerecke (production design). “It’s a beautiful theatre, a place where you’d want to see other shows.”
The Invisible – Agents of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Catalyst Theatre 2020. Photo by dbphotographics
One of the last shows to open in February 2020 before the global COVID shutdown of theatre, The Invisible has played stages across the country. This time, Catalyst is producing it in partnership with Victoria School of the Arts, an experiment, as Christenson explains, in “re-engaging with the audience after the pandemic.” As theatres across the country have marked, “people have shown a bit of reluctance to make their way back into theatres…. Why not take the work to the audience rather than ask the audience to come to us?”
After all, “high school kids, late teens, college-age people have been a huge fan base for Catalyst historically,” he says of the company’s enviable link to the much-coveted younger audience. “And this was a great opportunity for us to re-connect and bring them into the work in a new way…. We rehearsed here, we tech-ed the show here. We’re running here,” he says of the Eva O. Howard. “There have been lots of chances for the kids to come to rehearsal and observe, and for us as artists with do Q&A’s with them, and workshops….”
“We’ve been very present in their lives since we arrived, and it feels like there’s a real sense of their ownership of the show,” he thinks. “So exciting. I think they’ve really enjoyed having a team of professional artists around, and we’ve enjoyed having the energy of these kids, at the point in their lives when the world is their oyster and they’re excited about all the possibilities.”
At the same time, the Vic theatre department has been rehearsing a student production of Christenson’s 2007 play-with-music Frankenstein, opening late October. “When these kids come to Invisible rehearsals, they have pretty insightful questions for the actors.”
Melissa MacPherson in The Invisible – Agents of Ungentlemanly Warfare, from 2020. Catalyst Theatre. Photo by dbphotographics
“The challenge of writing a show for an entirely female cast” was part of Christenson’s original attraction to creating The Invisible, he says. When the story of Churchill’s top-secret Special Operation Executive who recruited and trained an elite international corps of women agents — each with her own specialty in stealth warfare — and sent them behind enemy lines into France in 1940, came to his attention, Christenson knew he’d landed his inspiration.
One of the powerful thrusts of the storytelling is that the unseen heroes (“here today, gone tonight”) who risked everything are “ordinary” women who looked at the state of the world, subverted the womanly restrictions of the times, and opted to be extraordinary. Some of his characters are based on real women. Melissa MacPherson, for example, plays Evelyn Ash, inspired by the Romanian-born spymaster Vera Atkins, the assistant to the head of SOE in charge of female recruits. Others, like Maddie the Parisian chanteuse, are fictionalized composites.
“It came out of a time when the questions ‘what do I really believe in?’ and ‘what would I be willing and ready to fight for?’ were (pressing).” And they haven’t gone away, to say the least. “The times are pretty scary right now,” as Christenson says. “Every time we come back to the show, the world is showing more examples of the very same issues….” He points to “a deepening sense of the relevance of the piece, sadly, as we’ve worked on it.”
“Though the ending is not a happy one, the goal is to offer some sense of hope, that change is possible, that the spirit of resistance endures.”
The Invisible – Agents of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Photo by Citrus, 2019 Photography
Though very different than Catalyst creations of the past, Nevermore, Frankenstein, and Hunchback among them, “I think The Invisible is recognizably Catalyst’s work.” It is, perhaps, closer in its dramatic storytelling to Vigilante, Catalyst’s 2015 rock ‘musical’ spun from a violent chapter in the history of southern Ontario, and the fortunes of the Irish immigrant Black Donnellys.
The Catalyst signature includes bold physicality, striking theatrical imagery, inventive and unusual use of music in storytelling. The Invisible has, arguably, Christenson’s more richly varied musical score. The text that happens in Gerecke’s projection and light design suggests a cross between film noir and a graphic novel. “You’e always on a journey,” muses Christenson, on the life of a theatre artist. “And it’s not always conscious; the piece takes on its own life…. Every show I learn a bit more.”
Of the seven-member cast, some are returning to this high-tech production and some, as always with Catalyst productions, are newcomers. The dynamic always changes with fresh energy, says Christenson. A week ago, Chariz Faulmino valiantly took on the part of Maddie the chanteuse. “I’ve rewritten the role to reflect Chariz’s Filipino background. And I love what she’s bringing to the role, a new feistiness to the character.”
After all, Catalyst’s m.o. is that every iteration of a show is a draft, and a chance to do some re-thinking, re-writing, improving. And that, says Christenson, has happened again.
PREVIEW
The Invisible – Agents of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Theatre: Catalyst
Written, composed, and directed by: Jonathan Christenson
Production design by: Bretta Gerecke
Starring: Chariz Faulmino, Kristi Hansen, Melissa MacPherson, Katie McMillan, Amanda Trapp, Tahirih Vejdani, Justine Westby
Where: Eva O. Howard Theatre, Victoria School of the Arts, 10210 108 Ave.
Running: Thursday through Oct. 5
Tickets: simpletix.com
