FFWD Weekly
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On Stage by Lori Montgomery Chong Tze Chien is part of a very youthful theatre movement. His home base is The Necessary Stage, a Singapore theatre company which was nothing more than an ambitious dream 14 years ago. "The notion of drama was seen as almost a white thing, a Caucasian thing," the playwright recalls. "The (white population) in Singapore would put up the classics – Arthur Miller, Samuel Beckett – and usually to their own community. So the local audiences didn’t have a theatre to call their own." Until some plucky undergrads with a taste for theatre decided to stage lunchtime productions of original Singaporan theatre, and developed a surprise cult following. They’ve evolved into a full-time company that employs Chong as playwright-in-residence, stages five productions annually, tours internationally, and devotes considerable energy to their Theatre for Youth branch. It’s that endeavour that has brought Chong to Calgary. The playwright is in town working with Grade 8 students as part of a theatre exchange program that will see Alberta Theatre Projects’ playwright-in-residence Eugene Stickland return to Singapore with Chong this week. The writers will help each of the two matched classes to create a play about life in their sister city. "Young people are very, very influenced by TV, and that is their main idea of drama," Chong says. "When I teach playwrighting, the students write in a TV manner. You have (characters) A and B in a car, and you have a couple of lines, and then they’re in a living room.... There isn’t a concept of how exactly theatre works." It’s his job, he says, to let the kids in on the secrets of writing for the stage – the secrets he started learning as a child actor with The Necessary Stage when he was 12 years old. He went on to volunteer with the fledgling company in many capacities, including researcher, designer and stage manager. "I had my hands-on experience with them," he says. "Coming from where I come from – and 10 years have passed – I wouldn’t be where I am now if not for the kind of training I received when I was 12 years old. I’m sure there are kids in this society who want to seriously think about the arts as a career. So if I can do what (The Necessary Stage) have done for me, why not? Let me be the bridge." On the topic of education (sort of), the U of C drama program will be presenting the first-year work of two MFA directing students in short runs in April. The Raft, by Canadian playwright Patrick Friesen and directed by David van Belle, will run April 6 to 8 in the Reeve Theatre. Miss Julie, by August Strindberg and directed by Donovan King, will run April 13 to 15. Five local choreographers are banding together to stage an independent production of their work. Laurie Montemurro (formerly of Springboard Dance), Kim Cooper (Decidedly Jazz Danceworks) and Danielle McCullough (presented recently at Dancers’ Studio West) are among the artists presenting 5 Choreographers, 5 Nights at the New Dance Theatre from April 4 to 8. It’s almost April Fool’s Day again, and that means the Green Fools are preparing to take to the streets for their annual parade. Starting at Fort Calgary at noon, and finishing at the Fools’ Crump Manor home around 1 p.m., the parade will involve many, many mildly insane people in wacky hats, clothes and sometimes stilts, making their way through Inglewood for the sole purpose of having fun. Join in the insanity, or just bring some friends to point and laugh. There’s still time to catch the last week of Theatre Calgary’s Holiday, which features uniformly polished performances in a deceptively simple story. Johnny (Kevin Bundy) is the suave hero who falls in love with the rich and beautiful Julia Seton (Caroline Cave), but soon becomes uneasy at the Setons’ expectations that he will abandon his dreams and join the family business. Kate Newby is perfectly cast as Julia’s straightforward sister Linda, who is the only one to appreciate the value of Johnny’s ideals. In director Ian Prinsloo’s unaffected staging, the stark world of the Setons’ drawing room is juxtaposed with the dreamlike quality of the playroom at the top of the Setons’ house, where Linda attempts to balance her emerging love for Johnny with her desire to see her beloved baby sister happily married. You can read it as a condemnation of materialism and excess, or you can kick back and enjoy it as a simple romance, but either way, it’s well done. (Holiday runs in the Max Bell Theatre until April 8.)

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