FFWD Weekly
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Cover Story by Lori Montgomery There’s an odd confluence of artistic approaches happening at One Yellow Rabbit for the next few weeks. In original cabaret style, the company responsible for such things as Ilsa, Queen of the Nazi Love Camp and Doing Leonard Cohen will be joined in the Big Secret Theatre by an army of special guests – among them, funny guy Bruce McCulloch, and hockey enthusiast/ author Dave Bidini, who lives a double life with the Rheostatics. "It’s good to mix up different styles and sensibilities and find out what the resonance will be when they’re placed side by side," says OYR’s co-artistic director Blake Brooker, explaining how these disparate elements came together. "We’re all fans ourselves (at OYR), and so we just wanted to bring people that we were fans of. To be able to see these guys very up close and personal is really a treat." The cabarets will run over three weekends, and there will be a new show each weekend. October 12 to 14 will feature McCulloch along with Craig Northey and Doug Elliot of The Odds, and Decidedly Jazz Danceworks’s Kim Cooper, among others. That performance will be hosted by Ilsa, Queen of the Nazi Love Camp (sometimes recognized as her alter ego, Denise Clarke). For the weekend of October 19 to 21, the event will be hosted by fan favourite Anthony Curtola, who bears an uncanny resemblance to OYR’s Andy Curtis. He’ll offer some of his own song stylings, and will pave the way for special guests Alejandro Escovedo and an eclectic bunch that includes bellydancer Laariah and lounge singers Dick and Sandi. The final weekend, October 26 to 28 will feature The Plaid Tongued Devils and writer/actor Doug Curtis, as well as a mix of music and spoken word by Bidini, who will read from his new book, Tropic of Hockey. That evening will be hosted by The Baron from In Klezskavania (a manic Michael Green). "It’s really in keeping with the old sense of cabaret, in which you’ll see elements of music, comedy, theatre, dance – and be able to have your favourite beverage as you do so," Brooker says. The performances can be more spontaneous than when performers are tied to a script, he says, and that’s why the company chose to stage the cabarets at this point in their season, rather than a more traditional piece of theatre. "It’s just a reaction to the fact that some of these cabarets have been quite popular in the past. It’s certainly a format that we love to do, it’s certainly a lot of fun for us, and it seems like it’s a two-way street, because it’s fun for the audience as well." The performances will incorporate echoes of shows that have been popular at OYR in the past, like Ilsa and Mata Hari, but it’s also an opportunity for Brooker to create some new material. In the tradition of the great Berlin cabarets of the 1920s and ’30s, audiences might see some pointed remarks on current events. "The new material is bits and pieces, little comments on what’s going on now," the writer and director says. "That’s one thing about cabarets – they’re very up-to-date, because they’re created just at the time, so they’re snapshots, with references to what we see around us. These aren’t plays – this is a cabaret, so you’ll see significances that have a relationship to now." The mix of old and new in the cabarets seems to be a reflection of the company’s more general philosophy. Rather than focusing exclusively on new work in any given season, Brooker sees value in revisiting some of the older gems. "We want to do new work all the time, and honour the work that’s been created, so we’re always doing something new and something we’ve done before," he explains. "Never forgetting that we have to do new stuff. Never forgetting that we have to keep the old stuff alive. It’s a balance, absolutely 50-50." This year, OYR will produce a new play by Denise Clarke, Featherland, but that doesn’t mean that Brooker, whose work as a playwright is known internationally, is resting on his laurels. Over the summer, he and the OYR ensemble produced Beautiful Jew, a film shot in Calgary, Drumheller and Jerusalem. "The premise is about a used-car salesman," Brooker says. "Something happens to him and he thinks he’s a Jew, and he becomes infected by glory, and moves to the Holy Land. It’s about religious ecstacy. I’ve never seen a movie about religious ecstacy, myself." Brooker doesn’t invest the art of writing with any mystery – he says he just writes when the need for material arises. "Really, it’s on a needs basis. Whenever a deadline is screaming at me, or something’s coming up, I have to write," he says. "This is a business – it’s not rocket science, and it’s not too precious, you know? There’s so much material around you on a daily basis. You read the newspaper or listen to the radio, and things just pop out and jump at you. Also, a lot of these things are character-based... and once you define a character, then it almost thinks for itself inside your own mind." Brooker is quick to give credit to his ensemble of performers: Denise Clarke, Andy Curtis, Michael Green and Elizabeth Stepkowski, who often take part in the process of creation. "I sort of can’t get the ensemble out of my mind anyway when I’m writing, even if I try to do it," he laughs. "I’m always putting them in everything I’m writing, even though they might not be in it – because it’s not up to me. If it was up to me, they’d be in everything. That’s just the way I work."

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