THE RED PRIEST (EIGHT WAYS TO SAY GOODBYE)
Alberta Theatre Projects
Directed by Ron Jenkins
Written by Mieko Ouchi
Starring Mieko Ouchi and Ashley Wright
Runs until March 2
Martha Cohen Theatre (CPA)
playRites Festival
Like many a young Suzuki violin student, Mieko Ouchi spent untold hours trying to learn Antonio Vivaldi’s violin concerti. At the age of 18, she threw down the violin in frustration and decided her fate was to be an actor, not a musician.
Fifteen years later, Ouchi is not only an actor, but also a successful filmmaker and a burgeoning playwright. So what is the subject of what she calls her "first grown-up play"? The life of Vivaldi.
More precisely, The Red Priest (Eight Ways to Say Goodbye), premiering at Alberta Theatre Projects’ 17th annual playRites festival, is about a shadowy period near the end of the Italian composer’s life when, as a falling star, he was forced to curry favour with wealthy patrons in order to survive. As Ouchi imagines it, Vivaldi ends up at the estate of a French nobleman, where the virtuoso musician suffers the indignity of being assigned to teach violin to the man’s beautiful, bored wife.
No mere historical romance, the play seeks to find a contemporary resonance in Vivaldi’s plight. "I’ve been a freelance artist for 10 years now," says Ouchi, 33, "and I was able to express a lot of how I feel about that experience.
"Whether you’re trying to court corporate sponsorship or finance your film, as artists we’re still very much in touch with that concept of patronage and finding ways to fund our art."
Like many artists of his time, Vivaldi found a haven in the priesthood and had a day job teaching music to orphan girls at a convent school. The kids became a sensation under his tutelage.
"It was like the Vienna Boys’ Choir of its time," says Ouchi. "People came from all over Europe to listen to these young girls play."
It also established Vivaldi’s career. "He was a real rock star in his day. He’d stalk out on stage, all dressed in black – he’d play up his priest image – and he had this flaming red hair, which is why he was known as the Red Priest. And then he’d just rip these pieces out of the stratosphere on his violin."
But by the time at which her play takes place, Vivaldi had become destitute, having left the school and lost his personal fortune producing his own work. Ironically, the man best known today for composing The Four Seasons believed his immortality rested in writing operas.
"In the end he was very desperate," says Ouchi. "He was writing to everybody he knew, trying to get commissions. It’s believed he was in France for about four to six weeks, and it’s assumed he was at some patron’s house. I took that tiny bit of speculation and imagined what might have happened."
However, the play isn’t just about Vivaldi. The character of his aristocratic pupil, named simply The Woman, is at least equally important, and perhaps more intriguing. As it turns out, beneath her haughtiness and boredom lies a desperation equal to the composer’s.
Ouchi says The Woman was a very personal creation. "I was going through a big breakup in my life, and I think I started writing from the place of a woman who is heartbroken. (The story is) not autobiographical in any way, but it came from those real emotions I had at the time."
In fact, Ouchi herself performs the role in the playRites production, co-starring with fellow Edmontonian Ashley Wright as Vivaldi. Playing the part has also meant picking up the violin again, but Ouchi says her teenage hatred for the instrument is a thing of the past.
"It’s a very different experience now," she says. "I have much more of an appreciation of music, and musicality has been such an important skill in making films and starting to write and direct. It’s been very valuable."
Indeed, her latest film project is a documentary on child musical prodigies for the National Film Board, expected to air on CBC’s The Nature of Things sometime next season. It focuses on a pair of violin wunderkinds from Edmonton.
Although she’s been based in that city since graduating from the University of Alberta in 1992, Ouchi grew up in Calgary. Her association with Alberta Theatre Projects goes back to her high school years, when she participated in the company’s Theatreblitz! program for teens. More recently, she acted in the 1999 edition of playRites.
"I’ve always appreciated ATP’s philosophy," she says. "They’re always picking new plays, risky plays. It’s great to come and be a part of it." |
