| I’m a Calgary kid who grew up with One Yellow Rabbit.
I saw Ilsa, Queen of the Nazi Love Camp when it was remounted at the Uptown. I lusted after Denise Clarke with a schoolboy crush after seeing her in Mata Hari – and the lust has never gone away. I once had a pint of Guinness with Michael Green and listened to his hilarious, impromptu monologue about worldwide Guinness temperatures. I’ve long marveled at Andy Curtis’s chameleon-like shifts from character to character and Richard McDowell’s "eerie and haunting" soundscapes. And I’ve followed Blake Brooker’s writing as only a writer can do – with curiosity and admiration.
The Rabbits, together with their biographer Martin Morrow (from whom I learned the craft of theatre criticism), make up a huge portion of my personal mythology. So reading Morrow's Wild Theatre: The History of One Yellow Rabbit – a book about people I know by someone I know – began as a bit of a creepy undertaking.
Those feelings quickly disappeared, however, when the significance of Morrow’s book became clear. Wild Theatre isn’t about the personal and painful moments in the lives of Calgary’s theatre celebrities, although those moments are certainly present. It is, instead, a meditation on One Yellow Rabbit’s significance in the mythology of Canada, Calgary and the theatre.
Morrow had full access to the Rabbits and their archives. He sat in on rehearsals – which remain open to the public to this day – interviewed their friends and families, and followed them on tour.
"The very first thing I did was to go on tour with them in Scotland," says Morrow. "I did a lot of partying with them, which was a lot of fun, but also allowed me to see them with their hair down.
"They’re very easy to get to know. They do that at the Big Secret (Theatre) all the time – it’s part of their esthetic. They like to hang out with the audience afterwards. They were open and welcoming so I didn’t feel like there was any barrier to get to know them."
Morrow’s infiltration of the group wasn’t designed to uncover any dirt. Instead, his time with the Rabbits allowed him to understand their creative process and discover that their creativity is undeniable at all times – even beyond the confines of the stage.
"Consistently, One Yellow Rabbit has been our most important company," says Morrow. "Theatre Calgary, in the early years, in the ’70s, was the most important theatre, generating works by Sharon Pollack and W.O. Mitchell, (and) ATP (Alberta Theatre Projects) continues to give us the PlayRites festival, but One Yellow Rabbit, for 20 years, has been the most important artistically – in large part because they are essentially a creative theatre and they don’t depend on doing other people’s work to survive."
And the mark that the Rabbits have made on theatre is, as Brooker often says, "undeniable." Right here in Calgary, the nurturing spirit and influence of the Rabbits can be seen in a number of young adventurous companies: The Old Trout Puppet Workshop, Mob Hit Productions, Theatreboom and countless others.
But, as Morrow points out, their influence extends far beyond the borders of our city. Ronnie Burkett, Daniel MacIvor, Brad Fraser, Mark McKinney and Bruce McCullough all have ties to the Big Secret Theatre in one way or another. And the Rabbits have been spreading their magic to places as far away as Mexico and Scotland – they are a worldwide phenomenon.
And this is precisely what Morrow’s book conveys. Through tenacious research, bold interviews and keen observation, he has woven the web of Rabbit influence together for us to see, making clear their far-reaching excellence – an excellence that’s rooted in their dedication to their own original work and a fearlessness about revisiting or reworking what they’ve already done.
"Almost by necessity, and by desire, they continually create new work," points out Morrow. "I like the idea that they’ve built a repertoire and that they’ve kept coming back to it.
"Early on people would say, ‘Why are they doing that again? Didn’t they do that last year?’ But that was one of the first things I got. I thought, ‘No, actually, if they’ve done something that didn’t quite work, instead of just shelving it like always happens in regional theatre, they’d go back, take another look at it and redo it."
Right in our midst, downtown in the Centre for the Performing Arts, is a world-renowned experimental theatre group that some Calgarians still don’t know exists.
"We’ve got something special going on here," says Morrow. "It’s much more than a bunch of kids trying to produce some sort of avant-garde theatre. And, of course, they’re not kids anymore."
Morrow’s book might go a long way towards making people aware of One Yellow Rabbit’s presence – they certainly deserve to be as loved here as they are throughout the theatre world. But, even if it doesn’t illuminate the Big Secret, Wild Theatre is still a wonderful reminder for OYR fans that there is greatness in our midst. |
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