| Theatre in Calgary. Vibrant? Yes. Exciting? You bet. Tough on new companies with a limited audience? Yes – unfortunately.
Few of Calgary’s professional theatre companies can afford the kind of resident ensemble of artists traditionally found in European theatre. One Yellow Rabbit and Theatre Junction are the only exceptions, with the latter now boasting the larger group of in-house actors, directors and designers.
In recent years, Theatre Junction has been able to build and maintain an ensemble through hard work, deft handling of its budget and the continuing generosity of an anonymous donor. For audiences, that means the enjoyment of seeing familiar faces in wildly different roles. So last season’s sex-crazed Britons in Joe Orton’s What the Butler Saw have now become the crisp, controlled Britons in this season’s opener, W. Somerset Maugham’s The Constant Wife.
This year, the company has 20 active ensemble members. However, shows are still augmented with occasional guest artists. Nikki Loach, director of The Constant Wife and interim artistic director of Theatre Junction, sees the process of staging an ensemble play as "assembling a huge jigsaw puzzle."
"There are players that are always in our family, like Shauna Baird and Jim Leyden," says Loach. "And there will always be others we automatically consider when casting."
The philosophy of Theatre Junction is that everyone gets to play. Each season’s plays are reviewed and chosen by the in-house directors and cast. "You have to work with the other directors in the company, as they have to agree on almost everything," says Loach. "We work together on each decision."
The approach of an ensemble company allows directors time to get to know the strengths of their actors so they can choose plays that best reflect them. But there can also be some disadvantages.
"Sometimes when you are working with a group of people, you can let things get stale. You need to shake them up a bit – that’s why guest stars are part of the process," says Loach. "My definition of an ensemble is a group of people that can work and play well together. They can fail well together and not be crushed."
As well, adds Loach, an ensemble has a chemistry that can’t be overrated. "There is something happening when you are working on this other level – when you are working with people you know. It’s very idealistic."
Which is not to say that working as an ensemble is always harmonious.
"Never having conflict is a little too idealistic, but we repair conflicts as a family," says Loach. "At least, this the philosophy I try to work with."
Baird, who has been associated with Theatre Junction for five years and a full ensemble member for two, enjoys the sense of trust that the company’s approach has built over the years. "People don’t mind you going off in some new direction to try new things," she says.
The veteran actor, whose background includes work on British television, says there are three things in the company’s favour. "We have a four-week rehearsal period (the norm is three weeks), which gives us more freedom to create, we run our shows longer and we can work toward a greater level of depth in the roles."
In The Constant Wife, which was written by Maugham in 1925 and is one of his more successful plays, Baird plays Constance Middleton, a modern woman of genteel British origins who has discovered that her husband is having an affair with her best friend. Her response to this all-too-common betrayal is unique.
"She’s a wonderful character," says Baird. "She is a woman ahead of her time, practical beyond measure, and she bends the rules of a man’s world to her own. She is the Katharine Hepburn of her day."
Other members of the cast include ensemble members Duncan Ollerenshaw, Jim Leyden, Elinor Holt, Valerie Planche and Adrienne Smook. They are joined by guest actors Brian Jensen, Jane MacFarlane and Jim Currey.
The opening of The Constant Wife this month will be the last season première for Theatre Junction in the Dr. Betty Mitchell Theatre, which has been its home since the company started in 1992. The little theatre on the lower level of the Jubilee Auditorium will close when the building undergoes renovations next year and it won’t be reopened.
However, Baird is not too worried about the future of Theatre Junction. "We are working on many different ideas for where we will be, but we are definitely going to be somewhere."
Theatre Junction’s The Constant Wife runs until October 25. For information go to www.theatrejunction.com or call 205-2922. |
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