Preview
THE BEAST
Impetus Interdisciplinary Works
Starring Anita Miotti, Rachel Wall and Wade Laing
Written by Patricia Duquette and the ensemble
Directed by Patricia Duquette and Shauna Kennedy
Presented by One Yellow Rabbit
Runs until January 18
Big Secret Theatre (Epcor Centre)
Imagine a creature so grotesque, so horrifying, so repulsive it could represent all of the wrongs of humanity.
That’s the monster being unleashed at One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo this year in Impetus Interdisciplinary Works’ creation The Beast. The show, which was spearheaded by Impetus creative producers Patricia Duquette and Shauna Kennedy, uses an impressive ensemble of artists as collaborators to comment on the bestial condition of humanity.
The Beast follows three representational characters struggling to reconcile anger, disillusionment and fear in a world filled with actions of greed, injustice and brutality. Sound familiar? With today’s war on terror, the distorted dialogue between leaders and the media, and widespread fear of the unknown, Duquette and Kennedy’s company had many themes to draw from. The actions of the human beast as a culture, a species and an individual gave Impetus the incentive to tell a story about a universal struggle.
The show’s characters include The Woman (played by Anita Miotti), The Man (Wade Laing) and The Now Character (Rachel Wall). The three look for answers by revisiting one woman’s immortal origins and the mortal legacy left by her lineage. The ultimate result is that a fantastically ideal woman confronts a terrible beast – the monster responsible for the world’s destruction and despair.
"There are two layers (to the production)," says Duquette, who wrote the show. "One is the theory and practice of art, the other is the concept and the content. The inspiration for the content is personal experience… taking observations of the world around me and relating it to personal experiences in life."
Duquette says her process for creating The Beast started with her doing three days of stream-of-thought writing "of how beastly I felt and how beastly everyone looked to me – that’s where the concept comes from."
From there, Duquette’s writing was turned into a theatrical production through an experimental and collaborative process involving physical theatre and new media technologies. According to Duquette, The Beast explores the relationship between the personal world of emotion and thought, and the societal world of cold facts and machines.
"As for theory and practice, both Shauna (Kennedy) and I for years have worked together… and have a fascination and idealism for collaborative and interdisciplinary work. It’s been an ongoing theme I think for both of us, and I saw the opportunity for the content and the process to have a common link."
The project features contributions by performing arts and media artists, poets, composers and computer programmers. For the individuals involved, collaborative work creates an opportunity to go beyond what they may express through solo work.
"For me, coming from the visual arts, I’ve always felt quite (limited) in what I could do in the studio by myself," says Kennedy. "Working through film and interdisciplinary work really brings people together from different disciplines where you can do so much more than you can by yourself.
"I’ve been living in Montreal for the last year and there’s a lot of convergence between science and technology and visual arts and performance," she adds. "So we wanted to bring that together, too… and see what we could come up with."
The Beast team includes cinematographer Joe Kelly, computer artists Alexandre Castonguay, Mattieu Bouchard and Ken Campbell of the national, artist-run Internet site Artengine, lighting designer Cimmeron Meyer and longtime One Yellow Rabbit associate David Rhymer, who has composed and performs the show’s music. |
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