>>PREVIEW
DIG
Ghost River Theatre
Runs until May 7
Vertigo Studio (Epcor Centre)
Vanessa Porteous is as familiar with the process of creating new work as anyone else in Calgary. For the last eight years, she has served as Alberta Theatre Project’s resident dramaturge, developing new plays for venues like ATP’s annual playRites Festival, as well as directing new works like last season’s Pinocchio. Now, as the director of Ghost River Theatre’s latest production, Glenda Stirling’s Dig, she is beginning to shake the dust from the production for its premiere.
"It’s really hard to work on it without doing puns all day," she says of the rehearsal process. "‘Let’s dig into this scene,’ ‘what’s buried in this scene?’ Because the metaphor of the dig is so potent, she (Stirling) has really captured something there, something very theatrically potent."
The play’s eponymous dig site places three archeologists – Hannah (Caroline Cave), Parker (Charlie Tomlinson) and Stuart (Jovanni Sy) – on a Chinese archeological dig for proof of the legendary Hsia Dynasty, juxtaposing their own development against the literal unearthing of cultural artifacts. Brought together by Parker, Hannah and Stuart share a complicated past laden with artifact theft and a failed romance, while the older Parker is still dealing with his wife’s death. Further complicated by a connection to the infamous Tiananmen Square massacre and the figurative uncovering of a deliberately obscured chapter in Chinese history, the play is an interconnected mesh of themes and characters all focusing on the singular power of uncovering – digging beneath the surface.
Porteous sees an added layer of meaning in both the play’s foreign setting and in the very nature of these three characters’ singular passion toward unearthing another culture.
"People who don’t have a sense of home or presence are the ones who are obsessed with digging up the past and making roots for themselves. And they happen to be archeologists in this play, which is particularly apt," she says.
"Glenda’s an immigrant, and her sense of herself as an immigrant is very powerful. So she relates to that alienation from her home culture, that sense of being rootless."
Ironically, the play’s cast owes a great deal to it own roots, drawing Cave from Stirling’s early days in Edmonton, Tomlinson from early workshops of the play and Sy from the acting company of The Banff Centre’s playRites colony. Though Cave is an ex-Calgarian and Stirling herself lives in Calgary, the play’s cast is a confluence of actors from around the country, alongside a local design team that includes Terry Gunvordahl, Cimmeron Meyer and Peter Moller.
An accomplished director in her own right, helming this season’s deeply moving production of The Syringa Tree, Porteous has recently announced her retirement as ATP’s dramaturge, with her term slated to end this June. While she will continue in her position as co-ordinator of translation projects at the Banff playRites colony, productions like Dig herald the beginning of a freelance career as a director. The change, according to Porteous, is a natural one.
"(ATP artistic director) Bob White and I had been talking about it for a couple of years," she says of her departure. "I think Bob always thought of that job as an apprenticeship position.
"You can’t spend your whole career at one company no matter how much you love them, so it’s for this kind of experience that I’m going freelance," she says, referring to Dig.
Asked if productions like Dig serve as a calling card for her future career, she replies simply, "Well, I’m certainly not going to do a slapdash job, but I never would."
In fact, the process of developing new plays like Dig suits Porteous beautifully. Discussing the play’s in-the-alley staging, the process of uncovering Stirling’s poetic dialogue and bringing together a cast linked to the play’s creation, her passion for her work draws an explicit parallel to the devotion of her production’s protagonists – digging through layers of meaning and literal detritus. It’s an excavation she has committed to, and one she doesn’t see concluding – at least not completely.
"You’re never done," says Porteous. "We say new plays don’t get finished, they just get opened." |
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