>>PREVIEW
DEATH; A COMEDY
Runs until April 28
Redhanded Film and Theatre and Random Beings
Motel (Epcor Centre)
As the title of their upcoming production Death; A Comedy bluntly suggests, the grave truth is that Nicola Elson, Melanie Windle and Rosanna Saracino are no strangers to dealing with death. In fact, all three became intimately and quickly acquainted with grieving when, over a period of only six months, they collectively experienced a wave of deaths of unnerving coincidence.
In 2005 the trio were working on their first Fringe production together, Beautifuler, set to tour the Winnipeg and Edmonton Fringes, when a series of deaths claimed eight people known to the three women – the first of them being Windle’s partner.
"We all went through the same experience. Bordering on creepy," says Elson.
"It was a dark hour trying to stay focused," adds Saracino. "And meanwhile, being in this place of complete shock. But the work helps pull you through."
It was a process Saracino describes as "having a target painted on your back," with the escalating coincidences so close as to be seemingly related. Elson, for one, lost her mother shortly thereafter and recalls throwing away a bracelet the three had worn to remember the death of Windle’s partner.
As a result, the three women were left with a collective desire to discuss and process death, all while trying to find something entertaining in it all. The result toured last year’s Edmonton and Calgary Fringe Festivals, revealing the workaday labours of a pair of "Deathticians," Logi (Elson) and Sprite (Windle) – overall-clad workers tasked with reaching across time and space to bury the dead.
Co-presented by Redhanded Film and Theatre and Random Beings, Death is a clown piece with exaggerated characteristics from Eastern European theatre and even Kabuki. With the production encompassing nearly as many locations as the Deathticians’ own travels, the piece has since been workshopped by Mump and Smoot’s John Turner and the Alberta Playwrights’ Network.
For Windle, the sheer number of perspectives involved in the piece, physical and otherwise, are especially appropriate when addressing a subject that is itself highly individual. Like the cultural rituals that its Deathticians conduct, from Tibetan dismemberment to Egyptian mummification, everyone deals with death uniquely.
"For me it was fascinating and helpful to find out how many of those cultures have approached that part of life," she says. "The loss of others as well as eventually the loss of our own. And then it led us to these two characters, grappling."
In addition to the collaboration between the show’s two actors and its director, the diversity of various cultures and peoples’ approaches to death is now a major component of the show with the addition of vaudeville-style pieces before each performance. Featuring local clowns like Mooki Cornish and Judith Mendelsohn, as well as fight performances by local fight choreographers Laryssa Yanchak and Adrian Young, death-themed works will open every night.
One of the performers contributing to Death; A Comedy is Steve Jarand, a longtime member of local improv troupe Loose Moose and a seasoned mask performer. Along with fellow Loose Moose members Lee Lancaster, Jeremy Schteltzer and Samantha Nichols, Jarand will present a pair of mask performances, one half-mask and the other full-mask, a medium he sees as especially appropriate for one of the most important and yet often avoided topics around.
"Masks deal in truth and honesty so they don’t shy away from topics," he says.
"Half masks are innocent," he adds. "If they discover something about death it’s quite natural, like a child would discover. With the full masks, there is a tragic (and) serious nature about them, so the topic of death is a good one for full masks because they understand the slow-feeling nature of it. That you don’t try to overexpress something about death, you feel it and absorb it. That’s very useful for a full mask."
Together, Elson, Windle and Saracino have already experienced death from three unique perspectives, channelling the result into a playground of physical comedy and absurdity. While their experiences may not exactly represent the normal progression of grief, five stages or otherwise, these three women and the show’s assembled group of artists will provide Calgary audiences with more than one way to look at the oldest fear in human history.
"There are as many different ways of approaching grief as there are people, and I think that will be a wonderful thing for the audience to see," says Windle.
"And just be fun," adds Elson. "Hopefully (the show) allows for a sense of all the emotional territory that we go through, helping us approach things that we’ve lost, how important it is to survive it and laugh at times." |
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