DETAILS

Doing Leonard Cohen by OYR
Big Secret Theatre
Tuesday, November 25 - Saturday, November 29

More in: Theatre

Leonard Cohen is the “unofficial poet laureate of Canada,” according to one ensemble member of One Yellow Rabbit, and he’s also the subject of their current production, Doing Leonard Cohen, originally performed in 1997. Adapted and directed by OYR co-founder and co-artistic director Blake Brooker, the show is brought to life by ensemble members Andy Curtis, Michael Green, Denise Clarke and Onalea Gilbertson. The theatre troupe is re-mounting the production here in Calgary, before taking the show on the road for a run in Toronto.

“We were fascinated with Leonard Cohen, particularly his poetry and prose,” says Brooker. “We thought, ‘Wow, it would be fun to adapt it for a performance,’ because we found the material sexy, energetic, refreshing and funny.”

“Everybody knows Leonard Cohen for his songs, but very few people know him for his earlier work,” says Brooker.

Cohen’s first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, was released in 1967. Prior to that, however, he already had a large body of literary works, including his first published poetry collection, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), and his 1966 CanLit classic, Beautiful Losers.

Doing Leonard Cohen is divided into two parts. The first involves the reading and physicalization of more than 50 of Cohen’s poems from all his poetry books, except the most recent, published in 2006.

“The poems are woven together with the theme of romantic love between two couples who are shifting allegiances. A lot of his early work is about love, romance, desire, loss, pain and romantic mischief. The first act shows these four figures going through these couplings and uncouplings,” says Brooker.

“It’s hard to tell where one poem ends and another poem starts. It’s seamless.”

Movement throughout the piece supports the text of the poetry, which deals with Cohen’s “perennial concerns of how do you navigate what’s happening on the inside of you, with the terms and conditions of the exterior world,” says Brooker.

The second half of the evening is an adaptation of Cohen’s novel, Beautiful Losers. “It’s a meditation on the identity of Canada,” says Brooker, noting its themes of French-English relations and Canada’s relationship with the country’s First Nations.

Brooker says these issues remain relevant today, with the 1995 Quebec referendum about seceding from Canada and the many treaty negotiations still underway between First Nations and the government.

The story involves a love triangle, one member of which is a scholar obsessed with studying a 17th century native woman, Kateri Tekakwitha, who was beatified by the Catholic Church.

Brooker says many people associate Cohen with depressing songs. “But, as a young man, he is filled with pop, pizzazz, sharpness. The intellectual fireworks, the pure love of language, he loves Canadian English, he loves our language,” he enthuses.

Doing Leonard Cohen is actually part of a larger trilogy created by OYR, which includes Sylvia Plath Must Not Die and Dream Machine. There will be a special afternoon performance of Sylvia Plath Must Not Die on Saturday, November 29.

“Doing Leonard Cohen is a neat way to get introduced to Cohen’s literature,” Brooker concludes and, considering Cohen’s iconic status in Canada’s cultural landscape, that in itself makes this a show not to miss.