From last year’s Resident Company show
Theatre Junction and The Grand have been inextricably linked since the 96-year-old theatre reopened under the company’s control in 2006. Now, in renaming the space the “Theatre Junction Grand,” 17-year-old Theatre Junction is signaling an artistic direction that essentially began when the space reopened — a venue-based approach devoted more to curating than creating.
Where most local companies are producing seasons of work primarily featuring Calgary-based actors, as Theatre Junction used to, the company has become a showcase for national and international productions. Of the five works to be presented in the 2008-09 season, for example, two are international, two are Canadian and the company’s nine-member resident company of artists has created one.
"I think because we own and operate the building it’s about trying to create a vision for the space itself and creating a context for contemporary live art in Calgary," says artistic director Mark Lawes. "It’s really important to have a look on what’s happening in the country and in other places in the world, and having a look on that for the context of our own work and how our own work is in relationship to that."
The season’s first show, SITI Company’s Radio Macbeth (September 24 to 27), follows Lawes’ training with the New York-based company. Blending the distinctive and iconic styles of its two artistic directors, Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki, SITI’s production imagines a radio production of Shakespeare's most familiar play as haunted by the spectres of all its past performances.
A Canadian first for the company, SITI’s run with Theatre Junction will be followed by a Calgary debut for The Tiger Lillies and their 7 Deadly Sins Concert (October 30 to November 1) — a gothic cabaret based around the seven deadly sins. Best known for their cult success in an operatic adaptation of Struwwelpeter (Shockheaded Peter), the London-based group concludes the season’s international portion, leaving two Canadian works and the fourth show created by the company’s resident company of artists.
Both returning after previous Theatre Junction appearances, solo artist Marie Brassard of Montreal (February 17 to 21) and Vancouver’s Wen Wei Dance company (April 15 to 18) will bookend Theatre Junction’s collective creation, running in February and April respectively. Their return, says Lawes, is an attempt to create a market for Canadian work across the country. "There aren’t a lot of opportunities to tour across Canada,” he notes, “so it’s difficult to have venues presenting on a regular basis."
Opening between the company’s returning performers, Theatre Junction’s own nine-member resident company of artists will present On the Side of the Road (March 18 to April 4), a followup to last season’s Little Red River. Consistently offering the most contentious productions of Theatre Junction’s seasons, the current company includes members from a variety of artistic disciplines working toward creating a single work based on “desire, death and the Canadian West.”
Lawes, who acts as the piece's director and conceptual architect, envisions this year's production production as the second of three works linked together in a series exploring issues of memory, a continuous process the requires more than a single production. Completing the cycle of showcasing work, the company is currently in talks to tour its own pieces.
"We’re such in this mode of commodification," he says. "'Here’s this piece and that exists on its own and I’m going to buy that and sell that and then here’s another piece that’s not related to that at all.' So I’m trying to follow a line of flight or something that’s connected, related — using ideas, using some text maybe, doing variations on themes and having the memory of that past piece and carrying it through one or two pieces."
Nowhere is Theatre Junction’s rejection of that commodification more obvious than in its performance schedule. Its season will include a total of 36 performances that pales in comparison to the scale of other large companies, where a full three-week run alone can include 15 performances.
For Lawes, however, the company’s approach to its performances speaks as much to the reality of the arts in general as it does to Theatre Junction’s particular vision — a vision he believes is building artistic diversity in Calgary.
"You lose money in the arts," he says bluntly. "So the more you do doesn’t mean it becomes more viable. In fact, it’s less viable. Which, in a way, is about what art is: it’s not in the same commercial mode. It’s not commercial, which is why we’re a registered charity. It’s why the theatre has a place in society, or at least searching for a place in society that has some intrinsic value, existing there for the benefit of society as a whole.
"We always think in quantity or how big or how many — I get that question a lot,” he adds. “And for me it’s not about how big or how many, it’s about what we’re trying to build, how we see ourselves in the context of the city and society, and how we’re trying to build a vision for the city."
