“It’s a very theatrical book,” he says during a brief break in rehearsal. “(Findlay) had a theatrical background, and many of the scenes are written with that in mind.”
Garnhum is staging his adaptation of The Wars as the first show of Theatre Calgary’s 40th season, starting September 18. From its humble beginnings in the basement of a downtown movie theatre in the late ’60s, Theatre Calgary has become known for staging big productions. The Wars, with a cast of 16, is no exception. The play’s topic is also ambitious for Theatre Calgary.
“(The play) just seems like it’s all about now. It’s meant to stimulate conversation,” he says. To that end, the company has been encouraging veterans and current soldiers to come to the show and stay afterwards for group discussions with the audience. Garnhum’s hope is to get people talking about the relation between the play and the current war, which shouldn’t be hard. “The play itself is called The Wars. It’s not called ‘a light rumination on something easy’ — it’s called The Wars.”
With veteran actor Christian Goutsis playing the lead, Robert Ross, Garnhum feels people will connect with the play and the sense that the character, far from being an experienced soldier, is a slightly naive young man whose experiences in the war slowly change him. “He’s a reluctant hero. He gets up in front of a bunch of guys and doesn’t know what to do,” says Garnhum. “There’s so much that is profoundly Canadian and universal about this story.”
While The Wars is a big project, the rest of TC’s season is decidedly less ambitious. The productions are sure to be crowd-pleasers, but theatre fans will likely be looking for something more.
The holidays will bring TC’s long-running A Christmas Carol, the classic Dickens tale that Garnhum had a hand in re-imagining last year. For this year’s production, he’ll be holding onto everything he did last time, except for the addition of a few more fireworks.
In the new year, the company will stage Our Town, a heart-warming Thornton Wilder play starring Citytv’s Dave Kelly, about the day-to-day lives of people in a small town. Garnhum picked the play because it turns a mirror to the audience, as its central character breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to them. “It’s one of the greatest plays that celebrates theatre,” he says. “It’s about how we connect with Calgary. It’s not just Our Town, it’s your town. I think this is a perfect fit for Calgary.”
The next production on the roster is Enchanted April, a play based on a 1920s novel about four women who ditch their husbands in dreary London for an Italian getaway. Garnhum fell in love with the play when he saw it in New York three years ago and decided to bring it north and stage it in the dead of winter. “I like the idea that you’re going to come hang up your coats and the curtain goes up, and there’s sunny Italy,” he says. The season’s final production is Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, a big musical Garnhum says is an important part of what Theatre Calgary does. “We’re hoping to bring new people to the theatre. People who might not have been there before,” he says.
Aside from The Wars, the most interesting play of the season is Vigil, a black comedy about a young man who waits for his bitter old aunt to die. Despite the play’s acerbic premise, the characters redeem themselves by bonding as they spend months together.
Theatre Calgary doesn’t always try to make people think, but that’s not always the point. If the company can point to its greatest success, it’s in connecting non-theatregoers with Calgary’s vibrant professional theatre scene. And if Garnhum seems non-plussed by his tough job, it’s because he’s confident he can keep the company relevant and fresh in a city that boasts a plethora of theatre companies unimaginable 40 years ago when Theatre Calgary first started.
