Tim Matheson

From Studies in Motion

The characters in Unity (1918) live with a constant sense of foreboding. In Europe, young men are killing each other in the trenches of the First World War. In the United States, an influenza epidemic is wreaking havoc, killing millions of people and slowly working its way to the small Saskatchewan town where the story takes place.

The play, which kicks off Alberta Theatre Projects’ upcoming season, takes place 90 years ago, but deals with a very timely apprehension of the future, if Afghanistan is substituted with France, or influenza with global warming.

“It’s very dark, it’s about essentially young people dealing with imminent death,” says Bob White, ATP’s artistic director. “There’s something about that that resonates with youth of our time — the world seems really fucked.”

Despite the dark material, the Governor General’s Award-winning play is described as a comedy, the unhappiness balanced with a lighter look at day-to-day life in a small town. Written by Vancouver playwright Kevin Kerr, Unity (1918) kicks off an eclectic season that White describes as “reflective of what’s going on in [Canadian] theatre.” Every show in the season is Canadian-written, including two offerings from local writers.

The second show, East of Berlin, is the first full-length play from Hannah Moscovitch, one of Toronto’s most acclaimed young playwrights. The play earned glowing reviews at its première last fall for its portrayal of a Paraguayan teenager named Rudi who discovers that his father was an SS officer at Auschwitz. “It’s an odd sort of love story between a father and a son,” says White. “It’s really testing [Rudi’s] love.”

In the new year, ATP will roll out two co-productions with other companies. The first, Don Juan: The Greatest Lover in the World, is a puppet show by Calgary’s nationally renowned Old Trout. Don Juan promises the same humour and colour as the Trouts’ hit Famous Puppet Death Scenes (not to mention a little puppet nudity and plenty of sex). ATP is also mounting a production of Studies in Motion, a play from Vancouver’s Electric Company. The show uses a combination of live action and computer projections to tell the story of Eadweard Muybridge, the half-mad genius who pioneered what later became the cinema. The show explores his relationship to his models, as well as his killing of his wife’s lover and abandonment of his son.

Rounding out the season are ATP’s Christmas show, a family-friendly presentation of Robin Hood, and playRites, the February festival of new Canadian plays. This year’s playRites will feature an outdoor play alongside contributions from veteran playwright Joan MacLeod, humourist Michael Lewis MacLennan and Calgarian Stephen Massicotte.

The festival will also be White’s last — after 20 years at ATP, he’s stepping down next spring. White, who built his career directing new Canadian work at Toronto’s Factory Theatre, moved out West in 1987 to launch playRites. Throughout the ’90s, he built the festival into one of the largest showcases for new plays in the country, and put ATP on the map as the largest producer of new Canadian plays west of Toronto. Succeeding founder Michael Dobbin as artistic director in 1999, his decade in charge has been marked by steady growth at the company and healthy finances.

Appropriately for a guy who’s dedicated his career to creating Canadian work and pumping up the local theatre scene, he’ll spend his final season at the helm overseeing a full lineup of plays written by Canadians, including two major local shows. “The theatre is in good shape,” he says. “I’m leaving at a time when theatre in Calgary is healthier than it has ever been.”