Jason Stang

From Doing Leonard Cohen

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the world’s most powerful king and his wild-man best friend fight demons, kill a divine bull and fend off the sexual advances of the goddess Ishtar. So what can you add to this 4,000-year-old classic?

According to One Yellow Rabbit, you can stage the whole thing in La-Z-Boys. “We put it in La-Z-Boys to keep the oral tradition,” says Rabbit Denise Clarke. “We had this really good idea to focus on the voice.”

To add to the audio complexity, the troupe is planning to create the mythical Babylonia of the play with their voices, layered with music.

The Rabbits, regarded as English Canada’s top experimental theatre troupe, will be premiering Gilgamesh La-Z-Boy, a brand new show, this upcoming season, as well as revisiting a handful of other literary classics.

Starting the season is Doing Leonard Cohen, a ’60s-themed show the company first created over a decade ago. The first act is focused on Cohen’s poetry, while the second is an adaptation of the Montreal beat writer’s seminal 1966 novel Beautiful Losers. In the long life of the show, the Rabbits garnered cross-country praise for preserving Cohen’s impulsive, lyrical and often-profane style.

“It was a benzedrene-fuelled rush for him. [We’ve] got that buzz in the play,” says Clarke, who plays a 17th century Mohawk saint in Beautiful Losers (did we mention Cohen wrote the novel while on drugs?). “It’s just a wild ride.”

Complementing the show, the Rabbits will stage another creation about another great poet. Sylvia Plath Must Not Die, which premiered earlier this year, will show for a single night during Doing Leonard Cohen’s run in late November. Sylvia Plath is structured as a correspondence between the title character and Anne Sexton, another 20th century poet whose work is overshadowed by her suicide. Instead of focusing on the women’s personal stories, however, OYR’s show is based on their writing, drawing most of its lines from its characters’ poetry.

Capping the season is a single February performance of Five Hole: Tales of Hockey Erotica, a series of vignettes co-created with Toronto rock band the Rheostatics.

Speaking of music, the Rabbits are also bringing in influential classical composer Philip Glass as an artist-in-residence. Glass will perform several times over the course of the season and première his new symphony, Low, with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra.

CLARIFICATION

Composer Philip Glass will be the artist-in-residence for One Yellow Rabbit’s 23rd annual High Performance Rodeo, not their entire 2008/09 theatrical year. As well, he will not be present when the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra premieres his symphony, Low. However, he will likely perform a couple of times throughout the Rodeo.