‘I’m sure this is the kind of play people will possibly walk out of,” says Jennie Esdale of Sage Theatre’s dark Lion in the Streets
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“It’s hard to watch,” warns actress Jennie Esdale about Sage Theatre’s production of Lion in the Streets. “I’m sure this is the kind of play people will possibly walk out of.”
That’s not the usual way of promoting your play. After all, Sage’s last production, Trainspotting, revelled in populist success. In comparison, Judith Thompson’s dark collage of broken relationships, death and humiliation, cracks a smile only to show bloody teeth. It’s rife with Christian symbolism and features a dead Portuguese girl who speaks in drowning English. It is, though, the play that started Sage.
1998. Back then, Calgary’s theatre landscape consisted of only a handful of companies looking to make their name. One of those companies was Sage Theatre, which debuted with a production of Lion in the Streets and won four Betty Mitchell Awards the following year, including an award for best direction for director Kate Newby. Almost 10 years later, Sage is reuniting with Newby to remount Lion for the company’s 10-year anniversary. Don’t mistake this for an attempt at old glory or the mechanical motions of a company indulging in its own nostalgia. This is something new, a move away from what has been done before. And Esdale wouldn’t have it any other way.
“This is in line with Sage’s work — choosing challenging pieces,” she says. “It’s important to feel things really deeply and see the world as it really is, not to sugar-coat things too much. There’s great value in this, showing us a mirror of who we are and our prejudices. The play’s not hiding anything.”
The desperate striptease at a dinner party as a woman tries to win back her husband. A dead girl searches for her killer. The molestation and beating of an elderly woman with cerebral palsy. Living in such a world doesn’t allow one to hide, rehearsing the humiliation and grimness day in and day out. It hasn’t been easy for the cast, and Esdale is aware of the emotional toll of the play on herself. This experience, though, also offers its own rewards.
“It’s dark, and all of us are up and down,” she admits. “It brings stuff out in people, but there is light and humour inside. My character is a little kid, and although she’s going through purgatory, hell and reliving her death, she still finds joy and so do the other characters. I don’t think there’s hope, but there’s release. I think that’s cathartic, going through the fire.
“I just have to dive into the deep end right away,” she adds. “At this point in my life, I have lots to draw on, my own experiences and my own loss. I’m 30 now, I have enough life experience to get me to a place where I have enough pain to do this part. I don’t know if I would have been able to do it 10 years ago.”
A lot can happen in 10 years. Despite a plethora of theatre companies overtaking the theatre landscape in 2008, Esdale believes Sage holds relevancy as an alternative theatre company. Returning to Lion in the Streets, Sage is still out to prove you can do risky theatre, even if people might walk out.
