Trudie Lee

The Kid (l) and Jake in Theatre Calgary’s first show of the season

DETAILS

Jake and the Kid presented by Theatre Calgary
Max Bell Theatre
Tuesday, September 8 - Sunday, September 27

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W.O. Mitchell is an Alberta legend, though he was actually born in Weyburn, Saskatchewan in 1914. He died in Calgary in 1998, after accruing a number of honours, including receiving an Order of Canada.

Pierre Berton, a Canadian legend in his own right, once said, “W.O. Mitchell is what I call an original… there is only one of him and there aren’t going to be any more.”

It’s no wonder, then, that Edmonton playwright Conni Massing admits it’s “intimidating” to be charged with the task of adapting one of his best-loved works, Jake and the Kid, for the stage. Massing is no stranger to the art of adaptation, however, having previously adapted such works as Bruce Allen Powe’s novel, The Aberhart Summer.

Adapting Jake and the Kid was also something of a personal journey for Massing; though she grew up in the town of Ponoka, her grandparents lived the rural Alberta life.

“It made me really hearken back to the world of my grandparents. My grandmother wrote a column for the Lacombe Globe. She was my real-life reference for this way of life,” says Massing.

She’s asked how adapting another’s work compares to starting a play from scratch.

“In the case of Jake and the Kid, there’s the glorious gift of a character like Jake that you’re handed on a platter. The relationship between him and the Kid is one of the greatest relationships in Canadian literature. That’s a terrific gift for a writer,” she answers.

“On the other hand, the challenge of adaptation is to find the balance between the voice of the original writer and your own voice.”

The world première of Massing’s adaptation kicks off Theatre Calgary’s season this year.

Jake and the Kid focuses on a young boy and his friendship with Jake, a hired hand who helps the Kid’s mother while his father is away at war. Jake is also a spinner of tall tales.

“Jake will say something outrageous, and the Kid believes it is absolute gospel truth,” says Massing. The stories deal with the adventures, and misadventures, of the colourful characters that populate the fictional setting of Crocus, Sask.

The book began life as a series of short stories published in Macleans magazine and went on to become a CBC radio series.

Eric Rose, who directs the play, approached Massing in the fall of 2006 about the possibility of adapting Jake and the Kid. Theatre Calgary commissioned it in 2007.

Massing began her journey into the world of Jake and the Kid by “immersing” herself in Mitchell’s original work. “I read the stories over and over and some of them started to leap out at me,” she says. She excerpted material from three stories she wanted to focus on in her adaptation — though the play actually contains aspects of five — and “put them into some sort of shape.”

She then began to write, weaving the five stories into one cohesive block.

The story of when Jake is asked to make rain — “The Day Jake Made Her Rain” — forms the backbone of the narrative. “While you really immerse yourself in the original material, there comes a point when you have to set it aside,” says Massing. “This is a different beast. This is a play. Those are short stories. You have to ask yourself, ‘How do we make this come alive for theatre audiences?’”

Massing says there is material in the play not contained in the original stories, including instances where she’s developed scenes that, according to the book, would happen offstage.

Her work has continued right through the rehearsal process. “One of the great things about rehearsal is, as the actors start to create the characters and work a scene, more and more you discover that you need less and less,” she says. “You trim the verbiage.”

While Massing admits the way of life depicted in these stories is “mostly gone,” she still thinks the primary aim of Theatre Calgary’s production is not to be “a piece of nostalgia.”

“The main aim is the power of storytelling,” says Massing, “though it will, absolutely, evoke memories.”

Massing pauses for a moment to reflect on how it feels now that showtime is here and her work on the script is finished. “I’ve been living with it for a long time,” she says. “It’s always odd when you get to the point when you need to set it aside.”

However, Massing resists saying she has completely finished working on the script; she’ll only say she’s done for this particular “outing.”

“Someone asked Carol Shields how she knew she was finished with a manuscript and she replied, ‘When I get sick of it.’ If you’re still really engaged, you just keep going,” says Massing, indicating she will do exactly that if, and when, the play gets published or lives on in future productions.

In the meantime, Massing is starting a new play, marketing the script for a television pilot, editing a book and serving as writer-in-residence for the Edmonton Public Library.

She has no shortage of activities to occupy her time until her next date with Jake and the Kid.