Magnetic North: Measuring the Synthesis

If Mel Brook’s The Producers – currently running at the Arts Club – can be considered a form of theatre franchise then the productions included in this year’s Magnetic North should be thought of as hand-crafted, one of a kind items. Instead of following a master-plan delivered from New York, London or even Toronto, these are originals hewn from the raw material of the artists involved. They are unique, distilled experiences.

For Ken Cameron, Magnetic North's Artistic Director, it is the fidelity – or synthesis – between performer/creator and their work that is the common thread connecting the productions in this year’s Festival. It is this synthesis that sets the work apart from productions such as the Drawer Boy or even more recently, the rash of Sexy Laundry breaking out in regional theatres across country. In those cases individual producing companies reinterpret, for their local audiences, an existing script that has been successful elsewhere. However one’s stomach might react to the thought of 30 some-odd productions of Sexy Laundry, it does represent a “traditional” (or what we think of as traditional) relationship between text, producer and performance. Playwright writes text which is (please god) picked up and interpreted by different companies. It’s worked for Shakespeare all these years.

Of course, that wasn’t really how Shakespeare worked. His identity and work were fused with the identity of the company he was part of. The idea of a single play living beyond a specific performance/company was a distant consideration. The evolution of what is termed “creation-based” or devised work we’ve seen in Vancouver over the last fifteen years has reinvigorated the synthesis between artist and work. It’s hard to imagine anyone other than the Electric Company, Radix or Theatre Replacement producing their work (although I’m sure none of them would mind if someone made an offer). When you go to a Radix show, it’s not to see their interpretation of text (however much I’d like to see them deconstruct Sexy Laundry) but to be immersed in a particular experience or aesthetic.

It’s safe to say that devised or creation-based work has become the dominate force in Vancouver below the mainstages. This may be surprising in a city of branch offices and a thousand Starbucks, but as far theatre goes we do our own thing with entrepreneurial flair. In fact, creation-based theatre has become so successful it is now embraced by the “mainstream”, as evidenced by the Playhouse’s laudable (and wise) decision to include the Electric Company’s fabulous Studies in Motion in next year’s season and by Magnetic North’s equally laudable inclusion of HIVE 2 in this year’s Festival.

This identification of specific company with a specific body of work/aesthetic is not simply a Vancouver phenomenon and the work presented at Magnetic North is proof that it is countrywide. But it’s not just the manner in which the work has been created but also where it is in its development history that is important for Cameron. Magnetic North acts as a sort of – if I can borrow a cinema term – festival of festivals. It presents the best that is available in English Canada at present, work that has been refined through an extensive creation process, market-tested (if you’ll excuse another cinema term) and ready to tour the nation.

During his interview with Plank, Cameron outlined the development history that led to the different pieces arriving on a national stage. Perhaps the most compelling is first time playwright Kevin Loring’s Where the Blood Mixes. Loring began writing the piece as a solo show, The Ballad of Floyd, nine years ago. It was then workshopped in Toronto at Factory Theatre’s CrossCurrents Festival. He continued working on the script during a 2006 residency at the Vancouver Playhouse and the piece was further workshopped with director Glynis Leyshon and playwright Sharon Pollock. There was then a BC workshop tour this past winter organized by the play’s producers the Playhouse Theatre Company and the Savage Society, in conjunction with Western Canadian Theatre in Kamloops. Finally – and this weirdly reminds me of Phil Collins playing LiveAID in both the UK and the States back in the eighties – the play will have its world premiere at Toronto's Luminato Festival just days before it's presented here at Magnetic North. Not only has the playtext been refined, so has the production.

In this sense, the Festival acts as a sort of snapshot of where English speaking theatre is in our country at any given point in time. Viewed through this lens, it means we should enjoy those rare and precious moments we all long for, where all the elements blend to create a comprehensive vision. Personally, I liken it to the first time I saw the Dragon’s Trilogy in London many years ago. It was my first exposure to Robert Lepage (and thanks to David Bloom for insisting that I go!) – perhaps the greatest example of the principle of synthesis that Cameron touched upon during his interview.

Will the pieces reach the dizzying heights of Lepage? Only the next two weeks will tell. But the early indications are that we are in for interesting times. Right off the bat, the synthesis between performer and work is inescapable in the two shows that open the Festival on Wednesday: blood.claat and [boxhead]. Not only do d’bi.young and Darren O’Donnell show a common interest in messing around with typeface and fonts they are also redefining notions of what theatre can and should be. young, who describes herself as a storyteller, is reputed to be a powerful performer and blood.claat, with its fusion of chanting, dub-poetry and theatre, was a sensation when it ran in Toronto. O’Donnell was recently in Vancouver with Haircuts by Children – and is an iconoclast in the truest sense, challenging assumptions about both theatre and performance. Whether you agree or disagree with him, he is a great conversation starter.

Like any good film festival – and indeed, our own PuSh Festival – the industry itself provides a sort of spine for Magnetic North. One of the Festival’s central objectives is to develop and support a network of presenters across the country. This year’s industry series will be seriously beefed up as it coincides with the annual PACT conference. There will be over three hundred delegates in town, including many from abroad. Almost in the manner of a cultural trade show, producers can kick the tires of the work on offer and consider including it in future programming. Cameron acknowledged that Magnetic North was in an interesting position arriving in Metro Vancouver only a few months after a very successful PuSh Festival. Cameron cited how Norman Armour, PuSh’s executive director, not only didn’t mind another Festival with an industry component coming into town but actually embraced it, seeing it as a healthy development. According to Cameron, Armour described it as an opportunity to carry on a conversation in June that was started in January. For more background on the Industry Series, see Allyson McGrane’s piece in this week’s Plank.

When Cameron took over as Artistic Director last August, his first concern was coming to grips with how the Festival would engage potential audiences. He realized it needed to be more than just an industry get-together. Of course, by showcasing the best in English Canadian theatre, audiences should be guaranteed a substantial hit of quality theatre. But to further involve audiences, the Festival also includes a series it calls “Magnetic Encounters”. This series features elements such as “tea with the artists”, “lunchtime encounters” and the Festival Lounge on Granville Island. Clearly the main objective with the series is to engage the audiences more deeply in the Festival experience and the work presented. It also seems to be designed – most notably with the Celebrity Speakers series – to promote the artists who work in theatre and the related arts, to accord them a higher public status than they currently enjoy (at least here in Vancouver, where their profile is far below local weathergirls and real estate agents.).

Another piece of this year’s Festival puzzle is the Vancouver New Play Festival which has moved from its usual May slot to coincide with Magnetic North. Cameron – a playwright – is particularly excited to see the re-inclusion of plays in development into Magnetic North. The Festival’s previous play-reading series, On The Verge, was cancelled a couple of seasons ago. Let’s hope that the New Play Festival reignites interest in new play text and they are once more on the agenda for future festivals. We’ll have a fuller article on the New Play Festival next week.

Magnetic North represents a unique opportunity for Vancouver theatre artists and audiences to see the work taking place in the rest of the country and, frankly, to see how we measure up. We might like to think we would never compare what we do to others but it’s a natural instinct. I’ve been as guilty as anyone of promoting the idea of an emerging Vancouver model or aesthetic (which I still believe is the case). Magnetic North is an opportunity to test that theory against the best available work in the country. It is also an opportunity for those coming here to see what we have to offer – and that offering is HIVE, which will run for its second incarnation (or should that be re-creation?).

HIVE is not part of the curated element of the Festival – at least not in the sense one might normally expect. In fact, it’s impossible to curate HIVE because it is really a concept – a central hub (let’s call it a bar) with small, a la carte performances happening continuously all around it. What happens at HIVE not only stays at HIVE but will also be a surprise to everyone (including Cameron) and that’s where the excitement comes in. If it is anything like the first HIVE, we will see risk taking and frantic inspiration that can only come from talented artists under pressure. The security for the audiences going will come from the fact that these are 11 mature theatre companies who know what they’re doing.

Cameron explained how there is a lot of interest in HIVE from across the country. Different theatre communities are wondering how they might replicate the experience. So no doubt some of the Magnetic North delegates will attend HIVE with a view to taking the concept home with them. The question then becomes how unique is HIVE to Vancouver? How much of the success of the initiative is reliant on a specific set of theatre companies – all of roughly the same age and size – all confronting a particular set of circumstances (that is operating in Vancouver and Victoria). Cameron quoted one Toronto theatre artist saying it couldn’t be done there because you could never get eleven theatre companies in the same room long enough to agree on anything.

I like to think that HIVE emerged from a unique synthesis here in Vancouver. What a thrill to be proved wrong. This is a rare chance for the national theatre community to see Vancouver theatre on its home turf and for us, in turn, to see ourselves in a national context.

Let’s seize that opportunity with both hands.

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