Stephen O'Connell Debunks the Myths Surrounding Devised Theatre

Stephen O'Connell, pictured in promotional image for site-specific work It Comes In Waves

Co-Artistic director of bluemouth inc., Stephen O’Connell guest teaches at this year’s Volcano Conservatory. His workshop, Collective Creation: a field guide to devising theatre, explores some of the essential methods and techniques for collaborating across a variety of artistic disciplines in the absence of a centralized artistic ‘vision’, ‘director’ or authorial voice.

Are there any common myths about devised theatre that you would LOVE to debunk?

That it is easy. And that it is not rigorous.

I think audiences sometimes make assumptions about a lack of clarity in devised work. Often audiences use the same criteria for experiencing devised work as they do they do for playwright driven dramas and this seems unfortunate to me. I am not suggesting that devised work needn’t live up to the same standard of excellence as a well made play, but I regard the plurality of voice is often the result of a devised process and is a unique asset rather than a limitation.

I also believe that educational systems need to start offering training that better prepares young theatre makers for a career in self producing work. In my opinion, there is such an unrealistic emphasis on developing actors for the film and television rather than providing them with the tools needed to develop their own work and the encouragement to project their vision out in the world.

As a theatre artist, with a professional background in modern dance, do you prefer collaborating with a multi-disciplinary team of performers when creating new work?

Absolutely. I am currently collaborating on a sites-specific project between bluemouth and Necessary Angel and I find it incredibly rewarding to be in a room with a team of people who all consider themselves to be the primary artists. That includes the performers, director, writer, designers and the production team.  A brilliant idea can come from anywhere at anytime, and if you are open and listening carefully you will discover it. I enjoy working with people who are generous, sensitive and have a healthy sense of ego.

I’ve recently had a lot of interaction with highly trained dancers and I find them to be incredibly disciplined and generous with their creativity. Perhaps even to a fault.

Challenge: describe your workshop in 5 words not already in the title?

Personal, Ambiguous, Expressive, Exhausting and Rigorous.

NYC is considered a second home for many Torontonians, whether it’s for leisure or career pursuits…was Brooklyn a natural choice for you to build with bluemouth inc?

No. I moved back to New York 10 years ago for very personal reasons. My family lives in New Jersey and I wanted to spend some quality time with my parents. I initially thought it would be very cool to develop work in Toronto and then produce it in New York, but that no longer interests me. I think New York is a very tough place to live and an even tougher place to develop your craft as an artist. There is such a sacristy of resources. The companies who inspire me like the Wooster Group or Elevator Repair Service are all working with very limited resources. Individual companies are forced to huddle around their individual fires making it challenging to nudge your way into their circle. Not impossible just really challenging. Resulting in a lesser sense of artistic community that I personally need to creatively survive.  

I mean I love going to see world-class international work with frequency. I live a block away from the Brooklyn Academy of Music and on any given Friday night something amazing is happening there, but there are also many amazing international companies coming to Toronto.    

We are excited to partner with the Theatre Centre as the venue for this year’s Volcano Conservatory - what do you think about their new space?!

I love the new Theatre Centre, but I am also in love with the Theatre Centre in general. The Theatre Centre was the first organization to offer bluemouth help when we first arrived in Toronto. David Duclos was the Artistic Director at the time. I met him at an Inter Disciplinary symposium in Montreal. He was the first person we contacted when we arrived in Toronto and he immediately opened his doors to us. The Theatre Centre helped produce all of the early bluemouth shows and connected us to a community of like-minded artists.  hen when Franco Boni became the Artistic Director our relationship to the Theatre Centre continued and became even deeper. bluemouth became one of the first resident companies and their support helped to lift us up to the next level.

Where is your favourite spot in the city during the summer?

Toronto Island is pretty awesome in the summer time. I love the fact that you can hop on a ferry and in 10 minutes suddenly feel like you are miles away from the city. Trinity Bellwoods Park is also pretty special. Perhaps you can start to see the trend. These are both places where bluemouth has done site-specific shows.

Recap: Finding the Right Fit, an artist development talk

From L to R: Adiyana Morris, Franco Boni, Mumbi Tindyebwa, and Ross Manson

Mondays in theatre are usually known as 'dark days,' being the one day of the week the theatre is closed. But those who came out on Monday, June 15 to Finding the Right Fit: How a Life in Art Happens were illuminated. A mixed group of theatre artists - youngish to oldish, students to working professionals, directors and arts administrators - came out to hear from three of Toronto's boldest artist directors.

Guest speakers, Franco Boni (Theatre Centre), Mumbi Tindyebwa (IFT Theatre), and Ross Manson (Volcano Theatre), happily shared their career experiences and industry tips for an hour long talk. Moderator Adiyana Morris, Volcano's current Metcalf Arts Management Intern, led the discussion in the upstairs lobby of The Theatre Centre.

The informal conservation included topics of mentorship, leadership, childhood ambitions and failure. Each question was framed by a famous and provocative quote to get the speakers and audience thinking. It was an engaging discussion that organically unraveled into an open discussion with the speakers asking each other questions and the audience following-up on statements.

Audiences members had good laugh

There were many highlights, including when Adiyana asked the speakers about their formative years and how they found themselves in theatre. Franco admitted to having no recollection of memories prior to Gr. 3 but from that point on he described himself as bossy and a natural organizer. Picturing Franco as a dictator-esque 3rd Grader got the conversation off to a great start. Yet is was even more interesting to find out that his first leadership position that had the most impact upon him was heading to the Rhubarb Festival, entrusted to him at age 28. Franco also spoke candidly about spearheading the $6.2 million capital campaign to house the brand new Theatre Centre. He admitted to constantly tackling challenges that can feel like day to day failures, but, all in all, his dedication to putting the art first is a testament to his successful career. 

Mumbi made great points around audience engagement and making theatre representative of the communities you are trying to attract. She believes that artists and producers should focus more about how their content relates to the audience than how much the ticket price is. Her example was that  the same person who you think can't afford your ticket is willing to shell out $100 for a Jay-Z concert..which goes for low and high income earners. Hence, it's less about price and all about demand.

  

Ross made an interesting analysis what he considered failure as an artistic director and conceptualized it in three ways: 1. failure of a project (which is sometimes a good thing if the idea inevitably doesn't float); 2. failure of a relationship between two peers or producing partners (which can really suck); and 3. failure of a one's ego (the suckiest of them all). His honesty put things in perspective in the realm of leadership and risk.

Who do you think had the last word...?!

The conversation closed with some useful tips. The speakers suggested that participants think about reaching out to a mentor they really admire, and to share a new idea with a peer sooner rather than later. Basically, best Monday ever!

A special thanks goes out the Theatre Centre for hosting the talk and all three (amazing) guest speakers!

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Ross Manson will be leading The First Two Days: Utility, Respect and the Right Brain, a professional development course at The Volcano Conservatory (July 31 - August 2). To register and/or find out more about his course (and others) click HERE.

Deborah Pearson talks Experimental Performance - it's a lot simpler than you think

Live Artist Deborah Pearson guest teaches at this year's Volcano Conservatory. Her workshop, Dramaturgy, Narrative and Structure in Experimental Performance looks at the unique ways in which contemporary performance can address our preoccupations with narrative. 

Did you always question conventional theatre elements, like three act structures, and what made you gravitate towards experimental performance?

I guess you could say I have always gravitated towards what frequently gets called "experimental performance" because of one aspect of my work that is not "experimental" at all, but that is really at the heart of a lot of very old theatre.  I just can't get over the fact that the audience is there.  I have always wanted to address them, to play with them, to hang out with them.  I don't know how to ignore them.  I really admire work that adheres to this "ignoring the audience" convention and somehow still manages to feel theatrical and moving and live.  But the truth is, work that firmly stays behind the fourth wall while genuinely effectively reaching out to its audience is very rare.  It's a convention that is very difficult to explore effectively.  Even Shakespeare doesn't do it!  And I think this is because the very thrilling thing about theatre is of course the fact that the audience is there in the room with you.  When you think about it, not acknowledging that is a highly unusual thing to do.  It's only the prevalence of fourth wall theatre (some of it very lazy and bad) in the last sixty years or so that has made us think of that approach as traditional. It's actually a very weird thing to do, and I think it only really justifies itself as a form once every five years or so.  A truly stirring "well made play" is that rare.  

That said, the "Three Act Structure" is not the property of fourth wall theatre.  It's the property of the human cognitive process.  We organize every experience we ever have into a "beginning, middle and end."  We may not remember them in a chronological order in terms of actual time - but things begin, they happen, they end.  It's a very simple thing to keep in mind, but a very useful way to conceive of building an interesting experience for an audience.  How do you want it to begin?  What do you want them to reach deeper into once they've entered?  And how do you want it to end?  What do you leave them with?  The "Three Act Structure" has been conflated with Hollywood narratives, but that's just one approach to that structure.  It comes from Aristotle's Poetics, and all he specifies is that nothing comes before the beginning, the middle follows, and nothing comes after the end.  There's nothing about a climax or inciting incident or Hero's quest.  It's just those three very simple components - but they're very useful to keep in mind when making work.

  



You mentioned theatre being preoccupied with Representation, Conflict, Arc, and Meaning/Message. You mean there’s more to a story?!

Ah you may have misunderstood my use of the word "preoccupation."  I don't mean that preoccupations are negative or positive.  They're just there.  I don't think that there's more to a story than a beginning, middle and end.  But I also think that those three categories are HUGE - so why should there be?  Representation, Conflict, Arc, and Meaning/Message are all things that we may expect to exist within that beginning-middle-end structure - they're cultural baggage, and we can play with that cultural baggage in interesting ways if we want to.  Theatre Replacement, New World and Chris Abraham made the show Winners and Losers, for example, and really toyed with the audience's preoccupation with Conflict.  But they didn't approach it uncritically - they made the audience sit with that preoccupation and dig deep into it, and a lot of incredible insights came out of that deceptively simple premise.  I'm not sure "more to the story" is the right way to navigate the preoccupations I bring up.  They're very rich and problematic elements of narrative interest.  We don't really need more - but if we think deeply about them, we will find more.

As an associate artist with Volcano Theatre, how have you grown with the company over the years - as the lead on inFORMING CONTENT and having worked as the librettist for Synonym for Love?

I owe a lot to Volcano.  Ross Manson and Kate Alton gave me my first professional job in the theatre, as their research assistant on The Four Horsemen Project.  I remember thinking it was really cool and totally strange.  I hadn't ever seen anything like it before, but I loved it.  I think one of the reasons that I love working with Volcano is the incredible variety of projects that they make, and the amazing but excellent risks and opportunities they take with their artists and with their form.  When Ross asked me to write a libretto for the company I joked that it was like he'd asked me to build a cabinet.  I had no idea how to do it.  I learned on the job.  And it was one of the most fun and interesting things I've ever had the privilege of doing.  I learned how to read music, and over the years have gone from someone with no musical knowledge at all to someone who can play the guitar.  A Synonym for Love really sparked that desire to learn in me.  But I didn't necessarily stand out, because everyone involved was doing something totally new and challenging for them with that project.  Even the orchestra had to figure out how to accompany an opera that was moving around a hotel!  I love Volcano because it's a company that genuinely prizes risk and experimentation, and encourages other artists to take risks too.  It's worth mentioning that I moved to Europe on Ross's advice, and that was a great risk to take.

As the co-founder and co-director of Forest Fringe, would you consider festivals safe spaces for experiential work?

It depends on the festival.  Forest Fringe is a venue that exists at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which is the biggest experimental theatre festival in the world.  So asking whether or not experimental work is safe at the fringe is sort of like asking if a baby is safe in New York City.  It depends on the apartment and it depends on the parents.  I wouldn't just drop your baby anywhere.  There are a lot of wonderful venues taking very good care of artists at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  Equally, there are a lot of smaller festivals, like Fusebox, PuSh, FTA and Offta, and I hear that Progress was great too, that really look after artists.  Generally speaking, the smaller a festival is, the more support it will have for artists, and the less it will resemble a shopping mall of work.  It's a very sad thing as an artist to feel like you're selling a product.  It's necessary sometimes, and often true, but also necessary I think to convince yourself that it isn't happening.  That's the only way to keep the work good.

What is one thing you miss about living in Toronto since moving to London? 

I miss biking.  I have a bike in London but it is a terrifying place to do it.  When the weather is nice in Toronto, if you know the back alleys well, getting from one place to another can be the best part of your day.  Something about how much fun it is to bike there really sums up a lot of more abstract and atmospheric things that I miss about living in Toronto.  I think it's a really healthy place to live, with a lot of love and good feeling.  I'll always miss it.  And when I miss it most I think about biking down a sunny leafy street somewhere in Little Portugal.

Infinity Reviews

We've just opened Infinity, our co-production with Tarragon Theatre. So far the audience and critics are loving it! Below are a few reviews. As new reviews come out, we'll be sure to continue posting here. If you've had the chance to see Infinity, tell us your thoughts in the comment section below.

NOW

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Review by Susan G. Cole

“Brilliant; makes you feel as much as it makes you think”

Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann

The Globe and Mail

3/4 stars

Review by: J. Kelly Nestruck

“Infinity shifts from a play of ideas to a family drama – and it’s a beautifully acted one...”

Photo by John Lauener

The Star
Review by: Carly Maga
3.5 / 4 stars

"Moscovitch... is visceral. And the acting from Braunstein, Rutherford and especially McGee is extremely affecting."

Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann

Mooney on Theatre

Review by: Dorianne Emmerton

“I loved the interplay between real-world relationship dynamics and high concept physics.”

Toronto Stage

“[Ross Manson] captures Infinity’s sequence of events in arousing intervals.”

The Theatre Reader
Review by: Veronica Appia

"This play is as brilliant as it is haunting -  a perfect combination of music, math and science that doesn't make your head hurt, but manages to makes your heart hurt."

The Slotkin Letter
"Director Ross Manson has created a production of seamless collaboration..."

Paula Citron.ca
"superb"

Theatreomania
4 stars

Town Crier
"infinitely great"

If you haven't had the chance to see Infinity, join us at the Tarragon Theatre before it closes on May 3.  Select dates have very limited seating so book today! 

Discounts

1. Anyone under the age of 35 can book $22 tickets for April 1 - 22 performances with the coupon code "Tarragon22"

2. Artsworker and students tickets are available for $29

3. Rush tickets are available for $15, two hours before showtime at the box office. Limited availability.

Dear Diary: Infinity rehearsal, preview week

Every week, Infinity Assistant Director, Mariel Marshall writes us a diary entry of her experience in the rehearsal hall. If you haven't already, start at the beginning by scrolling down to Dear Diary: Preparing for Infinity Rehearsals. 

Here's what Mariel has to say about Infinity's preview week:

We’ve had a week of previews and it’s been a really exciting time. We continued to undergo changes to the script and to the staging all week. Having an audience witness the performance gives us a lot of feedback about which scenes are working and what timing and rhythms create laughs, tension, and catharsis. Tonight we open the show! We won’t have the chance to do any further edits or rewrites, so it’s our last chance to make any final tweaks. So far, the feedback we’ve received from audiences has been incredibly exciting. People are buzzing about this show. It’s a crazy beautiful piece about love, math and time, and it’s been crafted with incredible care. Enjoy!

Hannah Moscovitch, Andréa Tyniec, Amy Rutherford,
Paul Braunstein, Haley McGee, and Ross Manson

Dear Diary: Infinity rehearsal, tech week

Every week, Infinity Assistant Director, Mariel Marshall writes us a diary entry of her experience in the rehearsal hall. If you haven't already, start at the beginning by scrolling down to Dear Diary: Preparing for Infinity Rehearsals. 

Here's what Mariel has to say about the final week of rehearsal, now in the theatre:

This week, we moved into the Tarragon Extraspace. It is also TECH week, which is an exciting time because all of the elements, the set, lights, costumes and props, finally come together. It’s really the first time we get to see how things speak to each other; how the costumes look against the backdrop of the set, how the lights reflect against the painted floor, how the actors sound in the space. These elements, which we have been working with individually, and imagining from drawings and models, finally take shape.

Director: Ross Manson

The set appears to shift your perception. The stage is painted all white with lines vanishing across the width of it like blurred stars in the cosmos. It’s quite beautiful, especially with Rebecca Picherack’s incredible lighting design, which makes it appear like an ever-shifting world of colour and shadows. The really exciting thing is that the set works like a scrim which allows us to light actors from behind the material – and they appear like ghosts through the semi-transparent material.    

It’s been a really fast and exciting rehearsal process, and our technical dress rehearsal on Sunday went very well. The work is definitely ready for an audience this week and I can’t wait to see how people respond to the work, and how the actors, in turn, grow and feed-off of an audience.

Dear Diary: Infinity Rehearsal, Week 3

Every week, Infinity Assistant Director, Mariel Marshall writes us a diary entry of her experience in the rehearsal hall. If you haven't already, start at the beginning by scrolling down to Dear Diary: Preparing for Infinity Rehearsals

It’s been very busy in the rehearsal hall this week, so this post is a little behind schedule! But Mariel has treated us to something a little different:

I sat down with composer, Njo Kong Kie, who is the mastermind behind the score of Infinity, and asked him to tell us about the inspiration of the music.

NKK: When we first started, Ross asked if I could build a solo violin piece based on a passage contained in a track from Picnic in the cemetery, my album for violin, cello and piano. The piece is called Formula 1. I know this title suggests car races, but it is also a reference to using a mathematical formula, a recipe if you will, to compose a piece of music. In the context of Infinity, it makes sense that there are some suggestions of math in the musical score, however simple and subtle they may be. I suppose music is inherently mathematical anyway, but I did think about math a little bit more while working on this score and there are subtle references; but unless one goes looking for them, one likely won’t notice them. For the music detective audience out there though, see if you can break the code to uncover our thinking in the musical design.

The score has evolved gradually from one workshop of the script to another until it reaches its present form. And it is still evolving. I am a gregarious person. I enjoy a collaborative environment. I get ideas from whatever is in the room: a movement, a word, or in this case, the characters and the situations they find themselves in.  I reckon the process is similar for all collaborative artists.

If we compare composing to cooking, then musical ideas are the ingredients. Some ingredients you can find already in your kitchen, some you have to get from the market, some you discover by happenstance. Once you have the ingredients, you have to decide how to prepare them, what shapes you are going to cut them into, what to cook them in, how to cook them, what spices to use, what sides to serve them with and how to present them. I don’t know where I can go with all these, so feel free to expand on this analogy and see how far we can stretch it. Please do join us at the show. Let us show you what we have cooked up for you.