presents

THE WORLD PREMIERE OF THE INTERNATIONAL THEATRE INITIATIVE 

 

SOLICITING PROPHECY

AN ARTISTIC RESPONSE TO COVID 19

 

LAUNCHED ONLINE VIA SCAPEGOATCARNIVALE.COM 

FEBRUARY 15, 2020 AT 8PM  

 

WRITTEN BY ALEXIS DIAMOND, MARY JANE GIBSON, GITANJALI JAIN,
JULIE TAMIKO MANNING, ALEXANDER NEMSER, OMARI NEWTON, AND CONOR WYLIE

CONCEPTION AND DRAMATURGY: ALISON DARCY AND JOSEPH SHRAGGE

_____________________________________________

SCAPEGOAT CARNIVALE is proud to present its new international digital commissioning initiative in response to Covid 19, SOLICITING PROPHECY, being launched online February 15, 2021. 

 

The artists of Soliciting Prophecy. Clockwise from top left, ending in centre: A.Diamond, O.Newton, J.T. Manning, MJ Gibson, Conor Wylie, A. Darcy, J. Shragge, G. Jain, A. Nemser.

Scapegoat Carnivale's current production of Soliciting Prophesy is a magical attempt to bring audiences back to the theatre before theatre doors can open again. Although much closer to video art and animation at times, with successful forays into outdoor solo monologues, and an online intimate and intensely powerful, claustrophobic encounter, this varied collection of short performance pieces provide engaging and thought provoking looks at a variety of ways of perceiving potential doom and destruction.

High points include a conflicted, animated conversation between fraternal twins as they await the end of the world. An animated cityscape through a condo window gradually reveals, through image and dialogue, an oncoming threat to the planet's existence and the very fraught relationship between siblings.

More childlike, magical animation occurs in the underwater drawings that create the beautiful and hauntingly melodic setting and narrative for "Prophette." (see illustration below)

Perhaps the closest example of live theatrical performance comes in the form of a layered and engaging piece from Alexander Nemser as an outdoor setting provides an expansive space for the well managed, subtly acted, and engaging storytelling narrative. 

"Prophette" by Gitanjali Jain 

Lula, a young girl, descended from whales, learns from her ancestors that she must play a role in altering the course of our climate crisis, as well as revive the well-being of whales on the planet. This hand-drawn, ethereal animation features real whale-songs as a central part of the soundtrack.

__________________________________

Faced with the repeated closures of Canadian and American theatres, Scapegoat Carnivale co-artistic directors Alison Darcy and Joseph Shraggesolicited prophetic predictions from fellow artists in Montreal, Vancouver, Mexico City and Los Angeles. This new collaboration evolved into an online think tank/writer’s room with the aim of creating a series of contemporary responses as digital performance pieces on the theme of Prophecy.  
 

After a month of discussions ranging from Greta Thunberg, to treating trauma with psychotropic drugs, to utopian visions, and brushes with mortality, each artist produced a digital work reflecting their own interests and lines of inquiry. 
 

In these videos, which range in form and sensibility, prophets appear as nonhumans, children, botanica workers, non-believers, and stand-up comedians. The pieces include biblical and ancient Greek re-imaginings (Samuel, Kassandra), animation, direct address and Minecraft inspired creations. 

 

SOLICITING PROPHECY SERIES:

Alexis Diamond (Montreal, QC) : First Flush of a Gleaming New Age 
In a near post-pandemic future, Myriam follows the signs revealed to her in a dream to fulfill the prophecy of the Great Flush.

Mary Jane Gibson (Los Angeles, CA): Primordial Prophecy
A dying woman seeking to find what awaits her on the other side pulls open an ancient door to another psychedelic dimension.

Gitanjali Jain (Mexico City, MX): Prophette
Lula, a young girl, descended from whales, learns from her ancestors that she must play a role in altering the course of our climate crisis, as well as revive the well-being of whales on the planet. This hand-drawn, ethereal animation features real whale-songs as a central part of the soundtrack.

Julie Tamiko Manning (Montreal, QC): Whoever put me up here, you just wait ‘til I get down!
A woman gets off of her pedestal.

Alexander Nemser (Los Angeles, CA) : God's Eyebrows
A retelling of the Bible story of King Saul and the Witch of Endor. Picture Larry David as a Trumpian King Lear who visits an illegal healer on the eve of his unraveling.

Omari Newton (Vancouver, BC): You Know, You're Right...
On the last day on earth, fraternal twins debate what awaits them on 'the Other Side'. The tension between the diametrically opposed lifestyles of these loving, but divided siblings, and how they choose to spend their last living moments, makes for an evening fraught with anxiety. 

Conor Wylie (Vancouver, BC): Dimension in the Clouds
The planets align, the bridge appears, and a brave child steps across to tell us what’s on the other side. Created and animated by a kid and a kid-at-heart.

The ancillary project Pocket Prophecies will feature short text prophecies, ruminations, and anecdotes, by writers from here and abroad including Claire Jenkins (Melbourne, AUS), Michael Mackenzie (Montreal, QC), Thami aka Mbongo (Johannesburg, SA), Earl Mentor (Cape Town, SA), Johanna Nutter (Montreal, QC), Rebecca Singh (Toronto, ON) and Anders Yates (Toronto, ON).

After two years of winning the Montreal META award for Best Independent Production (Sapientia 2018, Yev 2019) Scapegoat Carnivale was described by Montreal Gazette theatre critic Jim Burke as, “one of Montreal’s most original and enjoyably eccentric companies.” Founded in 2006, Scapegoat’s mandate is to produce theatre reflecting the diverse talents and extraordinary creativity of the Montreal artistic community. Their aesthetic interest is in the carnivalesque, and the highly theatrical. Whether producing new works or adaptations from the classical repertoire, they strive for theatre to be an unruly, visceral and authentic shared experience.

ORESTES 

 playwright’s note

I demand so much of my screen. Sex, news, love, conversation, shopping. I’m addicted to my phone. And through the attention I lavish on it, a new someone emerges online, at least as real as the embodied me. Me and not me. A kind of ghost that shadows me, demands things of me, even on the bus or in the grocery store. I/not I takes form in the still-forming space of online, a space of whispers and shouts, intimate and vast at the same time. A spiritual space.

In the original Orestes, there is a presence that stalks the shadows and emerges as Apollo at the end. Some demonic, god-like hybrid. I feel the same way about the internet. The perfect place for Greek tragedy.

The rules kept changing as we put this together. I am so grateful that I got to gather (virtually) with the talented people who made this show. Working without any sort of net. None of us knew what we were saying “yes” to. When COVID took our spaces away, we made a space in here.

Rick Roberts - Jan 2021

Powered by LIVELAB, the Tarragon online production of Orestes, adapted by Rick Roberts, is a vastly entertaining, engaging, and terrifying exercise in just about everything we are surrounded by in this day and age. A day and age apparently not so unlike so many bygone days and ages, as old as Greek tragedy and as debauched and humorous as Greek comedy. 

A stellar cast take the stage, or rather, their very separate performing spaces transmitted through cyberspace, and they manage to pull of  an amazing array of emotion and interaction over the course of a ninety minute tale of sex, lies, and messy dates with hubris, material wealth, and looking good in a bad situation.

Early on lists of high end products from clothing to everything capitliast, excessive, commodified and vainglorious, peppers the speeches of various characters - within which Roberts finds a rhythmic admixture of poetic and daily usage dialogue that never ceases to impress throughout. 

When lengthy monologues move toward a booming finale, in the hands of actors as adept as David Fox, Cliff Cardinal, and Richard Clarkin, Robert’s reaches a peak of playwriting skill that sharply reveals a cultural awareness allowing opposing viewpoints to possess equal weight. These hefty and convincing speeches live within a complex and corrupted world where inter-generational warfare has the aged blaming youth for their millennial traits and youth blaming the aged for carelessly abusing a planet and its inhabitants within a bludgeoned environment where constant, ever-increasing fear is the only emotion available. Thus a dramaturgical online sensibility that speaks of everything and nothing in a single breath. Notihng coming of nothing in the midst of it all. Lear-like, apocalyptic, and wildly entertaining.

The entire ensemble excels, with Lisa Ryder as a glamorous somewhat bewildered Helen and Krystin Pellerin as a more ‘down to earth’ yet equally intense and captivating Electra. Cues are picked up seamlessly in this distanced theatre setting, creating an action-packed, breakneck tale. What could have been static boxes of histrionic self-satisfaction becomes a textured array of ensemble acting - supported beautifully by costume, sound, and set designers working within a whole new realm of theatre expertise and innovation.

Cliff Cardinal in the tile role creates a youthful, manic flow as his speech patterns sound alarmingly and appropriately like someone speaking in their influencer, branding, online dialect. His captivity is well caught in a simultaneously open yet claustrophobic 'cell' that ultimately becomes a screen for faces watching him - giving the production a high tech feel that could easily work onstage. Not so unlike techniques used by artists such as Robert Lepage, among others, this production holds the promise of a lush form of online theatre that borrows and utiliizes techniques we were already beginning to see in live theatre in recent decades. A live version with onstage actors in front of screens would create another layer of this already multi-layered yet, by necessity, one dimensional viewing space. Finding depth in a single dimension, director Richard Rose has orchestrated a rich array of sight and sound.

A highlight  of the show is a speech near the end where theatre veteran David Fox displays his typically eloquent and impeccable way of delivering a moving monologue, not so unlike the Lear he mastered at Theatre Passe Muraille not so long ago. An angry older despot making strong, seemingly articulate points through a textured yet narrow misidentifying gaze where he sees all the faults of one generation and misses the faults of his own, only to be lambasted by the impetuous yet spot-on declaration of the young, angry, and equally as articulate Orestes.

Orestes, a tale for the ages, and the extremely altered stages of current theatre - is well worth seeing for the sheer skill of a production team that confronts the challenges of being 'live' in a pandemic and succeeding with immense power and the flawed tragic grace of characters more than half in love with themselves.

ORESTES by Rick Roberts (Tarragon). Live-streaming at tarragon.com through February 14, Wednesday-Saturday 8 pm, Wednesday 10 am, Thursday 1:30 pm, Sunday 2:30 pm. $15-$20.