Playwrights provoke with political work

Reposted from: Stage Door / By Kevin Prokosh / Winnipeg Free Press, October 1, 2008

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The Wrecking Ball is swinging through Winnipeg next Monday in an attempt to poke a hole in the notion that political theatre is dead in Canada.

Wrecking Ball is a four-year-old Toronto theatre movement that seeks to address the annoying reality that there's too much theatre in our politics and not enough politics in our theatre. Prominent Canadian playwrights such as Jason Sherman, Norm Foster, Morris Panych and Daniel MacIvor have penned politically minded monologues meant to challenge and provoke audiences.

For the first time, Wrecking Balls are going national, with eight of them, including one here, set to go Monday, showcasing the work of writers venting expressively about the federal election. The lineup for the Winnipeg ball consists of Michael Nathanson, Ellen Peterson and the Royal Liechtenstein tag team of Gord Tanner and Trish Cooper, as well as a piece called Nail Biter by playwright Judith Thompson.

The 8 p.m. cabaret, to be held at Prairie Theatre Exchange, is open to the public and is a pay-what-you-can event, with proceeds going to the department of culture, an ad hoc group of artists fighting the Stephen Harper government's funding cuts to the arts.

The Wrecking Ball will be welcomed in Winnipeg, where political theatre sightings are quite rare. Last season, Theatre Project's production called How to Kill Yourself With a Screwdriver by Devin McCracken -- inspired by the 2005 shooting of Matthew Dumas by a Winnipeg police officer -- was one example. The Wrecking Ball is seeking a more immediate, ripped-from-the-headlines response to events.

"It's a way to unify the country on political grounds," says Wrecking Ball organizer Michael Rubenfeld, a Toronto actor/director. "As Canadians, we fear controversy. We fear asking difficult questions and being too political. We're not comfortable disagreeing."

The local participants must adhere to two rules: Create brief, explosive pieces inspired by what's happening right now in the election and do it in one week to guarantee maximum freshness. A two-hour rehearsal during the day Monday is all that stands between author and audience.

"This is gloves off," says local producer Rick Chafe, author of Shakespeare's Dog. "It's so immediate, it will be charged with a different kind of energy. What you'll hear is right out of a writer's pen. There will be blood on the floor."

Nathanson, a huge fan of TV's The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, said he was seduced to join in by the opportunity to write political satire.

"I think artists have understandable concern about the state of the arts and the relationship of the Conservative government to the arts," he says. "My inspiration is being drawn from one of the best (and oldest) political satires: Duck Soup, the famous Marx Brothers movie."