(photo credit: George Pimentel)
The King (of collaboration)
The controversial boss talks about listening to company-members and artists and finding the "juste milieu" in an age of "right-sizing"
by Christian Baines
Since taking the reins as Artistic Director of Canadian Stage in 2009, Toronto-born Matthew Jocelyn has embraced an approach that’s as contemporary and adaptable as it is prudent. He talks to CharPo about a new season, dance theatre, and why there’s no formula for theatre ‘right-sizing.’
CHARPO: Canadian Stage has undergone quite a few changes since you took over. How would you describe the company’s place in the Toronto theatre scene now?
JOCELYN: That’s almost more for others to say than for me. Obviously we’re aware of what’s happening in the rest of the city. But there’s only one really large scale house in Toronto for not-for-profit theatre, and that is the Bluma Appel Theatre so we are still, as the company has always been, the major not-for-profit theatre company. I think that where I would distinguish our position today is that we are a resolutely contemporary company, so that we can say that maybe even in the country, we are the largest not-for-profit contemporary theatre company. I’d include contemporary performing arts company. What we’re also doing now is film theatre, musicals, music and dance. It’s also sort of visual spectacle. So it’s got a mandate about any form that contemporary performing artists or contemporary performing directors are occupied with as the ‘meat’ of their expression for today.
CHARPO: On that subject, you have a few dance theatre pieces in the season, Political Mother and Spotlight Japan...
JOCELYN: That’s right, plus we have at the end of the season, Marie Chouinard’s The Golden Mean.
CHARPO: Right. I caught Political Mother when it played the Sydney Vivid Festival two years ago and was completely blown away. How do you find these pieces integrate with the season and how has it been received by the Canadian Stage audience?
JOCELYN: It’s interesting. For me it integrates perfectly well with the season because what I really want Canadian Stage to be a home for, are the expressions of the boldest creators today, whatever discipline they’re working in. So whether you have a Kim Collier, or a Hofesh Shecter, or a Marie Chouinard, or a Morris Panych, those are all artists who are really at the top of their form. Some are working in dance, and some are working in theatre and some are working across the disciplines. What I’m interested in is showcasing their work. What we’ve found is, some audiences when they come to Canadian Stage, they want to see only theatre, and so they just subscribe to the theatre programs, and other people just want to see dance, so they subscribe only to the dance programs. Other people cross over, so we now arrange our subscriptions and our sales so that it’s very flexible to pick and choose. One doesn't feel they have to see everything. If there are certain forms of art that you don’t like, well, you don’t come and see them. Nobody’s obliging you to do so. But a lot of the traditional Canadian Stage audiences are very excited to be seeing things that normally they would not have had exposure to. Also, there was no place in the city that was showing them. Because before we were doing this, Hofesh Shecter would simply never have come to Toronto. Nor Marie Chouinard with her own work. Crystal Pite would simply have never come to Toronto. So we’re not doing somebody else’s job, we’re doing something that wasn’t being done.
‘How much political material do we want?’ ‘How much that just comes from the heart do we want?’ ‘How much spoken text do we want and how much non-spoken text do we want?’ ‘How much comedy and non-comedy do we want?’
CHARPO: Besides the obvious goals of filling seats and producing quality work, what went through your mind in programming, for instance, the current season?
JOCELYN: It’s a very complex process, as you can imagine, and it’s a process that involves many people. The current season was planned in collaboration with Kim Collier, who is resident artist here, with Natasha Mytnowych, who’s part of the programming team here, and then in larger discussion. So it really is a collaborative process to try and find the material that we want to show. And then it’s a matter of finding a balance between work that is at some level recognizable. You know, you want to have at least one or two pieces that people will have as a landmark for the season. You want to be systematically finding and showcasing the work of great Canadian artists, again, whether they’re working in the country or abroad. Having some international work, so there’s a real juxtaposition between current movements across the planet and what the Canadians are doing. Then there’s also ‘How much political material do we want?’ ‘How much that just comes from the heart do we want?’ ‘How much spoken text do we want and how much non-spoken text do we want?’ ‘How much comedy and non-comedy do we want?’ There’s balance in terms of form like that. There’s a lot of thought given to, when people come to the theatre, what is important for them to be experiencing. Should they come out feeling depressed or joyful? Should they come out feeling perplexed or resolved? Obviously you don’t want a season where everything is harking on the problems of the world today. But you don’t want to avoid those problems. I guess what my guiding light there is, ‘What are artists talking about? What are the Kim Colliers talking about today, and what are the texts that I might be attracted to, or a Daniel Brooks or a Morris Panych. What is a Marie Chouinard or a Crystal Pite, or a Hofesh Shecter or Robert Lepage... What’s preoccupying them? Because if it’s preoccupying the artists of that scale, then it should be something that we can find a way to share with our audiences. (cont'd)
(photo credit: V. Tony Hauser)
CHARPO: Race is probably the big ticket of the season, but surrounding that, there’s a lot of new work, a lot of less mainstream work. Any thoughts on a potential breakout hit? For instance, you’ve received great notices for Tear the Curtain!
JOCELYN: I think Tear the Curtain! is an exceptional piece of work. It’s exceptional in terms of the conception, the work of the actors, it’s something that should be shown on stages around the world because of the quality of the craftsmanship and the originality of the work. Will it absolutely sell out? No, but the audience numbers are building very impressively and will continue to do so throughout this week, so I’m very excited about that. I think that though The Arsonists is not a contemporary piece, but a very contemporary take, it has the potential to really delight audiences. It’s a political farce, but it’s a political farce that was written in the post-Second World War atmosphere. In terms of contemporary texts, I think that This, the play by Melissa James Gibson, which we’re doing here at Berkeley Street is an exceptionally beautiful text, and an author that has really not been done in Ontario, not been done in Toronto, and she’s a major figure. She’s a Canadian author, she lives in New York. There’s a new play of hers going up in November there, so she’s becoming a highly recognized and respected playwright on the New York scene. I think that has potential to be a bit of an eye opener. So does Someone Else by Kristen Thomson and Speaking in Tongues, the play that Company Theatre is doing. So I’m not specifying one piece, but I think all of these have the potential to really meet an audience in an important place today. Certainly for texts like Someone Else, This and Speaking in Tongues, the 240 seat theatre at Berkeley Street is an ideal venue. 240 a night is still a good showing, but not the kind of overwhelming scope of what’s required at the Bluma Appel.
It’s really nice, even when you’ve made a decision to say 'maybe we made a mistake, and there’s another, better decision to make'.
CHARPO: So, still an intimate experience?
JOCELYN: It’s still an intimate experience, and moreover I chose to move This into the Berkeley Street Theatre for many reasons. The primary reason is it just felt at the end of the day that play needed a more intimate relationship with the audience. In doing a design process for the larger stage we said “we’re trying to make up for the fact that it’s a big stage.” We don’t need to. We can actually use our other stage. So that was very exciting to be able to make that shift. It’s really nice, even when you’ve made a decision to say 'maybe we made a mistake, and there’s another, better decision to make'. So we did that. We turned that corner.
CHARPO: It’s interesting that you bring that up, because there’s a lot of talk at the moment about theatres ‘right-sizing’ their productions and their approach to doing things.
JOCELYN: Right.
CHARPO: Canadian Stage has been mentioned with reference to its move to shorter seasons and slightly braver work. What has the response been like to those changes both from within the industry and from your audience?
JOCELYN: It’s very varied. I think the first year, a lot of the long standing subscribers to Canadian Stage were very surprised by the work. But now, two years later, we’ve retained something like 60 to 65% of our original Canadian Stage subscription base. That means they’ve had the time to make a decision. They’ve had the time to say ‘we’re with you’ or ‘we’re not.’ So at the end of the day, it’s extremely positive. I do think that for things like the dance performances we’re bringing in, or even some of the other shows, like Tear the Curtain!, these are big projects. It’s very hard to hold them over for a four week run. But from the very beginning I said we need to find an adequate relationship between the scope of the show, the potential audience and the length that we’re running, because if you think that every show needs to follow exactly the same model, that every show deserves 32 performances and every show has to be sold in the same way, you’re actually missing out on the specificity of each artistic proposal. I’m way more interested in saying ‘we can do five shows of this.’ There’s a cost relationship, but maybe there’s only an audience in Toronto for five performances of this particular show. That doesn’t mean that it’s a less good show. It’s a beautiful show. It’s an important show. Political Mother is a perfect example. Sure, we can’t afford to bring it in for more than (what we have). There may only be an audience for a week’s worth of performances. Does that mean that it’s not worth bringing in? No. On the contrary, it’s a masterpiece. But we give the context to that masterpiece that is going to make it a successful production. And I think that this tweaking that’s going on that I’ve been doing from the very first season and continue to do and will continue to do, you never find the right model. You’re always trying to find the right relationship between the artwork and the way in which it’s presented. So, it is right-sizing, but right-sizing isn’t a recipe. Right-sizing is a lifestyle, it’s a constantly organic process.
CHARPO: The right size for each show?
JOCELYN: The right size for each show, and then the right size for what’s the economy of the theatre. What’s the right size for this city? What’s the right size for this country? Because I think we do play a role in the country now. I think that we play a role as being emblematic of a large stage that is really doing courageous, boldly contemporary work. But we’re also within the context of a city, where we need to drive audiences. We need to find ‘what are people interested in?’ ‘What can we encourage people to become interested in?’ In the course of the last year, Dancap has thrown in the hat, and the Mirvish have decided that they’re going to close their largest venue. So we’re in a city in which the fact that Canadian Stage is doing 20 fewer performances is not major news compared to the loss of literally tens of thousands of seats a week in our two major commercial theatre companies. And I’m not saying that either were wrong. I’m 100% excited about what David Mirvish is doing. I think he’s a visionary when it comes to his thoughts for the city and his thoughts for a home for visual arts in the city. He’s also responding to a reality, which is that people don’t go to the theatre much anymore. And they don’t go to the same kind of things. So we’re dealing with that reality in a different way and saying ‘yes, there’s a whole other kind of art being performed and being produced today, and there’s a whole other audience in the city that maybe has never been to the theatre, because they didn’t realize it could be what Robert Lepage is doing or what Kim Collier is doing, or the other great artists that we’re showing.
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