Interview: Actor Brendan McMurtry-Howlett on Sia

(photo credit: Sandra Lefrancois)

The Theatre Politic

A committed actor talks about those dangerous times of "I can do anything"

by Jasmine Chen

This week I sat down with Brendan McMurtry-Howlett who plays Nicholas Summers in SIA, to talk about his experience rehearsing and performing this intensely demanding play, now playing at the Factory Studio Theatre until April 15.

CHARPO: SIA is an extremely politically charged piece; as someone who is quite political himself, how do you relate to your character? 

BRENDAN: It feels close to home in a lot of ways, and in a lot of ways pretty different. He is a young guy, younger than me; he's rough around the edges which is something I could relate to when I was 19-21, that feeling of “I can do anything”. It is that age where you learn all that you are capable of, and very shortly after you learn all that you are not capable of. That's very much where Nick is. I come from a background of social justice. I can relate to a lot of that social consciousness that is looking outwards towards global impact. This play presents us with an interesting dilemma, how do you engage that desire to make the world a better place? Which is what I think led Nick to volunteer in the Liberian refugee camp, in the first place; which is a noble thing to do, but how do you go about that? That becomes the major question. 

I think a lot of the things he says in the play are valid, some of which get him into more trouble. I don't think it is what he's saying, I think it's how he's saying it. It can be that ignorance or naiveté about the difference of the realities of living in North America vs living in a Liberian refugee camp that leads to serious breakdowns in communication. Personally, I think that is at the core of Nick and Abraham's relationship in the play. Most of the problems spark from both of them not understanding where the other person comes from, not having any context beyond the stereotypes of what it is like to be a white person or a black person living in Africa. I don't think Nick's crime was going there wanting to help. It is so complicated, because here in North America I know tons of people who have gone to volunteer in Africa.

Review: Sia

Brendan McMurtry-Howlett and Thomas Olajide (photo credit: Sandra Lefrancois)

Searing Sia

Cahoots at Factory serves up pain and compassion

by Jasmine Chen

Last night’s opening of SIA at The Factory Theatre could not have fallen on a more appropriate day. On World Theatre Day, when we were asking ourselves, what is the purpose of theatre?, SIA answered. Matthew Mackenzie’s new play does what great theatre is supposed to do, challenge our perceptions, provoke thought, and be a mirror to society, reflecting what can sometimes be hard truths to swallow. SIA is grueling, painful, unforgiving at times, but in the end full of compassion. 

First-Person: Matthew Mackenzie on the creation of SIA

Full of Fire and Hope

A journey, cultural dislocation and a play

by Matthew Mackenzie (photos courtesy of Matthew Mackenzie)

In the fall of 2003 I flew from Alberta to West Africa, with a brief stopover in Toronto.  My plan was to go and research my play concerning the civil war that had recently torn the tiny country of Liberia apart.  Talked out of going directly to Liberia by my parents, I decided to go to Ghana, which was the most stable English speaking country in the region, where there was a significant Liberian refugee population.  Alarmed that I was travelling half way around the world without having done any kind of research, my Aunt Karen—who is a Librarian at the University of Toronto—hastily put me in touch with a Ghanaian student she knew, in the hopes that he would be able to offer some guidance.  As it just so happened, a member of the congregation the Ghanaian student belonged to back home, was the former Head Nurse of the Buduburam Camp—the largest Liberian refugee settlement in the world.