Tag Archives: colleen murphy

Jupiter – a Colleen Murphy premiere

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Ellie Heath, Brian Dooley, and Monk Northey in Colleen Murphy’s Jupiter, at Theatre Network. Set and costume design Tessa Stamp, lighting design Larissa Poho. Photo by Ian Jackson.

In comparison to Colleen Murphy’s other work that I’m familiar with, Jupiter has a happy ending. That is, not everyone is dead, and the ones who are not dead are at least speaking to each other.

Unlike in Bright Burning (published title I hope my heart burns first) or in The Society for the Destitute Presents Titus Bouffonius, or the offstage massacre that drives The December Man, the deaths discussed in Jupiter are spread over a period of more than 50 years, counting things that happened before the play started. Is it still more than one family’s share of problems and tragedies and bad luck? Maybe.

Bradley Moss directs the world premiere of Jupiter, in Theatre Network’s mainstage Nancy Power Theatre at the Roxy. The human cast is all familiar to Edmonton theatregoers: Brian Dooley, Cathy Derkach, Ellie Heath, Gabe Richardson, and Dayna Lea Hoffmann. The newcomer is Monk Northey, a large, beautiful, and well-behaved Field Retriever playing the part of family dog Axel.

There are scenes in three eras, all set in the family’s small house. The set design (Tessa Stamp) is very clever. It feels like peeking in to a private space, glimpsing the kitchen, front hall, and bedroom-hallway behind the main playing space of the small living room. The dialogue and movements were so specific that I felt like I could picture the back door and backyard and basement stairs as well. We can almost feel the sticky-oppressive heat that ramps up the frustrations.

Ellie Heath plays Emma, the daughter of Violet and Winston. She’s 16 in the first era, bursting with enthusiasm for doing science experiments and dreaming of going to med school in the big city. “Why do I have to have such weird kids?” grumbles slaughterhouse-worker dad Dooley. Seeing hints of how her life might unfold, and then seeing her 15 years later and 20 years after that was especially poignant. I’ve often seen Heath play young characters – she was Alice in the Citadel’s Through the Looking Glass, a young girl in the production of Closer directed by Keltie Brown Forsyth, a sulky teenager in Shadow’s production of Queen Lear, and a precocious teenager in one of the Die-Nasty soap-opera seasons last year. Heath’s shift from teenage-Emma to her older self, dealing with the consequences of the night of her brother’s 21st birthday, was impressive, with credible changes in voice and body language.

Violet (Derkach), Toby (Richardson), and Ava (Hoffmann) round out the family constellation, along with various pets onstage and off. Tensions are hinted at, awful things happen. Family members try to cope in the short term, and are permanently affected, as seen in the futures.

If you are a person who wants to be warned about whether specific awful things might happen or be discussed in a play, you should always ask beforehand about a Colleen Murphy play. If you would prefer watching the characters and trying to guess where the story might be going, having that chest-clenching top-of-the-roller-coaster moment of horror and “Are they actually going there?”, then don’t get spoilers. Colleen Murphy sometimes does go there. Different audience members will find different parts disturbing. And I’m not heartless and unmoved; I’m trying to preserve the surprises for people who want them.

Jupiter plays at the Roxy until April 20th, with tickets available here.

Sneak peeks at new work

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For most art, audiences don’t get to experience it until it’s “done”. Painters and sculptors don’t usually Instagram their rough sketches or let people wander around their studios. Composers don’t usually play and sing bits of their new works for lucky fans. Sometimes at a fan convention an author might read a chapter of a new book, or there might be a screening of a film trailer, but probably not an unedited reel. But theatre depends on how the text sounds when a group of actors is speaking it, and live theatre also depends on audiences responding to the text. So it’s common in play development to have a reading – maybe a private workshop with actors hired to sit around a table and read from a new script, and then maybe a reading on stage for an audience. No set and costume, no actions, no music and lights – just the voices of the characters, bringing a story to life.

The next chance to hear readings of new scripts in Edmonton is Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre’s Springboards Festival, which runs March 22-26th at the Gateway Theatre (you might remember it as the Roxy on Gateway or C103 or the hottest Fringe venue around…). Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre (as the name suggests) has a mandate of supporting new play development. The schedule of plays for this festival sounds exciting! Not only is there new work by established playwrights Conni Massing (The Aberhart Summer, The Invention of Love) and Stephen Massicotte (Mary’s Wedding), and award winner James Odin Wade, on Wednesday Mar 22 there are five ten-minute scripts selected from the EdmonTEN play competition, and on Sunday Mar 26th there’s a Cabaret-style sampling of work from eleven more writers, from emerging to acclaimed. Heather Inglis and Darrin Hagen are curators and dramaturges for the festival

Jake Tkaczyk, actor, performance creator, and graduate student, will be one of the performers for James Odin Wade’s new work Everyone Is Doing Fine on Thursday Mar 23rd. Jake’s experience with play readings includes working on Bright Burning, (later titled I Hope My Heart Burns First) which Colleen Murphy wrote for his graduating class, and participating in public reading events including Script Salon and Skirts Afire. I asked Jake a few questions about readings and new play development.

“As an actor, how do you benefit from participating in a private workshop reading?”

“If I know I’ll be doing a public performance, I love getting the chance to work on the script, ask the playwright to clarify their motivations, and spend more time than a normal rehearsal process. We get more chances to try things out. ”

“Why do you do staged readings for the public?”

“Play readings are a chance for the writer to really have their work understood. As an actor, I am there to service the playwright. A public reading gives the writer a chance to hear what’s landing, what does the audience find comedic or not find comedic – are there moments when the room goes still. The writer gets to hear it read and hear it heard. And without all the design elements contributing to the experience, the audience is just paying attention to the words. Does the text work in that order? Is the plot making sense? Is there anything that needs to be explained more … or less?”

As an emerging playwright myself, I’ve had the chance to experience what he describes. Earlier this month my short script Book Club 2021 was read as part of Walterdale Theatre’s From Cradle to Stage festival, along with twelve other new plays. Hearing actors read my script, and being surrounded by audience members responding to those actors, made me so grateful that theatre is a collaborative art. We need each other to share stories. _______________________________________________________________________________________

Springboards Festival runs Mar 22-26 at Gateway Theatre with performances at 7:30 every evening. Tickets for each evening are $15 in advance and pay-what-you-wish at the door.