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When theatre director Ravi Jain, who is of South Asian descent, read the script for Salt-Water Moon, the classic play set in rural Newfoundland at the end of the First World War, he imagined people who look like him.
“I look at how it’s relevant now,” said Jain, the founding artistic director of Why Not Theatre in Toronto. “For me, it’s important to re-contextualize the classic in a way that speaks to now. It isn’t a museum piece.”
Written by Canadian playwright David French in the 1980s, Salt-Water Moon tells the story of Jacob Mercer ,who on a moonlit September evening in 1926 returns to Coley’s Point, Nfld., after having left for Toronto the year before. Mercer runs into Mary, his old flame who he left without saying goodbye to and still longs for. But Mary is engaged to someone else. The former lovers must confront their past.
In Jain’s production, which will be staged Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the National Arts Centre as part of the Canada Scene series, the roles of Jacob and Mary, who are usually played by Caucasian actors, will be played by actors who are visible minorities.
Playing Jacob is Danny Ghantous, a Greek-born Lebanese actor who was raised in Egypt. Ghantous is a recent graduate of Ryerson University’s theatre program. Mary is played by Bahareh Yaraghi, who is of Iranian descent and is based in Toronto. Yaraghi has been featured in NOW Magazine’s top 10 list of theatre artists in 2016.
Jain has been in theatre for many years but much of that time was spent abroad, including stints of studying in New York, Paris and London. Upon returning to Canada, he found that many of the Canadian classics were stuck on outdated ideas that excluded people of colour from their casts.
“A lot of the theatre people would use the excuse, ‘Well, we don’t have artists of colour on stage because at the time they weren’t around’,” Jain said. “We were around — it’s not like we appeared out of nowhere.”
He stresses that what moves him about Salt-Water Moon are its universal aspects.
“The play is really about two lovers under a star-filled sky trying to remember a love they once had. It really is the classic love story,” Jain said.
“The relationship between the two, the way they tease each other, make up and break up and make up throughout the evening is a joy, because we recognize ourselves — We laugh, we cry — we want to hug at the end.”
A unique aspect of Jain’s re-staging is the addition of a narrator who is played by Toronto singer Ania Soul.
Also changed in Jain’s re-staging is the set. While the play remains set in Newfoundland, the traditional porch setting of past productions has been replaced with an evocative series of tea lights and stars hanging above the stage.
From left to right: Ania Soul, Kawa Ada and Mayko Nguyen, the cast from the Toronto run of Salt-Water Moon
“For me it’s about love and that relationship about love that exists between two people — no matter who they are or where they’re from,” Jain said.
“And also for me, it was pointing to a different identity of Canada that I exist in.”
Salt-Water Moon
When: July 6 to 8, 7 p.m. nightly
Where: National Arts Centre, Azreili Studio
Tickets: $25 at nac-cna.ca or the NAC box office
oblackmore@postmedia.com
twitter.com/olivia_blckmr
查看原文...
“I look at how it’s relevant now,” said Jain, the founding artistic director of Why Not Theatre in Toronto. “For me, it’s important to re-contextualize the classic in a way that speaks to now. It isn’t a museum piece.”
Written by Canadian playwright David French in the 1980s, Salt-Water Moon tells the story of Jacob Mercer ,who on a moonlit September evening in 1926 returns to Coley’s Point, Nfld., after having left for Toronto the year before. Mercer runs into Mary, his old flame who he left without saying goodbye to and still longs for. But Mary is engaged to someone else. The former lovers must confront their past.
In Jain’s production, which will be staged Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the National Arts Centre as part of the Canada Scene series, the roles of Jacob and Mary, who are usually played by Caucasian actors, will be played by actors who are visible minorities.
Playing Jacob is Danny Ghantous, a Greek-born Lebanese actor who was raised in Egypt. Ghantous is a recent graduate of Ryerson University’s theatre program. Mary is played by Bahareh Yaraghi, who is of Iranian descent and is based in Toronto. Yaraghi has been featured in NOW Magazine’s top 10 list of theatre artists in 2016.
Jain has been in theatre for many years but much of that time was spent abroad, including stints of studying in New York, Paris and London. Upon returning to Canada, he found that many of the Canadian classics were stuck on outdated ideas that excluded people of colour from their casts.
“A lot of the theatre people would use the excuse, ‘Well, we don’t have artists of colour on stage because at the time they weren’t around’,” Jain said. “We were around — it’s not like we appeared out of nowhere.”
He stresses that what moves him about Salt-Water Moon are its universal aspects.
“The play is really about two lovers under a star-filled sky trying to remember a love they once had. It really is the classic love story,” Jain said.
“The relationship between the two, the way they tease each other, make up and break up and make up throughout the evening is a joy, because we recognize ourselves — We laugh, we cry — we want to hug at the end.”
A unique aspect of Jain’s re-staging is the addition of a narrator who is played by Toronto singer Ania Soul.
Also changed in Jain’s re-staging is the set. While the play remains set in Newfoundland, the traditional porch setting of past productions has been replaced with an evocative series of tea lights and stars hanging above the stage.
From left to right: Ania Soul, Kawa Ada and Mayko Nguyen, the cast from the Toronto run of Salt-Water Moon
“For me it’s about love and that relationship about love that exists between two people — no matter who they are or where they’re from,” Jain said.
“And also for me, it was pointing to a different identity of Canada that I exist in.”
Salt-Water Moon
When: July 6 to 8, 7 p.m. nightly
Where: National Arts Centre, Azreili Studio
Tickets: $25 at nac-cna.ca or the NAC box office
oblackmore@postmedia.com
twitter.com/olivia_blckmr
查看原文...
