Slight of Mind takes flight of fancy at the Citadel – just not in a theatre
A couple of years back when current Artistic Director Daryl Cloran first arrived at the Citadel, he kept getting lost. Joe Shoctor’s big brick playhouse had empty rooms, long hallways and all sorts of dark nooks and crannies.
Never one to let a theatrical idea go to waste, Cloran searched for a vehicle that would put those derelict spaces to use.
Meanwhile, in another part of the city, Heather Inglis’ Theatre Yes was pursuing a unique idea – to present theatre anywhere but in a traditional theatre with a stage and an audience. Their first notable effort was the National Elevator Project which featured 16 (very short) plays performed in, well, in a series of elevators in area buildings.
About the same time as Cloran was getting lost in his own theatre, Inglis was standing in the 3rd floor boardroom of the Citadel staring out the window at the Sun Life building across the way. “What if,” she thought, “an audience stood in the same spot and watched actors across the street and listened to the story on headphones?”
Well, there was a wedding made in heaven. The result, Slight of Mind, is a play like no other, performed in and around the Citadel until April 14. The company wisely hired the much-produced Edmonton playwright Beth Graham (The Drowning Girls/Pretty Goblins) to write a show that could be staged in bits and pieces throughout the area. Graham presented them with an epic tale of flight.
This is the way it works: We present ourselves at the Citadel box office and are guided to a “secret” starting place by a witty (and disembodied) pilot from Icarus Airlines. The voice delivers the admonition, “We now invite passengers with closed minds to open them.”
One of our companions is Agnes (Ivy Degagne), a precocious 10-year-old celebrating her birthday. Agnes is fascinated by flight and dreams of becoming a pilot. As the evening begins, a large staff of Icarus Airlines flight attendants (20 or so) guide us through the Citadel, which has been turned into a number of small stages. All the while they are murmuring messages such as, “There are no safety features on this flight.” Or, cracking jokes that were old before those WestJet cutups were born, such as, “Two wrongs don’t make a right – but two Wrights can make a plane.”
There are three iconic adventurers (and a large supporting cast) waiting in the … uh, wings. Amelia Earhart (Melissa Thinglestad), the first woman to fly the Atlantic is ready to meet with us. She was one of the most celebrated adventurers of the early 20th Century and the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. (She even flew to Edmonton once.) And then one day in 1937, as she attempted to fly around the world, she (and her navigator) disappeared over the Pacific Ocean. Earhart is played with a clipped accent and a brisk Katherine Hepburn sensibility.
The aviatrix apparently was not one to put up with horsefeathers. When one cornball ’30s scribe dares to ask, “And what will you wear when you navigate around the world?” Ms. Earhart spits out, “What one always wears when circumnavigating the globe – pants!” Also waiting for us is Valentina Tereshkova (Lora Brovold), the Russian cosmonaut who was the first woman in space. Tereshkova, in Brovold’s effective reading, turns out to be brave, very ambitious, vulnerable, something of a proto-feminist and something of a poet herself, as she straps herself into her cramped capsule and is blasted into space.
The third character is the ill-fated Icarus (Philip Geller). Apparently, the story of his death at sea was not completely accurate; Graham has given Geller a moving monologue as he tells us of the exultation of his flight and the pain when it was over.
The brilliance of Theatre Yes’ production is that in just a little time, and in some pretty cramped spaces, overarching themes and emotions are attempted and largely carried off. Graham’s ability is to suddenly place you at the centre of an intense emotion which gives her characters instant credibility. Icarus’s father Daedalus (Ian Leung) loves him, in a telling metaphor, when it is time for the son to fly – which leads to his death. Icarus has fallen in love with Alexander (Silverius Materi), but Alexander can’t cope with the demands of a gay relationship. Tereshkova, meanwhile, has some lovely things to say about space. In fact, the love of flying – with its racing emotions, its dangers, its bliss and personal challenges is woven throughout the production.
It’s an engrossing (just short of) two hours. The production team at Theatre Yes has made sure that the various mini-stages are properly theatrical. They have created quite presentable dramatic spaces in alleyways, a library, a loading dock, storage areas, lounges and long hallways. Most of them have seats. One of the most effective scenes hearkens back to Inglis’s experience in the Citadel boardroom. As we watch, from a distance (with earphones), Icarus and Daedalus are high atop a neighbouring building, attempting to fly. Another powerful moment comes about when in a small room lit only by the flight panel of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra, we share her final moments in the air.
Sound artist Gary James Joynes gives each of the stops along the way it own audio perspective – and the dialogue is generally clear throughout. In fact, taking advantage of its ingenious concept, and Graham’s expansive but compact play, Inglis and company have provided a solid piece of theatrical entertainment.
For the next few weeks, the Citadel will probably be a dangerous place for those who loiter. In two theatres (The Club and Maclab) two plays will be staged (The Party and The Candidate) at the same time – with the same actors. Which means actors will be hurtling from one theatre to another. And a company of deaf-hearing actors are in the midst of rehearsing The Tempest in the Shoctor Theatre. Add to that Theatre Yes’ moving about the theatre. In the middle of that frenzied thespian traffic jam is probably not the place where, gentle patron, you may wish to tarry.
Slight of Mind, a production of Theatre Yes in collaboration with the Citadel, has already been held over and now runs until April 14 in most every space in the Citadel you can imagine – but not in a theatre. Wear comfortable clothes.
