Love during wartime
The Mirror, April 28, 2011 by Neil Boyce
"I think I'm an excellent director, actually. I don't think I'm just a good director of young people."
Coming from anyone else this might seem rather conceited, but as Gabrielle Soskin ticks off her job requirements as artistic director of Persephone Productions, she does so in a calm, matter-of-fact fashion.
As we chew over the state of English theatre direction in Montreal, it seems incredible that Soskin's never helmed a production at Repercussion Theatre or at Centaur. "I have a very strong aesthetic," says the British-born actor-director. "I'm strong visually, I'm articulate about what is wanted and can draw it out of actors quickly. And this is not arrogance," she concludes with a sweet smile, "but out of anyone in this city, my knowledge of Shakespeare is huge."
I am speaking with Soskin as she coaches her cast through final run-throughs of Mary's Wedding, from Calgary-based playwright and screenwriter Stephen Massicotte.
After reading a review, Soskin "desperately wanted to do it immediately." But on the heels of an award for best new play and a staging at the National Arts Centre, the budget required to obtain the professional rights made it impossible. "I tried four times over a two-year period contacting the agent of Stephen Massicotte-and it was always 'No, it's all tied up', because it was going all over Canada and to the U.K. I'd almost given up, then thought, I'll have one more try."
The agent, no longer representing Massicotte, gave Soskin the playwright's address in New York. "I emailed him and asked if there was any chance. This is my company. This is a very, very good piece and an important one. Would you consider releasing it for a quote-unquote 'not professional' production? And he agreed."
The two-hander is a love story recounted as a dream, with wartime and a slice of Canadian history as background. A young girl arrives with her parents to settle in Western Canada just before the First World War. She meets a prairie farm boy and falls in love. The war begins, he enlists as a cavalryman, and is soon killed in action. The play begins some time after this event, on the eve of her wedding to another man. Mary is having recurring dreams about the lost boy, and fact and fantasy begin to blur as she revisits her former lover.
"It's about the sacrifice and futility of war, about the strength of the human spirit," says Soskin. "She dreams she's his commanding officer and we see her in the trenches with him. They're inseparable."
With Persephone's past productions of Unity, To the Green Fields Beyond, and the current work all set in a particular moment in history, I had to ask Soskin-what is it with you and WWI?
"I don't know," she says. "I've really got to stop now because that's enough already about the war! It's been like that since I was a little girl. I've read masses of literature, fiction, and drama about it. Whether it's because I was born in the middle of the Second World War, or that my mother told me of the lost generation-the idea of all these young men just wiped out-there's something about it that fascinated me."
Coming from anyone else this might seem rather conceited, but as Gabrielle Soskin ticks off her job requirements as artistic director of Persephone Productions, she does so in a calm, matter-of-fact fashion.
As we chew over the state of English theatre direction in Montreal, it seems incredible that Soskin's never helmed a production at Repercussion Theatre or at Centaur. "I have a very strong aesthetic," says the British-born actor-director. "I'm strong visually, I'm articulate about what is wanted and can draw it out of actors quickly. And this is not arrogance," she concludes with a sweet smile, "but out of anyone in this city, my knowledge of Shakespeare is huge."
I am speaking with Soskin as she coaches her cast through final run-throughs of Mary's Wedding, from Calgary-based playwright and screenwriter Stephen Massicotte.
After reading a review, Soskin "desperately wanted to do it immediately." But on the heels of an award for best new play and a staging at the National Arts Centre, the budget required to obtain the professional rights made it impossible. "I tried four times over a two-year period contacting the agent of Stephen Massicotte-and it was always 'No, it's all tied up', because it was going all over Canada and to the U.K. I'd almost given up, then thought, I'll have one more try."
The agent, no longer representing Massicotte, gave Soskin the playwright's address in New York. "I emailed him and asked if there was any chance. This is my company. This is a very, very good piece and an important one. Would you consider releasing it for a quote-unquote 'not professional' production? And he agreed."
The two-hander is a love story recounted as a dream, with wartime and a slice of Canadian history as background. A young girl arrives with her parents to settle in Western Canada just before the First World War. She meets a prairie farm boy and falls in love. The war begins, he enlists as a cavalryman, and is soon killed in action. The play begins some time after this event, on the eve of her wedding to another man. Mary is having recurring dreams about the lost boy, and fact and fantasy begin to blur as she revisits her former lover.
"It's about the sacrifice and futility of war, about the strength of the human spirit," says Soskin. "She dreams she's his commanding officer and we see her in the trenches with him. They're inseparable."
With Persephone's past productions of Unity, To the Green Fields Beyond, and the current work all set in a particular moment in history, I had to ask Soskin-what is it with you and WWI?
"I don't know," she says. "I've really got to stop now because that's enough already about the war! It's been like that since I was a little girl. I've read masses of literature, fiction, and drama about it. Whether it's because I was born in the middle of the Second World War, or that my mother told me of the lost generation-the idea of all these young men just wiped out-there's something about it that fascinated me."
