Theatre, the Irish, and Beer: MacKenzieRo and bedbound

This was originally intended for elsewhere, but I’m posting it here now. I already blogged a bit about bedbound here. You can also find stellar reviews in The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, Eye Weekly, and NOW. And if you haven’t seen it yet, what are you waiting for?

Last week I combined three of my great loves (theatre, the Irish, and beer) into one awe-inspiring night out.  I was privileged to attend the opening night of MacKenzieRo’s bedbound and to schmooze with its stars after the show.  Not only was it a beautiful piece of theatre, but it was one of the friendliest, most generous casts I have had the pleasure of encountering.  This is without a doubt a show to see and a company to watch.  Here’s why:

In Enda Walsh’s bedbound a father and daughter share a tiny bed.   Lying in filth and squalor, both father and daughter talk incessantly, searching through their separate existences to finally find each other in a poignant moment of redemption.  He uses words to re-enact his glory days as the furniture king of Cork.  She uses them to keep the overwhelming silence in her head at bay.  Lyrical, gut-wrenching, comical, coarse, and heart-breaking, this is a play that grabs hold of its audience from the first words and never lets go until the last breath.  In this production, it is performed to perfection, with deft, warmth, and spirit, by Richard Greenblatt and Cathy Murphy and flawlessly directed by the talented Autumn Smith.  It is not for the faint of heart.  Neither is MacKenzieRo, the company currently producing the Canadian premiere at the Tarragon Studio Upstairs.

MacKenzieRo, an independent, artist-run company, was started in 2003 by Autumn Smith and Cathy Murphy with an eye toward producing theatre that spoke to their shared Irish heritage.  Having know each other since they were but “young wans,” both are second generation Irish Canadian and MacKenzieRo is actually a combination of the names of one of Autumn’s Irish grandparents and her family name in County Antrim.  Though they are fans of all kinds of classical and contemporary theatre, when it comes to their own work they’ve known since the beginning that their focus would be on the “in-yer-face contemporary Irish playwrights who challenge artists and audiences with scripts that are provocative, intimate, and psychologically demanding.”  Having both studied in London, England, their exposure to the Irish theatre was extensive and inspiring.  As Autumn, MacKenzieRo’s Artistic Director, puts it, “It was probably the original Irish production of The Weir that did us in.  We both caught the Royal Court production in the late 1990s.”  Thus, a company was born.

They started out following in the tradition of the pub-theatres of Ireland and the UK, producing at Rowers Pub in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood.  Their interest was in exploring the historic idea of the Public House as the centre of the community, a shared space and meeting place for local voices, and in using this unique space as an intersection for theatre and community.  Autumn approached Rowers in 2004 when MacKenzieRo produced The Weir at The Fringe, “It was a cold call--I just went in and pitched the idea of a play about a pub, in a pub.  They loved the idea and gave us their upstairs room for three consecutive Fringes.” 

While they have since moved away from producing their work in pubs (Toronto lacks any true pub theatres: real pub theatres are fully equipped black box space above or connected to pubs) as their work has matured and their production values have changed, MacKenzieRo has remained true to their roots.  Now with each production they connect with a local Irish pub and encourage their audiences to come enjoy a pint with the cast post-show--for bedbound they’ve teamed up with the Pour House and I can assure you they’re the kind of people with whom you want to have a beer.

As they’ve grown up, they’ve come to see themselves as Toronto’s professional Irish Repertory Theatre.  With this comes a commitment to introducing plays not yet well-known to Canadian audiences: MacKenzieRo was the first Toronto company to produce Enda Walsh’s DISCO PIGS (to much critical acclaim) and bedbound is a Canadian premiere.  These Irish works are an important part of the Toronto theatre landscape not because they are saying things that our Canadian playwrights are not, but because they are saying them differently, in ways that we are not.  For Enda Walsh, “he crashes and bruises the air with his words.”  The Irish have a grasp on language unique to themselves but still accessible and enriching to our Canadian experience and culture.

What I most connect with in their vision of theatre and what I think bedbound accomplished particularly well is their desire to create experiential theatre.  It is not enough to MacKenzieRo that their audience show up and sit there, they want them to really experience the production.  They’re here to challenge us. With bedbound, this means creating an intimacy that doesn’t ever allow the audience to disengage: “This is closer-than-comfort stuff, befitting of Walsh’s in-yer-face style.”  This theatre insists on an audience that is present as an active witness.  Autumn shares, “When I go to the theatre, I want something to shift in me.”  However, she is quick to add that she prefers the audience not to look to the production for all the answers.  MacKenzieRo has figured out that the best theatre is the one in which artists and audiences leave still questioning, still wondering, “still figuring it all out.”

And it’s in that frame of mind that I walked away from bedbound and from my first encounter with MacKenzieRo, still thinking, still questioning but doing both with a greater appreciation for the vibrancy of Toronto’s independent theatre scene.  When I asked Autumn what her hopes were for the future of MacKenzieRo, she answered, “Well, if I win the lottery, I am building a beautiful gastro pub run by my dear friend who is a chef.  And on top will be a fully equipped black box.”  For more from MacKenzieRo, I’ll buy her the ticket.

bedbound plays from now until May 17, 2009 at Tarragon Studio Upstairs, 30 Bridgman Ave. 8PM (2:30 Sundays) Tickets: $20, Sundays PWYC Box Office: 416.531.1827 tickets.tarragontheatre.com