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The Vancouver East Cultural Centre
presents
ROUGH HOUSE
By Andy Massingham
A
Nightswimming Production
Directed by Brian Quirt
Lighting Design by
Rebecca Picherack and Michelle Ramsay
February 26 - March 1, 2008 at
7 PM
March 1, 2 PM*
*Join us one hour before the performance for a
Cultch Pizza Party, free of charge!
Come Rough House
with us! Andy Massingham brings his unique brand of physical theatre to The
Cultch for audiences of all ages!
What do you get when you have a light bulb, a bowl, a
chair and actor Andy Massingham? Great theatre! I haven't seen a better one-man
show in many moons. Go Now Fast! - Jazz 91.1 FM
VANCOUVER -
Silence is golden in Rough
House, a unique piece of physical theatre entirely without words, created
and performed by the hugely talented and physically fearless Andy Massingham. Rough House will run an approximately 60
minute performance for family audiences at The
Cultch from Tuesday, February 26 until Saturday, March 1. A slightly
shorter children's version (approx. 45 minutes) will be presented on Saturday,
February 26 at 14:00 (with a Cultch pizza party one hour before the
performance!)
Tickets for both versions are available through
Ticketmaster at (604) 280-3311 or www.ticketmaster.ca or through a
subscription at The Cultch's Box Office. Prices for the Family version are $25
adults; $21 for students/seniors. Tickets for the children's performance are $12
adults; $10 kids. Subscriptions are still available online or by calling (604)
251 1363 ext. 300. (A surcharge applies to all purchases made through
Ticketmaster.)
A combination of slapstick, dance and shadow play, Rough House is an example of physical
theatre-the art of telling a story through body movement. The piece opens with a
virtually empty stage: the only props are a chair, a light bulb and a bowl. We
also see the translucent walls surrounding the set, and the shadows behind them,
and we understand that lighting will play a vital role in the performance. A
supremely elemental kind of theatre (there is only one character, one act, and
no dialogue), the play is fascinating, delightful and Andy Massingham's sheer
physical artistry is breathtaking. In the course of the performance, we watch
the character confront reality and assert himself. There is recreation and
meditation, triumph and humiliation, rest and extreme physical endeavour. The
interplay of light and shadow is always there, sometimes mocking the character
and sometimes encouraging him.
For his performance in Rough House, Andy Massingham won a Dora Award
in 2005 for Best Performer. Lighting designers Rebecca Picherak and Michelle Ramsay also received a Dora for their
work on the play.
"When Brian Quirt commissioned the piece," recalls Andy
Massingham, "he said, 'You have carte blanche. I don't even want to be involved
until you want me to be.'"
Massingham initially worked solo and then
with choreographer Julia Sasso,
developing material and videotaping himself. Eventually he created an immense
archive of falls, rolls and slapstick pieces. It was then that Quirt entered the
process and started putting the ideas in order.
"He didn't ask, 'What is
the story?' or 'What's it about?'" says Massingham. "It was more like, 'What are
the links between this bit and that bit?'" There was no script, of course, but
there were the videotapes, and Massingham had drawn "floor plans" that traced
out his movements on the stage.
In keeping with its fluid,
improvisational nature, Rough House
continued to evolve as it was performed publicly. Initially there were only two
props, a chair and a bowl. In November 2003, lighting designer Rebecca Picherak
suggested another prop, a light bulb suspended above the stage, which became an
important element at the beginning and the end of the show. In January 2005, the
translucent walls of the "Rough House" were added, enhancing the possibilities
of the shadow play.
Rough House
is a production of Nightswimming
(Toronto), whose artistic mission is to explore "challenging theatrical forms
and emotionally rich stories with bold visual style." The company was founded by
Ottawa's Brian Quirt, a director and
dramaturg with extensive experience in choreography, and with whom Ottawa
audiences are most recently familiar for his direction of Pierre Brault's Portrait of an Unidentified
Man (presented at The Cultch in October 2006). Quirt was nominated for a
Dora Award for Outstanding Direction for his work on Rough House (2005). The other company
principal is Naomi Campbell (also from
Ottawa), an award-winning independent producer of over 45 plays, most of them
new Canadian works.
Rough House
is created and performed by Andy Massingham and directed by Brian Quirt, with
lighting design by Rebecca Picherack and Michelle Ramsay. This production is
stage managed by Judi Pearl. Lights are
operated by Rebecca Picherack or Michelle Ramsay, and the set was sewn by Nina Okens and built by Kevin Steeper. Rough House is produced by Naomi Campbell.
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