The Ark, Day One: Having a Baal

Okay, don’t hit me.  The title I picked is terrible.

I’d like to state up front that I plan to write daily about my experience with the National Arts Centre‘s Ark project, but I qualify that for this week, because I am also working on preparing for the next Zucchini Grotto cabaret.  It runs this Friday and Saturday night, so I am faced with some very long days and very little time to digest anything. So this week’s entries will be brief and scatterbrained.  Just like me.  I will capture my daily impressions as best I can, and I make no claims as to the accuracy of the the facts I present, since I am constantly interpolating and drawing ‘untested’ connections.

This is the third year of The Ark, which is a program that the English Theatre’s artistic director Peter Hinton brought in as an exploration and development component.  It’s difficult to sum up what The Ark is or who it serves; it’s a more complex answer than I can give (there are several answers, in fact) and I’m not the best person to give it.  Some of the work that is done over the three weeks is used as input into possible productions for the NAC English Theatre’s subsequent season. Some of the work is aimed at professional development, akin to how people in all sorts of other “9-to-5″ careers pursue regular skills development training.  And there are other angles. The working group numbers over 40 this year, and The Ark is dedicated to the life and work of Bertolt Brecht.  Participants include the second-year acing class from the National Theatre School, a group of professional actors (of amazing pedigree, generally, and I’m honored and privileged to be part of that contingent), designers, playwrights, dramaturges, and directors, with input from other scholars and interested people.

The group meets six days a week, for full working days.  Generally, mornings are spent looking at historical aspects of Brecht’s life, his times, his world view and topics related to his work; afternoons are spent lifting his plays, poems and musicals off the page.  There is much discussion and sharing: such a diverse group of people brings a tremendous range of background and experience to the table.

I look at The Ark as a terrific professional development opportunity.  I have not had significant exposure to Brecht’s work, but am very interested in the infamous “alienation effect” (audiences should not be asked to forget they are seeing theatre), Brecht’s responses to the politics of his time, his approach to creation and collaboration, and his fascination with technology as a storytelling medium.  In addition, so much of the pre-World War II world picture seems so relevant and timely today; I’m fascinated by the parallels between then and now.

So.  Today was the first day, and we spent some time getting to know each other before getting a brief introduction to the world of Germany in Brecht’s early life (he was born in 1898 and fled Germany one day after the Reichstag building was burned down, in 1933.  The Nazis revoked his citizenship and burned his books in 1935, while he was abroad).  There is so much more nuance and diversity to the digest version of events we store in our heads, and though I say this with respect to complex and fascinating situation that led to the rise of the National Socialist party, I am reminded that this is something we all do to help digest the history of any age.  The image in my head of “pre-WW2 Germany” is one of very simple, broad strokes involving a grumpy failed painter and worthless currency… but it is the complexity of the “realistic” picture that, I think, provides insight into the question of how the Nazis managed to rise to power with the full support of so many

This afternoon, we read and discussed “Baal“, a play that Brecht wrote when he was 20.  The play is fascinating and I won’t talk about it much here — due to lack of time, the fact that I’m still processing it myself, and the fact that Wikipedia can help you if you are so inclined — but it’s astounding that such incredible poetry and insight was pouring out of a man who was so young and so newly-returned from the horror of working as a medic during the first world war.  The play strikes me as decidedly “un-Brechtian”, since it comes from a period before Brecht’s exploration and refinement of the theatrical form.  The play’s titular character reminded us of many “angry young rebels”, from Faustus to James Dean.

Tomorrow we will all be observing Remembrance Day ceremonies at the National War Monument.  I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve lived in Ottawa for more than a decade and this is the first time I will physically be at the memorial.  I expect it will be powerful.

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