PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
WAVE Theatre
[Workshop Actors of Victoria Ensemble]
Presents
MARION BRIDGE
by Daniel MacIvor
Co-directed and performed by:
Gina McIntosh
Monica Prendergast
Kate Rubin
January 5th to 14th, 2007
Metro Studio Theatre
1411 Quadra at Johnson
Thursday to Saturday - 8 pm
Saturday - 4 pm
Sunday - 2 pm
Preview January 4th – Pay What You Can
Tickets $12 / $15 at the door
or
Call 721-8480 to book in advance
SYNOPSIS:
MARION BRIDGE is the humorous and touching story of three sisters, two of whom return home to Sydney, Nova Scotia to help the third sister care for their dying mother. Trapped by life choices and unfulfilled expectations that have left them isolated, the three women search for the courage to create a new family from the remnants of the old. Marion Bridge was nominated for a Governor General's Award and was made into a feature film in 2002.
MARION BRIDGE is the humorous and touching story of three sisters, two of whom return home to Sydney, Nova Scotia to help the third sister care for their dying mother. Trapped by life choices and unfulfilled expectations that have left them isolated, the three women search for the courage to create a new family from the remnants of the old. Marion Bridge was nominated for a Governor General's Award and was made into a feature film in 2002.
THE COMPANY
WAVE Theatre was formed as a cooperatively-run company in 2003 to create productions that showcase local Victoria actors and focus on mostly
contemporary Canadian theatre. To date, WAVE has successfully produced JEWEL by Joan McLeod, THE ATTIC, THE PEARLS AND THREE FINE GIRLS by Leah Cherniak, Anne-Marie MacDonald and Martha Ross (nominated for a 2004 Monday Magazine Outstanding Theatre production award), and a co-production with the Belfry Theatre, LION IN THE STREETS by Judith Thompson (as their annual Incubator project).
WAVE Theatre was formed as a cooperatively-run company in 2003 to create productions that showcase local Victoria actors and focus on mostly
contemporary Canadian theatre. To date, WAVE has successfully produced JEWEL by Joan McLeod, THE ATTIC, THE PEARLS AND THREE FINE GIRLS by Leah Cherniak, Anne-Marie MacDonald and Martha Ross (nominated for a 2004 Monday Magazine Outstanding Theatre production award), and a co-production with the Belfry Theatre, LION IN THE STREETS by Judith Thompson (as their annual Incubator project).
For more information on WAVE Theatre or this production of Marion Bridge, please contact Monica Prendergast at mprender@uvic.ca or 721-7997 x 2.
THE MARION BRIDGE ACTING ENSEMBLE
Gina McIntosh – Two-time winner of Monday's Outstanding Female Actor Award, Gina is a familiar presence onstage in Victoria. She has appeared in WAVE's previous productions of Lion in the Streets and The Attic, the Pearls and Three Fine Girls. Gina has also worked with Atomic Vaudeville as their irrepressible hostess Flora and in Qualities of Zero by Jacob Richmond, produced both at the Belfry and in Vancouver. At the Belfry, Gina played Miss Rose in last season's The Girl in the Goldfish Bowl. Gina can also be found at Langham Court Theatre or in various Fringe Theatre or Giggling Iguana productions. Gina teaches for Kaleidoscope Theatre School and often appears in their Christmas productions, as in this season's Charlotte's Web.
Monica Prendergast – The latest credit for Monica is the successful defense performance of her doctoral dissertation at UVic this year. When not teaching in the Departments of Theatre or Education at UVic, Monica has been seen on stage at the Phoenix Theatre, Langham Court Theatre and in all past WAVE Theatre productions. She also enjoys participating in Puente Theatre's WorldPlay readings and is currently co-developing a theatre-in-education project about peace activism with Puente's artistic director Lina De Guevara. Monica loves the process of collaboration and so is also pursuing a co-production with Victoria's ITSAZOO Productions of Alphonse by Wajdi Mouawad. She is thrilled to be back on stage with her two favorite actors in this production of Marion Bridge.
Kate Rubin – Kate is well-known to Victoria theatregoers for her performances with many companies including Kaleidoscope Theatre, Giggling Iguana Productions and, most recently, William Head on Stage's Macbeth. Kate has also appeared in the last two WAVE Theatre productions with Monica and Gina. For many years, her drama/theatre studio has been an invaluable place for young people and adults to find both training and community. Each spring her senior students present a full-length theatre production that is a vibrant showcase for young talent. This year, Kate has taken over the Belfry 101 audience education project at the Belfry (begun by Monica in 1999) and will be facilitating an original theatre production with these students during March Break.
Marion Bridge (from Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia)
Marion Bridge (Talonbooks 1999) by Daniel MacIvor is set in the kitchen of a family home in Nova Scotia. The family history is tracked in terms of the response of three daughters to their dying mother, who has made a deliberate choice to die on her own terms, leaving her daughters to assess the terms on which they are currently living. The eldest sister, Agnes MacKeigan, is an alcoholic, under-employed actress, who has reluctantly returned home. The middle sister, Theresa, is a nun, who has assumed the responsibility of caring for her mother and her younger sister, Louise, who is perceived as "strange" - a social misfit.
Marion Bridge begins with a monologue in which Agnes recounts a dream: she is drowning, and any hope of rescue by a young family sitting on the beach is denied. They misinterpret her frantic waving for help, and respond by waving back. Agnes's despair is related to her childlessness: she has given up a daughter for adoption. Her journey towards self-knowledge and an equilibrium informed by hope for the future are effected through her reconciliation with her mother and with her daughter.
Her plan to stay in the family home with her daughter and her sister Louise, is at first discouraged by Theresa, who is suspicious of her motives. Theresa also has her own private despair. Even though she belongs to a community of believers, and attempts to live out a Christian humanist philosophy, she experiences doubt and disbelief. She is sustained primarily through her contact with the land in the form of farming; her relationship to the earth is both visceral and spiritual.
As she tells Agnes, however, she no longer sees God in a world in which children are killing children, and "half the world [is] on drugs and the other half starving and people just letting it happen" (106). What she values is her connection to her mother --represented in the post-its passed from mother to daughter on which are scribbled indicators of her needs: "Mother's notes. They're so beautiful. At first just a bunch of marks and squiggles but once you understand it it's as big and wonderful as any language" (78). She respects her mother's wish to die alone, while the three sisters are visiting their estranged father and his new wife.
Although the play validates communication and connection, it also demonstrates the "beauty" of aloneness - the private individual worlds in which each woman lives. Louise's private world - her "reality" - is that of the soap operas on television. She finally enters a larger world when she reaches out to a woman friend, and buys a truck from her.
All three sisters finally make the long-delayed trip to Marion Bridge - which has been for their mother a family goal, and but which when realized in the past, has disappointed her daughters. This time, however, it is the joint excursion that is the point, rather than the arrival. Once on the bridge - a connecting point between past, present, and future, they celebrate their mother's life and death by scattering the post-its "high into the air" like confetti (127).
Marion Bridge was nominated for a Governor General's Award. It was filmed in 2002, with screen play by MacIvor, and direction by Camelia Frieberg.
Review by Anne Nothof
http://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=Marion%20Bridge
Marion Bridge (Talonbooks 1999) by Daniel MacIvor is set in the kitchen of a family home in Nova Scotia. The family history is tracked in terms of the response of three daughters to their dying mother, who has made a deliberate choice to die on her own terms, leaving her daughters to assess the terms on which they are currently living. The eldest sister, Agnes MacKeigan, is an alcoholic, under-employed actress, who has reluctantly returned home. The middle sister, Theresa, is a nun, who has assumed the responsibility of caring for her mother and her younger sister, Louise, who is perceived as "strange" - a social misfit.
Marion Bridge begins with a monologue in which Agnes recounts a dream: she is drowning, and any hope of rescue by a young family sitting on the beach is denied. They misinterpret her frantic waving for help, and respond by waving back. Agnes's despair is related to her childlessness: she has given up a daughter for adoption. Her journey towards self-knowledge and an equilibrium informed by hope for the future are effected through her reconciliation with her mother and with her daughter.
Her plan to stay in the family home with her daughter and her sister Louise, is at first discouraged by Theresa, who is suspicious of her motives. Theresa also has her own private despair. Even though she belongs to a community of believers, and attempts to live out a Christian humanist philosophy, she experiences doubt and disbelief. She is sustained primarily through her contact with the land in the form of farming; her relationship to the earth is both visceral and spiritual.
As she tells Agnes, however, she no longer sees God in a world in which children are killing children, and "half the world [is] on drugs and the other half starving and people just letting it happen" (106). What she values is her connection to her mother --represented in the post-its passed from mother to daughter on which are scribbled indicators of her needs: "Mother's notes. They're so beautiful. At first just a bunch of marks and squiggles but once you understand it it's as big and wonderful as any language" (78). She respects her mother's wish to die alone, while the three sisters are visiting their estranged father and his new wife.
Although the play validates communication and connection, it also demonstrates the "beauty" of aloneness - the private individual worlds in which each woman lives. Louise's private world - her "reality" - is that of the soap operas on television. She finally enters a larger world when she reaches out to a woman friend, and buys a truck from her.
All three sisters finally make the long-delayed trip to Marion Bridge - which has been for their mother a family goal, and but which when realized in the past, has disappointed her daughters. This time, however, it is the joint excursion that is the point, rather than the arrival. Once on the bridge - a connecting point between past, present, and future, they celebrate their mother's life and death by scattering the post-its "high into the air" like confetti (127).
Marion Bridge was nominated for a Governor General's Award. It was filmed in 2002, with screen play by MacIvor, and direction by Camelia Frieberg.
Review by Anne Nothof
http://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=Marion%20Bridge
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