One Trunk Winnipeg presents: Spolin Workshop by Paul Johnson

Professional Development WORKSHOP:

The Theatre Games of VIOLA SPOLIN

with Paul (Sparky) Johnson

Monday, March 14th, 12-3pm

at Manitoba Theatre for Young People

Workshop: $40 (includes ticket to Back to Borneo, Monday, March 14th, 8pm at MTYP see below)

Please RSVP to Andraea Sartison (onetrunkcollective@gmail.com or 333-2666) by March 9th.

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP:

This three hour workshop will introduce theatre professionals to the work of improvisational theatre legend, and inventor of theatre games: Viola Spolin (www.spolin.com). The workshop will be delivered by Paul (Sparky) Johnson, who worked closely with her and her son Paul Sills (founder of The Second City) (www.paulsills.com) over the past three decades and was chosen to carry on their work. Sparky Johnson’s show Back to Borneo will play at Mantioba Theatre Centre on Monday, March 14th. Winnipeg actors, theatre educators, playwrights, directors, producers and artists are invited to attend the workshop for $40 (includes a free ticket to Johnson's performance of Back to Borneo on Sunday evening www.backtoborneo.com). This workshop and show combo is a great opportunity for all to reconnect with the heart of acting and creativity.

ABOUT PAUL (Sparky) JOHNSON:

Paul (Sparky) Johnson was a founding member of Edmonton’s Catalyst Theatre and an actor/writer with The Second City Review Theatre. For many years, he had the rare opportunity of studying and working closely with theatre legend, the late Paul Sills – founder of The Second City and son of Viola Spolin. Toward the end of his life, Mr. Sills selected Sparky to take over and carry on his renowned acting workshops in Door County, Wisconsin. Since 2001, Sparky has been a guest artist at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (Drama) summer program. Sparky is a member of Actors’ Equity (USA), Canadian Actors’ Equity, and the Association of Canadian Cinema, Television, and Radio Artists. For the past twenty-five years, Sparky has been a full-time drama professor with the Augustana Faculty of the University of Alberta.

One Trunk in Winnipeg hosts: Paul Johnson's Back to Borneo

A dear friend and mentor: Paul "Sparky" Johnson brings his new solo show to town! Not to be missed by anyone in Winnipeg who has a taste for theatre. -Andraea

BACK TO BORNEO

When: Monday, March 14th, 8pm

Where: Manitoba Theatre for Young People

Tickets: $10 at the door

www.backtoborneo.com

Paul “ Sparky” Johnson will stage his one-man show Back to Borneo at Manitoba Theatre for Young People on Monday, March 14th at 8:00 pm.

The show sees Johnson take the significant stories of his life (he was born in British North Borneo, which is now Malaysia) and play them as if they were happening right now. In all of them, his mentor, the late Paul Sills, who was an american icon in theatre, is at his side, encouraging him to “stay in the present”, and coaching him towards the discoveries of focus that eventually save his life.

"The premise is that I have become unstuck in time, like Kurt Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim," said Johnson. "I think every actor gets to that state or wants to get to that state where he or she can be present, even though it is something that has happened before, like a play he or she has rehearsed over and over again. One thing Paul says to me in the show is 'become a child, go back to a time when you were connected. Get back to Borneo.' Whenever I lose focus, then, he will remind me to get back to a time when I felt connected, to get back to Borneo."

Underlying everything is Johnson's attempt to highlight the work of Viola Spolin, the mother of Sills and modern day improvisation, who believes that nobody teaches anybody anything, rather, that a person learns from experience and experiencing. In Ms. Spolin's words, "You are connected, you're right there. That's where the spontaneity is; that is where the joy is; that's where the happiness is. It is the never-ending spiral of life."

The show is the culmination for Prof. Johnson of at least two decades of research, in that he had a very close association with Sills until Sills' death in 2008.

Closing Thoughts

This is the end (for now)!

We closed the show last night, and it was a great success. Great and full audiences, who all had wonderful feedback. My favourite comment that kept coming up was:

"I really liked the show, it was beautiful, I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure if I got the whole thing."

Because the whole show was such a collaborative dissection/creation process to put together it felt like when we were opening the show it still was growing and we were still discovering. And so I never felt quite right about telling people what it meant since along the way it had meant to us so many different things (I don't believe there is a right answer). It was so open to interpretation and I think very visceral and sensual, and that is how we wanted to keep it. That the people could come with us on the journey, but they could layer their own stories or ideas on top of what we were showing them. One comment from Chris Sigurdson which I think sums it up:

"...like most theatre people who see the show- they struggle to articulate why it moved them or affected them. Visual artists and people more familiar with performance who don't seek to find literal or rational connections between the images and moods that are created are more successful at letting the piece speak for itself."

We found that it was worth while. That hauling an old tale by a cromudgonly Swedish naturalist back up again could inspire a string of stories not only about a disheveled heirloom beneath the sea, but about three working women, each with a loss of their own searching for what is real.

One Trunk is a company, focusing on inter-disciplinary performance and multi-media collaboration. The short story of the Big Gravel Sifter hooked me from the first time I read it. It had such delicious imagery and romance (and even some young artists in Florida agree, if you’ve seen the piano they planted on a sand bar in the ocean recently) that it called for a team of creators fluent in the language of the body, who could tell a story through movement, and who knew how to create images that (hopefully) speak a thousand words. We’ve been in studios across Winnipeg in various assemblies of the company over the last few weeks. In particular Coral, CindyMarie and I discussing what this story meant, to who, and why they were telling it. It started with the adaptation by Jason. Then we all shared images that came to mind such as those of Rosie the Riveter, of mountains and seas, children and lovers, birth and burial. All of these were brought to life in simple choreography and piano by Garth, whose music clarified for us what each moment meant. From these we cut and pasted under the mentorship of Chris and Alex until we understood the story that pulled all of the layers of sounds and images together. Our individual processes and styles were challenged and at some moments left us feeling like fish out of the water. However, I can say in full confidence that this piece was created collectively. My hope is that in the meeting of our many backgrounds and media you too will be able to unearth the many dimensions of a simple story and come along with us in the showing and telling of the Big Gravel Sifter.

-Andraea Sartison

Free Press Review

The Big Gravel Sifter is a highly poetic, multi-disciplinary interpretation of a Strindberg short story about an old piano submerged in the ocean. Dance, mime, animated and live-action film, repeated strands of spoken text and live music combine into a part-beautiful, part-mystifying production by One Trunk Collective.

The show has a lovely set -- including a smashed piano that's like a sculpture -- but suffers a bit from sightline problems caused by unraked seats and intrusive pillars.

Composer Garth Hardy plays "prepared piano," meaning the instrument has been purposely altered to sound hauntingly damaged and out of tune. His evocative music has a strong feeling of memory and loss.

The theme is the split between life's utilitarian side -- performers CindyMarie Small, Andraea Sartison and Coral Maloney initially dress like Rosie the Riveter and perform numbing manual jobs -- and the impractical realm of imagination, dreams, art and yearning represented by the undersea piano.

Has the instrument become just a "big gravel sifter?"

The piano, we hear, was loved by children, but to salvage it is "impossible." Its dreamy song, which seems to call to people on the shore, is expressed through lyrical ballet by Small (a former Royal Winnipeg Ballet dancer) that borders on the silly in the small space.

The show grows baffling when a romantic couple seems to split and Sartison grows distressed and scrubs her own body. But there are some striking moments, especially the dream-crushing one in which Small rips down a bedsheet that's being used for projecting home movies of children at a piano.

"Leave it alone!" she barks. One hears Strindberg's poignant personal song lamenting that in life, the harsh pursuit of work and money often drowns and silences the spirit.

Review from Cendrine Marrouat

Because it is deemed too old and expensive, a family's piano is abandoned to the sea − "three fathoms deep." The piano is discovered by underwater creatures that try to understand its purpose. They give it a new life and, in the process, discover music in "the key of X." Those who live above water hear the mysterious music and become transformed.

"The Big Gravel Sifter" is based on one of August Strindberg’s short stories. In this version, adapted by Jason Hooper, the mundane meets magic in a combination of fascinating elements. First, there is the "key of X," an out-of-tune and unearthly musical exploration of two worlds that almost collide. Then there is dance. Gracious and sensual movements turn bodies into linguistic vehicles that meet, connect, experience love and part. At times intense, at others almost detached, all the relationships express an emotional void that needs to be filled.

Finally, there is the apparent lack of transitions between the scenes. The atmosphere it creates is very Shakespearian. It is a "dream within a dream" that blurs borders between the human world and the universe of water creatures, confuses the mind, and reaches a climax when former Royal Winnipeg Ballet performer CindyMarie Small becomes a dancing ballerina at the bottom of the sea.

I enjoyed this production by Director Chris Sigurdson, especially the simple but dreamy setting. However, I was expecting the relationship between the sea creatures and the broken piano to be more physical. While the three actresses did a fantastic job portraying human characters, the work on the sea creatures was a little too much on the surface.

"The Big Gravel Sifter" is presented by One Trunk Collective as part of the 2011 Master Playwright Festival that celebrates Swedish playwright and author August Strindberg. See it at Exchange Community Church, 75 Albert Street, Winnipeg, until February 6.

Uptown Review

Our first review came out today in the Uptown. Thanks to Kenton Smith:

FOUR STARS!!!

"How much Strindberg there actually is in this spare but lush 40-minute production, I’m not sure.

But you know what? Who cares: this is a beautiful, beguiling little piece of theatre.

The Big Gravel Sifter is based on one of August Strindberg’s short stories, as adapted by Jason Hooper. What distinguishes it is its rather brilliant use of minimalist production values. The show doesn’t boast a set, exactly, save for what appears to be more of an art installation, enhanced by projected imagery dancing upon it.

It’s this immediately impressive tableau, taken together with the costumes, lighting, space and movement, that creates a sense of density – even lushness – that’s arresting. (The driving, sometimes eerie live piano accompaniment also lends much added value to the spectacle.)

Essentially, the story concerns three women – who first appear to us like three Rose the Riveters – attempting to dredge something precious and lost from underwater. Just what that is not so important: what matters are the emotions attached, to what is clearly gone and irretrievable. Or perhaps merely elusive – even illusory. It’s more about tone and mood, this show.

Like Theatre Incarnate’s "new adaptive creation" Dionysius is Getting Impatient, inspired by Strindberg’s work and life, The Big Gravel Sifter is also a striking display of physical theatre – with the added benefit of former Royal Winnipeg Ballet performer CindyMarie Small literally shedding her initial costume, to become something of a dancing butterfly before our eyes.

Like Dionysius, this is just a beautifully composed piece of theatre: the visuals, the music, the choreography and the very rhythm work together to complete an aesthetic symmetry. It casts a moody spell. And at such a tight running time, you won’t even overdose on artiness. Give this one a try."

PRE-SHOW PROMO

above is the TAB (wonderful photo by Leif Norman)

below is from CBC who says...

2. The Big Gravel Sifter (One Trunk Collective) - One of the most ambitious adaptations in the festival, this production uses a Strindberg short story as its source material, and promises a blend of movement, theatre, and live music. There's considerable talent behind the production as well - former RWB dancer CindyMarie Small performs, and local favourite Chris Sigurdson directs.

read the whole article here

Tracy Koga from ShawTV also did a special on us which will be repeating over the next couple of weeks and we will be on CITY TV Breakfast TV on Monday the 31st.

Now that we have all the best promo in the festival, I guess we will actually have to make a show.