May. 28, 2008 - Issue #658: Beija Flor

The Rolling Stock Prairie Theatre Tour

Rolling into the Prairies

We have it pretty fine for theatre here in Edmonton: there’s plenty of established acts who own or share spaces, a well-respected, well-attended fringe (smoke some of that, Calgary) and a bubbling indie scene that bands together to create seasons of its own. But most importantly, from the Citadel to the arts barns, there’s enough theatre space to hold them all, and it’s easy to forget that this isn’t the case everywhere else.
As Theatre in the Raw’s Artistic Director Jay Hamburger is quick to point out, his own home turf of Vancouver is a constant struggle to find performance space.

“I don’t know why it’s happened. Everyone’s fighting over so little space here ... it’s been a big battle, I can tell you,” he explains. “We’ve performed over 14 years now, [but] we don’t have a permanent space by any means. We’ve been literally gypsy-like on the road.
Vancouver’s venue plight is in part the cause for Hamburger temporarily uprooting himself from the coast and heading east of the Rockies on the Rolling Stock Prairie Theatre Tour. He’s touring three comedic Canadian one-acts across three provinces for as-of-yet untapped audiences for his longstanding BC theatre company. It’s a risky, unprecedented move for Hamburger, but according to him it’s the best way to get a finger on the theatrical beat pulsing elsewhere in the country.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” he admits. “We’re hoping people will come and show up and enjoy themselves. In 14 years, we’ve done the lower mainland, but we’ve never stepped outside the borders of the province to other areas in Canada, and I just think that’s not the right move to make for a theatre of what we can do. It’s important that we engage, and exchange and find out what’s going on elsewhere in the country, and what other writers are writing.”

Hamburger will also get to show the Prairies what he’s been cooking up on the coast: one of the plays he’s bringing on the road is his own. Entitled A Hot Box, it follows an arrested tree-hugger awaiting trial, whose attempts to prepare for an art show are repeatedly thwarted by interruptions who keep knocking on her door.

The other two plays are You Are What You Eat (a Theatre in the Raw favourite that first debuted six years ago), a battle between two bachelors, one young, one old, for a favourite restaurant seat (and a waitress), and To The Queen, which finds a pair of old men’s regular chess game threatened by an impending, umm, hockey rink.

Hamburger, a seasoned instructor, is also teaching playwriting workshops in Edmonton, Saskatoon and Winnipeg, and vocalist Michelle A Richard will also performing “Blues Dans La Nuit,” a selection of songs in both of Canada’s official languages, making this Rolling Stock Prairie Theatre tour quite the venture for a theatre company without a venue to call its own back home.

“It’s the most ambitious tour we’ve ever taken on, in sense of travel,” he says. “But it’s really time for us to branch out of BC and explore this wonderful country and the amazing theatres outside [our province]. It’s quite expensive here, and that’s not a good thing, because we’re almost all non-profit, and if the bottom line really was money, none of us would be around. We’re doing this for the love and the art of it.” V

 

Wed, Jun 4 - Fri, Jun 6
The Rolling Stock Prairie Theatre Tour
Written by Patrick Foley, Larry Trask,
Jay Hamburger
The Third Space (11516 - 103 St), $14 - $17

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