Geneviève Paré just finished performing in New West Theatre’s production of Marooned with Munsch, but with barely a breath to spare, leaped in to the director’s chair for Theatre Xtra’s latest production of Daniel Danis’ “Song of The Say Sayer,” which runs at the David Spinks Theatre, Jan. 20-22.
“I love it. I like collaborating with the actors and crew and watching it come alive. This is the largest production I’ve done on my own,” Paré sai
d, who has done a lot of acting in the past year including appearing in Festen as well as being assistant director for last year’s epic production of Hair.
She is looking forward to seeing the production develop.
“The biggest challenge has been interpreting the script. There are a lot of themes. If you misinterpret the script, you might not get them, ” she said of the Linda Gaboriau translation they are working from.
“It’s not like Shakespeare where the language is so complex. There’s just a lot of themes in this one,” she continued.
“It’s about three brothers and their sister whose parents are killed by a lightning both when they are children. And the whole community wants to put them in a foster care home, but they insist on raising themselves, but their sister is severely altered,” Paré continued adding the siter ends up having a blood clot.
“They decide they are equipped to heal her with their love but the community wants to put her in a hospital. So they end up having to fight against the community.”
The show stars actors Stephen Iremonger, Robyn Jabusch and Ali Deregt as well as a four piece band.
“There are a lot of magical moments happening throughout the play. Their sister glows at night and a lot of the activitiy takes place in their imaginations,” Paré continued adding there is a lot of humour in the production, as the characters remain in a state of arrested devlopment , at the same ages they were when their parents died.
“It’s come together very well,” Paré continued adding they only spent half of their $50 budget as they are improvising things like the sound of thunder by rattling a sheet of metal ather sound eff
ects are created through a didgeridoo made out of old tubing.
“We don’t have props and we have a minimal set,” she continued adding a lot of the action takes place through gestures and movement.
“It’s the idea of what is real and what we perceive as being real. Is what I see actually real? And is what I hear the truth,” she said.
“The characters are simple and relatable,” she said.
The show takes palce at 8 p.m. Jan. 20-22 with an additional 2 p.m. matinee on Jan. 22.
