Soheil's Sufi Cycle

August 21, 2019

A look back… the first of a series of retrospectives in honour of Modern Times' 30th anniversary season. Soheil’s Sufi Cycle This was the title of Modern Times’ first-ever review on June 22, 1989 —by none other than Jon Kaplan, a fresh young theatre critic at NOW Magazine. Soheil and Peter had just mounted their first professional production, “The Conquest”, by Bahram Beyza'ie, at the Actor's Lab Theatre on George Street (just a stone's throw from Buddies-in-Bad-Times’ first theatre space). It would go on to play at the inaugural Toronto Fringe Festival later that summer.   It is an honour to have had our first review from Jon, who passed away in 2018, and who gave so much to Toronto theatre and to companies like Modern Times. Jon was one of the company’s ardent supporters at the beginning, seeing the work for its own sake, and not simply for the exoticism of its Middle Eastern influences. These were times when intercultural, hybrid theatre of the kind Modern Times was proposing was far less seen, and thanks to the belief of community members like Jon, the company was able to introduce many Persian works in English translation for Canadian audiences. Soheil and Peter went on to translate and adapt six more over the years, winning Dora Awards for translation/adaptions such as Beyai’e’s “The Death of the King” and Abbas Na’albanian’s "Stories from the Rains of Love and Death”. Beyza’ie’s "Aurash", translated with Brian Quirt, has played in four countries and has been translated into three different languages (Spanish, Farsi and Serbo-Croat), with a French-language version on the way. An anthology of these plays is available at Playwrights Canada Press. As for “The Conquest”, translated and adapted by Soheil from Beyza’ie’s screenplay, “The Wanderer”, this first show was mounted with a $300 production budget, 1 metric ton of sand (whose dust put us on a permanent blacklist at the Fringe’s theatre space), and a lot of belief in the value of the plays coming from lesser-known authors. A story of persistence in the face of tyranny, “The Conquest” owes its philosophical centre to the Sufist values of non-violence and altruism that have since permeated the company’s work. See Jon Kaplan's full review from 1989.             

Ann-Marie Kerr Remembers The Balcony

September 5, 2019

A look back… Retrospective #2 in honour of Modern Times' 30th anniversary season. Ann-Marie Kerr remembers Modern Times' production of Jean Genet's "The Balcony" in 1990 "The Balcony" was huge for me. It was my first show out of theatre school and was truly a life-changing experience. The wild theatrical sensibility and political fire that Soheil brought to it still informs me. I didn’t know theatre could be like that, and Soheil was like no one I’d ever met.  He wanted to change the world with his theatre, he was a revolutionary. He still is. Soheil cracked open my imagination about what it meant to do a committed performance in a politically relevant show.  He would say “I want crazy actors!”  He held the bar so high. I have vivid memories of my heart pounding out of my chest on the way to rehearsal. I wanted so badly to rise to his dream for the show, and the world.  We’d research and rehearse in a tiny dark upstairs room in the theatre and Soheil would basically give a masterclass on his vision of theatre and how it could shake up the world. It felt like we actually could do that. The cast was incredible, and I had the biggest crush on the actor playing the General - the brilliant Martha Cronyn. I've wondered over the years where Martha is, if she still acts on stage (gosh I hope so). I adored so many involved in the show -Anita La Selva, Peter Farbridge, Leanna Brodie, Kim Collier, Andrew Scorer, etc etc.  It felt like we all equally wanted to create work that mattered despite the many practical challenges. Some of those challenges flash to mind now and then…like the massive rope net set that hung from ceiling to floor that we could climb and during one show Sandy McMaster was making an entrance and ripped his foot open on a hook that held down the rope net. Blood spurted out in a stream.   Ann-Marie Kerr (bottom left) and Martha Cronyn in Jean Genet's "The Balcony" (1990). And the actor playing Madame Irma had just had a baby in real life and she told us that her husband was shocked she was rehearsing a show so soon after giving birth and that their life was in chaos at home, and one day his frustration culminated with him yelling “there is no bread in the house!”  We still say this in our house when things are out of control with work and life. And being the first show in the “new” Theatre Centre on Queen West, that’s 2 Theatre Centres ago, there were things to be worked out like when the toilet flushed upstairs it sloshed down the pipe in the theatre for all to hear several times during performances. Exhilarating challenges! When we opened my parents drove 6 hours from my hometown in Blind River Ontario to come and see it. After the show my dad said “Well, it wasn’t The Sound of Music.” On closing night we had a fantastic party that lasted most of the night.  After the party, Kim Collier and I walked across Toronto in our bare feet as the sun rose, both feeling like we could do anything. ... Ann-Marie Kerr is an award-winning theatre director, actor and teacher. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally. She is a graduate of École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris and York University. Ann-Marie teaches and directs at the National Theatre School among other theatre schools and is the former Artistic Associate of Magnetic North Theatre Festival.    Her current directing projects:    One Discordant Violin, co-directed with her husband Anthony Black, will tour to NYC in November 2019.    Secret Life of a Mother, developed in residence at the Theatre Centre in 2018, will tour to Crow’s Theatre in Toronto in February 2020.    Daughter will tour to the Battersea Arts Centre in London in March 2020.                   

Finding the Music of Plays: “The Four Cases” in 1991

September 19, 2019

A look back… Retrospective #3 in honour of Modern Times' 30th anniversary season. Co-artistic Directors Soheil Parsa and Peter Farbridge remember “The Four Cases” in 1991. What was this show about, Soheil? Soheil:  "The Four Cases" is Bahram Beyza’ie’s mythic play about the dangers of absolute power. Four figures-- The Red, The Yellow, The Green and The Black -- are dominated and manipulated by “The Scarecrow”, an allegorical figure who represents dictatorships. The four figures are separated by the Scarecrow and eventually end up building boxes for themselves to isolate themselves. It’s a pessimistic play, but very funny, and leaves the audience with the hope for human perseverance in the face of tyranny. What did you like most about the production? Soheil: It was the first production Peter and I translated together. I did the rough translation from Farsi and Peter reworked the English. We did five more translations of Iranian plays together after that. It was one of the most physical productions I have directed. It was the closest I came to dance theatre for me. Stylistically we were exploring something new at the time. There were strong non-naturalistic elements that were new for the actors. There was live music on stage performed by Baha Sadr. Music was another character in the piece. It was an intense show physically. As an actor in the show, would you agree, Peter? Peter: It was exhausting. We were basically non-stop from start to finish, running, jumping, falling, building boxes. It was crazy fun. I learned how to work in an ensemble where you have to be there for the other actors. Randy Swyer and Peter Farbridge What do you remember about the process? Peter: I would say that it was the first time we really started to develop shows in a longer rehearsal process. We took our time rehearsing and exploring The Four Cases. We worked in the evenings, anytime we were free from our regular jobs. Soheil was driving a school bus to make a living. I was working office jobs. As a company, Modern Times would eventually opt for this development approach, at times rehearsing fourteen weeks over a year and a half. I think our exploration of process helped to define the company. Soheil: I remember we rehearsed on Queen Street West when the Theatre Centre was in the Shaw Building, and our rehearsal hall was above the old Legion Hall. I remember Sara Meurling, who was the producer of the Theatre Centre at the time, came up to the rehearsal hall one day and said, “You have to tone it down. You’re shaking the whole building. The chandeliers are shaking downstairs!” Peter: The veterans were not so happy with us. What was the Queen-Ossington area like in those days? Peter: It was just as colourful, but in a different way. It was way before anything was happening there economically and the street was a very different scene. Soheil: It was a bit empty, a bit sketchy at times. Completely different to now.  You played the show both at the Tarragon Extra Space and at the Montreal Fringe. What was the Fringe show like? Peter: It was the very first Montreal Fringe actually. I guess you could say it was our first tour. All seven of us climbed into the back of a rented cargo van and basically sat on the boxes on the way to Montreal, eating sandwiches and drinking juice. There was a great spirit at that Fringe.   I think it’s when I fell in love with the city. I eventually moved there to make my life. I remember we played in a building that would eventually become a Blockbuster. When I would go in years later I would still feel the stage under my feet in the SciFi section. Soheil: We had received our first grant as a company, I think from the Toronto Arts Council, to pay for the rental of the Extra Space at the Tarragon, but we basically had no other money. We self produced it from our own pockets. I remember handing out the share of the box office receipts to the actors after the shows in Montreal, and after all the production expenses were paid, it was like $20.50 or something for each of us. Nick Greenland who was stage managing for us looked at us and said: “What is this?” I said, “This is your share.” He was so crestfallen. It was so terrible to work in those conditions. Peter: Both Soheil and I lost our credit cards after that particular show. (Clockwise) J. Brian MacDonald, Peter Farbridge, Gordon MacKenzie, Randy Swyer, Viv Moore, and Soheil Parsa. Looking back on the show now, what did you think of it? Peter: I remember thinking that despotic regimes was a subject so far away from me, but when we played it, I remember how the basic need for freedom spoke to me. I began to see the Iranian works as something that could really connect with an audience, and that I was learning something about being human. Soheil: I think it was a very good production for an emerging company. We were establishing ourselves. I remember Jon Kaplan coming up to me in the lobby of the Tarragon after it and saying “It’s a fine show, Soheil.” That meant a lot to me. There was another good review from Sara Hood who was writing for Theatrum at the time. I will never forget, however, a friend of mine who came to see it and asked if I ever really listened to music. I asked, “Why?” He replied, “In music you have constant variations of rhythm, but in your show you only have two.” It was true-- the show was rhythmically at a very high pace most of the time. It was a very good comment, and after that I became aware of rhythmic variations, the musical aspect of plays. Read the preview of the Four Cases from "NOW" Magazine. Read Jill Lawless' review from "NOW" Magazine.