HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2018-07-26, Page 20PAGE 20. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JULY 26, 2018.
`1837: The Farmers' Revolt' set to start Aug.
The stories surrounding the
rebellion that helped build the very
Canada we know today culminate in
1837: The Farmers' Revolt, a great
Canadian mythology wrapped in
comedy, music, magic and action
that opens at the Blyth Festival on
Aug. 1.
"We're telling the fiery stories that
have been handed down from one
generation to the next and
embellished through time, the show
is larger than life," said Artistic
Director Gil Garratt, who is also
directing the play. "It's an epic
Canadian story about a rebellion that
features local historic titans like Col.
Van Egmond, William "Tiger"
Dunlop and William Lyon
Mackenzie."
At its core, this is a play about
farmers who distrust the government
of the day and rise up to take them
down. Fighting against a class of
entitled would-be aristocrats,
the farmers in the play are
frontier people, eager to break
the bonds of tyranny and forge their
own country, free of British rule.
Before the Blyth Festival was
born, before the community saved
the building, the first group of actors
who rehearsed in Blyth Memorial
Community Hall had to sign waivers
in case the roof fell in on their heads.
1837: The Farmers' Revolt was the
show those actors, Rick Salutin and
others from Theatre Passe Muraille,
were working on at the time. Its
creation helped to inspire the start of
the Blyth Festival itself and yet it has
never been produced on the main
Kates returns to bring
Breaking new ground
Beth Kates pioneered digital dramaturgy through the Blyth
Festival last year and has come back to Blyth to handle set,
projection and lighting design for 1837: The Farmers'
Revolt. (File photo)
By Denny Scott
The Citizen
Beth Kates is returning to the
Blyth Festival after making her mark
on history last year as the
organization's first digital
dramaturge last year.
Kates has been tasked with
bringing the visuals of 1837: The
Farmers' Revolt to life as set,
projection and lighting designer, a
task she is anticipating greatly.
She said being involved in the
project is exciting. The play was
originally rehearsed in Blyth, an
event that helped lend to the creation
of the Blyth Festival.
"It's incredibly exciting as a
student of Canadian theatre," she
said. "I've worked with many of the
people that were there in that show,
years and years ago. It's exciting to
dig into now in 2018."
Kates said that the artists who
came to Blyth to work on 1837: The
Farmers' Revolt shared the same
mindset that the farmers they were
portraying did.
"The play is so much about this
revolutionary spirit of a bunch of
rag -tag farmers," she said, drawing a
direct comparison to the troupe
behind the play.
Kates said it is very special to be
involved in the first production of
1837: The Farmers' Revolt on the
Blyth Festival stage given that "so
much of the blood of the play flows
through the bones of the Festival."
"Without that play, so much of
what has happened in Blyth would
not have," she said.
Kates said she and Artistic
Director Gil Garratt are approaching
the piece with the intent of
channelling the "earthy, bloody
history" of the history that inspired
it.
"The time we're looking at,
stage in the theatre's 44 -year history.
1837: The Farmers' Revolt is
performed by Matthew Gin, Marcia
Johnson, Lorne Kennedy, Omar
Alex Khan and Parmida Vand, who
are currently making debut
appearances at the Blyth Festival in
The New Canadian Curling Club.
Together these five brilliant,
hilarious performers bring to life
dozens and dozens of characters
from Canada's incendiary history.
The creative team for 1837: The
Farmers' Revolt includes: Beth
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Kates, set, projection and lighting
designer; Gemma James Smith,
costume designer and Deanna H.
Choi, sound designer and music
composer. Together, this award-
winning design team has created a
world as rich and unpredictable as
the story itself. Production stage
managers are by Heather Thompson
and Katerina Sokyrko.
Reserve your seats for this story
by calling the box office at 519-523-
9300, toll-free 1-877-862-5984 or
online at blythfestival.com.
`1837' visuals to life
Toronto was basically wilderness,"
she said. "Toronto was mud streets.
The rebels started marching from
heavily wooded areas. Everything
was in a kind of chaos. What we're
looking at is bringing these people,
these storytellers to life in a
potentially heightened way.
"We're looking at a way of
bringing the land and the earth and
that grittiness to the stage," she said.
"These farmers walked hundreds
and hundreds of miles from isolated
farms throughout the wilderness that
had no roads. We're turning to that
sweat and blood and dirt and the
trees and the skies to really try to
evoke that kind of otherness that is
gone now."
She said the play takes place in a
time and place that isn't represented
in southern Ontario anymore.
"It's kind of magical in that way,"
she said. "It's a real opportunity to
take the audience back in time to this
real vibrant and fertile place"
Kates will also be working with
the Blyth Festival's Young Company,
building on a relationship she forged
last year with its director Curtis to
Brinke.
"I did a little bit of a workshop
with them last year, talking about
what projects in design and
projection can offer storytelling.
We're going to expand that this year
and see if there are other ways to
deepen my involvement."
She said she is very happy to be
involved with the Young Company,
saying it's an incredible opportunity
for local children and she can't wait
for her own son Aaron, now six
years old, to be able to participate in
the program.
Kates says that her turn as digital
dramaturge for last year's musical
Mr. New Year's Eve: A Night with
Guy Lombardo was a fruitful one.
"It was really great," she said. "We
built pretty nicely on a lot of the
things we had done with The Last
Donnelly Standing [in 2016] and the
practices and process and way of
working we had established there"
Battling blazes
The Fire Department of North Huron was on scene for a fire that caused significant damage
on Elevator Line on Monday. The fire came shortly after a burn ban was lifted in Huron County.
(Denny Scott photo)
Kates said her work with Garratt
and the other collaborators was has
resulted in work that's made her very
proud.
Now based in Calgary, pursuing a
Master's Degree, Kates grew up in
the arts and considers herself mostly
self-taught in terms of lighting and
projection.
She was doing professional
lighting for concerts when she was
14 years old in Toronto and, as a
student at an arts high school, that
helped that process along.
From there, she started
experimenting with lighting and
video work, briefly studying at the
Banff Centre for the Arts.
She was invited into the
independent dance scene in the late
1980s and1990s in Toronto
and has since been working in that
field.
Kates is looking forward to
returning to Blyth, as she has every
year she's been a part of the crew,
saying she starts breathing a little
easier when she gets off Highway 8
and starts travelling north towards
the village.
CIP planning process
started in N. Huron
Continued from page 19
degrees of maintenance on buildings
creating a lack of building
conformity, inconsistent signage,
lack of pedestrian crossings
(especially in Blyth) and little
streetscape furniture in the cores of
both communities.
Opportunities listed included
crosswalks, existing vacant retail
units, facade work, appealing
landscaping and the StopGap
program, which helps make
buildings more accessible.
The document, which will be
reviewed with organizations like the
business improvement areas in
Wingham and Blyth, will help guide
the creation of the community
improvement plan which is
necessary for funding opportunities.
Staff will be presenting a draft of the
document to a future council
meeting.
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