The Citizen-Blyth Festival, 1999-06-23, Page 39PAGE 20. BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1999.
Roles in Every Dream, Summer highlight Fisk’s season
Creating
character
exciting
Michelle Fisk
finds creating a
character in a
new play
exciting, but “It’s
a huge
responsibility. ”
By Bonnie Gropp
Citizen staff
For Michelle Fisk, who appears
this year at Blyth Festival in That
Summer and Every Dream, her
first season in 1989 was a “golden
summer.”
“I will never forget my
wonderful summer here. My little
girl was just learning to walk and
we would go to see the horses and
play in the pool.
Fisk also got pregnant with her
second child that
summer. “That may not seem like
something significant to anyone
else but it was very much so to
me.”
On the employment side of
things, Fisk was on stage in
Dreamland and Sticks and Stones.
“We had such fun with
Dreamland,” she says of the
extravagant musical. “It was
something Blyth hadn’t done
before nor has done since.”
The play required a large cast
supported by local volunteers and
an orchestra. “It was technically
demanding, but we all had such a
good time.”
Sticks and Stones a play by
James Reaney about the
Donnellys, was, she says, staged
“brilliantly” by Terry Tweed, who
is in this year’s company as well.
“It was emotionally and artistically
fulfilling for those in it to tell that
story.”
Yet, despite the fond memories
of that year, she didn’t return until
last season, when she was enticed
back by the opportunity to appear
in Thirteen Hands. On the heels of
the 1990 season which she sat out
because of the arrival of her new
baby, Fisk enjoyed several seasons
as a member of the Stratford
Festival company.
Then in 1997 Eric Coates, who,
like Fisk resides in Stratford,
mentioned to her that her name had
come up for a spot in Blyth. “I
thought about it and felt it would
be a good fit,” says Fisk.
Fisk brings two very different
characters to life in Blyth this
season. She plays Margaret Ryan
in David French’s memory play
That Summer.
“Margaret is revisiting a summer
place from her adolescence. She
was 17 in 1958 so the play has a
1950’s mentality to it, which is
different for my teenage years in
the late 1960s-early 70s.”
“It was a special time with all
that wonderful music and the
different moral world.”
In Every Dream, Fisk is Belinda,
a woman set firmly in the present
in the midst of a recession. “It’s a
family in turmoil. She’s very
strong, very active, whereas
Margaret was more reflective.”
“I have a long association with
new Canadian plays,” says the
graduate of the University of
British Columbia, who moved to
Toronto in the late 1970s.
“It is exciting to be creating new
work, creating a character for the
first time, bringing it to life and
giving it its voice.”
Fisk says that working on
established productions means
taking the page and bringing it to
the audience. “You also know
someone else made this work.
Here we are facilitators for the
playwright. It is a way for them to
hear what works and what doesn’t.
It’s a huge responsibility.”
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Close-knit Festival company can
grow and learn, Jerry Franken says
difficult decisions and he makes
one which complicates things and
Jerry Franken: Blyth provides a
great setting for work.
Continued from Pg. 19.
work with such a small community
of theatre people. We really get
close and tight-knit after three
months together.”
This gives the company a chance
to grow, learn and feed off each
other’s energy, he says.
With the high energy and on-the-
edge work needed with new
productions, Franken says Blyth
provides a great setting for him.
The village and people make it
comfortable.
Having worked in Blyth for 11
of the last 12 seasons, Franken
says the community has become
like a second home.
Every Dream
could cause him to lose his
marriage of 31 years.
As Harry finds his humanity, he
also finds hope.
It is the finding of humanity
which Franken sees as the centre
with which people will be able to
identify.
“The best of theatre mirrors
society,” he says.
While both plays in which
Franken will appear deal with the
stresses brought on by a changing
economy, they deal with the issues
differently.
And yet for Franken, they both
show rays of hope. “Something,”
he says which is sorely lacking in
the world today. There was a time
of less cynicism. When we could
drive forward with hope.”
While Franken hopes the play
will entertain, he also hopes it will
allow people to recognize the
humanity in others and see where
we all sit in the world.
“Both plays say 'yes this is
where you are sitting’, but show
there are ways to find self within
it. They show how to get back
dignity and a sense of purpose,
how to focus on what is
important.”
Working on two new plays is
also very exciting for Franken.
“It is absolutely energizing. It is
exciting to shape new work and to
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