The Citizen, 2003-06-25, Page 37PAGE 12. BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2003.
Paul Thompson works with writers to create stories
Paul Thompson
By Sarah Mann
Citizen staff
Like with most of the shows he
does, Paul Thompson wants
whomever sees Hippie “to leave
with a richer sense of their own
social landscape. “
Thompson believes the area
surrounding Blyth is “still an
undiscovered area, both from the
beauty of the landscape and the
stories.”
Hippie, a play based on a newly-
discovered story of the area, focuses
on what happened when the back-to-
the-landers of the ’60s arrived here.
In true Thompson fashion, Hippie
was assembled in a collective form.
Directing the play and writing it
with Kelly McIntosh and Jonathan
Garfinkel, Thompson says, “the idea
was to see whether we could take
some of the advantages of the
collective experience and to involve
the writing experience from another
point of view.”
Thompson felt it was important
that there was young, emerging
talent coming along.
With The Outdoor Donnellys,
“Kelly had shown amazing talent
possibilities with her writing out of
the improv she was doing. Jonathan
had been doing some of the best
dramaturgical work that I’ve had
with any of my plays.”
Thompson thought they should be
more involved on that level and “use
them as a kind of generating source
for the dialogue material.”
Using parts of the collective
process they have, upon occasion,
still had recourse to actors, and the
writing is not done in isolation.
“They have to generate the
material, we bring it in and then we
kind of interplay with it, much as I
would with a collective.”
The other aspect from the
collective that has been, according
to Thompson, “very very useful” is
that they have been required, as
source material, to interconnect with
the locals.
“I think some of the strongest
writing in the show has come from
the same kind of stuff that often
happens with the collective, which is
locals opening themselves up and
giving you an almost photographic
moment in time. You can see right in
the local person’s eyes the original
moment when it happened. That’s a
very strong feeling.”
Thompson felt it was important to
ha' e a perspective of people much
closer to tne age of the subject in the
show in order for the writing to have
authenticity.
“I think that many of the kinds of
concerns that were driving the youth
to this new, unusual activity, are
present with every generation, or at
least particularly for this
generation.”
For Thompson, the most exciting
aspect of being a part of Hippie is
“the selfish part” in getting to live
with youth again in a legitimate way.
“I get to echo remembering when
I was that age and then see the
manifestation of it now and to see
the ways that it has changed and the
ways in which there is a kind of
eternal quality in that. And that’s
fabulous.”
Thompson feels the ’60s were
perhaps the first period where
socially the public was conscious of
what youth were able to do.
“You just look at youth and they
are like paintings. You just see the
potential in all of them, you see what
they could become. . . physically
they’re capable of amazing things
and mentally and imaginatively the
world is out there and very
exciting.”
Thompson also feels the ’60s was
the first time youth felt they could
make choices.
“I’m not sure the generation
before us felt they had the chance to
make choices. And in certain ways
we had to make choices because the
industrial society that the previous
generations had been trained for was
already falling apart and people’s
energy had to go somewhere else,
people’s ideas had to be pursued or
challenged in other ways.”
The main challenge with new
work, Thompson says, is finding a
structure that is true enough to the
work that makes it important and
interesting and yet is rewarding to
the audience.
“That’s the hardest thing and often
you don’t know the complete aspect
of that until much after the show
opens. In most of my work, the show
is not complete until the audience
completes it. The audience has to fill
in the parts that are left for them.”
There will also be a version of
Hippie called Hippie Uncut “for
people who are really caught up in
the phenomenon and can’t get
enough.”
hippie uncut: “there’s
more stuff than we
can put in the show
at night”
While the material for Hippie
Uncut still has to be decided upon,
“the impulse of it is that there’s more
stuff than we can put in the show at
night.”
Because of the wide range of
audience they’re getting, certain
elements, such as dialogue and
certain scenes, have to be framed in
a way that makes sense to everyone.
“How can you do a hippie show
without some kind of nudity? You
can’t, so we’ll frame it some way in
the big show and then in the other
show, it’s framing may change. . .
we just wanted to open up the
possibility of that.”
“There’re certain characters that
will want to let loose in that set of
circumstances and we want to see
how that works on this stage because
you never get the opportunity to do
those sorts of things.”
Thompson has been attracted by
the idea of what happened with The
Outdoor Donnellys and opening up
the non-convehtional performing
spaces, “so we’re hoping that with
the uncut version we can drag
people to different venues.”
Thompson is quick to note that
“people who are worried about
rough language on stage should not
come to Hippie.”
Thompson jokes that the
challenges of working with young
people are that he can’t keep up and
has “to go to bed before the party is
over.”
“Other challenges have to do with
how they unlock as much of their
potential as possible. I don’t think
that stays the same, I think that is
particular to each generation.
Somehow whatever triggers the
generation off is not the same as the
last one. You have to help them find
the key or combination that opens up
the choices. You can’t tell them what
it is because you don’t know.”
Thompson is known for his
collective work and he says the
reason he’s drawn to it is because
“it’s one of the truly original forms
that we as Canadians have come up
with.”
Citing that there are variations of
the collective process all over the
country, Thompson thinks “the
particular form that has found its
way through this theatre is a very
solid, continuing form.”
“I guess I haven’t found the end of
Continued on page 13
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