| Bringing Eccentric Photographer to Life |
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| Press |
| Saturday, 23 May 2009 00:00 |
The spelling of his name is strange.But the story of British photographerEadweard Muybridge's life is even stranger.
BY PAT DONNELLYTHE GAZETTE, MAY 3, 2009.
The so-called "father of cinema," whose photographic studies of motion proved hugely influential, murdered his wife's lover and got away with it under a defence of "justifiable homicide." No wonder Vancouver's Electric Company decided to explore the theatrical possibilities of Muybridge (born Edward James Muggeridge, in 1830) in its Studies in Motion: The Hauntings of Eadweard Muybridge, following in the footsteps of Philip Glass who launched an opera on him, The Photographer, in 1982.
Intent on doing the subject justice, ElectricCompany artistic director Jonathan Young asked Governor General Award-winning playwright Kevin Kerr (Unity 1918), a co-founder of the company, to write the company's first non-collectively-created script. (Kerr also wrote Skydive, seen last fall at Centaur Theatre.) Young, who visited Montreal earlier this year in a one-man show called The Invisible Life of Joseph Finch during the Wildside Festival at Centaur, will also be performing in Studies in Motion, as Major Harry Larkyns, the murdered lover of Muybridge's wife. "He was a bit of a scoundrel," Young said of Larkyns, during a recent interview from Calgary, where the show played at Alberta Theatre Projects. It has already been seen in Whitehorse, Yukon, as well as at the PuSh Festival in Vancouver. In addition to Larkyns, Young plays multiple characters in Studies in Motion, as do the 11 other members of the cast, with the exception of Andrew Wheeler, who remains a constant, as Muybridge. We'll be seeing a lot of all of them because, as Young explained, a play about a photographer noted for his anatomical studies necessarily includes a good deal of nudity - as well as a blending of theatre, dance and the visual arts. Kim Collier directs and the internationally renowned choreographer, Crystal Pite, keeps everyone in motion. Before taking on this play, Young knew very little about the eccentric Muybridge, he admitted. "I was aware, as most of us are, of the ubiquitous flip books, of people and animals doing various things. But I was certainly not aware of his life or the extent of his work and his influence on the cinema and visual arts and photography." One of the other roles Young plays in Studies in Motion is that of Muybridge's colleague, painter Thomas Eakins. "He was at the University of Pennsylvania where Muybridge did the motion studies," Young explained. "Eakins was the head of the art department there. And he was also dabbling in photography and experimenting with how to capture motion in paint. It was certainly a focus for artists at the time: how to see beyond the world as we perceive it with the human eye." Young and Kerr were both co-founders of Electric Company (along with Collier, and David Hudgins, who is not associated with this production). It was launched in 1997 with a mandate to create thought-provoking, innovative work. The founders met while students at Vancouver's Studio 58. While most of the founders and early members remain, "We're not a pure collective as we were for the first decade," said Young. "We produce a new show every year and often tour every other year." They've been to the United States as well as to the Edinburgh Fringe, in Scotland. The show they took there, titled Brilliant, was about Nikola Tesla, the inventor of alternating current: "He was younger than Muybridge, but began his work in the late 1800s." Developments at the turn of the last century have been of recurring interest to Electric Company, Young said. "It was a time of optimism and change. Technology and industry were new, and the implications of it were unknown. Thematically, we often look at characters who were pioneers in one way or another - and at the spirit of invention or creation and how that shapes humanity." The creative team on Studies in Motion includes award-winning composer Patrick Pennefather, noted costume designer Mara Gottler and award-winning designer Robert Gardiner. Although the show is set in the past, "It has a very contemporary feel," Young said. Another English-language FTA production, Rambo Solo, from New York City, also opens Thursday, at Espace Go. More on that later. Studies in Motion, by Kevin Kerr, runs Thursday through Saturday at D.B. Clarke Theatre, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. Tickets $32. Call 514-790-1245 or visit www.fta.qc.ca. The Festival Transamériques continues through June 6. © Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette |
