The Edward Curtis Project: A text that flounders but a ritual event that brings to life a phantasmagoria of magical stage effects
Kevin Loring as The Chief. Photo: Andrew Alexandre
The Algonquin Elder Annie Smith St- Georges from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation, blessed the audience, thanked the creator for respecting all creatures on the earth and for letting us enjoy the gift of art from her culture. At her side was Professor Claudette Commanda also from Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation, a professor at the University of Ottawa, daughter of the late Chief William Commanda, whom Peter Hinton had often invited to initiate his launchings of the NAC English theatre seasons. With such prestigious representatives from the Native community, inviting us into this theatrical ceremony at the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre, a special aura floated about us as the mist seeped out from the stage announcing the arrival of the ancestors and the spirits, called up by the performance. Around the sides of the stage, the works of photojournalist Rita Leistner linked with the photographs of Edward Curtis, enhanced by Tim Matheson’s projection design and John Webbers magnificent lighting, created effects that ressembled the phantasmagoria of a deep seated dream.
It was clear that this performance (it is difficult to speak of a “play”) was a continuation of the ceremony that had taken place minutes before. Stirred on by the drumming, the elders, the actors and the attentive audience all became part of the same event: the inner journey of photographer Angeline, assumed by actress Quelemia Sparrow. This young photojournalist had been given an assignment to write about three native children who froze to death one night because they wandered outdoors scantily clothed, without the father realizing they were gone. Angeline is troubled by the thought that a father could allow such a thing could happen. It is all the more disturbing because she is caught up in the stereotype of the bad “indian” to explain the situation. On the edge of a nervous breakdown, she embarks on a journey to understand how this culture, which is also her own, , made such events possible. Directed and written by Marie Clements, the performance becomes Angeline’s quest to understand her metis past, as it moves into the realm of the oral story telling mode, bringing together the past the present and the future, the dead and the living, within the cyclical time/space of a non-western event.
Edward Curtis enters into the picture, given the way his work was so admired by his disciple Angeline. However, the young girl also mistrusts this man, as do the elders in her group, because of the way he manipulated his subject matter and used the people for his own research enticing them to pose for his pictures. The photos mounted on the walls and published in the album of Curtis’ work which are projected at the back of the stage, actually tell the story of Angeline’s own mixed race family as she moves back in time and dissolves into that period where we first meet Edward Curtis. Did he see a beautiful woman first, or was he really looking at an Indian who would make a good subject for his photo album? The story then splits into several parts as Angeline’s quest for an explanation, moves back in time, to Curtis’ seeking the perfect photographic material to create his portraits of these “primitive peoples” before they disappear from the face of the earth as Curtis was convinced they would. From then on Angeline passes through various movements of time, various theatrical settings, and various periods that transform our gaze of the stage. She meets human beings who emerge from her community, she encounters the spirits that are summoned up for different reasons and whose presence leaves its mark on the community that will change it forever. She dreams, she sleeps, she eventually returns home transformed, renewed, and ready to bring a new understanding to the article she is writing about the death of the three children and the behaviour of the father. .
The most striking aspect of this performance was the magnificent scenography, the lighting, the photos, the use of the projections and the video sequences that filled the upstage wall and the sides of the acting space. The way the paintings and drawings of the spirits, of former chiefs were projected onto the surfaces of coats and blankets, wrapped around moving actors to create the illusion that the spirits were alive and breathing on stage. This g film technique brought to mind some of the recent work by Quebec director Denis Marleau, definitely inspired by the 19th Century techniques of phantasmagoria : stark lighting effects and film clips projected onto smoke and water spray that moves out of the dark and creates dreamy sometimes frightening effects. There were moments of pure, hypnotic beauty, literally transcending Marie Clemens script: the sculptural form of the couple in an embrace profiled against the video of the whale thrashing about in the water as the couple freezes in a symbolic pose, living proof that the team working with Marie Clement (set designer Ivo Valentik, costume designer Barbara Clayden; lighting designer John Webber; , projection designer and production photographer Tim Matheson ) created one of the most magnificently beautiful combination of sets and visual effects I have ever seen. They literally made those images separate from the flesh and blood of the actor’s bodies and come to life before us as the story telling ceremony evolved through its various modes.
On the other hand, the immense creativity that poured into the visual portion of this production so overpowered the text that it was hard to imagine the same artist had undertaken both parts of the show. In that same context, the emphasis that the publicity put on the presence of Edward Curtis was misleading because the show focuses on Angeline. She is the one whose gaze of the world is renewed , making her ready to undertake the journey in order to rediscover her Métis heritage and continue her life as a professional photographer and journalist.
The foregrounding of his place in the play seemed to upset the focus of the work, creating , expectations that Clements wanted to produce a critique of his work, but actually forcing a rather ambiguous relationship with his work that was not clear at all. The exhibition of Rita Leistener’s photos in the hall of the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre, set up by the CUBE Art Gallery outside the main stage was much more interesting if one wanted to really understand what Curtis’ work was all about.
The discoveries of Angeline, about the difficult life the native people, the famine and poverty that ravaged the communities were the true instigators of her descent into depression whereas Curtis ‘ false perception of the aboriginal people is something that historians, anthropologists and post-colonial theorists from many countries have spoken about for a long time; they thus became less interesting from a theatrical perspective. His thinking was normalized during the first half of the 20th century. It suffices to read the works of eminent social scientists such as French ethnologist Lucien Lévy- Bruhl, who wrote that indigenous peoples were an inferior race, their thinking was “prelogical”, thus incapable of reasoning, and doomed to extinction. The job of these thinkers was to justify colonialism and they did it very well.
What was also strange was the way that the highlighting of traditional moments of native culture, (Kevin Loring as the Chief in the huge bearskin for example) was done by injecting Curtis and his work, into the performance. They created an aura of stereotyping , responding to Curtis’ own gaze that was unmasked by putting his photographs next to those of Lastner where native people were dressed in present day clothes. The subtleties were immensely important because they worked at various levels of perception that the playwright certainly hoped to correct and explain. . The excellent Kevin Loring who appears in a huge bear skin has a striking voice and captures his various roles very well but he actually appeared to be one of Curtis’ subjects posing for his photos. The whole scenography was “contaminated” by the stereotypical nature of Curtis’ gaze which in fact, the performance was trying to critique. Wasn’t the performance confirming the value of his work, while it celebrated the colourful image of these people that Curtis captured on paper?
More awkwardly , the scenes where the visuals were not fore grounded, were often terribly slow, the realistic talk became a burden that contradicted the spirit of discovery and transformation that dominated the event. There were also many conflicting sound effects such as those projected by what appeared to be a radio, where mixtures of various voices coming all at once that were impossible to understand. .
The cast was generally very strong.Kathleen Duborg as the sister and as Curtis’ long suffering wife was very convincing; Quelimia Sparrow’s emotionally heightened performance set her apart in another sphere of reality which was not always successful and Kevin Loring who is also an excellent actor , appeared at times to have been abandoned by the director. Todd Duckworth as Edward Curtis had a voice that transformed him into a powerful creature emerging from the past, perfectly at home somewhere between the spirit world and everyday reality. He was quite at home in this tale because he is also transformed at the end and thus becomes a descent sort of fellow, caught up in the awkward development of the subject matter. However, was his transformation relevant to Angeline’s final understanding of the plight of the native people that underlies her story of the tragic deaths of the children? It did not seem so.
There was a clear imbalance between the use of Curtis’ images of Native people as visual background on the set, and Curtis’ place in that text where he was too often fore grounded, even though Angéline was the one searching for answers about her origins. Did Marie Clemens intend to give him all that positive reinforcement by making him so present in a story that really exploited his manipulative photographs? The director/writer did not appear to sense the problem.. It all left me feeling very unsatisfied .
The Edward Curtis project , a National Arts Centre/Great Canadian Theatre Company co-production in Association with Red Diva Projeccts., playing at the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre from April 2 to 21.2013.
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A slightly revised version of the review first published on www.scenechanges.com