When the wind blew a fierce ice gale onto Vancouver in 2006 it leveled about 40 hectares of Stanley Park's forests - some of the most beloved trees in the province.
It also blew some themes into the heart of playwright Hiro Kanagawa. He made that fatal hurricane into a setting for a darkly endearing Christmas story that Theatre North West (TNW) now has on their five-day forecast. The Patron Saint of Stanley Park is a force of theatrical nature schedule to hit Prince George shores on Thursday night.
The characters are mainly Marcia, a young mother struggling with the tragic disappearance of her husband. She is trying to be the stable rock needed by their grieving children Jennifer and Josh. Together they meet, in puzzling circumstances, a luminous and strange man called Skookum Pete.
The actor who plays Skookum Pete, a TNW favourite named Brian Linds, said like any good play, this one is about far more than the story on the immediate surface. He knows. He has played this character before.
"It's been awhile but it's a fantastic role, a challenging part, and very rewarding," he said. "The rewards are being a part of the joy and discovery the audience gets, and being able to play a craggy old grump who maybe has a lot of softness underneath it all. He's kind of magical in a way, and I get to be a part of scenes with some fantastic young actors."
Those actors blush a little when he says this. So does their mom. Jennifer and Josh are portrayed by Emma and Sebastian Tow, both in their mid-teens, actual brother and sister in real life. Their mom on the stage is also their mom at home, veteran actor Anita Wittenberg.
It is not the first time the Kamloops acting family has worked the boards together in individual streams. Both Emma and Sebastian have done parts with mom before, but this is the first time they have been all in one play and thus the first time they have been an on-stage family.
"It's fun for me; I don't know how much fun it is for them," said Wittenberg. "Usually it's me going away for work, and Sebastian has gone away for work once, too, but this time it's all of us."
The kids made it known through a lot of laughing and kidding that they were also having a good time with it.
For the audience, it also provides the comfort of knowing the family dynamics are not part of the charade each acting job usually requires. Also at play is the loss of the father in the play, mimicking the real life loss of Jeremy Tow, their own father, who passed away from cancer several years ago. At the time, he was artistic director of the Western Canada Theatre Company in Kamloops and himself a well-known actor-director.
The deep household theatre knowledge is probably why the kids are now so comfortable on the stage. Both of them are relishing their roles, especially in a play that is so deliciously British Columbian.
"There are so many Canadian and British Columbian references. I think people will really respond to that," said Emma.
"You think at times, hmmm, this isn't exactly a cheerful Christmas story, but you're always wanting to know what happens next and it really all comes together at the end," said Sebastian. "And maybe Skookum Pete isn't so craggy after all."
Linds grins. "My character challenges the Christmas spirit. Everything about the play is about reshaping those views for everyone," he said.
It parallels the tragedy and epic calamity of that actual stormy night in December not so many years ago when Vancouverites (and many other coastal communities) had to face ghastly damage and even some deaths from that hurricane-force weather event. It also caused incredible acts of charity and coming together for greater good.
"Even if you didn't live in Vancouver, you felt that event and you felt for Stanley Park," said Linds. "It inspired the playwright, who was actually trying to create something for his children, so he could give them a Christmas present, a beautiful story."
As a present to the audience, and the actors, the staff at TNW gave a spectacular set. As usual, a play's set must be all rooms and the outdoors as needed by the script, but this one spans the entire performance space and includes a scale-accurate forest.
"It's Stanley Park, it's a character in the play," said Linds.
"It such a beautiful, gigantic thing to see," said Emma.
"Theatre North West has always been famous for their sets, I had often heard this, and now I get to see why," said Wittenberg.
The people and places of The Patron Saint of Stanley Park are unveiled on Thursday night. The play is scheduled to run until Dec. 10.
DIRECTING THE ACTION
Directing the action
Director Melissa Thomas came to Prince George in lockstep with three of the main actors in the play The Patron Saint of Stanley Park. She is, like the actual family unit playing the family unit in the script, from Kamloops.
She already knew the way to Theatre North West, however, having served as an assistant director on a previous play here (A Joyful Noise). Now she is lead director, familiar with both the place and the people in the cast. It's actually the third time she's worked with young Emma Tow, having also directed her in Fiddler On the Roof and Fantastic Mr. Fox back in Kamloops.
"These kids [Emma and younger brother Sebastian] are so professional I often forget they are related, but then some little sibling thing will pop out and I'll get that sudden reminder that they have been doing this - being brother and sister - their whole lives," Thomas said.
"I don't worry much about creating the family dynamics, because they are one, and they have also had the experience of losing someone, so it has afforded everyone the chance to invest in the nuances of the play."
Another gift she received was the set, largely in place already when all the actors arrived for the first day of rehearsals. In most theatre productions, rehearsals are done in a bare space and only move to the set in the week or 10 days prior to opening night. Because TNW is the only tenant in their space, they can have the set ready from the start.
"It's amazing to have that advantage," said Thomas. "A set this complex and large-scale is a real luxury. The audience may not notice it, but they will benefit from the access the actors had to the physical set, right from the start. It is an inspired starting point for me as the director, because you aren't trying to superimpose the movement and physicality onto a space later, you get to work it right into your daily plans."
Thomas has had eight months of readiness for all the mental and intellectual elements. She was hired for the job in enough time to even reach out for email conversations with playwright Hiro Kanagawa on nailing down the nuances.
The curtain rises on this disembodied corner of Stanley Park on Thursday night.
