Paul Newman

I never met Paul Newman and I’m not sure why the death of someone I’ve never met should have any bearing on my life but it does.

There are certain people who you can’t help but respect. For their talent, their ability to stand up for what they believe in and their way of making the world seem like a good place. Paul Newman was one of these people.

He used his fame for good. His Newman’s Own products were produced solely for the purpose of selling them and giving the proceeds to charity.

He led a normal life. The only time you saw him in the tabloids it was because of something he was doing to better someone’s life.

All of the characters he played on the big (or small) screen were infused with a dignity and affability that made us love him no matter flaws the character possessed.

The world became a little less bright on Friday. Paul Newman seemed like a really good person and he will be sadly missed. My heart goes out to his family.

Paul Newman - January 26, 1925 - September 26, 2008

Rachel Corrie

Last week I had the great opportunity to take in a play called My Name is Rachel Corrie.

My Name is Rachel Corrie is a one woman show which was produced by Theatre Panik, directed by the brilliant Kate Lushington and starred Bethany Jillard in a passionate and heart-rending performance.

The play comes from the genre called Verbatim Theatre which is exactly what it sounds like – a play written using the precise words that people have written or spoken about a particular subject. In this case, actor Alan Rickman and journalist Katherine Viner have pieced together emails and journal entries written by Rachel Corrie. Corrie was a member of the International Solidarity Movement who travelled as an activist to the Gaza Strip during the Second Intifada. She was killed while attempting to prevent an Israel Defense Forces bulldozer from engaging in the demolition of a home in a Palestinian residential area of Rafah, next to the border with Egypt.

The production as a whole was exquisitely done. The play was performed in the Tarragon Extra Space, a black box style theatre using a very simple set with minimal props and costumes which were accompanied by projections and a really effective soundscape. All these subtle elements added to the impact of the show but allowed the audience to focus on Bethany Jillard and the writings of Rachel Corrie.

It’s not an easy thing for an actor to keep an audience engaged for 90 minutes – especially by quoting journal entries and emails. But Bethany has a quality that most actors aspire to which is the ability/desire to lay her soul bare and to make an audience do the same. If you’ve never seen this girl on stage then you should get off your butt and do so (she’s featured this summer in Driftwood’s production of Romeo and Juliet as Juliet). She’s not only beautiful but her technique is exquisite and she will have you laughing and crying and, most importantly of all, thinking.

The “making people think” thing is what has made this play so controversial. It is perceived as an agitprop - portraying a one sided view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The most common concern being that anyone seeing this play will get a slanted/biased perception of the conflict. Personally, I think this is nonsense. Sure, the show only depicts one side but that’s because it’s a verbatim account of the writings of Rachel Corrie, who was only exposed to one side of the conflict. To add accounts of outside experiences in order to make it a more “balanced” vision would be ridiculously PC and would completely take away from the subject. Mike Scott described the show well “The show is a tribute to the life of a young woman whose passion and belief that everyone should have the chance to feel safe led her to a place and to a situation that few, if any, in the world really understand.”

Needless to say I don’t think it’s EVER okay for someone to strap a bomb on and go to a crowded marketplace and blow themselves, and anyone in the vicinity, up. And this play didn’t change that. However, I don’t think it’s wrong to present a piece that makes people look at potential reasons why that happens and what it is that drives someone to take that kind of extreme measures to get their point across. As Rachel Corrie says “If we lived where tanks and soldiers and bulldozers could destroy our homes at any moment and where our lives were completely strangled, wouldn't we defend ourselves as best we could?”. I don’t condone it but I get it.

In truth, Kate Lushington’s production is not a call to arms but instead an impassioned plea to theatre goers to be responsible members of society. That can never be a bad thing.

What I took away from the show on Thursday was a sense of being ashamed by my own apathy. There are events taking place all over the world where people are in dire circumstances and I have done nothing to help except for making the occasional donation to an emergency fund. This show made me want to jump on a plane and go fill sand bags in the cities that are flooding in the states, or go and help build infrastructure (homes, hospitals and irrigation systems) in a developing country or maybe just get off my butt and give blood or volunteer some time here at home.

You may not like the subject matter but any play that gets people to think is good art. And anyone who can’t bear to see something performed that doesn’t jive with their world view should stay at home.

I leave you with a quote by the Jewish News regarding a production of My Name is Rachel Corrie at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival in 2005 "So what? Are we big enough to take it artistically? This is not legislation in Congress; this is the diary of a woman who was run over by a bulldozer. Should we hear what she had to say? Why not?"

Exactly. Why not?

Bringin’ Back The Art

Last winter while walking in downtown Toronto I was passing the front window of an art gallery when I noticed a perfect painting of a snow covered field with a small house in the background. Its early evening in the painting and the house has warm glowing light spilling from the windows on to the icy ground outside. The snow covering the field has a blue white glow to it and you can almost feel the crisp, cold, still air. It was quite wonderful.

When I was a teen I use to spend almost every waking hour in Taylor Creek Park which is part of the Don Valley Park system. It’s located just off of Dawes Rd in the east end of the city. When you’re in this park you’re totally secluded from the streets, lights and noise of the city around you. I would walk to school, which was a fair distance, through the park. I would come home the same way. Almost every night I would meet one of my friends and we would spend hours walking, talking, climbing hydro towers (okay I would climb he would pretend to be my mom and tell me to get down) and just enjoying the crazy un-urban landscape. At night, in the winter, the only light you would find in the park would come from the moon and it would give the snowy hills and trees around us the same blue white glow as the field in the painting. Seeing the painting in the window reminded me of that time and it gave me a really incredible warm fuzzy feeling in my tummy.

It’s been about a million years since I sat down and actually produced a painting. For those of you who know me well you’re probably thinking “Dot paints?” Answer: Yep. I do. But my creative side is coupled with my irrational need to keep all things emotional private - I can hear Kerry sighing as I write that – which is why very few folks have ever seen any of my artwork. I mentioned my urge to paint to a couple of friends and subsequently for Christmas I was given an easel, canvases, paint, brushes – everything I need. I don’t have the creative force that a lot of my friends have. Over the years there are a handful of things that folks I know have created that have stuck with me. Simon’s “Lonely Bench”, Steve’s “Barrington Avenue”, John’s “Nudes of Fife”, Reston’s “Crystanthia”, Catherine’s sketch of Jennifer. I’m hoping to be able to produce at least one piece that’s worthy of some warm tummy fuzziness.

Wish me luck and my apologies in advance for not letting any of you see it!

Party in the Desert

The last night of the film festival was followed by a party in the desert. Lindy and I decided we would catch the 10:30pm bus because we had to strike the box offices at the venues that were still open.



Unfortunately, Aboobacker (is it wrong that this name makes me giggle every time I say it) the head of security cancelled the bus due to a miscommunication. So we ended up on the 11:30pm bus with some of our staff as well as the projectionists and some stray festival guests.



The ride out to the Lisalli Fort in the desert takes about 45 minutes. Along the way there isn't much to see except giant 3D billboards for upcoming building projects like Africaland. Did I mention it was crazy here? The drivers in the desert are just as retarded as the drivers in Dubai proper. One driver swerved in front of us with not nearly enough room which made us swerve in front of an oncoming truck. I screamed like a girl and there were general gasps of terror from the other folks in the bus. Our driver got us back on track and didn't seem to see what had freaked us out. Crazy.



So one brush with death and a million billboards later we finally arrived at the fort. The inside had been set up with a huge number of seated covered tent areas with large tables in the middle where you could gather as a group, dance to the music, get food from the huge buffet and in the case of Lindy and I grab a bottle of wine each and just enjoy. The music was good, the food was good, the staff was out in almost full force and it was a fun night.



On the outskirts of the fort area there were giant sand dunes. I encouraged Mike (I was waaaaay too drunk) to climb one and see the view on the other side. I did this last time and it was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. While Mike was climbing I was laying in the sand at the bottom of the dune looking up a sky full of stars. Lovely.



We all drove back from the desert in big buses. We got on the rowdy bus and listened to the kids yell and sing all the way back to the city. It was a really good night.



Poor Mike was leaving the next morning (a few hours after we got back) so he stayed up and finished packing and left for the airport. A little drunk but I think pretty happy with his Dubai experience.

The Bashing of the Dunes

Well it's the last day in Dubai and a group of us are going dune bashing. This involves wandering through the desert in a four wheel vehicle and driving up and down and around sand dunes.



Every once and a while we stop to take some scenic photos. It's really quite lovely in the desert and I'm still not sure why Dubai wants to hide the fact that it has this really interesting facet to it but hey what do I know.



Once we've driven around and slipped and bumped and jumped in the four wheel they take us to a compound where we will see a belly dancing show. There are various little kiosks set up where you can smoke Sheesha, get henna painted, buy souvenirs, get dressed up in an abaya and dishdash for photos and a bar where they apparently won't cut you off ever. I'm assuming this policy based on the group of college boys who got incredibly drunk and got up and danced with the belly dancer. It was pretty funny.



The belly dancer was not very good. I've had a number of friends take this style of dance and I've seen about a million recitals and this gal wouldn't even have been in the advanced class but she was trying so I give her props for that!



The whole experience was fun and I'm glad I got the chance to do it and to finally see some desert. I mean, it only took two trips to Dubai to see it!



Crazy Dubai

Jumeirah Mosque

On the last day of the festival Mike and I got up early and went to Jumeirah Mosque. This is the only mosque in Dubai that will allow non-Muslims to enter it.



The tour was led by a volunteer named Mohammed who had an awesome sense of humour and was really interesting to listen to. Before entering the masjid (Mosque is the anglicized version of this word) our guide took us through the ritual cleaning process know as the Wudu. This involves cleansing your hands, arms, face, nose and feet by wiping each of them three times. Apparently as long as you don't break with any of the pillars of Islam during the day your Wudu will last you the whole day.



To enter the masjid we all had to remove our shoes and the women were asked to cover their heads. Yes, Mike got a picture of me in my head scarf - jeez. The inside of the mosque was pretty. It had some lovely decorations but was very simple in design. One thing of note is there are no paintings or statues of Mohammed (the prophet) or Allah or any other figure in Islam history. That's a no-no in a mosque. There was, however, a kick ass electronic Qur'an that played the call to prayer and showed the translated version of the Qur'an in a crazy number of languages. Pretty Cool.



Once we looked around a little Mohammed gathered us on the big carpeted area in front of the Iman's niche and talked us through the 5 pillars of Islam. He demonstrated the various prayers that each Muslim does when they enter the masjid which are also done is a very specific way. Following this he talked about the Hajj. This is the pilgrimage that each Muslim is required to make at least once in their life to Mecca. These pilgrimages normally happen around Eid. In fact, Abdullah, the brilliant man who coordinated our office moves for the festival left for his Hajj the day after the festival ended. Once a Muslim has completed their Hajj they have a clean slate in the eyes of Allah. Again pretty cool.



Once Mohammed talked us through all this he opened the floor to questions. Their were questions about the Qur'an. About the various sects of Islam and about women who went about completely covered. I won't go in to any detail about these but it was all very interesting and I would highly recommend taking a tour of a mosque if one is available to you.



There's much to be learned my friends!

Dubai Debrief

So the festival is over and I've made it safe and sound back to the land of snow.



The festival itself was a lot of fun. Of course, there's the usual insanity of running a number of box offices and the swirl of craziness that you have no control over but looking back on it, overall, it was a blast. I met some really awesome folks and reconnected with some that I met on my first journey. I taught Suhail all kinds of phrases that a nice Muslim boy just shouldn't know and learned a few choices phrases from Dr. Aldrich and Professor Amar.



Working with Lindy was great. You will never meet a person with a greater sense of play accompanied by the kind of organizational skills this gal has. Honestly! Leading the Theatre's team (that box office works really closely with) was Cheryl Izen who we lovingly referred to as "future Lindy". Need I say more.