The Ark

SATURDAY DECEMBER 9 AT 8 PM - ST. ANDREW'S PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Where this season is concentrated exclusively on contemporary works, we want to alternate our repertoire with works of the classical theatre and world stage. It's important that we measure our own ideas and practice by the methods and means of other times and places. Every play was a new work once, and as we look for replenishment and rejuvenation of our "national repertoire," what better source of inspiration than the volatile terrain of the Elizabethan and Jacobean canon? Here are plays about power and intrigue, madness and revenge. It is also the period of the Jacobean city comedy, where merchants and their wives contend for "rule, supremacy and sway" and challenge our notions of what it is to "serve, love and obey." Together they're kind of like Quentin Tarantino meets Coronation Street. I think it's a sensibility perfectly suited to our times.

In addition to works by Shakespeare, we will look at his neglected contemporaries, including the first woman to publish a play in English. We will also look at a few modern pieces based on a Renaissance theme. Working with a company of actors, directors, designers, playwrights and dramaturges, we will spend each morning exploring a social component of this explosive period. Each afternoon we will read a play and examine it under the lab conditions of theatre experimentation. Starting with Marlowe and finishing with Congreve, The Ark will survey the 17th century as a means to whet the company's appetite for the following season. WeÕll offer you a special sneak peek of our work, The Jacobethan Imagination: from Riot to Restoration, for one night only.

Diane D'aquila
Photo: Laird Mackintosh