1 of 1 2 of 1 Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday. Sign up for our free newsletter . If you’ve been to the Vancouver Playhouse, there are probably certain spaces you’re used to seeing.
The entryway; the bathrooms; the hemispherical stage and shallowly-stepped seats that fan out like a clamshell. But what if you could explore parts of the theatre you’d never seen before—while experiencing a story you know in a whole new light? That’s what you can expect from Music on Main’s latest work, The Tempest Project , which premieres on July 17 at Vancouver’s brutalist performing arts venue. Audience members will be led through the bowels of the theatre—dressing rooms and hallways and stairwells and onto the stage—to find musicians playing new compositions inspired by Shakespeare’s last (and arguably strangest) solo play.
“One of the reasons I chose The Tempest is it continues to inspire artists today,” says David Pay, Music on Main’s artistic director. He cites Crystal Pite’s The Tempest Replica , Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed , and Thomas Adès’s 2004 operatic reworking as examples of recent fascination with the 17th-century tale of magic and family. “The topics that Shakespeare lays bare are colonialism, revenge, forgiveness.
He looks at the nature of love—of filial love, of love of a daughter—or hatred between brothers; he looks at power dynamics,” Pay continues. “ Succession was a big hit, but there was no new emotion that we experienced in it. These are emotions that we’ve had forever that are expressed in new, contemporary ways.
” That said, he was aware of the complications with drawing inspiration from a piece of writing that sits in an outdated Western literary canon. “In this world that’s black and white, I think it’s easy to be like, ‘Oh my god, this old, canon, colonial, damaging work,’” Pay reflects. “And I don’t think it is.
.. Shakespeare is still at the core of our language, and language makes up so much of culture, and how culture interprets itself, that I think there’s still a richness to be uncovered through it.
” Pay worked with the eight musicians who became the Tempest Project Company over the project’s five-year development. To make the work feel true to Vancouver, emphasis was put on hiring a vast range of musical experiences. “We wanted to create an ensemble that would reflect Vancouver and the different kind of music that’s made in Vancouver, have different cultural backgrounds, and share input into things,” he explains.
It was about trying “to remove the old-fashioned hierarchy of, ‘We’re inviting a Persian musician and a Chinese musician to participate in this Western music ensemble’. No, we’re just making a new music ensemble, and all the music will be valued equally.” That meant combining not just instruments and musicalities from different and diverse musical traditions, but also modes of looking at the source material in order to draw out the core themes.
“We’re working with people from different cultures to bring in different perspectives,” Pay continues. “Maybe Shakespeare is really important, maybe it’s not really important. But we all share magic.
We all grew up with magic tricks. And we’re finding these ways to use [ The Tempest ] merely as a touchstone to find our way to be in the world, and to create something together.” At each performance, the audience will be split into six groups and guided on different paths, where they will come across the eight musicians split into disparate groupings.
Sometimes, all the groups will experience one piece together; at other times, only one of the six groups might see a specific vignette. Others might encounter every piece of music, but in different orders, giving audiences varying contexts for the emotions therein. The different musical vignettes—many happening simultaneously—riff on emotional themes found in The Tempest .
With music commissioned from composers and soundscape artists, as well as improvised by the performers themselves, the overall effect is like a three-dimensional, sonic jigsaw puzzle. Audiences will only ever see a specific part of a greater whole, with each group experiencing a narrative that is mutually exclusive but equally intentional and complete. This isn’t the first time Pay has orchestrated a travelling musical experience.
A decade ago, Music on Main did something similar with The Orpheus Project , taking themes from the myth and reinterpreting them through musical scenes. The two projects were inspired by other immersive site-specific works he had seen, such as dreamthinkspeak’s Amsterdam mounting of Before I Sleep —a production based on Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard that took audiences through a disused office block. “Whether it’s something that takes place in a small meeting room, or things that take place outside, I really fell in love with this idea,” Pay says.
“We hear music differently in different environments, and I think it just opens us up to being all the more permeable, and receiving the power of the arts in beautiful ways.” Be not afeard: the theatre is full of noises. Just be open to them.
The Tempest Project When: July 17 to 22 Where: Vancouver Playhouse Admission: From $30, available here.
