The pleasure again will be all ours
Metro Vancouver will see Tremblay’s heartfelt mother-son play
If it’s not one thing, it’s your mother.
That statement certainly rings true in the case of For the Pleasure of Seeing You Again, the autobiographical play by celebrated Canadian playwright Michel Tremblay.
It’s a lovely, funny, poignant look at Tremblay’s close relationship with his animated, storytelling mom — a mother who sadly didn’t live long enough to see Tremblay’s first big theatrical success.
Richmond’s Gateway Theatre opens its 2015-2016 season with a Full Circle First Nations Performance production of this play, one the group has performed in the past.
For actor Margo Kane, the chance to revisit the familiar role of the mother, aka Nana, is exciting — and one heck of a workout.
“It was a surprising invitation,” Kane said of the Gateway call for her all-First Nations group to revive their production, performed last in 2013. “It’s really nice to revisit it.”
But Kane knows Nana — who is the mother of the narrator (Kevin Loring) — has a lot of lines and attitude.
“I think it’s just a real reach, a real stretch for an actress,” said Kane, who also directs (the original production was directed by Glynis Leyshon). “It really makes me knuckle down and work on all my chops. There’s a lot of storytelling. There are a lot of humorous parts. There’s poignant parts. It puts the person through their paces.
“It is a real challenge, but I feel really fulfilled when I finally get up to speed with this one.”
Tremblay’s play has all the earmarks of the classic, universally recognized mother-son relationship.
“She is a very dramatic persona and quite a storyteller,” Kane said. “She is the kind of mother who doted on her son. She had other sons, but this one is really special to her. She really instilled in him a lot of her dramatic storytelling, and really I think she found a real kinship with this son.”
While Nana is a handful, Kane admits the storytelling aspect of her character is one she gets — fully and completely. Kane said from the time she was a child, she stood up and performed.
“I just came into the world that way. I was always telling stories, singing songs, making stuff up, little productions. I was the eldest child so of course I had a captive audience,” said Kane, an internationally acclaimed, multi-disciplinary artist of Cree/Saulteaux heritage.
While this story is specific to two people, the larger picture and subsequent reach is wide, something Kane said she has witnessed many times.
“When we did it at the National Arts Centre, it was part of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival a couple of years ago. I had so many women come back, they were volunteer ushers, and they would come back and bring their relatives,” said Kane. “They loved the show and it resonated across cultural lines.”