by Jill ConnellMovement and Assistance by Tedi Tafel
Dramaturgy by Brian Drader
Set and Lighting by Elizabeth Kantor
Video and Projection by Ishan Davé
Music Composition and Sound by Holger Schoorl
Stage Management by Angeline St. Amour
Technical Direction by Justis Danto-Clancy
Costumes by Jenna McCutchen
Produced by Sascha Cole and Jill Connell
The Band: Holger Schoorl, Cory Latkovich, Ishan Davé.
Also: Philip Nozuka (trailers), Tala Kamea (graphic design), Samantha Madely (photographs), Lena Suksi (drawings), Jeremy Kantor (graffiti), Amy Keating (Lindsay Hashknife), and Claudia Dey and Heidi Sopinka (select costume pieces exclusively designed by Horses Atelier).
A second production by The Maggie Tree took place in Edmonton, Alberta, April 2016, directed by Vanessa Sabourin and featuring Lora Brovold, Kristi Hansen, Jayce Mckenzie, Michelle Milen-kovic, and Melissa Thingelstad.
Personajes
The Cobbler. Grace Volonté Cordovan. A shoemaker and an outlaw.
The Kid. Everett ‘the Kid’ McMurtrett-Howley-Réjean-Cournoyer.
The Cobbler’s apprentice.
The Dancer / Nurse 1. Frankie (Francisca) Cordovan.
The Cobbler’s older sister.
The Lover / Nurse 2. Leigh Meloné. The Cobbler’s best friend.
The Doctor. Name unknown. The Cobbler’s abortion provider.
Setting
Present day, present city.
Locations that distill and morph:
1. The Theatre
2. The Wilderness
3. The Abortion Clinic
4. The City
Mood and landscape are supreme in the Western.
Physical Things
That which is elemental (fire, water, earth, plant, animal) or enfranchises action (digging, hanging, sitting, chopping, dressing).
Objects can be replaced by reading a stage direction, stating that you have an object, or feeling like you have an object.
Text
A slash indicates overlap. A strikethrough indicates something we are not allowed to hear. The text both is exacting and invites improvisation.
What to Wear
This is a contemporary Western. Hats and boots are important. Animal: leather, feather, fur. Accessories: kerchiefs, suspenders, charms. The women dress for the wilderness (changeable), more than the heat. They are fashionable, as outlaws tend to be.
Otras Cosas
The ensemble is always onstage, as players or as witness.
Sound is a live band. They play throughout, or they witness.
The technical elements are transparent. A performer-operated light can choose what it illuminates. We trade theatre magic for aliveness.
The film genre can be evoked throughout; however, the final film is the only film in the play.
The show is changeable. That which is repeatable and essential anchors that which is untamable and unknown.
The Cobbler is our centre; the play moves around her.
The Doctor is our wild card and our host. She can be used to solve most artistic challenges.
While the Dancer and Lover might be dead or missing, they must first be present and returned, with real demands and real bodies.
The Kid sees everything. She is heroic and sane, along with the rest of them.
It is both. Both contemporary and a Western. Both a clinic and the wild. Both objective and subjective. Both true story and legend. Stories, myths, histories are always thus. We can only see from our own eye(s).
The Supine Cobbler
The audience enters. There is a bar where they can buy tall cans of beer and whisky in real glasses. A Fistful of Dollars plays on the tv screen, sound muted. Music plays: contemporary, female, popular.
The DANCER, LOVER, and KID sit at the bar. The DOCTOR observes from a distance. They wear dusters.
The Doctor nods. It’s time. Music quiets. House lights dim. The bartender settles up with any customers. Musicians take their places.
TV sound from A Fistful of Dollars comes in. It is the final duel of the film. The Dancer, Lover, and Kid watch. At the height of the duel: the tv cuts out. House lights out.
The palpable expectation of silence. The band strikes a resonant chord.
The COBBLER enters. She stands at the threshold wearing a duster.
The three at the bar turn. Eyes meet with the Cobbler’s. A small lifetime in this gaze.
The Cobbler approaches the bar.
The bartender pours four shots of whisky. They drink: a sober yet casual complicity.
Prologue
The Doctor addresses the audience.
DOCTOR: You all remember the year we had no rain. The year Hassan Jarrar beat a hooker into a coma, same year as the HIV hate-mongering, fifty-three homicides, 243 suicides, that we know of in this city. Almost twenty years ago now. Same year the Cordovan house burnt clean to the ground in the middle of the night, mother and father inside. Two daughters camped in a tent nearby, twelve and fourteen – these the remains of the tragedy. The elder daughter got sent to the Winnipeg Ballet,
