| Interview with Julie
Tamiko Manning I want to talk a little bit about the Women Writer’s Unit back in 2000. I did the first reading of Burning Vision [at the end of the Writer’s Unit], but I had nothing to do with the actual Writer’s Unit. So you just came in and read. Yeah. I came in and read the role of Round Rose. So you read the same character you played in the eventual production. I also read the Radium Painter. How did you find that the character of Round Rose changed over the two years? The way that she developed – and I think that it was mostly in rehearsal, in Marie’s rewrites for the character – was that she became more personal. She became more of a person, as opposed to a voice over the radio. Originally, that’s what she was. She was this voice that spoke to the American GIs on the radio, and that’s pretty much what Marie had written for the character of Round Rose. If I remember correctly, she only ended up keeping one monologue in the final production. The different time line [was new] as well – the older character and the younger character, the character in Japan and the character in America. Why was she called Round Rose? The reason why she was called Round Rose, as far as I know, is that Marie saw her as someone who is full of knowledge and full of experience. I just assumed it was because I was, you know, round, but Marie said that’s how she envisaged her, as someone who was wise, or who had seen a lot. There’s another character in the script who’s also named Rose. That’s Métis Rose, who was played by Lisa Ravensburgen. She was half Dene and half white. Throughout the play, we were wondering what the two Roses had in common, and what was their connection. Their stories never crossed, and they never met each other, but there were moments in the play when they were reflected in what each other said. It’s kind of hard to explain verbally. The similarities between the characters are something that we only discovered in rehearsal. Did you try to highlight that, and bring it out? I think maybe Peter did, in directing, in where he placed us, and how he placed our movements in juxtaposition with each other’s scenes. Sometimes we spoke one after the other, and when that happened, you would hear these little reverberations of what the person had said before. But it wasn’t a hit-you-over-the-head type of thing. You really had to listen to get that whole connection. It wasn’t spelled out for the audience. As an actor, what do you find are the advantages and disadvantages of working on an original script, where the playwright has more of a say than she would otherwise? For me, I find it’s mostly advantageous, because it keeps it new. But then again, I’m sure that it probably depends on the playwright as well. If the playwright doesn’t listen to what’s going on in rehearsal and comes in and changes things without keeping everyone in mind, that would probably be a little difficult. But with Marie, it was excellent. She would come into rehearsals and listen to us reading. She would watch the exercises and she’d just be in the corner with her computer, and she’d do rewrites. The rewrites that she made were very powerful, and they had everything to do with what we were discussing in the rehearsal process. It was really cool. It kept it new and fresh. Could you name an example of that? There was one monologue in particular that she changed a lot, and I remember once she passed out rewrites, and she said, “Well, there aren’t that many on this page, so I’ll just read them out.” And they were all my lines, so I was like, “Oh my God, I can’t keep up.” But it was all for the better. They were all positive changes, and they were good solutions to some problems that we had. You said you did exercises that informed rewrites. Peter did a lot of exercises that tested our boundaries, of personal space and relationships and dynamics within the group, which was really interesting because I don’t think many people knew each other. If it were here in Montréal, people would probably know each other because the theatre community is so small. It’s small there, too, but I think that maybe they’re not as much of a community as we are here, maybe because there are more people or whatever the case may be. A lot of the exercises we did were a little bit shocking at first, because he would have us slow dance with each other, or kiss each other in any sort of way. It really broke a lot of the tension in the group, which was very important for this show, because it was important that we were all together, that we were a family and an ensemble. You were playing a historical figure, Tokyo Rose. How much did you try to play her as she was, and how many artistic liberties did you take with her portrayal? Lots. I looked like her. My costume was exactly as you would see in a picture. My hair was in braids. Physically, I don’t really look like her, but my costume and my hair were pretty much exactly like she looked. But I didn’t really do her voice or anything. I listened to sound bites from her [radio] show on the Internet, and it could have been just the computer sound quality, but she actually had a kind of high, nasally voice. I didn’t think it was very sexy at all. You know how people are always talking about Tokyo Rose as this exotic sort of blah-blah-blah on the radio, and that all the American GIs are pinning this sort of exotic sex object [identity] on her. And she didn’t sound like it at all, so I thought that was kind of funny, that that’s what she became over history. That’s what people think about the most, I think, when they think of Tokyo Rose – this sexy, husky voice. She wasn’t. The things that she said weren’t even that sexy. She was just introducing music and stuff like that. You did do the husky voice. Yeah, and I had a lav mic, so my voice was amplified as well. When I interviewed Peter, he mentioned that when you were in Vancouver for the production, you were often making little observations about the cultural differences between Montréal and Vancouver. What do you think the differences are between doing theatre there [in Vancouver] and here [in Montréal]? I’m certainly not an expert, because Burning Vision is the only
thing I’ve ever done there, and I’ve only seen maybe two
local Vancouver plays, and I’ve been [in Montréal] for the last
ten years. So, obviously my life is here, but I also found a lot of
things there as well. In Vancouver, I found that the pool of ethnic
actors is way bigger than it is here. Here, it’s almost non-existent.
Other than Teesri Duniya and Black Theatre Workshop, I don’t know
of any ethnic theatre organization. Over there, it’s quite big
and it’s quite powerful. Most of the cast was Native, and I found
them very strong, and Marie’s company is a company of women of
colour, and I thought that was pretty wicked. They don’t seem
to have a really tight-knit community, but I’ve only been there
once, so I can’t really judge them on that, because I come from
such a tight-knit community. There’s a lot of young, independent
theatre going on. They have this cool thing called See Seven. It’s
thirteen or fourteen small, independent companies that get together
and put on a season. So, there are fourteen plays in 2002 or whatever,
and they publicize it together and put all their resources together.
They have a much bigger visibility than they would if they were just
operating as Rumble Theatre or Pi Theatre or Ruby Slippers Theatre,
and I thought that was a really great idea. I also thought it was really
good to get people into seeing more theatre.
|
