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Dec 25,2005 - Jan 8,2005 |
Recollection and Responsibility
New play questions whether one can exist without the other
By Sarah B. Hood
Originally Published: 2005-10-23
Questions of good, evil and moral responsibility have intrigued and troubled writers since the first time someone wrote down the story of Adam and Eve. In fact, some might say these are the central themes at the heart of the greatest world literature. No surprise, then, to hear that playwright Michael Redhill has titled in new play Goodness.
Redhill is best known to theatregoers for his play Building Jerusalem, which opened in Toronto in January of 2000, when the millennial fever was just breaking. Set at the turn of the previous century, it imagined an encounter among four historical figures of the Victorian era; their conversation dissects changing attitudes towards women's roles in society and the relationship between dominant and emerging cultures. Building Jerusalem was nominated for a Governor General's Award and won a Dora Award (Best New
Play) and a Chalmers Award.
But he's also an accomplished poet and novelist. His first novel, Martin Sloane, published in 2001, was nominated for the Giller Prize and the City of Toronto Book Awards - among others. It won a Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book. (His new novel, Consolation, is scheduled for publication in 2006.)
Goodness began with discussions between Redhill and director Ross Manson (who also directed Building Jerusalem) about "the question of memory and culpability," says Redhill. One of the first elements that was to become part of the play was a story about a war criminal with Alzheimer's who comes to trial for crimes he can no longer remember having committed. "Can responsibility be established when the memory of the crime has completely dissolved?" Redhill asks.
"When Ross and I sat down to talk, he had been thinking about the whole branch of moral philosophy," he continues. "I think that the play also asks what are the conditions for justice, if you have the perpetrator at hand, but he can't feel remorse because he can't remember what he did?"
In Goodness, actor Jordan Pettle plays a Jewish playwright (named Michael Redhill) who tells a story about a war trial set in a deliberately unnamed country. The cast members, under the direction of musicologist and performer Brenna MacCrimmon, perform folk songs from many countries during the course of the play. "Brenna did a lot of work on sourcing music from many different cultures," says Redhill. "There are some African languages; there's some Ukrainian; there's Yiddish; a lot of different folk cultures are brought into the play, because it takes place quite a bit in the memories of people who are from different parts of the world."
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