Two live theatre productions are coming to Mansons Hall this weekend

Cortes Radio sent over five audio tracks. A lot of Cortes residents are going to recognize the voices of the two people who conducted the interviews that follow but as they chose to not introduce themselves, they are labelled CKTZ in the written version of this story. This is their show and it starts with the PSA for ‘Moonrise, the Rock Opera,’ which opens on at 6 PM on Friday, November 8, 2024:

Moonrise, the mythic rock opera – starring Denman based artists Thomas Aerie, Jenna Bird, Bee Balm, Leya Tess, and Cortes’ own Rue McDonald and Christopher Fleck.  

Rue McDonald: It is a creative retelling of an old Celtic myth about the return of power to the earth and the goddess.  We have been very busy making costumes and making a puppet scrim, all sorts of really fun, creative set pieces and costuming and choreography.

It’s just been such a wonderful, fun process to create some very soulful community theater.  

CKTZ: Totally. It sounds super multidisciplinary in terms of like, it involves music, theater, puppetry. Is there anything else that I’m missing?

Rue McDonald: Lots of great songs.  Yeah, all original songs. I guess it’s not like a strict rock opera because we have some acapella songs, but like lots of really rockin songs too. 

CKTZ: It’s a genre bending opera. 

Rue McDonald: That’s right, yeah.  

CKTZ: So what inspired you to create the show and was it a joint creative process?  

My dear friend Thomas Aerie came to me and said I have this idea for a show and some fantastic songs that they had written and the more that we got together, we realized like this is a story. All these songs can be woven together.

There’s a through thread here. I myself am quite a lover of  ancestral stories from my ancestral homelands of Ireland and Scotland. Slowly but surely, this story started to come together, inspired by a number of different archetypes from those stories, with an overarching narrative of this return of power to a sovereignty goddess,  who is an embodiment of the land. 

CKTZ: So has it mostly been you and Thomas Aerie working on the show, creating it together?  

Rue McDonald: We worked on it for quite a while, just us, and then we got together with a writing team that included myself and Thomas, also Tony Mandel, and our friends Elena and Kevin. So we had a writing team for a number of months where we would get together for like three or four days at a time and just intensively work on this script. And then, um, once the script was completed, then we got our performers together for our performing team. 

CKTZ: Awesome! And is Cortez going to be the first stop? You’re going on a bit of a tour, right? 

Rue McDonald: We’re going on a bit of a tour. We’re premiering at the Woodstove Festival.

CKTZ: Hey, awesome. 

Rue McDonald: Yeah, at 7 o’clock at the Weird Church. And then we’ll go to Denman  on the 6th. And then we’re coming to Cortez on the 8th, 6 o’clock at Manson’s Hall and then our last stop is in Duncan on November 10th.  

CKTZ: That’s so exciting. And what day are you performing at the Woodstove Festival?  

Rue McDonald: Friday, November 1st.  

CKTZ: Are these old Celtic stories that you’re sourcing, or are they specific stories that you’re working with?  

Rue McDonald: Yeah, they’re specific stories, but there’s  often many versions of the same story and over time I’ve been getting to know a number of them and so the way that they’re coming into like the greater narrative of the rock opera is quite unique. They still hold that that resonance of the old stories and a similar role but Woven into present relevance, like what do they have to say to these times?

The overarching story that the rock opera is inspired by is the story of how the goddess of the land would be married to the king, and the goddess would come in the form of a mare, and there’s a number of different goddesses. that would come in the form of a mare. There’s Áine, there’s Macha,  and she embodies sovereignty.

And when he was crowned the king, they would go to the sacred mound and they’d be married, body, soul, and spirit. And this,  this marriage would bind him in his responsibility to love and serve the earth as a humble, righteous servant king.  But, if he were to break his vows and the land be laid to waste, if the waters weren’t held sacred and the goddess disgraced, responsibility would fall on the head of the king and his blood would be spilt. A just reckoning.  

CKTZ: Da da da dahhh. (laughter)  

Rue McDonald: So it’s about like, from our ancestral traditions, we knew how to be in balance with the land and there was this, this cycle of life and death when power was not being wielded in a just way in a way that was in line with the thrivance of ecologies, you know, that, that leadership’s time would end and there’s, there’d be space for something new. And so we’re really inspired by this story. Like, what does the story have to speak to our times and all of us being people who have been involved in different, um, indigenous solidarity work and ecological restoration and  climate activism. We’re really, really curious about like, what do our ancestral stories, how can they resource us in these times where we have a lot of really complex issues,  all of us who have been part of the writing process are in this process of like re grounding and re resourcing and ancestral cultures, in order to meet these times of transition and change with more, more groundedness and rootedness, and that’s one of the aspects that’s inspired the show. 

CKTZ: You’ve kind of alluded to this idea of art and overlap with social change. Can you expand on that a bit?  

Rue McDonald: I think all of us really believe in the power of art for inspiring social change. I recently heard a quote like art can be dangerous because it has historically and continues to be a site of resistance and a site of reimagining futurities. 

I think all of us also believe in art can and be a healing process both for us, but also for those who view and participate in art. And so we’re really excited about sharing this process with our communities and just to see how it will ripple out.  

CKTZ: Awesome. It sounds so exciting. Is there anything else that you want to share? 

Rue McDonald: Yeah, you know, we can’t wait to bring this beautiful story to this beloved community of Cortez and sincerely hope to see everyone there and like bringing our inspired minds and hearts and voices together to see what magic will weave together in this really unique moment in time.  November 8th at 6 p. m at Manson’s Hall. Tickets at the door, they’re sliding scale 15 to 35, and kids are free and no one is turned away for lack of funds.  Moonrise, the mythic rock opera. November 8th at 6 p. m. at Manson’s Hall. 

Soma Feldmar:  Theater Undertow presents The Elephant Song, a play by Nicholas Bion. Two performances.  The cast members are myself, Soma Feldmar, Beatrix Bachashi, Mary Claire Preston, and Mary Lavelle. There’s two performances, November 9th and November 10th, at Manson’s Hall, at 7pm. 

CKTZ: Is this a play you knew? Do you know this author? 

Soma Feldmar: This was my first introduction to the play and the author.  It’s an intense and funny play. Deals with some of The biggest problems about being alive as a human and the importance of love and what can happen without it.  I feel like it tackles some of the big  life things that some of the classical dramas do. 

It’s not for the faint of heart, but it is dark humor. So there is definitely some hilarity.  

CKTZ: It’s teens 13 and above with their parents, but really not for younger kids. Yeah. I wouldn’t, 

Soma Feldmar: I wouldn’t say it’s for younger kids. But PG 13 does, which we have on the posters, does leave it up to the parents because I think that’s the most important. 

CKTZ: What can people expect when they come to see this play?  

Soma Feldmar: What can people expect? An intimate theater experience. The audience size, I believe, is limited to around 65 per performance.  You know, it’s not a feel good play. This isn’t just entertainment.  For example, the, the reason that I often watch TV is not the reason I would watch this play. But if you want to learn more about  what it can be to be a human, then please do come. 

Beatrix Beczasy: So, my name is Beatrix Beczasy.  It’s an Elephant Song, this is the name of the play, Elephant Song, by Nicolas Billon. He’s a contemporary Canadian writer. They debuted in 2004 and it already won lots of awards. This play had been played internationally.

It’s pretty popular, it’s one of his, his very popular plays.  And they even made a movie out of it.  So the performance is on November the 9th.  On November the 10th, the show starts at 7pm.  Doors open at 6. 30.  I play the role Dr. Greenberg.  There are also Soma Feldmar,  and Marie Claire Preston, and Mary Lavelle. So the four of us play.  

CKTZ: How about decision making or when you were putting the production together, was it team effort or were you workshopping it together?  

Beatrix Beczasy: Yes, so we started off with uh, doing workshops and then we slowly introduced the play and started working, working on it. But still in a very workshop style. 

CKTZ: And is this your first time doing, on Cortez, the workshops and the acting workshops? Was this your first group? 

Beatrix Beczasy: We put the advertisement out and people come, and some like it, some not. Some stay, some not.  And those who stay and feel committed to, then we do a play with those people. 

CKTZ: So you’ve been working on this for about four to six months. 

Beatrix Beczasy: Not just the play, because from the transition from the workshop part to the actual rehearsal part was so gentle. Yeah.  Because it was more,  we have this play so we can practice better. 

CKTZ: What should people expect when they come to the play?  

Beatrix Beczasy: Hopefully you should expect like a complex artistic experience. So that has many layers and entertaining is not the only aim. It’s a tool.  

CKTZ: What drew you to this play? Why do you like this play? 

Beatrix Beczasy: Okay. So we, we do believe in serendipities and intuitions and just things that just happen like that. A man came up to us and, and gave us a book, Nicholas Billon. He said that, ‘Oh, I just found this in the free store and I know you do theatre. Would you be interested in this? It’s a Canadian writer.’  We said, of course, yes. 

CKTZ: So were you in the book section or you weren’t at the free store? They came to you?

Beatrix Beczasy: No, I was in,  the Co-op Cafe. 

CKTZ: Ah, okay. 

Beatrix Beczasy: And the man who found this book in the free store, he brought this to me. 

CKTZ: Yeah. That’s very funny.

Beatrix Beczasy: That’s very funny. Yeah. I, we love this type of, uh, 

CKTZ: yes. Serendipity. 

Beatrix Beczasy: Yes. 

CKTZ: Is there anything that you want to talk about the play that you haven’t said yet? 

Beatrix Beczasy: Just because everybody asking this,  I just say that it happens in a psychiatric institution between a troubled patient and the director.  So, of course, because it happens in a, in a psychiatric institution, it also includes  mental and psychiatric struggles, traumas, things like that, processing some of those things.

CKTZ: What was the most fun you had making this play?  

Beatrix Beczasy: Right now (laughs).  

CKTZ: What makes this period the most fun?  

Beatrix Beczasy: The process is always fun to discover, to go deep,  to reach the deepest levels of your own, maybe the ones that you’re afraid of,  and to see your partners doing their own journey about that.  But I just know from experience I always really like when I meet with the public for the first time.When the performance meets with the public, it’s always a new life, a new  stage begins.  

CKTZ: Who would you recommend come to this play? 

Beatrix Beczasy: Oh, wait, yeah, that’s a good question, actually, because we said that it’s mature content. They include some heavier subjects like childhood traumas and things like that.  

We do not recommend this play for children. We would recommend this for teenagers  and  teenage plus like 13. We said that parental guidance 13.  If you have a child and you would like to come to the performance,  Then you, you have childcare available at the play school.  And please, if you would need the service of a childcare, please let us know. Let Cora know. 

CKTZ: Look at the post on Tideline for the contact information. You have to RSVP in advance.  

Beatrix Beczasy: This is something that we missed from home, like a parent and family friendly approach to theater. And it’s just nice to give them the opportunity to not feel excluded.

Saturday and Sunday, November 9th and 10th, 7 p. m. at Manson’s Hall.  Tickets available at the Co op, Cortez Market, and Manson’s Hall office. PG 13 mature content. See Tideline for childcare options.  The Elephant Song. Two performances, Saturday and Sunday, November 9th and 10th, 7pm at Manson’s Hall.  

Soma Feldmar: What do you know about elephants? 

Top image credit: Moonrise – Photo by Bill Smith via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)