dewline: Musical note symbol ending in a maple leaf (canadian music)
From the musical Come From Away as performed for Q on CBC Radio One back in 2018. Seems like a good moment for it. Most of my friendlist probably knows the premise of the musical, but short version for anyone caught unawares: the POV of the people of Gander, Newfoundland-Labrador when thousands of people flying to and from any number of places happened to have to land there on September 11, 2001.

You wouldn't have thought a musical worth seeing could be made of that premise, but they got'er done.

dewline: Text - "On the DEWLine" (Default)
There is a stage play I watched with my mother at the Great Canadian Theatre Company, some months after my father died: Unity (1918). We saw it because the title and setting were linkages to my father's side of the family.

The end of World War One, leading as a contributing factor into the Spanish Influenza Epidemic of 1918...

A distressing detail: the script is only available for sale in e-formats.
dewline: self-portrait, taken while drawing (Sketching)
Theatre Declaration by dwight_ew
Theatre Declaration, a photo by dwight_ew on Flickr.

Seen at the Great Canadian Theatre Company. Take it as you will...

dewline: "Not Fail" (not fail)
I went to see Chasing Boudicca last night at the National Arts Centre's Fourth Stage.

Based on a poetry collection by Kathleen Hunt, and performed by the aforesaid Kathleen in company with Marie Bilodeau, Ruthanne Edward, and musician Nathan Bishop, the show was inspired by the life, battles, pains, victories, defeats and debated death of the namesake warrior queen of ancient British legend...a legend that goes back two millennia.

As Kathleen noted in the performance, we know of her mainly through the writings of her surviving enemies, for she did not live long enough to tell her own tales on her own terms.

In some respects, you can draw a parallel between Boudicca and our own Louis Riel. In others, it's far more difficult and not just due to the politics, the geography and the passage of nearly two millennia between the lives of those doomed rebels. Riel at least managed to put his own story as best he could on the record at his trial in Regina.

And yet I believe that Kathryn's managed as much for the last queen of the Iceni.

At the very least, she and her friends brought me to tears by the end of the show.

And that is not a complaint. Not at all. Not ever.

Thank you for this.
dewline: Text - "On the DEWLine" (Default)
Brooke,

I went to see your show at the National Arts Centre tonight while it was in town as part of the Magnetic North Festival. Wanted very much to stick around for the Q & A session afterwards, but misunderstood what time it was by the time the show itself ended. Thus, my hasty - and stupidly premature - retreat from the room and the Centre. I could rationalize it by way of my side trip into the nearest Running Room for yet another pair of socks, but that just smells...like socks.

Wet socks.

So. Your show. A piece of your life, as you lived it and remembered it. A piece of the life of someone else dearer to many people than some would care to admit, or in some instances, care to tolerate admissions from others. A man who became a friend to you.

A piece of both lives that you cared and worked to share with us.

I won't speak to the technical details of the craft. Others better suited to that have already done this, I'm sure, and some of the people who read this aside from you and I will no doubt link to it in their replies in due course.

For myself, I'll stick to the response of the heart. I laughed straight into asthma attacks, a peril I'll gladly keep facing if it keeps me sane to do so. I teared up more than once, including right at the start with that photo. If you apologize for those moments, ever, I will not forgive you. Not on this side of the grave, anyway.

I think you found the best use I've heard of a Vince Guaraldi Trio recording outside of the Charlie Brown specials to date.

You made me wish I'd been able to count Pierre Trudeau as a friend of my own.

For that, I thank you.

You've reminded us of why, as is said by others, "he haunts us still" and why that haunting can and should be a blessing.

For that also, thank you.

Be well. Prosper if you can.

Note to everyone else reading this: If you're wondering what I'm talking about, take a gander over here.

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On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

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