>From the Winnipeg Free Press: Check out the last paragraph, repeated
here
Millan is in such demand all over the world that he wanted to throw
off the laborious 24/7 responsibilities of running a company to pursue
projects wherever they take him. He was in New York City last weekend
working on a new Thomas the Tank Engine stage show. His production of
Scooby-Doo is currently in England and headed for Italy. He helmed a
comedy show running now at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. Future
plans include a circus spectacular in China and helping The Kids in
the Hall with a new tour.
(btw, is there a better/more active forum for Kids stuff? We saw Bruce
twice at SF Sketchfest, wondered what others thought)
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By Kevin Prokosh
THREE guys walk into the mountains: an Englishman, a Scot and a
Chinaman...
What sounds like a setup for a bad joke is actually what befalls the
trio in What Lies Before Us, a historical comedy from the prolific pen
of Vancouver dramatist Morris Panych.
It's 1885 and two junior surveyors, Keating and Ambrose, are stranded
in the Canadian Rockies with their Chinese cook, Wing, who doesn't
understand English. They had been looking for a pass through which to
complete the trans-Canada rail link when they become lost and, as
winter sets in, are waiting inside a tent to be rescued.
"It's a bit Odd Couple and a bit Waiting for Godot," says Jim Millan,
the director of What Lies Before Us, which opens tonight at the MTC
Warehouse. "That's not the worst thing you could say."
The idea came to Panych when he was flying over the Rockies one clear
night and was struck by the endless snow and desolation. The author of
such admired plays as Vigil (1997 at Prairie Theatre Exchange), The
Overcoat (in 2000 at MTC) and The Girl in the Goldfish Bowl (last
season at PTE) began to wonder what exhorted people to think this was
the way to build a country.
"Morris thought about what kind of madmen founded the nation and went
through these mountains to create a railroad," says Millan, brother of
Winnipeg performance artist Lori Millan. "He wanted to know who
thought it was a good idea to put together a country like Canada based
on geography."
Keating is an optimistic Englishman who is a staunch believer in God
and empire and who can't stand the more skeptical Ambrose, who had
come to Canada to taste freedom in a way he couldn't in his small
hometown in Scotland. Wing is a reminder of all the Chinese railway
workers who died in a shameful episode of Canadian history.
"It leads to a lot of very funny and insightful conversations about
nationhood and who we were doing it for," says Millan.
What Lies Before Us arrives at the Warehouse having just finished a
six-week run at Toronto's CanStage and before heading to Edmonton's
Citadel Theatre.
The Calgary-born Panych, a two-time Governor-General's Award winner,
is a wonderfully inventive writer who adapted the Gogol short story
The Overcoat into a wordless piece of physical theatre performed to
the music of Dmitri Shostakovich.
In his quirky comedy The Girl in the Goldfish Bowl, 11-year-old Iris
believes her dead goldfish has been reincarnated as a young man.
"A lot of his work is black comedy," says Millan. "He's one of our
most dependable and interesting writers. He's quite a force in
Canadian theatre."
The same can be said for Millan who, with What Lies Before Us,
completes his 23rd and final season as artistic director of Toronto
Crow's Theatre. Many of its theatrical successes made it to Winnipeg
stages, including Brad Fraser's racy Unidentified Human Remains and
the True Nature of Love, High Life, a black comedy about a gang of
junkies hatching a heist, and the Chet Baker Project, which examines
the life and times of the legendary trumpeter.
Millan is in such demand all over the world that he wanted to throw
off the laborious 24/7 responsibilities of running a company to pursue
projects wherever they take him. He was in New York City last weekend
working on a new Thomas the Tank Engine stage show. His production of
Scooby-Doo is currently in England and headed for Italy. He helmed a
comedy show running now at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. Future
plans include a circus spectacular in China and helping The Kids in
the Hall with a new tour.
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