Collective examines the space between adolescence and adulthood
Major Matt Mason is an action figure Mattel introduced to the public back in 1966. The toy is also the inspiration behind the moniker of a local theatre collective created by several Mount Royal University graduates in 2010.
Founding member Geoffrey Simon Brown says the Major Matt Mason Collective stages works reflective of that “time between adolescence and adulthood” not unlike the toy from which it takes its name.
“We were interested in doing plays that spoke to us and to our generation” says Brown. “This phase in life of young adulthood doesn’t seem to have a theatre target yet it’s a community that has a huge interest in art.”
The Major Matt Mason Collective is now mounting its fifth production a play written by Brown who just graduated from the National Theatre School’s playwriting program. In keeping with the young-adult generation Brown says he writes as young people speak today: in fragments and unfinished thoughts with quick directional changes.
“I think of the thought process as being fragmented because of our experience writing online a lot” he says.
Called Control the play involves two young women who work at a key-cutting shop. They decide to break into the homes of people whose keys they have cut.
Brown started writing the play while working at yes a key-cutting shop. “I thought about the power I possess” he says of that job. “Not that I would ever do that myself” he hastens to add.
“I was also in this stage where I had graduated from college and I wasn’t sure what I wanted in my life. I was in this place of moving forward with my dreams or leaving them stagnant.”
That theme is prominent in Control . “I think of it as existing in this limbo between action and inaction. The things the characters do in the play distract them from the things they want in life…. I find it a very human impulse to hide from the things we want most” Brown says.17-21
Control features Lindsay Mullan as Rocky and Charlie Gould as Raine the two young women turned break-and-enterers. Local theatre veteran Stephen Hair tackles the role of Ben a man who tries to help Raine get her life back on track. Rounding out the cast is Zoe Glassman as the key shop manager Ashley.
Brown says Hair approached him expressing an interest in working on one of his scripts. “He was excited about working in different ways with different companies” says Brown admitting the cast of emerging artists was “a bit nervous at first” to have such an experienced veteran in their midst.
“We like to have multiple directors on a production. We have different collective approaches when it comes to administrative and design decisions so we were nervous about how he would react to the way we work a room. But he’s been excited about our processes.”
Brown says those “processes” involve teaching each other and learning as a group as all members of the collective are multidisciplinary artists.
While the Major Matt Mason Collective tends to work project-to-project offering one production a year Brown says their next project is already decided: a collective creation with Eric Rose that focuses on the story of Little Red Riding Hood.
