Urban Curvz presents award-winning play about the consequences of a mother’s mixed-up priorities
Director Micheline Chevrier likens Urban Curvz’s latest offering The List to a Greek tragedy. “You know how it ends but you don’t know how it came to pass. And so that’s what you watch unfold” she says.
The one-woman show stars Esther Purves-Smith as the play’s unnamed narrator who is reeling from the consequences of mistakes that could have been avoided. Her character — a mother of three young boys who recently moved to the country and hates it — starts the story with a confession that she has killed her friend and mother of four Caroline. Or at least that she feels responsible for Caroline’s death.
“You watch this woman wrestle with the moments at which she could have made a different decision but did not” explains Chevrier.
Chevrier says Purves-Smith is a perfect fit for the part. "She’s a beautifully emotionally connected actor. I think this piece requires that someone who is able to bare her soul the ugly bits and all."
Chevrier is coming from Quebec to direct The List as she and Purves-Smith had been searching for an opportunity to present the play together and Urban Curvz — a company dedicated to celebrating women’s stories perspectives and experiences — provided it.
“We share a love for this particular play” says Chevrier. “It’s very rare that you encounter a one-person show that grips you to this degree.”
Originally written in French by emerging Quebec playwright Jennifer Tremblay The List won the 2008 Governor General’s Literary Award for French drama. Its subsequent translation courtesy of Shelley Tepperman was nominated for a Governor General’s Award last year in the translation category.
The play’s title refers to the central character’s penchant for making lists a task that gives her a sense of order and purpose in life but obscures the bigger picture.
“She does confess at some point in the script that there are actions that lead to other actions but that nothing seems to move her forward” Chevrier says referencing the universal repetition of buying milk cleaning the car and preparing for Christmas — no matter how many times people cross those tasks off their respective lists.
“In an effort to do what we think needs to be done we often miss the human contact or somebody asking for help. We get our priorities mixed up and I think this play reminds us of that” she adds hinting at a narrative connection between the main character’s compulsion to make lists and Caroline’s death.
In the play Tremblay also explores themes that Chevrier says are “so huge so universal so important.” Those themes include isolation — “isolation as it relates to motherhood the tension between what you feel you must do and what you feel you want to do and issues surrounding responsibility.”
Unlike many contemporary pieces which are movement oriented Chevrier says The List relies on the strength of its poetic language to propel it forward — and that linguistic rhythm was not lost in translation. She says that because of the rhythmic nature of Tremblay’s writing The List feels more like a theatrical poem or an ode than a traditional play.
“It’s surprising how one person telling a powerful story can grip you for such a long time.”
