Andy Nichols
He may be in his mid-30s but Nicolas Billon just bought his very first suit.
“I’ve rented the couple times I’ve needed one but I’ve never owned one” says the acclaimed playwright with a laugh while patting the perspiration off his forehead during an interview on a surprisingly humid autumn day in Toronto. “I feel like an adult.”
Billon may just be starting to come of age in the world of adult formal fashions but fortunately for the accomplished writer he matured notably early in the world of Canadian theatre. With several successful plays under his belt a mantle filled with such prestigious honours as last year’s Governor General’s Award for Drama and his first original play The Elephant Song (which he began writing while a student in university) adapted into a soon-to-be released movie it seems Billon has not only made strides in the drama world but also proved he’s a man worthy of a decent suit.
“I’ve been writing plays for 10 or 12 years now so I have an ease with writing theatre” says Billon particularly about his growth as a playwright . “I keep throwing road blocks in my own way to discover where else can I take this.”
Where Billon has decided to take his next adventure (along with his new apparel) is Calgary — specifically Alberta Theatre Projects (ATP) which is honouring the writer by staging the première of his new play Butcher as the company’s inaugural production in the new Enbridge playRites Series of New Canadian Plays.
“It’s a really interesting theatre audience” he says of Calgary. “They’re very vocal which is fascinating. You can tell that there’s a real (connection) and they react to things very vocally. I like that I feel like they’re engaged. In Toronto unless you have a comedy — and a really funny comedy — you don’t really know what anyone thinks.”
A longtime admirer of ATP Billon says he was elated to be approached by executive director Vicki Stroich to open the new series. ATP has been committed to creating and fostering original stage productions ever since its founding in 1972 and this year marks the switch from the festival format to a different approach that includes two to three original Canadian works in the regular season lineup.
“We’re very excited about it because it gives us the opportunity to focus on one play and really draw the audience’s attention to that one play — and in the case of Butcher it’s really worth doing because its such a fantastic play” says ATP artistic director Vanessa Porteous.
A labyrinthine suspense thriller Butcher follows the tense tale of a quartet of characters brought together on Christmas Eve in a Toronto police station. When the first of the four a foreign-speaking stranger wearing odd military attire and a Santa hat stumbles into the station with a meat hook hanging around his neck it sets off a twisted chain of events that seem to randomly connect a police officer a lawyer and a translator — events which suggest this chance meeting was anything but a coincidence.
“I love thrillers — it comes down to that” says Billon of the play’s origins. “It’s not something that’s done very often onstage. I’m not 100 per cent sure why but a really well-made thriller I love it — there’s nothing better.”
“It keeps you on the edge of your seat” says Porteous who’s seen plenty of plays since becoming artistic director at ATP in 2009. “It’s been quite a while since I’ve read a new play that had so much suspense and so many plot twists so it’s a very exciting night for the audience.”
Butcher is much more than just a sophisticated nail-biter layered by a multitude of plot twists. With the play Billon attempts to address complicated international themes of retribution and reprieve. In fact its global themes are such an important aspect of the story that Billon created a fictional war-torn country called “Lavinia” in which to set the lead character’s dark past which also involved creating an entirely new language for the play — with the aid of University of Toronto professors Dr. Christina Kramer and Dragan Obradovic.
“I think Nicolas decided to make it a fictional country so that we could all see that (the issues in the film) are a universal problem” says Porteous careful not to reveal any spoilers. “That it’s not particularly about Rwanda or the Balkans or the Middle East — that these kind of problems are happening everywhere and they affect all of us.”
She adds “(It’s) about how we deal with vengeance justice and forgiveness and whether we can find a way to forgive each other and ourselves after horrible things have happened. I think that’s a theme that’s really worth talking about; it’s a theme that affects us personally in our regular lives and it affects our community our country — when global crises come home to roost here in Canada how do we handle it as a community?”
“It’s not an easy play that’s for sure” admits Billon. “It’s certainly the darkest play that I’ve done so far. Because so much of it revolves around the plotting and the twists and turns I hope that’s not the only thing (audiences) come out with. There is an underlying question that I’m asking. So I’d say if they come out there discussing some of the themes that were brought up that’s a win.”
While Butcher’s greater aim is to incite debate about our individual responsibility toward global issues the play’s broader themes are tempered by the intimacy of its characters. It’s a challenging one-act with action that’s driven by dialogue — a characteristic common to Billon’s previous plays including the aforementioned Elephant Song (which takes place between a trio of characters in a psychiatrist’s office). In fact Butcher is the most populated of all his plays.
“I just like intimate pieces” says Billon. “I like the intimacy and the relationships that come out of being in a room with one person and you have to talk to that one person. I just feel it’s instant conflict. I think that’s a very inarticulate way of saying I just like to spend time with people and start poking at them and see what happens.”
Butcher runs at Alberta Theatre Projects until November 1.
