The Watershed (or, How Theatre Saves the World one drop at a time).

Chris Abraham is the Artistic Director of Crow’s Theatre. He has directed shows for Stratford Theatre, Canadian Stage, Soulpepper Theatre, Tarragon Theatre. He has won Dora Awards, a Sterling Award and a Gemini Award. He is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada. He is the 2013 recipient of the Elinor and Lou Siminovitch Prize in Theatre (Directing). He is currently an adjunct professor in the MFA directing program at York University.

I caught up with Chris to discuss his recent directorial project The Watershed, his thoughts on theatre and theatre critics, as well as his plans for the future. Chris and I spoke on the phone on Thursday, July 9, 2015

Evan: Thanks for taking the time to speak with me. I guess my first question is: could you just talk a little bit about where the idea for The Watershed came from, and in particular, why water? I mean, there are plenty of resources as part of our Canadian heritage -timber, oil, tar sands- so, why water?

Chris: So the “why water” was because Don Shipley, who is the creative director of the games, had seen our — Annabel (Annabel Soutar: the playwright of The Watershed) and my previous collaboration, SEEDS, and he had determined that there would be a territorial focus for the Pan Am games on water. And he invited us to do a new creation that would focus on the politics and the issues around water in the Pan Am countries, or Canada. So it was really driven by commission. I think water was always something that Annabel was interested in exploring; particularly, water in its relationship to oil, as two of our most important natural resources. And so the commission didn’t come out of the blue for her, it’s a subject she’s been interested in for a while. And that’s how it got started.

Evan: Now, I’m sure you’re well aware of this: that there a lot of documentaries and shows and information on water safety and the environment and how it’s related on personal and political levels. What makes The Watershed unique, in terms of a story about water?

Chris: (chuckles) It’s not really about water.

Evan: (chuckles) Fair enough.

Chris: I think water is… it’s called “The Watershed” and not called “Water”. There are two senses of the word “watershed” that interests us. One is the land formation itself — Our Watershed — and how we interact with it, in terms of people’s extraction. It’s the ecological aspects of water and how it exists in our landscapes. But I think the second, and lately this has emerged as the more important focus for us, is “watershed” with the sense of that word which looks at a period of time, where important, critical things, are happening in our country. And so then what emerged for us as we began to look at the politics of water in Canada, and it was really a story that found us, is that investigation of water as an important natural resource and something worth protecting. But it led us, we were led by that subject, to the kind of conflict between our desire to protect our natural resources and our desire to grow and sustain our economy and prosperity for all Canadians, and that conflict which has emerged in our politics and our democracy, and in our natural conversation in the last couple of years as a result of our desires to develop the oil sands. And it just happened that the subject that we were investigating sort of led us there.

Evan: Annabel started this show with her daughters back in 2012. How has it changed in the last three-and-a-half years?

Chris: Well it’s a documentary play, so there is no play at the beginning of the play. It’s a document of an evolving process. A documentary playwright begins with something that she or he are investigating. And in this particular case, Annabel began with the notion that she would begin the play with conversations in her household. About her household’s use of water, how they interacted with their aquatic ecosystems and go from there. And as she began that process, she encountered another story that was happening in our National media, which she began to follow. So what we witness in the play is her evolving relationship to a story that is unfolding in the news across the country in which she is trying to follow while also keeping her family involved in. So, it evolved over the course of the three years of the commission, in that she was recording her family, flying across the country, travelling out west, bouncing back and forth interviewing different people, and the play is a record of that journey, both as an individual and as a mother.

Evan: What kind of challenges, if any, have you uncovered as a director of a verbatim script compared to a fictional one? I know that you’ve recently worked on Taming of the Shrew (Stratford Theatre Festival) and before that The Seagull (Canadian Stage) and you have a long history of working with fictional scripts and now you’re starting to work on verbatim — with SEEDS and now The Watershed — do you find any differences in directing those two types of stories?

Chris: Well, all new plays are challenging because you’re doing them for the first time, and so you’re always learning about the muscle and the dramatic sinew of the play as you are working on a text that’s generally not something that’s known. All new plays offer their own particular unique and fascinating challenges. I would say at a certain point new plays are really challenging and really rewarding because you’re making something new. In terms of the verbatim material, there are challenges with verbatim material in that they are not inherently dramatic texts, so different actors engage with them differently. They’re more mysterious objects because it takes you a while sometimes to figure out what the dramatic core of the piece is — of the verbatim text is — so generally what helps with that is a process in which you’re testing and workshopping verbatim material to really kind of understand how it transforms in the hands of an actor in a particular context in a dramatic situation what it has to reveal. And so that’s challenging but it’s also really kind of exciting because there’s a process of unlocking dramatic possibilities and material which wasn’t initially. There’s a basic act of transformation that the playwright first does; and, in my particular collaboration with Annabel, there’s a point in the process where we get to do that together.

Evan: I was following The Watershed panel discussion that was happening today on Twitter, and there were a couple of couple of question and answer moments. And there was a question that really struck me, which I want to ask you now. You (@Crowstheatre) asked: Can theatre save the world? Well Chris, can theatre save the world?

Chris: In mysterious ways, it can. I’m a big believer in the mystery of unintended consequences. There’s only so much I think that we can know about the consequences of our actions. Often what we intend isn’t what actually ends up happening. That doesn’t mean, in my view, that our actions are inconsequential. Or that one shouldn’t care about the actions that one takes or doesn’t take. But, I think we have to have the humility to recognize that not everything that we do will materialize. And sometimes the things we don’t imagine or possibilities for what we do in the world actually have miraculous unintended consequences. Because we never know who is going to be in the theatre. We never know what’s going to happen inside an individual. And I know that’s a very subtle way of thinking about theatre changing the world, but I think it’s actually the way in which theatre changes the world, in that it works on the individual on an intimate and unexpected way. Sometimes it’s very related to what your intent actually is and sometimes it’s something other; and so I think that’s the way art in general works, the way that art saves the world. It depends entirely on what is happening within an individual. So, it’s like, great art, in my view, works its best when the audience — whether that’s a reader or somebody sitting in a theatre — recognizes or feels something in themselves portrayed in the piece of art that is hidden or dormant or unrecognized about their own potential, their own ideals, their own possibilities, and that’s awakened or reawakened in them. And I think that’s where I think really important change happens and art is a very powerful stimulus for that, and I think theatre is a great version of that; because in theatre you’re very alone but you’re also part of a group. And it’s happening right now. And at its best it can kind of stimulate that sense of belonging. Or also that sense of real difference.

Evan: So it’s mostly about having art which gives the viewer the potential to empathize with something they weren’t able to before and find something new within themselves, along those lines?

Chris: You know when you read a book, and somebody says something just a certain way and you thought you were the only person that thought that, or felt that. I think my favourite experiences of art are those kinds of experiences where I feel that my experience is unique but also not isolated — not random. It’s shared. So good books, great theatre, great music give you the opportunity to feel less alone and a part of something, and know that there is something around ourselves that is bigger than our self.

Evan: Well put. […] What are your thoughts on theatre critics and criticism? Does it affect your work?

Chris: I’m totally reconciled to the reality of critics and their role in the ecosystem as making and distributing and telling people about theatre. It’s interesting though. I think… It’s possible that we may be — not that in the distant future there won’t be any critics left — I think, on the most basic level, they are the people that have the loudest microphones to tell the public about what it is we do. I don’t think we’ve yet figured out a louder mechanism to communicate to the public about what it is we do in terms of engaging them and getting their butts in the seats to see what we do. So I think if we suddenly one day woke up and there were no more theatre critics, I think we’d be struggling to maintain and grow our new audiences, for better or for worse. They do provide a critical role of crucial interface with the public that I’ve grown to depend on (chuckles). It’s just practical; they have a very loud microphone. You know you, what do you do?, it’s very distracting also — artistically — because they’re very very powerful. But I’m used to that condition. It’s how I work. I’m climatized. I’m used to it. But I used to struggle with that aspect of being a director and making theatre, but I don’t really anymore.

Evan: Lastly, I know that right now you have SEEDS on at the Blyth Festival, The Watershed (under the translation: Le Partage des eaux) is going to Usine C in Montreal and might be touring other places. You have a new space down at Dundas and Carlaw (opening in 2016). What do you and Crow’s Theatre have planned for the future?

Chris: Well, I think when you put it in a list, opening a new facility that’s really our plan for the future (chuckles). There are things to be announced in the months and years to come about what we’re doing and our programming vision for that facility will be. But essentially trying to forge into the East End, and really create grounds of support for the theatre, and a relationship with our neighbours in the East End, and hope to launch a conversation with them through the art community there, and make them feel like they are a part of what we’re doing there. That’s really our big objective and that’s what we’ll be working on.

Evan: That fantastic. Thanks for the time, Chris.

Chris: My pleasure.

Chris Abraham is the director of The Watershed, which is playing at the Berkeley Street Theatre until July 19th.

http://www.crowstheatre.com/production/current-plays/the-watershed/