As we leap into Touchstone’s 2024/2025 Season, I find myself meditating on what a theatre company with a Canadian mandate means at this time – a mandate that acknowledges where we are, the land on which we work, the people of this land, and the diversity of stories of those who journey and settle here. How might we, at Touchstone, continue to create a true and expansive definition of what ‘Canadian theatre’ means?
Touchstone is a hub for playwrights and story-tellers, a place where artists can wrestle down, amplify, and illuminate who we are as a nation of nations through text, character and setting. This season our writers tap into myth, legend, humour, horror and magic realism.
Our season opens at the Cultch Historic, Sept 21st, for an evening with Indigenous storyteller Dallas Yellowfly, who brings “Qwalena: The Wild Woman Who Steals Children” to life in this unique and scary multimedia story-telling performance. I first met Dallas a few years ago when he told the tale of Qwalena on a winter’s eve…I was the one who shrieked in my seat. In a dark theatre immersed with echoes of a beating drum, Yellowfly evoked the tale of the Wild Woman who eerily whistles to hide her movements in the forest and steals children who search for her. By blending oral tradition, mature content, magic and a bit of humour, Yellowfly links the allegory of Qwalena stealing children to the actions of the Indian Agents who stole Indigenous children from their families and placed them into residential schools.
Yaga, by Kat Sandler, taps into the mythology of a different crone, Baba Yaga of Slavic descent, the witch who lives alone in the woods of Europe, grinding the bones of the wicked. Yaga taps into mythologies which have migrated with settlers. In this gruesome murder mystery, we are forced to confront our perceptions of aging, woman and wisdom.
SWIM, by Tom Arthur Davis and Jiv Parasram with Gavan Cheema and David Messiah is loosely inspired by the ancient arabic poem, Laila & Majnun. It’s an 8km swim from Güzelçamli, Turkey to the Greek island of Samos. SWIM is a meditative audio experience that imagines the effects of migration on the self. The project guides the audience through to the finish of that treacherous swim: 8km, the length to cross into asylum. SWIM imagines the physical, mental, and spiritual tolls of displacement.
Migration is echoed in Behind the Moon by Anosh Irani. In a Mughlai restaurant in Toronto, a late night visit from a mysterious cab driver rattles Ayub, who must face reality, the family he’s left behind, and the dreams he’s abandoned, all while keeping the restaurant clean to a mirror shine. From award-winning playwright and author Anosh Irani, Behind the Moon is an achingly beautiful story of love and loss, freedom and faith, the meaning of brotherhood, and how we begin a new life.
Finally, our playwright in residence, Jordyn Wood goes into development on their new play Vascular Necrosis, a thrilling narrative that subverts typical zombie tropes to explore identity, chronic illness, and belonging.
Each piece this season conjures myth as a way to comprehend displacement, migration, settlement, home, place, hope and faith. I am deeply thankful to Dallas, Kat, Jiv, Tom, Gavan, David, Anosh and Jordyn for their stories. As I contemplate a definition of what “Canadian Theatre” might entail for Touchstone, I am reminded of a quote by Anosh Irani:
“at this moment in time, what and who we place at the center of our vision will determine our future.”
