media: a means of mass communication such as newspapers, magazines, radio or TV
media: (computer science): an object or device such as a disk on which data is stored.
media (science): a surrounding environment in which something functions and thrives

March 11, 2008

Teachers:

MEDIA 2 Art - The Story of Emily Carr was written by myself, Jody Terio and dramaturged by Magda Nusink. This is the third play in a series that started with Media Quest. Media Quest, the pilot! was performed in schools in 1996 and 2001. At that time we wrote the play, the Internet was just being established and High Speed Internet was a thing of the future. The catalyst for the original play was provided by an interest in TV and how it affects kids in their lives. I explored “The Four Arguments Against the Use of TV” by Jerry Mander, the impact it had on kids and on their ability to listen and connect with each other. The story evolved around two kids who were just in grade 6 and writing an assignment for a Media study class which involved creating a pilot episode for a new TV series. They visited Einstein and learned not just about each other but about the connections between their world and the world that Einstein envisioned when he was creating his version of physics for the world to get excited about.

In 2006 I wrote Media 3, another episode of Lisa and Adrian’s life, this time involving a history essay where they go back and visit Leonardo Da Vinci. In Media 3 we explored the thinking process of “creativity” because it is one way to avoid becoming a slave to our technology! In this sequence, I we looked at the various ways that multi media teaches kids how to learn faster and to have access to information through the internet and multi channel TV that completely changes the face of things. The stream of knowledge that used to take many hours of research is now at their fingertips.

The assignment for this present play is a history term project on the theme “Our Unique Canadian Experience “ with a focus on the contribution of an individual that interests the student. Adrian and Lisa pick “Emily Carr” as their person of choice and proceed to do an assignment on her life.

Painting for Emily was an act of mystical communion. It was also an act of defiance in a time and a place in which art was considered not a plausible vocation for a woman but merely a genteel diversion - like embroidery. Perhaps because of the implausibility of her life’s work, Emily Carr was a determined eccentric, a notable if conflicted non conformist.

We hope that this play will be a valuable educational tool and an enjoyable experience for your students.
Yours truly,
Jody Terio, Artistic Director

Emily Carr
(1871-1945)

A woman against odds, her life is an example of someone who lived life to its most full and dealt with great hardships. Attempts to dramatize the life of the Canadian landscape painter Emily Carr have therefore proven to be both fascinating and problematic for Canadian playwrights. Carr is entrenched in the national consciousness as a kind of cultural icon, a marker for revolt against social and aesthetic ideologies. Moreover, her "fresh seeing" has inevitably been conflated with her popular reputation as a social eccentric, a role which she herself constructed in highly imaginative terms in her autobiographies and stories, such as Klee Wyck (1941), The Book of Small (1942), and The House of All Sorts (1944). In these works she recalls her childhood rebellion against a patriarchal household in Victoria, British Columbia, a city overlaid with imperialist attitudes and traditions. Her artistic training included studying painting in San Francisco, London, and Paris, after which she returned to Canada and developed a vigorous expressionist style in response to the primal forms and colors of the West Coast landscape and to its indigenous Native culture, recording the vanishing villages and totem poles of the Haida on the Queen Charlotte Islands. Although her painting was encouraged by Lawren Harris, one of the "Group of Seven" Canadian landscape painters, for most of her life she experienced a strong sense of artistic isolation. After a series of heart attacks, she spent her last years living with her sister Alice in Victoria, articulating her aesthetic philosophy in her journals, one of which, entitled Hundreds and Thousands, includes her perception of herself as being "a nothing, only a channel for the pouring through of that which is something, which is all" (34).

One of the scenes that we explore in our version of Emily’s life is her relationship with the various native tribes that surrounded her area near Victoria BC. She spent many summer exploring the totems and artifacts of various tribes including the Haida Indians. One of the recurring stories was the totem story of D’Sonoqua. She tells this story to Adrian and Lisa in the play. Here is a synopsis.

D’Sonoqua:
Her head and trunk we carved out of, or rather into, the bole of a great red cedar. She seemed to be part of the tree itself, as if she had grown there at its heart, and the carver had only chipped away the outer wood so that you could see her. Her arms were spliced and socketed to the trunk, and were flung wide in a circling, compelling movement. The breasts were two eagle-heads, fiercely carved. That much, and the column of her great neck, and her strong chin, I had seen when I slithered to the ground beneath her. Now I saw her face.

Her eyes were two rounds of black, set in wider rounds of white, and placed in deep sockets under wide black eyebrows. Their fixed stare bored into me as if the very life of the old cedar looked out and it seemed that the voice of the tree itself might have burst from the great round cavity, with projecting lips, that was her mouth. Her ears were round and stuck out to catch all sounds. The salt air had not dimmed the heavy red of her trunk and arms and thighs. Her hands were black with blunt finger tips painted a dazzling white. I stood looking at her for a long, long time.

The rain stopped and white mist came up from the sea, gradually paling her back into the forest. It was as if she belonged there and the mist were carrying her home. Presently the mist took the forest too and wrapping them both together, hid them away.

I saw Indian Tom on the beach and went to him.

“Who is she?” Who is that big carved woman?”

D’Sonoqua. She is the wild woman of the woods”

What does she do?

She steals children”

To eat them?

No she carries them to her caves.

Then she is bad?

Sometimes bad... sometimes good” Tom replied. Then he got up and walked away.

I went back and sitting in front of the image, gave stare for stare. But her stare so over-powered mine that I could scarcely wrench my eyes away from the clutch of those empty sockets. The power that I felt was not in the thing itself, but in some tremendous force behind it, that the carver had believed in.

Another one of the interesting stories that Emily tells:

From: Nellie and the Lily Field

One sultry public holiday the art school was empty but not shut. Having nothing to do I followed my heels and they took me the daily way. I claimed the dirty art school stair and found the big drab room solemn with emptiness. Even the rats were not squeaking and scuttling; there were no bread crusts to be scrimmaged for. Half -drawn, half erased studies on the drawing boards looked particularly like nothing. Everything had stopped n the middle of going-to-be. The parched stare of a big red tommy cod and a half dozen dried to a curve, smelly smelts sprawled on one of the still life tables. ON another table was a vase of chrysanthemums prematurely dead, limp petals folded over their starved hearts. Even the doing of the plaster images seemed to have halted before completing their objectives. The dancing Faun had stopped in the middle of his dance. The Greek Slave’s serving was suspended, Venus was arrested at the peak of her beauty.

A moment’s quiver of homesickness for Canada strangled the art longing in me. To ease it I began to hum, humming turned into singing and singing into that special favourite of mine “Consider the Lilies’. Whenever I let that song sing itself in me, it jumped me back to our wild lily field at home. I could see the lilies, smell, touch, love them. I could see the old meandering snake fence round the field’s edge, the pine trees over top, the red substantial cow, knee deep and chewing among the lilies.

Still singing, I looked up - there over the top of my drawing board were Nellie McCormick’s clear blue eyes staring straight into mine. I knew that Nellie was seeing our lily field too. I knew the clearness of her eyes was visioning the reflection from my own. Perhaps she didn’t see the actual lilies. I do not know, but she feeling their loveliness, their glow, their stillness.
I finished my song. Except for the scrape of my charcoal against the paper there was silence in the room.

“Sing it again”.

Again I sang the lily song. Then a long quiet brooded over the big, empty room - only the charcoals’ scrape and a sigh that was half sob from Nellie. “You rest me” she said and was gone.

It was not me, but the lilies that rested Nellie. I knew our wild lilies. They rested me too.

When no one was about, Nellie would say to me, “Sing it” and Nellie and I together went into the lovely home lily field.

From Growing Pains - Written by Emily Carr

Characters in her life that we reference and speak about.

Lawren Harris

Lawren Stewart Harris (October 23, 1885 – January 29, 1970) was a Canadian painter born in Brantford, Ontario, who was one of the best known landscape painters of the Group of Seven, a group of artists who set out to create a distinctly Canadian art. He pioneered a distinctly Canadian painting style in the early twentieth century.

Lawren Harris was born into a wealthy family on October 23rd 1885. He was the first born of two sons. He attended St. Andrew's College in Toronto, and then from age 19 (1904 to 1908) he studied in Berlin. He was interested in philosophy and eastern thought. Later, he became involved in Theosophy and joined the Toronto Lodge of the International Theosophical Society.

Harris was so passionate about the North Shore and fascinated by the theosophical concept of nature, he returned annually for many years. There he developed the style he is best known for. Harris’s paintings in the early 1920’s were characterized by rich, decorative colours that were applied thick, in painterly impasto. He painted landscapes around Toronto, Georgian Bay and Algoma.

Marius Barbeau

Charles Marius Barbeau (March 5, 1883 – February 27, 1969), also known as C. Marius Barbeau, or more commonly simply Marius Barbeau, was a Canadian ethnographer and folklorist who is today considered a founder of Canadian anthropology. He is best known for an early championing of Québécois folk culture, for his exhaustive cataloguing of the social organization, narrative and musical traditions, and plastic arts of the Tsimshianic-speaking peoples in British Columbia (Tsimshian, Gitxsan, and Nisga'a), and for his unconventional theories of the peopling of the Americas.

Lizzie

Elizabeth Carr was one of Emily’s sisters who was four years older. “Lizzie” did not respect Emily’s need to paint in her own different way and although very close to Emily in proximity, they were known to greatly differ in their opinions of how the world should be.

Emily Carr Chronology

Student Work sheet:
Questions to ask students after the production of Media 2 Art - The Story of Emily Carr:
1. What do you think are the messages that this play is trying to get across?
2. What different ways do the actors try to get their message across? What types of ‘mediums’ do they use?
3. In the play, why do you think that Lizzie does not get along with Emily?
4. What do Adrian and Lisa learn from studying Emily’s life?
5. A: How does the media present women today and how does that differ from Emily’s time period.
B: How are you directly affected by the images that you see around you of successful women?
C: How is the attitude different towards women artists now in comparison to the Victorian era when Emily was working.
6. How would you describe the character of Emily Carr to someone who has not seen this play?
7. Why did the playwright go about teaching us about her life?
8. How did the lighting design, music, sets and costumes help (or NOT) the play?
9. Describe one funny moment in the play, one sad one and one moment that you would have changed if you were the writer.
10. If you were writing a play about a famous person, which one would be your choice?
- write a one page essay on what your story is about and why?
11. Why do you like or dislike this play?

Questions students often ask the actors during the Q and A.

How did you come up with the idea?
- the students often think that the actors came up with the idea and then acted it out on stage but generally the actors are working from a finished script and although some changes will happen in the course of the rehearsal, the script is largely followed according to the writer’s desires and finally the director’s decision. - Media 2 Art - The Story of Emily Carr was inspired by Emily’s art show at the Ontario Art Gallery in 2007 and the play is the idea of Jody Terio, Artistic Director of little red theatre.

How did you become an actor?
- The actors usually answer this question by explaining that they became interested quite young in the idea of becoming actors. Then they went to post secondary education for special training in their fields. There are both colleges and universities which have courses in theatre.

How do you get dressed so fast?
-this is one of the things that we do a lot of in rehearsal. Practice how to get in and out of characters quickly. If it is impossible to do, we add lines to our script to fill out the gaps. The illusion is that we are keeping you busy watching what’s on the stage so you think only a second has gone by since the actor left in a different character. (We also hope that you don’t always know it’s the same person doing all the different characters but that’s not always possible!!)

What creates the images on the screens?
The images are made with three slide projectors which carry little pictures in 35 mm. They are not digital!!

In the play, when Emily talks, are these things that Emily really says or are you making them up?

As much as possible the playwright tried to use Emily’s own way of saying things, to preserve an authentic language, however sometimes they were simplified for the purpose of keeping your interest. The description of events is based on Emily’s diaries and books that she wrote as well as books written about her.

Bibliography and Viewing/Reading List

Life and Times of Emily Carr: A woman of all Sorts - CBC
- this VHS is a very pleasant easy to follow documentary that covers early life, mid life, some of her paintings and her relationships with art and life. It is about 30 minutes long and engaging for students.

Emily Carr at the Edge of the World, by Jo Ellen Bogart
- book is simple reading for grade 4 or 5 level with nice choice of art selections

Emily Carr: Little Old Lady on the Edge of Nowhere
- video, CBC - 1970
this is a bit dated in its presentation but focuses on depicting how Emily’s life would have looked by dramatizing her with her animals, the forests of BC, some of the totems in real life etc. it really stresses how hard her life was. There is this one piece where she is sitting out in the forest looking at the trees and getting her paints ready and the narrator tells us how hard it was for her and I’m thinking. ..... forest, sunny day, painting.... that doesn’t seem so bad.!!! Interviews with people who were still alive in the early 70's and remembered Emily well.

I Can Paint Like Emily Carr - video, NFB
- a short piece about 11 minutes, it shows art class with great kids doing art and it talks about Emily’s trees. Very simple and easy to watch. Grade 3 - 6.

Klee Wyck-by Emily Carr
Her first book - Stories about her encounters with the natives of B.C. Perhaps more interesting reading sections aloud and followed by discussion. May be a bit wordy for the average Grade 5 - 8.

Flirt, Punk and Loo, my dogs and I.
by Emily Carr
- this is a small book containing some very beautifully written simple stories about her interest in breeding dogs. She bred sheep dogs for a few years and these stories contain anecdotal stories about this particular journey in her life. Some of these stories are in other books, this particular one is a compilation of various animal stories from collected writings. It is not organized by Emily herself. It also contains drawings that are from Emily's sketch collection and are like short animated cartoons where the dogs are talking.
Suggested reading for Grade 6 level.

Growing Pains, by Emily Carr:
An autobiographical overview of her life from start to finish with more detail on her experiences at the San Francisco and London art schools. Reading level Grades 6 - 8.

Emily Carr - A Biography, by Maria Tippet
This is an adult version of her life. It is very detailed and I found more interesting after I had read a considerable amount of Emily’s own writing, mainly for contrast in perspective.

Hundreds of Thousands: by Emily Carr:
This documents Emily’s diary entries starting from her visit with The Group of Seven until her death. It is ONLY for the die hard Emily fans or those of us who write plays about her!!

Beloved Land - The World of Emily Carr
- a compilation of pictures with words of Emily on the other side of the page. Really nicely laid out and gives you a chronology of development of the painter.

The Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr - play written by Jovette Marchessault
- interesting take on Emily’s life in poetic text. Not very accurate!!

Students and Teachers!!
We’d love to hear from you!!!
Please send us reviews, letters, emails, drawing and written results of in-class activities. We invite students to record their own thoughts and feelings about the play or to interview each other and send us the results. We very much appreciate responses to our Study guide as well and if there are any suggestions please contact us through one of the many ways possible.

Jody Terio,
Artistic Director
Website: www.littleredtheatre.on.ca ----
email: info@littleredtheatre.on.ca

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About little red theatre:
Little Red Theatre was established in 1988 with the mandate of bringing professional level theatre productions and workshops to young people. The company was founded by Jody Terio, who has remained as Artistic Director since the organization’s inception. Little Red Theatre produces multi-media performances of puppetry, music, dance and theatre, and tours productions, workshops, and summer events throughout the City of Toronto and surrounding areas. Theatre productions are aimed at a Kindergarten through Grade 8 constituency and are presented at schools, libraries and special venues. Workshops take place in the community.

Since 1992, Little Red Theatre has been a non-profit registered charity and has financed its productions through performance fees, workshops, grants and charitable donations.
Our Board of Directors is drawn from the education and entertainment industries. Throughout the years, Little Red Theatre has hired dozens of professional actors, scenographers, choreographers, and other artists. Many of these artists have worked together on several projects.

Each year, Little Red Theatre strives to create original work inspired by new works of visual art, great fairy tales and stories, and issues that children struggle with. Little Red Theatre performances are full theatre productions with an emphasis on high quality costumes, sets, visuals and great sound. Our workshops teach children all of these important skills. Workshops have been taking place since 1997 in various Toronto locations.
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