Glenn playbill

PL AYBILL glenn

glenn david young }{

approximate running time: 2 hours & 40 minutes. there will be one 20 minute intermission

TIDBITS

ARTIST NOTE: JEFF LILLICO I wonder who’s reading this right now...

I wonder if, like me, this could essentially be your first exposure to Glenn Gould. Or maybe you’ve always enjoyed his renowned recordings of the Goldberg Variations, but known little about the man himself. Maybe you’re a Gould aficionado.

Perhaps you’re someone who had a personal connection with Glenn, this being his home town.

I wonder how your familiarity with the man will colour your experience of this play.

Whatever inspiration brought you here, I thank you for making your way out to join us as we endeavour to get deep inside the head of Mr. Gould, through the workings of this incredible play by David Young. It’s been a most remarkable journey, learning everything I possibly can about this fascinating man and experiencing the profound beauty of his playing.

It seems a monumental task to represent this beloved Canadian icon. But I hope that, for those of you with a curiosity about Glenn Gould, this play activates your imagination and perhaps even changes the way you listen the next time you turn on his music. I know I’m going to be a fan for life.

• T he

Goldberg Variations was composed by J.S. Bach for harpsichord. It consists of an aria and 30 variations. It was published in 1741, one of only a few of his works to be printed during his lifetime.

• A ll

of the Variations are in G Major except for 15, 21, and 25 which are in G Minor.

• O nly

19 copies of the original edition of the Goldberg survive today. The most valuable of them resides in La Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. The autograph – the original music hand-written by the composer – is lost.

• G lenn Gould’s seminal 1955 Goldberg Variations

was the very first time the work had been done in a recording studio (30th Street Studio in New York City). Gould’s second Goldberg in 1981 was recorded at the same studio, just before it was razed to make room for an apartment building.

Jeff Lillico, The Prodigy in Glenn. p roduc t ion s p on sor

CREATIVE TEAM

GLENN

CAS T Brent Carver

Puritan

Jeff Lillico

Prodig y

Mike Ross

Performer

Steven Sutcliffe

Perfectionist

Production Diana Leblanc

Director

Martha Mann

Set & Costume Designer

Michael Walton

Lighting Designer

Paul Humphrey

Sound Designer

Diane Pitblado

Vocal Coach

Kelly McEvenue

Alexander Coach

Simon Fon

Fight Director

Monica Dotter

Krista Blackwood

Stage Manager

Emily Mewett

Assistant Stage Manager

Kate Sandeson

Rehearsal Assistant Stage Manager

Choreographer

SOULPEPPER PRODUC T ION Wigs Running, Head of Hair & Makeup

Jacqueline Robertson-Cull

Wardrobe Coordinator & Dresser

Natalie Swiercz

Tracy Taylor

Erika Connor

Lead Wardrobe Coordinator

Ilana Harendorff

Sewer

Props Builder

Joanne Lamberton

Paul Boddum

Wardrobe Intern

Cutter

Scenic Painter

Barbara Nowakowski

Will Sutton

First Hand

Props Buyer

Greg Chambers

Ellie Furtney

Carpenter

s p e c i a l t h a n k s: M r . Roy B row n a n d t h e S t r at for d F e s t i va l A rc h i v e s for t h e u s e of t h e "Gl e n n" p i a no c h a i r , Ru t h A b e r n e t h y for h e r p e r m i s s ion to i nc l u de ou r c op y of h e r ic on ic s tat u e of Gl e n n G ou l d i n t h e S e t, Mon iqu e de M a rge r i e a n d Fay e P e r k i n s of R e a l Wor l d A rt i s t s.

Music Recordings courtesy of Sony Music and The Glenn Gould Estate. PD/Glenn Gould Limited administered by CCS Rights Management.

i l l u s t r at ion : t h e h e a ds of s tat e

BACKGROUND NOTES

G

lenn Gould was a contradictory, quixotic artist: a renowned concert pianist who felt demeaned by performing, a fierce intellect who loved corny jokes. His encyclopedic knowledge of and boundless curiosity about classical music existed alongside a total adoration of Barbra Streisand. He advocated open borders between the roles of composer, performer and listener while firmly believing in isolation as “the one sure way to human happiness.” His experiments with recording technology made him an eccentric in his time. Today it is obvious that he anticipated the digital revolution by several decades.

To translate such an iconoclastic creature to the stage requires an inventive playwright like David Young. In a bold stroke, all four actors here play Glenn Gould. Or, each plays an aspect of him: the Prodigy, the Performer, the Perfectionist and the Puritan. This captures an essential Gould contradiction: he was an introspective artist who was also a celebrity. Singer Maureen Forrester said of his playing: “... he served the music. He closed himself off from the public and ... it was like a love affair with the piano.” What that love created was startling, unforgettable music. This is brought home in Glenn through David Young’s second masterful choice: using Gould’s two legendary recordings of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations as the score and structure for the play.

Both were recorded at the 30th Street Studio in New York City, a little more than 25 years apart. The first version, according to critic Edward Rothstein is rambunctious and exuberant. Traditionalists were shocked: there were no repeats, no pedal, each variation was recorded separately in a number of takes and then edited together into the best version. In 1956 this idea was so wildly original it was nearly sacrilegious. Some blamed Gould’s perfectionism but Bach scholar Paul Elie sees it differently. Gould, he argues, used studio technology “to maximize risk-taking, to push each short piece to its physical, musical, and spiritual extreme.” David Young uses facets of Gould’s mercurial character in the same way: he pushes each aspect to an extreme, so that we can leap over the individual parts to get a feeling for the whole complicated man.

depth, perhaps reflecting Gould’s feeling that “the purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenalin but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.” David Young’s beautiful play is a rare theatrical opportunity to connect to a unique and unruly Canadian genius.

Glenn Gould biograph y Glenn Gould was born in 1932 in Toronto. At 15 years old he was a professional concert pianist. In 1955, still in his early twenties, he recorded a thoroughly unorthodox interpretation of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which launched his international career. A whirlwind of creative energy, he not only did radio and television broadcasts and recordings, he wrote extensively – and knowledgeably – on music, mass media and technology, gave lectures and dreamed of becoming a composer. In 1964 he retired from the concert stage, preferring the “unseen audience” of the recording studio where he was an early devotee of technology. In late 1981 he recorded the Goldberg Variations again. To his delight, this version was immediately embraced by critics. Just after his 50th birthday, he had a stroke in his Toronto home. He died a week later on October 4, 1982.

play wright biograph y David Young is a Canadian playwright, novelist and screenwriter. His plays include Fire (co-written with Paul Ledoux), which won Dora, Chalmers and Toronto Drama Bench Awards, Inexpressible Island, Clout, and No Great Mischief, an adaptation of Alistair MacLeod’s award-winning novel.

He is a former editor at Coach House Press, a founding director of the Writer’s Trust of Canada, a trustee of the Griffin Prize for Poetry, and a director of Dignitas International, a Canadian nongovernmental organization that operates a groundbreaking HIV/AIDS initiative in Malawi. David lives in Glenn Gould’s home- city of Toronto.

In 1981, the year before his death, Gould stunned the musical world by re-recording the Goldbergs.

The second version is more serious; it seeks a greater

Tidbits & Background Notes by 2014 Soulpepper Resident Artist Paula Wing

THANK YOU FOR AT TENDING!

416 866 8666 soulpepper.ca Young Centre for the Performing Arts Toronto Distillery Historic District

Soulpepper is an active member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (pact), the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (tapa) and Theatre Ontario, and engages, under the terms of the Canadian Theatre Agreement, professional artists who are members of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association. Scenic Artists and Set Decorators employed by Soulpepper are represented by Local 828 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.

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GLENN • •