PL AYBILL happy place
world premiere
Happy place pamela mala sinha }{
approximate running time: 2 hourS 35 minutes. there will be one 20 min intermission
ARTIST NOTE: PAMELA MALA SINHA
In my solo play Crash, the character of the ‘Girl’ talks about the time she spent at a hospital for women suffering from depression. In an early draft of the play I had written monologues for some of the residents; I wanted to capture the complexity of depression and show how these women were able to reach each other in a way no one else could (however different their circumstances) through their compassion, their humour and sometimes, even their conflicts. I showed the draft, which I hoped was rehearsal ready, to the dramaturge Iris Turcott and the director Daniel Brooks – knowing they would give me two brilliant, and very different sets of notes. And they did. But the one thing they agreed on?
Me: But not everyone experiences depression in the way the “Girl” does; these women have their own stories to tell… So give them their own play. The philosopher Richard Rorty said that art gives us “the imaginative ability to see strange people – those oppressed by humiliation, cruelty and pain – as fellow sufferers”… to imagine what it is to be another person. I wrote about the characters I removed from Crash because I wanted to imagine more deeply what it was like to be these women. It is my hope that you may recognize yourself, or someone you love - maybe even someone you have yet to meet… in a line, or a moment, in this Happy Place.
Get those women out of this play. Pamela Mala Sinha, Play wright and Kathleen in Happy Place
CREATIVE TEAM
HAPPY PLACE
CAS T
Diane D’Aquila Mildred
Oyin Oladejo Samira
Deborah Drakeford Louise
Irene Poole Rosemary
Caroline Gillis Joyce
Liisa Repo-Martell Nina
Pamela Mala Sinha Kathleen
Produc tion
Alan Dilworth Director
Debashis Sinha Sound Designer
Ashlyn Ireland Stage Manager
Lorenzo Savoini Set Designer
Simon Fon Fight Director
Ken MacKenzie Costume Designer
Kelly McEvenue Alexander Coach
Kate Sandeson, Emily Mewett Assistant Stage Managers
Kimberly Purtell Lighting Designer
Sarah Miller Production Stage Manager
SOULPEPPER PRODUC T ION
Jacqueline Robertson-Cull Head of Hair & Makeup
Barbara Nowakowski First Hand
Greg Chambers Props Builder
Geoff Hughes Cutter
Emma Zulkoskey Dresser
Tracy Taylor Props Buyer
Kiyomi Hidaka Sewer
Will Sutton Carpenter
Paul Boddum Scenic Painter
s pe c i a l t h a n k s: I am deeply grateful to Catherine Fitch, Kristen Thomson, Maria Vacratsis, Liisa Repo-Martell: your love, friendship and artistry inspired me to write this play; also to Lisa Ryder Cohen, Tracey Ferencz, Brenda Robins, Leah Doz, Grace Lynn Kung, Maev Beaty, Cara Ricketts, Bahareh Yasaghi, Christine Horne and Maggie Huculak for the gift of their time and talent during the development and public reading of Happy Place. To Iris Turcott and Bob White for producing the Factory WIRED 2014 reading (co- produced by the Stratford Festival). To John Mighton for his dramaturgical insights and unwavering belief in my work. To Guillermo Verdecchia for championing the play and for his invaluable notes. To Alan Dilworth for the artistic partnership that started with Crash… you make me want to write just to learn from your fine direction and loving heart. To my family, big and small: your love is the ground upon which I stand.
The playwright acknowledges the assistance of the 2014 Banff Centre Playwright’s Colony, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council.
cover illustration: the heads of state.
BACKGROUND NOTES
T
hese days, it is said, we’re all highly connected to each other. Unseen virtual networks knit us together in ways unimaginable even a few years ago. The great – and often unspoken – frontier of our time, the place of greatest disconnection, is interior. Despite all our technological advances, we still cannot see inside each other. So often we are unaware of the suffering and uncertainty that shakes even those closest to us. According to statistics, mental illness indirectly will affect every single Canadian in their lifetime. As much as 20% of us will experience mental illness ourselves, but all of us will have a friend, colleague or family member who is affected, whether we know it or not. Happy Place makes these impersonal statistics achingly human, bringing us gently and surely into the lives and struggles of seven very different women between the ages of 23 and 60. Set in an in-patient care facility, this tender and continually surprising story explores what it takes to survive trauma and loss. Part of what makes mental illness so difficult to treat is that each case is a complicated and unique web of genetic, biological, personal and environmental factors, something this play frankly acknowledges. Remarkably, playwright Pamela Mala Sinha finds plenty of buoyancy and humour too, as she celebrates the many ways human beings find to continue and even, to rebuild. Her women are creative, stubborn, infuriating, fragile and fiercely strong. They are full of rage, hope, and playfulness.
At its heart, the play has some urgent, difficult questions for us: how finally do we connect? How do we reveal what is most hidden? How do we accept what frightens us most? It is a rich and moving experience to accompany these resilient, original women on their quest to define the answers for themselves.
Playwright Biography Actress and playwright Pamela Mala Sinha was born in Winnipeg. She has appeared on stages across Canada and in film and television. Her first play, Crash, in which she also performed, won four Dora Awards including Best New Play and Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actress. It was published in 2014 by Scirocco. Happy Place, her second play, is receiving its premiere at Soulpepper.
Background Notes by 2015 Soulpepper Resident Artist Paula Wing
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