February 2, 2012
volume 103 • issue 22• thesheaf.com
Sheaf the
Campus
Ideas
University library unveils new, comprehensive search tool.
The U of S lacks community. Could frats be the answer?
Page 5
Page 2
Politics
Theatre
Persephone Theatre’s The 39 Steps is a laugh riot.
Page 11
Super Sunday Gaming
USSU sits out national tuition lobbying day. Page 3
The most anticipated sports event of the year.
Why it’s OK to suck at video games.
Page 12
Page 8
The University of Saskatchewan student newspaper since 1912
‘Everyone is watching Saskatchewan’ Province’s HIV infections a cause for concern
D
espite the fact that new cases of HIV have largely levelled off across Canada, Saskatchewan has a surging infection rate. Over the next few weeks, the Sheaf will examine why this is the case and what can be done about it from the perspective of people dealing with the situation. This week: an introduction to the problem and why it matters. TANNARA YELLAND Senior News Editor Since 2002, the number of new HIV infections in Saskatchewan per year has risen steadily, from 26 to 200. And while there was a slight drop in 2010, AIDS Saskatoon expects the 2011 numbers will almost certainly show another increase once they are available. While these numbers pale in comparison to the new cases in Ontario or B.C. each year — there were 1,618 new cases in Ontario in 2008 — they do not reflect the fact that Ontario has 10 times the population of Saskatchewan. For a province that houses just under three per cent of the Canadian population, Saskatchewan has a disproportionately large HIV problem that is getting worse with each passing year. The provincial government reports in its 2010-14 HIV Strategy that Saskatchewan had the highest
rate of new infections in 2008 at 20.8 per 100,000 people. That is more than double the next highest provincial rate, which was Ontario’s 10.3 new infections per 100,000 people. “Saskatchewan has 2.5 times the national average per capita,” said AIDS Saskatoon Executive Director Nicole White. “And Saskatoon has the highest [per capita] rates in the country.... Everyone is watching Saskatchewan and how we’re dealing with our HIV epidemic.” The HIV/AIDS problem in Saskatchewan is notable for many reasons, White says. Among these are the way in which people are getting infected, the ethnic distribution of the disease and the rapid progression of the disease.
AIDS
cont. on
New HIV cases by province per 100,000 people 2009
8.9 4.6
7.6 6.0
0.0
8.6
19.1
7.7
6.6
1.2 0.3 1.3
SOURCES: Public Health Agency of Canada and Statistics Canada
3
Brianna Whitmore/Graphics Editor
Once upon a time in Nazi Germany All Through the Night’s female cast delivers a new perspective on the Holocaust BLAIR WOYNARSKI “Once upon a time” and “Happily ever after” — these phrases are not typically associated with the Holocaust. Yet so unfolds the storybook opening to All Through the Night. The dark yet strangely whimsical drama is the latest offering from the Greystone Theatre, sporting an all female cast and a striking atmosphere. “Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, there lived, on top of the mountain there – a mean old man.” These are the words of Ludmilla as she begins to recount the events of the dark cloud that spread over Germany before and during the Second World War. This jarringly childlike account of the Holocaust is responded to shortly afterward by a scene of the principal characters as girls in German public school already having the ideals of the Nazi regime instilled in them by seemingly innocuous shows of patriotism.
Already they show divergent personalities, with some interested in resisting the authority and others following it with unwavering determination. As the story unfolds, the women veer off in drastically different directions as they come to terms with how to endure in Hitler’s Germany. “It’s about survival,” said director Natasha Martina. All Through the Night is a lesser-known Holocaust story; as Martina says, some people are unaware of how Hitler “sought the demise of his own people if they didn’t fit” — women in particular. Thus, the characters find themselves confined in this new regime that demands of them loyalty, childrearing and nothing else. Martina came away from her production of The Odyssey last spring with an eye to do something very different. She was interested in an all-female cast, because one had not been done in at least six years. She was drawn to Shirley Lauro’s award-winning script for its striking political subject matter and the
Raisa Pezderic/Photo Editor
Gretchen (Anna Seibel) and Friederike (Jackie Block). challenge it presented to both cast and director. The script draws from the testimony of actual women in Nazi Germany, and the actresses needed to do extensive research to develop their characters. Anna Seibel plays Gretchen, a young woman who becomes a staunch supporter of the
regime and does terrible things as a result. Seibel took inspiration from an actual female Nazi prison guard who was executed at the end of the war when she was just 23 years old. “As dark and as terrible as it is, it shows something about human nature,” said Seibel. “Gretchen takes opportunities presented to her.”
The action plays out within a minimalistic set, formed in the manner of a crumbling building, devoid of comfort and washed in despair. The lack of props enables a fluid movement of action as the lives of the women unfold in a nonlinear fashion — what Anna Seibel describes as a “hopscotch through time.” She says the minimalist set design forces audiences to use their mind’s eyes, and “allows the images to come to life.” The mixture of the bleak subject matter with what Martina very tentatively calls the “fairy tale fashion” of the narrative style creates an arresting and unsettling image. All Through the Night is much more than simply a depressing march through the Holocaust, but the audience will have to decide how much triumph they find in the story.
The Night cont. on
11