say,‘ Yes, I made mistakes, but, but, but there were reasons.’ I just wanted to talk about the mistakes, and what I figured out, and how I had figured it out, and to make it funny because that was the emotional process of experiencing the first five years of my son’ s life. I would have these terrible experiences and I would go off and turn them into funny stories for my friends and that was how I survived it and how I processed it. I wanted to share that process of finding the funny in what... I mean the whole family was treated for post-traumatic shock," says Burke.
Through music,“ it is possible to touch something deep,” says Thompson. He cites, as an example, one of the songs in the musical,“ All is Calm Now.":
All is calm now. This house a moment of truce. All time is measured mete. With all the firsts and thens complete. All is calm now.
" And then, it moves to a calming technique: ' Blow one candle out, blow two candles out,...'"
" In between these two sections, there are some crunchy chords, an f9 with a flat 5, and I think it’ s kind of an uncomfortable chord... So everything is calm, and we don’ t need to label something upsetting; the music speaks that and we do feel it, and then we go to this calming down technique.... The music can touch something that words alone can’ t," says Thompson.
When Burke first heard“ All is Calm,” she thought, " this is the opening of the show; I can hear that is the beginning of the show... It’ s a much kinder beginning than I would ever have written. The song is really about the longing and the trying to hold on to the very few calm times, and the desire to believe that you are progressing toward a time when everything’ s going to be calm. His reception, then, reframes the whole experience.”
Burke says,“ I can’ t wait to try to perform this with music, because it will be the first time I experience it with that emotional undercurrent of understanding in the script.”
In the past iterations, the audience supplied the emotional undercurrent for Burke. There has always been somebody in the audience offering a hug. But the music, Burke says, provides“ these breaths and these moments of stepping back and thinking‘ it’ s far enough in the past that there’ s actually a song about it,’ so everyone can take a breath together.”
For Burke, performance of Ducks on the Moon has always been“ a community experience.” For instance, when Burke was very ill at a show in Brandon, she says,“ The audience literally held me up through the show.” Her experience became a metaphor for“ what community can mean to people who are dealing with these very common experiences."
She adds, " My experience is comparatively easy. It would be wildly inappropriate for this to be about me. It has to be about us. My experience becomes a story by which we celebrate us.”
Thompson says,“ This is the strength of the arts-based research approach, that the community is involved more than in writing up a journal article. The community engagement is so salient.”
Burke says, " There are also songs that Scott’ s written that express more of the mania and self-criticism as well. Some of it steps back, and there are a couple of songs that are quite funny, and everyone can lean back. I’ ve never had that in the show before, that level of understanding underpinning the script. I think that is going to profoundly change how I perform.”
Burke says, I think the experience coming out of this musical is going to be more hopeful.”
The two researchers plan to perform part of the musical for Thompson ' s students on December 5. Student feedback will inform their process. After that, they hope they can take the play with music into schools.
View Burke ' s TedxRegina Talk " Nights with ducks--Why I memoir " at https:// www. youtube. com / watch? v = UNTKKBYHfFk Thompson ' s reflection process throughout the research of writing the musical is documented online at: http:// scottanthonyandrews. com / sing-ducks-sing /
By Shuana Niessen
Scott Thompson receiving feedback on some lyrics from colleague Denise Morstad
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