Where Calgary Magazine September / October 2018 | Page 30

BY SILVIA PIKAL
Tells a Universal Tale
New stage
drama is a
story of family,
love, death and
betrayal
30
where.ca
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018
A play in which two grown sisters face off
over their mother’s deathbed. A set design
that almost becomes its own character.
A story that takes place in a palliative
hospital room and inspires deep emotion,
yet also makes you laugh. That’s what you
should expect from Honour Beat (page 34),
according to film and television star Michelle
Thrush, who is directing the play, and
Stafford Arima, artistic director of Theatre
Calgary. Thrush says the play is ultimately a
human story.
“It’s a story anyone can relate to,” Thrush
says. “It’s about family, love, death and
betrayal.” She describes the relationship
between the sisters as genuine, raw and
beautiful.
“I’m an only child so I’m so intrigued by
sibling relationships,” Thrush says. “I watch
my daughters who are teenagers, and it
blows my mind when I watch them argue. I
didn’t grow up with that so I always wonder,
do I get in there? Or do I let them figure it
out because it’s building people skills?”
When Arima went to a reading of Honour
Beat last year, while it was part of a new play
development program at Theatre Calgary, he
instantly fell in love with the story. He lost
his own mother 10 years ago, and the play’s
exploration of family relationships deeply
impacted him.
“I think this story connected with me on
a very personal level because on some level
it’s a story about family, it’s a story about
forgiveness, it’s a story about awakenings
and transformations,” Arima says. “I
connected with it on that level, and what I
found so interesting about the piece was that
it also made me laugh.”
He describes it as a family drama that
lets you laugh and cry at the same time, and
since it explores family relationships and
goes to the core of human behaviour, it will
also make you think and feel.
Both Arima and Thrush are excited by the
voice of Canadian playwright Tara Beagan,
who wrote a universal story focusing on the
significance of family, with an Indigenous
family at its core.
Thrush says the production features a full
Indigenous cast, and many on the creative
team are Indigenous, which she hopes will
further open the doors in the Calgary theatre
community for Indigenous artists to tell their
own stories.
She says the momentum started with
Making Treaty 7 (page 28), a Calgary theatre
production that explores the historical
signing of Treaty 7 through the Indigenous
perspective. This year her one–woman show,
Inner Elder, returns to the stage and takes
audiences on a comedic journey through
her life as she transforms from young to old
using Indigenous clowning (page 31).
“I’ve been working in the industry for 30
years now,” Thrush says. “The progression
that’s taken place as Indigenous people step
forward in the arts community is an absolute
revolution.”
Her ultimate hope is that Calgarians will
connect with Honour Beat’s universality.
“I think it’s so important right now that
for the place we’re in as Indigenous artists
that we’re seen as human beings,” Thrush
says. “If we have people coming in through
the audience watching the show and they
can relate to it as a human story, then I’ve
done my job. I hope they walk away with
an understanding that there’s not as many
barriers between us as human beings as
sometimes is portrayed — that we all
grieve, we all love, we all share kindness and
jokes.”