The story opens with a mysterious old man (John Koensgen) who was dropped off at a Toronto police station on Christmas eve, wearing a foreign military uniform, and a Santa hat, with a meat hook dangling around his neck. Drunk? On drugs? Homeless? All the cop, Inspector Lamb (Tony Nappo)  wants to do is file the paperwork and get home to his wife and kids. A lawyer’s business card is found on the old man and he gets called in to help shed light on the situation. Hamilton (Andrew Musselman) a British chap is puzzled as to why the man has his business card. Elena, a translator (Miranda Calderon) is called in to help as it was soon discovered that the old man does not speak english. As they begin unravelling the truth behind this old man, they uncover a past that will never be forgotten and justice must be served.

One of the most unique elements in this play worth noting is the language spoken. It’s a familiar sounding one.  Turns out that Lavinian is a fully developed new language created by Dr. Christina Kramer and Dragon Obradovic, two University of Toronto linguists.

Where did this idea come from? Calderon tells us,  “I think it came in part form the writer’s, Nicolas Billon’s, desire to set the play in a fictional place so as not to make it too specific to any one country including a language in the play that no one in the audience can understand is also reflective of one of the play’s themes, which is the great difficulty we sometimes have understanding one another across cultures, backgrounds, experiences, etc.”

“In this case, I believe the two linguists used two or three Slavic languages as a reference for the vocabulary and grammar, and then altered things enough to make their inventive language, Lavinian, incomprehensible to anyone outside the world of the play,” said Calderon. You can read more about it here .

Was it hard for the actors to learn the language?  Calderon further added, as she explained to the audience after the show that since she spoke Spanish, it probably helped her learn Lavinian as the sounds are more similar than English. “When you study foreign language you think about grammar more, so I approached it that way. In some cases, I decided for myself what the structure of the sentence was. For certain words it was pretty clear but as long as it made sense to me. There are definitely some words that are repeated and are very clear to us what they mean.”

Speaking of the audience, the opportunity to stay after the show for the Q&A session is a real bonus. Definitely stay. We’ve have had the opportunity to sit through a few of these but for this particular performance of Butcher, they were riled… in a good way. It was refreshing to experience an audience filled with emotions and craving discussion.

There were a few mentions from the audience of feeling uncomfortable and disturbed by the story as well as how this adaptation changed interval scenes to provide more context. Nappo explained that the playwright was part of the process of including more graphic details but all was not done gratuitously and certainly not to make it a gorry show. “It’s a horrible play that exposes human nature and I’m glad it disturbs you,” said Nappo to which he received a rousing applause.

But we were curious as to how the storyline affects the actors themselves. “When we first performed this show in Calgary, it took me weeks to get over the darkness of the play, it was very disturbing, but I’m not normally like that,” said Koensgen. “I mean that as an actor I normally don’t get disturbed by my work but I have to say that being on stage for me is being in a reality and working with the other actors in the moment I forget that I’m acting. But usually after we finish, we sit around with a glass of wine. The play does take us places, and my experience being in it is that before doing it every night I have a moment of feeling daunted. We walk around with this stuff but for me, I think about the text. It’s an extraordinary piece and we as actors are along for the ride.”

Nappo finished off with asking the audience to think about how many times during the course of the day do we watch a tv show or the news and it’s often filled with violence. “We almost don’t notice it anymore. I think the strength of this play is that you sit through a murder and it affects you. There’s something to be said for a company that is willing to produce that kind of a play to remind people that you should not, not feel anything when a murder happens. We are exposed to this stuff everyday to the point where we can watch the news and eat our lunch at the same time.” said Nappo. That is disturbing.

Billon’s BUTCHER is a real thriller that starts on a funny note and then unleashes a pandora’s box of feelings that twists your gut inside out. Hold on to your seat, this is one hell of a roller coaster ride.

Ne ću vi ničo rači

(you’ll have to go see the show to find out what that means)

BUTCHER is now on stage until April 9, 2017 at the Panasonic Theatre. For more tickets and information visit mirvish.com.

The post Nicolas Billon’s Butcher and the origins of the Lavinian language appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

The internet has given so many people a place to voice themselves. The good, bad, and the ugly can, and have, revealed themselves like never before. You may have heard of PostSecret, a blog that first started as a place where people were invited to share their deepest, darkest or funniest secrets. The site became a phenomenon and has evolved over the years. PostSecret has expanded to including an app, album, art exhibits, and  6 books on the New York Times ‘Best Sellers’ list. What more could come of the love of sharing secrets? How about a stage production? Yep! PostSecret: The Show coming to Toronto May 3 to 8 at the Panasonic Theatre.

Frank Warren, founder of PostSecrets says the performance was the first concept that came from a blog. “Now there are all kinds of blogs creating books but PostSecret is pretty much the only play that came from a blog.  I think you’ll start seeing more and more of this happening as the digital world starts becoming more concrete,” says Warren.

Wow! Who knew this was going to happen and from a blog? “I know!” said Warren, “It’s so powerful and the truth behind the secrets and how they can be heartbreaking, hilarious, inspiring, and romantic can also happen all at the same time.”

I had a chance to meet up with Frank to find out about the secrets and this new show.

How did the stage come about?

FW: I was approached by a team of creatives to put the show together and we’ve been working on it for five years now. We’ve just finished a 25-city run of the show in the U.S. and now we are thrilled to bring it to Toronto.

This all started as a blog, what made you decide to start a blog in the first place?

FW: Originally it started as an art project. I passed out postcards and people would write their secret on the back, decorate the card and mail it to me. Then I took those and posted them in a gallery show for a couple of months. When that was over I scanned them and put them on the web and then the idea started spreading virally. People began to make their own postcards and they were arriving with postmarks from everywhere and not just from Washington D.C. but also Texas, California, Vancouver, Toronto, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Dublin, and they haven’t stopped coming! It’s been 12 years now!

I heard you had to make room in your house for the postcards?

FW: Yes, I had to build an extra room in the basement but actually all the postcards right now are on exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C.

Any idea how many you have collected over the years?

FW: Oh, I’d say over a million at this point. There are a lot of secrets out there!

Do you remember one of the first one’s you had received?

FW: One of the first ones I got, someone just wrote “I’m a white guy, but I like black girls.” I had that posted in the exhibit and then somebody wrote a message on it that said,  “That’s OK!” I feel like in so many ways, that kind of response has come back to the project whether it was something on the web or in the books, play, people seem to want to respond back to these secrets that really touch them. They seem to want the person know that they aren’t alone.

This phenomenon of sharing over social media is so fascinating, right? On one hand it’s so public but then here it’s so personal. 

FW: You made me think about two things here. There’s a lot of sharing on social media but I feel like a lot of it is not the authentic type. It seems like it’s more about projecting an image or wearing a costume. On PostSecret, the postcards themselves and with the anonymity, I feel like it’s exposure that’s more vulnerable. I feel it’s a more intimate kind of sharing.

What was life like before PostSecret?

FW: I had a job retrieving medical information for clients. I did that for about 20 years. It was a good job but it was boring. I think that boredom pushed me to pursue these creative larks on the side. This was one that caught fire and eventually it turned my life upside down. I ended up selling my business and spend 40 to 50 hours a week on PostSecrets now.

So, about the show? Funny? Emotional? What can we expect?

FW: Everything about the show is non-fiction. It comes from the secrets and the stories behind the secrets and we bring them to life. We invite audience members to write down their secrets at the show. The actors also have a chance to reveal a personal secret of theirs. There are some humorous and maybe shocking secrets but the most emotional part of the performance is when we share back the voicemail messages that people have given to me. These people who have saved messages on their smart phones, and sometimes for years, that were left from people in their lives who have passed away. It reminds us that at some point we will leave one of those last messages for those we love.

You’ve brought a few postcards with you. Care to share one?

FW: “My husband won’t have sex with me anymore so I masturbated with a cucumber and served it in his salad for dinner.”

PostSecret: The Show is an immersive, poignant journey through the humour and humanity of the personal stories we keep to ourselves, and on rare occasions, share with others. Projected images, videos, three actors and a guitarist guide the audience through crowd-sourced narratives revealing the true stories behind the secrets. The stage performance shares hopeful, shocking, painful and sexual secrets that brought hundreds of millions to the PostSecret blog.

Frank tells me that the show is very interactive. At the beginning there will be a tweet wall so pay attention to that. It will populate with audience members tweets.

Performances in Toronto run May 3 to 8, 2016, at the Panasonic Theatre. For more information visit www.mirvish.com

The post Frank Warren Has A Few Surprising Secrets To Share On Stage appeared first on Toronto Guardian.