Metamorphoses

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Saturday, May 11th, 2013
May 8, 8:00 pm; May 9, 12:30 pm, 8:00 pm; May 10, 12:30 pm, 8:00 pm; May 11, 8:00 pm; May 12, 2:00 pm

Victoria Youth ask their Community the Age-Old Question: Can You Change?

VICTORIA, BC (April 13, 2103)...This spring a group of young actors in Victoria is challenging the city with questions that have haunted us for as long as human consciousness has been documented. Do you value riches more than the life of your child? If a beggar showed up at your house looking for some food, would you be able to recognize the divine presence in him? Can you resist your baser impulses and become something better than you were?

These are the questions the Roman poet Ovid explored in his treatise on the transforming power of love, which he completed in the year 8 AD. The playwright Mary Zimmerman applied her own powers of transformation to this ancient work when she adapted it into a Tony-award-winning play of the same name, Metamorphoses, in 1996. Kate Rubin�s Advanced Performance Group has chosen this powerful exploration of how the human condition remains connected to history, myth, and love, regardless of the passage of time, for its 2013 offering.

Kate Rubin notes that the piece stands out from others she has directed in that it reaches audiences on physical, spiritual and emotional levels. The staging calls for the nine young actors, each of whom plays a variety of mythical characters and archetypes, to connect to each other and their environment via the elemental (and transforming) power of water. A center stage pool effectively becomes another character in the action, as the actors dip, roll and splash their way through their stories.

�Water can be an obstacle, a landmark, a meeting place, or somewhere to hide, and it is essential to life. It is also both a physical and spiritual cleansing agent, and a powerful symbol of transformation. It�s an enormous challenge to work with water on stage, but worth the effort. The many productions of this play have fascinated audiences with the opportunities water gives the actors to tell the old stories in compelling new ways,� Rubin says. The other thing that is different about this production is that the young actors came up with the idea, and brought the script to Rubin, themselves. �Their hearts are really in this, and they are doing an amazing job.�

Renowned set designer Carole Klemm, whose work has enhanced productions in a wide variety of theatres, including the Chemainus Theatre Festival, the Belfry Theatre and the Manitoba Theatre Centre, will again be designing the set. This is the twelfth production Rubin and Klemm have collaborated on. �Carole's beautiful design work and scenic painting is always a treat to behold,� says Rubin. Katrina Kadoski, whose Cougar Annie Tales (also directed by Kate Rubin) won Pick of the Fringe in the 2012 Victoria Fringe Festival, will provide live music for the production.

Metamorphoses has been staged in Victoria once before, to great acclaim, when students from the University of Victoria performed it for the Phoenix Theatre's season in 2005. As Monday Magazine said then, there will be �...no lightning from the heavens if you miss this one, just your own regrets when you hear people talking about it in months to come.� Audiences in Victoria now have a second chance to visit the realm of the gods and the goddesses.

For advance ticket sales, or to reserve seats for a school group, please call 250-370-9800 or email [email protected]. Group rate for 10 or more; School groups � ticket price is $8 per ticket, and teachers and assistants receive a free ticket.

http://katerubintheatre.com/productions/

For more information about the production, please contact Erica Petty at 778-430-7845 or [email protected].

Kate Rubin, proprietor of the Kate Rubin Theatre Studio, also performs as a professional actor and director in Victoria. The choices she makes for her own professional commitments are both varied and community-centered. She recently directed the William Head On Stage production of The Hobbit. It was the third time Kate had worked on the productions at the prison, and the impact of this program on both the prison residents and the community is remarkable. Kate has acted with Giggling Iguana Theatre in many of their productions, and she and two other local actors, Gina McIntosh and Monica Prendergast, formed WAVE Theatre in 2003 as a cooperatively-run company to create productions that showcase local Victoria actors (focusing on contemporary Canadian theatre). Her next piece of directing work will be for the Victoria Shakespeare Society Summer Festival's 2013 production of The Merry Wives of Windsor.