Mirvish to reopen Toronto theatre with 'Blindness' sound show about a pandemic
Mirvish Productions is set to relaunch indoor theatre in Toronto with an audio-based stage show that has an eerily timely premise about a pandemic but was actually developed before COVID-19.
Mirvish says "Blindness," which starts performances at the Princess of Wales Theatre on Wednesday, will be the first indoor theatre presentation in Toronto since the pandemic shut down such venues nearly a year and a half ago.
The adaptation of Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago's dystopian novel unfolds as a sound installation with immersive binaural recording audio.
Audience members sit masked and socially distanced onstage with sanitized headphones as a recording of English actor Juliet Stevenson voices the narrator, who is the only character to retain her sight as a pandemic of blindness spreads in Europe.
Last Friday, Mirvish also announced it will stage two shows at the CAA Theatre this Saturday and Sunday featuring English comedy star Eddie Izzard, in Toronto lately to film an upcoming series. Profits made by the performer from "Eddie Izzard The Remix: 1988-2018" and a preview of "Charles Dickens' Great Expectations" will be donated to Indspire, a national Indigenous registered charity.
John Karastamatis, Mirvish's director of sales and marketing, says it will cost Mirvish more to put on shows than the company "could possibly make at the box office."
But the theatre giant wants to start staging shows "slowly and cautiously," to rebuild confidence in the hard-hit theatre community.
"It's very important to get them on as a starting point," Karastamatis said in an interview. "You have to build again. It's almost like we're starting from scratch."
Each Izzard show will play to 140 socially distanced audience members in a venue that holds 700.
"Blindness" will have 50 audience members per performance on a stage that's 18 metres deep by 25 metres wide, with a 37-metre high ceiling. The venue has a capacity of 2,000.
Tony Award-winning English playwright Simon Stephens wrote "Blindness," which makes its Canadian premiere after debuting at London's Donmar Warehouse last August.
The show was originally supposed to arrive in Toronto in November but a new wave of the pandemic halted those plans.
Stephens said he adapted the show with director Walter Meierjohann a few years ago, first as an "operatic, balletic, choreographed" play with a large cast and chorus.
He saw it as an uplifting story of survival, as an unnamed European city sets up a mass quarantine in a hospital to try to contain infections.
"In a sense, it's a novel about a pandemic," Stephens said in a phone interview. "In another sense, it's a novel about politics -- that kind of strange madness, if you're living in a country like Britain in the throes of Brexit, to see the rise of a rampant, untrammeled nationalism and exist in a culture where it's like you're the only person who can see it."
The team did a workshop for the original version of the show in London in 2019 but "it was too big and expensive" to put on in that form, so they rewrote it as a one-woman play, said Stevenson.
Then COVID-19 hit and theatres closed, forcing the team to rethink the project as it took on a new level of resonance.
Stevenson said about two months into lockdown, they turned the play into a spatial sound installation that unfolds in a darkened auditorium with the binaural recording method.
Sound designers Ben and Max Ringham strategically placed microphones inside a fibreglass sculpture of a human skull on a pole to capture 3D stereo sound in a way a person would actually hear it.
Stevenson said she talked and moved around the recording room with the skull as if it were a co-star playing the role of her nurse-character's blind husband, who is a doctor.
When Stevenson whispers in each ear, that's how audience members hear it.
"You cannot believe there isn't somebody physically in the room," said Stevenson, who has an extensive stage and screen career and is also known for her audiobook recordings in the United Kingdom.
"You can hear every breath, every footstep, every comment coming nearer, going away."
Lizzie Clachan did the set design and Jessica Hung Han Yun did the lighting.
At the Princess of Wales, the show runs for 75 minutes and will not have an intermission. Audiences will sit in pods of one or two. Everyone in attendance, including staff, will be masked.
Karastamatis said a powerful air circulation system above the stage, which was previously there to combat heat from the lighting, serves as a bonus ventilation system "stronger than any that exists on an airplane."
At the moment, Mirvish patrons do not have to show proof of vaccination like they do on Broadway, said Karastamatis. But the company will look at such a requirement for future performances that don't allow social distancing or other precautions, he added.
"What we need is an effective and legitimate passport, which doesn't exist right now," said Karastamatis, noting "the government really needs to play a role."
Mirvish has increased the number of performances of "Blindness" to 24 per week from 20 due to demand, said Karastamatis.
But Mirvish can't extend the run of "Blindness" because the Toronto International Film Festival booked the Princess of Wales theatre for screenings in September.
Stephens said the team wasn't sure if audiences would want to take in such dark material but the previews were met by rave reviews and "audiences were moved by its innate positivity and optimism."
It was a "profound" experience, agreed Stevenson.
"For all the amazing, wonderful creative stuff going on on Zoom, there is nothing to replace human beings coming into a space together and telling and listening to stories as one," she said.
"I think that by having theatre taken away from us, it's made us really clear what theatre is for and why people need it."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 3, 2021.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Budget 2024 prioritizes housing while taxing highest earners, deficit projected at $39.8B
In an effort to level the playing field for young people, in the 2024 federal budget, the government is targeting Canada's highest earners with new taxes in order to help offset billions in new spending to enhance the country's housing supply and social supports.
BUDGET 2024 Feds cutting 5,000 public service jobs, looking to turn underused buildings into housing
Five thousand public service jobs will be cut over the next four years, while underused federal office buildings, Canada Post properties and the National Defence Medical Centre in Ottawa could be turned into new housing units, as the federal government looks to find billions of dollars in savings and boost the country's housing portfolio.
Some of the winners and losers in the 2024 federal budget
With a variety of fiscal and policy measures announced in the federal budget, winners include small businesses and fintech companies while losers include the tobacco industry and Canadian pension funds.
From housing initiatives to a disability benefit, how the federal budget impacts you
From plans to boost new housing stock, encourage small businesses, and increase taxes on Canada’s top-earners, CTVNews.ca has sifted through the 416-page budget to find out what will make the biggest difference to your pocketbook.
Toronto police arrest several people at rail line protest
Several people have been arrested at a pro-Palestinian demonstration in the city’s west end that blocked rail lines for hours Tuesday.
500 Newfoundlanders wound up on the same cruise and it turned into a rocking kitchen party
A Celebrity Apex cruise to the Caribbean this month turned into a rocking Newfoundland kitchen party when hundreds of people from Canada's easternmost province happened to be booked on the same ship.
Teen hockey players arrested for sexual assault following hazing incident: Manitoba RCMP
Three teenagers were arrested in connection with a pair of alleged hazing incidents on a Manitoba hockey team, police say.
B.C. killer seeks to attend sentencing by video as lawyer cites safety concerns
A defence lawyer for Ibrahim Ali, who was convicted of first-degree murder of a 13-year-old girl in Burnaby, B.C., says the man wants to appear at his sentencing hearing by video over fear for his safety.
Lululemon unveils first summer kit for Canada's Olympic and Paralympic teams
Lululemon showed off its collection for the Summer Olympics and Paralympics on Tuesday at the Liberty Grand entertainment complex. Athletes sported a variety of selections during a fashion show that featured garments to be worn on the podium, during opening and closing ceremonies, media interviews and daily life on the ground in France.