Claire Calnan, Winner of the 2008 Crow's Theatre Award for Direction, Talks About her New Play Raising Luke

The seeds for Raising Luke were planted almost a decade ago when my parents attended a reunion at the convent where my mother had served as a nun for seven years. Previously very reserved about her past she returned home brimming with stories and memories. I was in theatre school at the time and in my mid-twenties, the same age my mother had been when she was in a religious order. I really grappled with the differences between our lives and started asking a lot of questions. I built a solo show based on the material but knew I wanted to return to the subject matter as I continued to investigate my own complicated and often troubling relationship to organized religion and my mother’s faith. Years later I traveled to the Mother House where my mom began her vocation to speak to some of the sisters there. I thickened my skin, expecting a conservative lot. My preconceptions were smashed and my thinking turned corners, dug ditches, sprouted new limbs.

tiny bird theatre, which I am lucky to co-run with the exceptional Jenny Young, set out to workshop Raising Luke at Summerworks, a festival that we felt would be supportive of the risks we wanted to take with it, the experiments in structure and style. I wanted to infuse the piece with some of the contradictions I perceive to be inherent in the faithful, to introduce troubling questions in one moment and in the next orchestrate a hymn that that had the power to raise the hairs on your arms. Robert Perrault, a longtime tiny bird collaborator, helped to create a musical score that was alternately frightening, absurd and deeply moving. Monica Dottor skillfully arranged the movement to support and reflect the same sentiments. We set out, with a gifted and brave crew of performers led by the incredibly generous Maja Ardal, to create a kind of dream-like state that reflected the lead character’s state of mind, with figures shifting through the space just outside of the light, appearing magically or melting away into darkness, and the past and the present intermingling in ways that left the audience grasping for the threads of them. I thought a lot about the very human desire to ‘know’ things, to be sure about them, an aspiration that lies at the heart of faith. I wanted to put the audience on the precipice, teetering between their desire to know and their ability to submit to not knowing.

This festival gave us the chance to see the piece on its feet in front of an audience and this helped us to determine what was exciting and provocative and where we still need to provide more character and clarity. I became painfully aware of gaps and misleading turns. But I was pleased to see the beginnings of a physical language between the actors, the emergence of a strange sense of humour and the creation of a dark and fragile world.

I have only sat in the director’s chair a few times and I am still shifting about, trying to find a comfortable perch. I still feel vulnerable. I am grateful that Summerworks exists, a place where artists can stretch their wings, where a piece like this can have the opportunity to breathe and grow. This festival gave us the chance to experiment, risk, dare and learn. It was a frightening and exhilarating experience. Receiving the Crow’s Theatre Director’s Award was such an unexpected and delightful surprise. It made me feel supported, positive, grateful. It made me feel like the risks were worth taking.

In a field where we are at the mercy of criticism on a fairly regular basis, I feel lucky to have been given some recognition and support from a company and a jury of artists that I deeply respect. This award has been very encouraging and I am honoured to be this year’s recipient.

A gifted actor, director and playwright – Claire Calnan is a founding member of tiny bird productions, who caused a lot of stir at this year’s Summerworks Festival with their production of Claire’s latest play Raising Luke. She also worked with us last year on the development of Antigone: A Clean House for the Dead Season and will continue to play the role of Ismene in Soulpepper’s premiere production of the play in the fall of 2009.