Canada’s PerSIStence Theatre Company presents
I AM A GENIUS (DOES ANYONE HERE KNOW ME?),
created and performed by Lois Brown.
I AM A GENIUS (DOES ANYONE HERE KNOW ME?),
created and performed by Lois Brown.
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Part of this feminist theatre company’s one-woman play series IT’S WOMEN’S PLAY, the performance is a look into a shimmering world of forgotten and brilliant things with the help of paper, plastic, foil, and a microphone. Newfoundland-based artist Lois Brown shares a look into memory and dementia, value and worthlessness, and the rational and the magical. I AM A GENIUS… is an improvised sonic choreography of things, composed by Montreal-based James O’Callaghan and infused with Brown’s off-beat humour, her mis-use of objects, and her genuine playfulness with the audience. “Brown’s wry text and visual metaphors offer a searingly fresh way of looking at the world.” – Governor General’s Award-winning playwright Robert Chafe
PerSIStence Theatre is delighted to premiere the worldwide broadcast of this acclaimed production
March 10 at 7 PM EST / 4 PM PST / 8:30 PM NST and on demand March 11-17 Tickets are $15 USD - available from Events.BroadwayWorld.com. |
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I AM A GENIUS DOES ANYONE HERE KNOW ME? by Lois Brown
I inherited a dictionary from my father after he died. It was outdated. I didn't really want it. I brought it into the studio and I flipped through it, shook it, flung it, without letting go. I picked up a microphone and amplified my investigation. The covers came off. More pages flew out and fluttered to the floor. That was the way my father had died: meaning, ripped away. I witnessed the progression of his dementia, protesting - as if death was a problem that could be solved.
In I AM A GENIUS... the audience encounters experiences like the one I just described. As I improvise with a 30-ft piece of paper, the plastic bag I carry it in, my Dad's old dictionary, and in the final section, 30 square ft of foil; together, the audience and I struggle with impatience, boredom, and control until the distinction between animate and inanimate become irrelevant. Then, together, we discover an energetic relationality between ourselves, paper, plastic and foil that political theorist Jane Bennett calls "thing power." Impatience, boredom and a desire to dominate are replaced with curiosity and joy.
Over the course of the performance, Montréal-based composer James O'Callaghan and I create an improvised work that engages with the strange sensuality and sonically intense worlds of paper, plastic bags, and foil, trying ultimately to manifest a "fugitive dimension of experience": the genius of everything, where curiosity eases grief and pain, and we are somehow less alone.
As my father was developing dementia, I developed chronic pain. In fact, I AM A GENIUS... offers audience interventions constructed around chronic-pain management strategies. I invite audiences to stand, to move, to catch little ticker-tape messages as they float down... to notice each other, to get comfortable, or to acknowledge they cannot get comfortable, Negotiating this other physical pain weaves through the work.
In I AM A GENIUS... the audience encounters experiences like the one I just described. As I improvise with a 30-ft piece of paper, the plastic bag I carry it in, my Dad's old dictionary, and in the final section, 30 square ft of foil; together, the audience and I struggle with impatience, boredom, and control until the distinction between animate and inanimate become irrelevant. Then, together, we discover an energetic relationality between ourselves, paper, plastic and foil that political theorist Jane Bennett calls "thing power." Impatience, boredom and a desire to dominate are replaced with curiosity and joy.
Over the course of the performance, Montréal-based composer James O'Callaghan and I create an improvised work that engages with the strange sensuality and sonically intense worlds of paper, plastic bags, and foil, trying ultimately to manifest a "fugitive dimension of experience": the genius of everything, where curiosity eases grief and pain, and we are somehow less alone.
As my father was developing dementia, I developed chronic pain. In fact, I AM A GENIUS... offers audience interventions constructed around chronic-pain management strategies. I invite audiences to stand, to move, to catch little ticker-tape messages as they float down... to notice each other, to get comfortable, or to acknowledge they cannot get comfortable, Negotiating this other physical pain weaves through the work.
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Cast and CrewCreated by Lois Brown
Composition by James O'Callaghan Performed by Lois Brown & James O'Callaghan Stage Management by Emily Austin Lighting Design by Phil Winters Projection Design by Pat Dempsey Dramaturgy by Thea Patterson & Emma Tibaldo Direction for the Digital Platform by Andrea Cooper & Ruth Lawrence Production Management by Mara Bredovskis Production Assistance by Olivia Brown-Curtis |
Lois Brown - Playwright and Performer
Lois Brown was educated in Drama at The University of Alberta. She returned to St. John’s, Newfoundland where she established her cross-disciplinary artistic practice, including theatre, dance and film. She is original member and past Curator of Neighbourhood Dance Works and past Artistic Animateur of RCA Theatre Company. In 2004, she was one of five Canadian directors short-listed for the Elinore & Lou Siminovitch Prize. The following year The Canada Council for the Arts gave her The Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for outstanding achievement in theatre by a mid-career Canadian artist. She was awarded the YWCA’s Women of Distinction Goodwill Award for contribution to the local, national or international commnity. And in 2019, she was inducted into DCD’s Encore! Dance Hall of Fame. Lois holds a Masters from Memorial University, where she has taught acting and directing. She has worked with performers as diverse as Andy Jones, Alison Woolridge, Ruth Lawrence, Marthe Bernard, Mark O’Brien and Rick Mercer.
