Fostering acceptance and understanding through theatre

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This article was published 24/05/2024 (838 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For Judy Danchura, going to the theatre presents an opportunity to learn something new about the world.

Sometimes, the education starts even before the show begins.

That was the case a few years ago when Danchura began to notice a trend in the text of several printed theatre programs across the city.

As usual, there was the boilerplate synopsis, the director’s notes, and the cast and crew’s credentials and credits. But with greater frequency, those artists were including one more tidbit of biographical information: their pronouns.

It was an eye-opening realization for Danchura, leading to a greater understanding of non-binary gender identities.

It was useful in life, she says, but also in grasping a central theme of playwright Lukas Thiessen’s Our Father, which Danchura is directing for the Winnipeg Mennonite Theatre in a reader’s theatre production on Saturday.

Thiessen’s play, which won second place in the Mennonite Theatre’s 2022 playwriting competition, follows three estranged siblings as they navigate — sometimes well, sometimes extremely poorly, often comically — their ideological and theological differences in the wake of their father’s death.

The story takes place three years after a particularly traumatic Christmas when the patriarch, Heinrich Friesen-Dyck, reacted violently to his youngest child coming out and identifying as non-binary.

The night was anything but silent, leading the three siblings — Edith, Ernest and the newly renamed Xris (pronounced like Chris) — to lose touch. In his will, Heinrich gives his children a posthumous stipulation: before they can receive their inheritances, they must go on a fishing trip together.

“These themes have been particularly important to me, especially as they relate to religion,” says Thiessen, 40, who works as a governmental research analyst, uses he/him pronouns and generally doesn’t conform to gender norms.

“I grew up in a church that wasn’t open and wasn’t affirming, and that church — the First Mennonite Church — now marches in the Pride parade, and we rehearsed this play in their basement.”

Thiessen now identifies as an atheist, but is still “heavily influenced by religious heritage.”

“(This play) focuses very heavily on the humanity of its characters, and makes less a religious claim than one about how we interact as humans,” he says. “The fact that the Winnipeg Mennonite Theatre is choosing to produce this play is evidence of a changing perspective.”

“I think it’s important to see because it will increase understanding of the difficulty members of the queer community can have of being accepted in their family,” says Danchura, who co-directed 29 plays during her 32-year career as an English teacher at Sanford Collegiate.

The dramatic staged production — which will have costumed actors performing from a script while moving around — stars Carolyn Schmidt, Connor Hopper and KB Greenhill as Xris. Natalie Fitkowsky is the narrator, while Monica Reis and Leslie Boardman appear onstage as lawyers.

Thiessen will be on hand after both performances for talkbacks with the audience.

Our Father runs Saturday at 2:05 p.m. and 7:35 p.m. at the Université de Saint-Boniface’s Salle Martial-Caron (511 Rue Aulneau). Tickets ($15) are available at winnipegmennonitetheatre.ca.