The Gargoyle Theatre to host inaugural show

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/02/2022 (1415 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The show must go on — at 50 per cent audience capacity that is.

The Gargoyle Theatre will welcome its inaugural production, Sonja and Richard, for its first run on Wed., Feb. 9 at 8 p.m. Steven Ratzlaff and Marina Stephenson Kerr star in the show, which is written by Ratzlaff and directed by Bill Kerr.

The trio previously worked together on the North American premiere of Harold Pinter’s Ashes to Ashes. Now, more than six years later, the group has reunited to bring Ratzlaff’s work to the stage of The Gargoyle Theatre.

“What Andrew Davison has done with The Gargoyle (Theatre) is kind of miraculous,” Ratzlaff said.

Ratzlaff credits the theatre’s launch as the motivation he needed to take the bits and pieces of dialogue and conceptual material he had written and set aside, and shape them into the production now known as Sonja and Richard.

The play follows Sonja and Richard, a longtime couple who are meditating on, and in conflict about, their marriage and public lives. The pair teach at a private girl’s school in Winnipeg. Half of the play takes place here, and the other half in an Amsterdam hotel where the couple are celebrating their anniversary.  

The audience sees Sonja and Richard — how they talk, how they act — in both a professional realm, as well as an intimate, unusual one. The play explores how individuals use the past, whether the past of a relationship or the past of a nation, to tell a story or to achieve a goal — and why.

“The number of facts are infinite; the number of facts that can actually be considered, learned, spoken about is very, very limited. So you have to choose. You’re always choosing,” Ratzlaff said.

Kerr — who also works as a dramaturg, actor, and associate professor in the University of Manitoba’s English, theatre, film, and media department — said directing at The Gargoyle Theatre has been a unique experience.

“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced in a production process that from day one we’re working on the stage we’re going to present on. That’s just a real treat,” Kerr said.

“We’re informed immediately by space and how it feels, sort of the emotional feel of the distance and the volume.”

Last October, local author and playwright Andrew Davidson invited the public to get its first look at the newly-renovated early 20th-century venue. Soon after the open house, The Gargoyle Theatre welcomed creatives to its stage for a pitch event.

The rough date for an inaugural show loomed on the horizon, obscured by the unpredictable nature of pandemic restrictions. But before long, the theatre picked up the pitch for Sonja and Richard and decided the time had finally arrived to bring in an audience and dim the lights.

Tickets are on sale now. Sonja and Richard will run Feb. 9, 10, 11 and 12 at 8 p.m., and there will be two matinees at 1 p.m. on Feb. 12 and 13. Tickets are $20 each. The proceeds from each show are split equally between The Gargoyle Theatre and the production.