I am an iconoclast; I am breaking a form. If theatre doesn’t do that, it doesn’t grow.
Upstage Host Eric Sukhu spoke with playwright Jane Gilchrist about her play Out of the Fog being presented at the 2012 Fringe Festival. Below is an abridged version edited by Estelle Rosen, CharPo Editor-in-Chief.
UPSTAGE: As I look at your bio, it seems to me you’re an icon in Canadian theatre! You’ve done so much.
GILCHRIST: Well I’ve lived a long time so I’ve managed to do a few things over the years that sound pretty good. I think the most fun I had was when I wrote a clown show. It wasn’t meant to be a red nose clown show but I met a red nose clown who loved it so he did it that way when we presented it at the Alumni Theatre in Toronto in 2003.
It was such fun to hear my words said by clowns. I hadn’t written it with clowns in mind. I had written it with the idea of women doing a vaudeville show, but add the red noses and it gets really funny.
A fellow in the audience came up to me and said red nosed clowns never speak Ms. Gilchrist, you have violated a rule of theatre. He was serious. I told him I am an iconoclast; I am breaking a form. If theatre doesn’t do that, it doesn’t grow.
