First-Person: Rahul Varma on Where the Blood Mixes

For the child taken, for the parent left behind

    “Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada” 

© Rahul Varma, Sept 7, 2012

Kevin Loring’s play Where the Blood Mixes started as a monologue, which he wrote for his theatre school graduation. The original title was The Ballad of Floyd, which portrayed Floyd, an aboriginal man celebrating his lost daughter’s birthday in, of all places, a bar. In 2001, Kevin performed this monologue at the Talking Stick Cabaret organized by Margo Kane’s Full Circle: First Nations Performance to a great admiration from the public. But Kevin was not satisfied. He decided to develop the play beyond its form and content. He gave himself a goal: “let this play teach me how to write and produce a play.”  Next, the monologue transformed into a one act play. What remained common between the monologue and the one-act was Floyd’s inability to escape from alcoholism. Kevin had set the play in a bar as a purgatory for Floyd, in which Floyd would go to the bar, lose his senses, and keep waking up again and again until breaking out of the cycle of alcoholism, and leaving the bar never to return again. This version of the play was work-shopped and read at the Factory Theatre’s Crosscurrent Festival of New Works, where highly respected Native actor Gary Farmer was assigned to read Floyd’s character. Which playwright would not be honored to have Gary Farmer read his character? But Mr. Farmer did more than reading a character, he gave Kevin a lesson. He slammed the script on the table, “Thirty five years in the business and here I am playing another drunken Indian in the bar. So what? So he is a drunk in the bar. So what now?”

So What Now? 

That day, this highly talented aspiring playwright was told out loud what no one had told him for the four years he was working on this play. “So what now?” from Mr. Farmer made Kevin understand what was wrong with the play and what to do about it?  The “so what now?” made Kevin embark on a journey to discover the greater story -- the story behind the story. What was behind the drunkenness, behind the pain and behind the isolation of Floyd? Why was he so damaged? What will happen to him? Audiences will find that out after seeing the play! What will happen to The Ballad of Floyd? It will become Where the Blood Mixes telling us the story behind the story.  What will happen to Kevin? He will go on to win the Governor General’s Award for Where the Blood Mixes.  

The Sunday Read: First-Person - Rahul Varma on State of Denial

State of Denial: In memories of grandmothers who lived to tell 

© Rahul Varma, March 11, 2012

State of Denial is about Sahana, a Turkish Muslim woman in her nineties, who has devoted her life to assisting Armenian survivors of genocide, and about Odette, a twenty something Rwanda-born Canadian filmmaker, who travels to Turkey to investigate stories of genocide. These two women differ in their nationality, ethnicity, religion, cultural background and age – but they have one thing in common: A well-kept personal secret, which if uncovered, will change their life forever. Initially, the two women are suspicious of each other. They question and quiz, comply and compete, and challenge and contradict each other – and in so doing, they become the best of friends. On her deathbed, Sahana reveals her chilling secret to Odette and Odette promises to make Sahana’s secret public at any cost. On her mission to make public Sahana’s secret, Odette ends up revealing her own. With that a denial ends and a new life begins. 

The Upstage Interview: Rahul Varma

Jade Hassouné in The Poster

(photo: ADARNA Photography)

The Sharing of Wisdom

Upstage Contributor Stephanie Breton spoke with Rahul Varma, Artistic Director of Teesri Duniya Theatre about their production The Poster.   Below is an abridged version edited by Estelle Rosen, CharPo editor-in-chief.

UPSTAGE

Tell us how you discovered this play. It’s a very intense subject.

VARMA

Teesri Duniya has a history of presenting intense plays. That’s what we’re known for. This play was first produced as L’Affiche. Paul Lefebvre introduced me to the playwright Philippe Ducros and encouraged me to speak with him on the basis of the very strong political value of the play.  

I met wiith Philippe several times. The passion that he demonstrated when we spoke convinced me  there’s something he has to say which should be shared with the community. So I got the rights to get the play translated to English and decided to produce it.