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Culture Stage

The first rule of fight club

COMBAT From tonight (Thursday, August 4) at the Theatre Centre. See listing.


Playwright Adam Underwood’s Fringe hit Tyumen, Then (rave reviews and a Patron’s Pick) solidified his status as a writer to watch. But even before the Fringe bump he was scooped up by veterans Claire Calnan and Allison Cummings to help organize and shape the script for their interdisciplinary dance-infused SummerWorks show, Combat.

“This time I’m not the only writer,” Underwood points out. “Combat is a much more collaborative creation, and a lot of the text and choreography is being generated right in rehearsal. Everyone’s job title overlaps.”

The dreamlike think piece meditates on why we fight. But exploring “combat” writ large means investigating conflicts large and small. As a result, the show offers up twin storylines that weave together a large-scale international conflict and the more familiar micro-negotiations in a mundane office.

“It looks at various ways of fighting and the ways people seek their goals through different forms of combat,” says Underwood. “Claire and Allison were both really interested in using a hybrid of theatre and dance to explore differences in scale. I hope these two stories serve as interesting mirrors for each other.”

Making the shift from sole writer to dramaturge was relatively easy for Underwood, who first trained as an actor at Vancouver’s Studio 58 before switching his focus to writing and relocating to Toronto three years ago. Still, multiple choreographers, directors, actors and writers all in the same room together trying to create a coherent piece of theatre presented unexpected challenges.

“We knew our process would in some ways reflect our subject matter,” he laughs.

“For instance, there’ve been moments when we’ve just looked at each other dumbfounded because the artistic languages we’re speaking are different. Sometimes we didn’t even realize we were all agreeing on the same thing! It’s been totally wild.”

Underwood says that another single-authored play is in the works. He just needs to enjoy a little post-SummerWorks downtime first.

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