THE MILL. PART ONE: NOW WE ARE BRODY by Matthew MacFadzean, directed by Daryl Cloran
PART TWO: THE HURON BRIDE, by Hannah Moscovitch, directed by Christian Barry. With Maev Beaty, Richard Greenblatt, Eric Goulem, Ryan Hollyman, Michelle Latimer, Holly Lewis and Michelle Monteith (Theatrefront). At Young Centre (55 Mill). Brody previews tonight (Thursday, October 8), opens October 10 Huron previews October 9 and 12, opens October 13. Run in rep to October 24. $35, stu $20, both plays $60, stu $35, discount previews and rush. 416-866-8666. See listing.
Designer Gillian Gallow will never forget her response when she started working on Theatrefront’s four-play cycle The Mill.
“You want me to do what?!”
Here’s why: the cycle, written by a quartet of playwrights, covers hundreds of years in the history of a northern Ontario mill, from the 17th century to a post-apocalyptic period. It has a unit set, the mill, but each writer needs it to do something else, from being part forest to being a suggestive shell in the final production.
Oh, and then there’s the fact that each play is a ghost story, so all sorts of supernatural stuff has to happen. In the first play, Matthew MacFadzean’s Now We Are Brody, a young woman takes over the dilapidated mill in 1854 only to find it haunted by a young spirit in white.
Brody involves a character who flies and walks up and down walls, a concealed level beneath the set proper and – maybe most demanding of all – a huge circular saw that hacks up a character right in front of us.
The show has moments of Night Of The Living Dead and The Exorcist, with a bit of Carrie thrown in.
“It took me a minute to get my head around some of the things that had to happen,” Gallow remembers ruefully. “But then I thought that there’s no limit to people’s imagination, and I realized how exciting it would be to collaborate with a team to make this all happen.”
She’s worked with theatres of all sizes, from Theatrefront and Human Cargo to larger companies like Stratford and Soulpepper, but never on a show like this, with input from four different sources that she had to accommodate in the final design.
“The directors had to do a lot of compromising to allow it all to come together. I always talked about the need for realism, since the Young Centre’s Tank House Theatre brings the audience close to the action. So no matter what the saw had to do, I wanted to make sure it was a believable saw.”
The talk about the saw brought out everyone’s gruesome side, the designer recalls with a smile. The final decision was to go with a dual circular saw, even though it wasn’t common in the period.
Then there’s the fact that the Tank House has a low lighting grid, which makes flying difficult. Gallow worked out one design until she discovered that a structural I-beam needed for flying wasn’t in the proper spot. The set’s so big, there’s little wing space, and a raised stage (for that level below the “floor”) meant lighting designer Andrea Lundy had to revise her first ideas.
“If I could renovate the theatre, I’d move the rear wall back 12 feet to get a sense of darkness and depth of the surrounding forest,” Gallow sighs. “Later this afternoon I have to go out and shop for something to make the forest look like a forest.”
Then there’s the blood – lots of it, and crucial to MacFadzean’s play.
“At that proximity to the audience, you can’t fake it with red light. But it’s hard to clean up red is one of the most staining colours you can use.”
She learned this when designing Appetite last year, for which she won Dora Awards for set and costumes.
“Thankfully, Doug Morum is production manager, and David Hoekstra’s handling props, including complicated tricks such as falling birds. I don’t think I would have taken on the project without solid people I knew and trusted backing me up.
“And I long ago embraced the idea that the production will be a messy one.”
jonkap@nowtoronto.com
