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Lone
Wolf
Howl:
THE REDEMPTIVE POWER OF TRANSFORMATION
for the Cochrane Times — We moved from the rehearsal hall into the theatre this week, and are currently working the standard twelve-hour days to put the show together. It’s a transformation on the most magical of scales: moving from the page to the stage, from a story in a book to a larger-than-life peek into a world vastly different from our own (in some ways) and shamefully similar (in others). But more on that later. As I mentioned last month, there are two sources of truth we can hang our hats on: the workings of the unconscious and the workings of nature. The workings of the unconscious produce grand, transformative experiences like A Christmas Carol; the workings of nature produce grand, transformative experiences like the Winter Solstice. It’s the return of the sun, the transformation of darkness into light and it don’t get more grand than that. December 21st. The shortest day. The longest night. In the dead of winter, when it can get no darker, light returns. This is a dandy example of the paradox/truth relationship I talked about last month. The great transformation of nature takes place during the Christmas season, or (to put things in their proper chronological order) the Christmas season takes place during the great transformation of nature. The brilliance of the early church fathers found them pilfering the pagan sun festivals as the setting for the birth of their heroic son-God. Long before Charles Dickens and Ebenezer Scrooge; long before Jesus and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; long before man, time, or God, there was the solstice. We are redeemed on a galactic scale, bought back from the dark. The redemptive power of transformation. Great word, that: transformation. From the Latin “trans” (meaning to ‘journey across’) and “forma” (meaning ‘shape’). The very word implies a journey. It’s why we tell Easter stories at Christmas. Scrooge’s journey, his transformation from miser to benefactor, redeems us. As I sit in the theatre this week during rehearsals, watching actor Stephen Hair undergo that wonderful moment with the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come, confessing that he is not the man he once was, my skin tingles night after night, run after run. It’s one of my favourite moments in the play. Another favourite moment happens much earlier, and it comes by way of Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s old partner, dead these seven years. Dead – as Dickens liked to say – as a doornail. He comes back as a ghost, laden with heavy chains, to scare the bejeezus out of his old friend, and Ebenezer resists by trying to write him off as indigestion. Marley won’t have any of it, and explains how he is wearing the chains he forged in life, link-by-link, yard-by-yard. Scrooge tries to comfort the ghost the only way he knows how by saying “you were always a good man of business, Jacob.” Marley’s reply bears repeating: “Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business. Charity, mercy, patience, kindness were all my business.” Determined to help Scrooge steer clear of the fate he suffered, Marley engages the services of three ghosts to visit his old partner, and brings about the much-needed transformation. As we rehearse this play, the entire company revels in Scrooge’s myopic self-centeredness to the point we want to scream. The fact he needs not one ghost but four to give him the proverbial kick in the pants seems remarkable to us, if not ludicrous. Is our hero so far down his greedy little rabbit hole he can’t see what is so painfully obvious to us? Has Scrooge’s humanity darkened to such blackness that the only hope for his own personal solstice is through the outside engagement of ghosts? I listen to these questions bounce amongst the cast, and my thoughts turn to what’s happening here in Cochrane. The mirror that art holds up to nature tilts, and I see my little hometown in the harsh, cold light of the exact same query: has the humanity of our elected officials been so darkened that the only way they can redeem themselves over the trailer park travesty (and transform their previous decision into something a bit more sunny and hopeful) is through the outside engagement of some lawyers? Ghosts and lawyers, chains and trailer parks, charity and mercy. As our politicians become more focused on business and less on the common welfare (and it’s not just happening here), one can see them hoisting those heavy chains upon themselves… link-by-link, yard-by-yard. James Joyce was right: history is a nightmare from which we’re trying to awake, and we keep hitting the snooze button. We should be going to see A Christmas Carol this holiday… not re-enacting it. I submit that the president and CEO of Pointe of View Developments, together with the mayor and town council, should spring for tickets to Theatre Calgary on Dec. 21 and take along every last resident of the trailer park. And councillors… pay particular attention to that scene between Marley and Scrooge ‘cause it’s all about you. (www.lonewolftheatre.com) Back to Resources Page |