LEFT AND GRIEVING
Where: Intrepid Theatre Club, 2-1609 Blanshard St.
When: Wednesday, Oct. 23–Saturday, Oct. 26
Tickets: $29.36 from paperstreettheatre.ca
Left and Grieving is an improvised play about grief that is based around the death of a fictional character, one whose backstory — name, age, occupation — is constructed on the spot with feedback from the audience.
In the world of theatre, that’s like walking a tightrope without a net. But according to Dave Morris, artistic director of Victoria’s Paper Street Theatre, which is producing Left and Grieving, there’s artistic freedom in leaving avenues open to exploration. And that includes ones with humorous outcomes, death be damned.
“With this show, there is definitely the expectation that it will go into the heavier places. But there will be some humour in it, too,” Morris said. “When you go through the grieving process, a lot of it is kind of absurd. You find yourself laughing at certain situations.”
There’s a therapeutic element to Left and Grieving for Morris, whose father died seven years ago. He wasn’t sure if the real-life consequence of his father’s death would make it into one of his productions, until a member of the Paper Street family went through a similar thing last year. That got him thinking about revisiting the idea. When Paper Street actor/improviser Nicole Malcolm enrolled in a “death doula” course, which gives her the ability “to help people through grief,” Morris said he knew the timing was right for Left and Grieving to make its debut.
Morris is joined by Malcolm and actor/improviser Tony Adams in the production, which opens Paper Street’s 2024-2025 season, all of which will be staged at Intrepid Theatre Club. The other entries in the all-improv season — the Christmas-themed The Piano Man (Dec. 11-14) and Vonnegut-inspired Laughterhouse-Five (Feb. 19-22) — are lighter in tone. A longform narrative improv about death and grief is another matter entirely, though Morris knows levity will play a role at some point.
As for what is discussed beforehand, nothing about Left and Grieving is ironed-out in advance. “We get a suggestion, and then we start,” he said. “The show opens with the three of us making up these pretend anecdotes about our memories of this character, almost like a eulogy of this imaginary person. That gives us an idea of who we are, and what our relationship is to the character who passed away. We follow the story whoever it goes.”
Left and Grieving — a reference to Left and Leaving, the acclaimed album by Winnipeg indie rockers The Weatherthans — has the potential to cut deep. Grief is messy, amorphous. But there is something to be learned from the process. Morris and his sister came to understand its machinations when their father died, and they were left in hospital with his lifeless body.
“My dad was dead, and my sister sighed,” Morris said. “I looked at her and said, ‘Are you okay?’ and as soon as I said it, we both started laughing at the absurdity of the question. Of course she’s not okay. She’s sitting in a room with a dead body.”
Morris said he endeavours to keep Paper Street productions challenging but entertaining, from An Improvised Quentin Tarantino and An Improvised John Hughes to An Improvised Jane Austen and An Improvised Agatha Christie. Witty titles may not be the forté of Morris and his wife, Paper Street co-founder Missie Peters, but the couple is nothing if not adventurous when sketching out the skeleton of their creative endeavours.
Even the title of Left and Grieving went through several iterations on its way to opening night. “We were going to call it Good Grief, based on the idea that grief is a positive thing,” Morris said. “But it’s the Charlie Brown phrase, and there was a movie that came out last year called Good Grief. A show even came through the [Victoria] Fringe this year by the same name. That was one too many good griefs.”
