Staged Authenticity

A couple of initial thoughts to stew

In 1999, I lived on a tall ship. It was called the Amara Zee.

I was working aboard the Caravan Stage Barge.

Caravan - from the old Caravan Theatre Company whose theatre performances toured North American powered by horse drawn carriages.

Stage Barge - A replica of a Thames river sailing barge. 90’ long 22 in the beam. Powered by twin Perkins diesel engines. We had sails. Never used them. They were pretty though.

We were performing in towns founded on the refining of the flesh of glorious sea mammals for lamps. Lamps that likely resulted in Dickens. Which resulted in really bad AM Dram productions of A Christmas Carroll.

Given these facts that these towns were responsible for some terrifying horrors. And also, whaling? Whaling sucks.

But, people like us do things like this - we were there to poke the bear.

You see, we weren’t a charming bunch of French Canadians, all tights wearing and spinning from ropes.

We were doing a play based on “A Whale For the Killing” by Farley Mowat. This is th…