James Strecker Reviews the Arts

JAMES STRECKER: If you were asked for 50 words for an encyclopedia to summarize what you do, or have done, in the arts, what would you say?

MOYA O’CONNEL: Canadian theatre actress. Anglo-Irish heritage. Spent 6 seasons at Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival playing all manner of ingénues and heroines, then leapt across the country where she has spent another 9 seasons at The Shaw Festival playing all manners of heroines and Harridans. Currently working on a new creation called The Wedding Party at Crows Theatre in Toronto. She also works in film and TV.

JS: What important beliefs do you express in your work?

MOC: I believe that beauty changes things. I believe in the power of Art. Art as a weapon, Art as a salve, Art as a political act, Art as spiritual communion. I believe in following the play and not inserting your own lousy puny ego into your performance. I believe it’s important not to be afraid to be ugly up there. Ugly of soul, I mean. So many great works of art have rotting or tormented souls in struggle at their centre. I try to be brave about that. These are some of my beliefs. I have no idea if I ever achieve in communicating them. I keep in pursuit.

JS: Name two people, living or dead, whom you admire a great deal and tell us why for each one.

MOC: I admire above all my mother and father. They live almost entirely self-sufficiently on a small croft on Vancouver Island. They are immigrants, tireless workers, social justice and poverty advocates, who also happen to be peaceful, kind, funny, political, and deeply interested in other people. They have always lived outside society’s mainstream expectations of them. They are true blue originals and best of all they still love to dance with each other.

JS: How have you changed since you began to do creative work?

MOC: How have I changed? Have I? I don’t know that things have fundamentally shifted inside of me since beginning creative work. I definitely live outside of the structure, safety and confines of a ‘regular’ life, but I never wanted a ‘regular’ life anyway. I tried it once and ran away from it about as quickly as it is humanly possible. If anything fundamental has shifted because of art, I would say it is that I have gained a deep love for the soiled human soul and have learned to accept and even enjoy failure and weakness in myself and others. Failure is an essential part of creativity. It’s the cracks that let the light in.

JS: What are your biggest challenges as a creative person?

MOC: My friend has a framed picture in her house which reads “easy now”. I don’t think I am able to articulate why these two words sitting side by side seem to define my challenges as an artistic person. They just do. Take from it what you will.

JS: Please describe at least one major turning point in your life.

MOC: Artistically, there have been two major turning points in my life. The first was when I met my now husband Torquil Campbell and his family. His mother Moira Wylie and father Douglas Campbell hired me for a season of Shakespeare in a repertory company. I fell in love with the entire family. Here was a group of people for whom Art paid for the bread on their table, their electricity bill and their house. Art was discussed, well not discussed, obsessed over, shouted about, and dreamt up over the dinner table, breakfast table and bathtub. They were not afraid to have a strong opinion about it, and they felt that they had a right and even a social obligation to be artists. There were always young destitute, impassioned artists living in their basement. Their house was a place where ideas and wine flew about in equal measure. They gave me the courage to be an artist.

The other major artistic turning point for me was when my daughter was born. I had already been at the Shaw Festival for 2 successful seasons when I gave birth to Ellington. She had some health problems and at 9 months of age she had to undergo major reconstructive head surgery at Toronto Sick Kids hospital. Let’s just say it was a difficult time. I was supposed to go back to Shaw that season to star in An Ideal Husband and The Women. I knew that if ANYTHING went askew during this surgery I would drop the contract, leaving former Artistic Director Jackie Maxwell with days to find a replacement. I explained this to Jackie and said I felt it only fair to take myself out of the season. She wrote back to me saying that WE were going to proceed with “aggressive optimism” and she wouldn’t let me back out because she believed everything would be ok. It was at that moment I dedicated my loyalty to her and realized how important loyalty is in this collaborative Art form. The idea of climbing any kind of artistic ladder disappeared for me. I realized it is a complete illusion anyway. Loyalty and trust in an artistic union are what I am interested in cultivating.

JS: What are the hardest things for an outsider to understand about what you do?

MOC: I think it’s hard for someone who is not an artist to understand why one would sacrifice wealth and security and a “normal life” for one bent on unpredictability and poverty. And indeed, it’s difficult to explain to them that the reasons have nothing to do with fame or notoriety, but something closer to a sense of freedom and a stirring in the soul that will not be ignored.

JS: How and why did you begin to do creative work in the first place?

MOC: I don’t have an answer for why I decided to get into creative work. It may have something to do with how I was brought up. On a self-sufficient farm on the side of a mountain, in the middle of a beautiful nowhere with a pack of brothers and sisters and immigrant parents with poetry in their souls. We always felt very different from other people and made a virtue of it. Certainly being the fifth of six children set me up for the collective, collaborative nature of the theatre.

JS: What haven’t you attempted as yet that you would like to do and please tell us why?

MOC: I would love to direct. I would love to build my own house. I would love to learn how to bake a perfect loaf of bread. I would love to learn about trees and I would love to write something of deep beauty.

JS: What are your most meaningful achievements?

MOC: My greatest achievement as a human thus far is being a good mum. It is what gives me the most pleasure and satisfaction. Balancing that with being an artist, a wife, a good friend and daughter while staying sane is not exactly revolutionary, I know, but it’s enough for me.

JS: What advice would you give a young person who would like to do what you do?

MOC: Create your own work! It is wonderful to be an interpreter, but there is a ceiling for creative outlet as an interpreter. It is always someone else’s words, and vision. Make your own work. It gives you agency, it gives you options, it gives you a voice.

JS: Of what value are critics?

MOC: Theatre critics are valuable. They are much reviled and obsessed over by artists, but the best ones can really help an artistic community become strong and feel empowered. The worst ones do the opposite. They are the connective tissue between the art and the audience. Of course, things are really changing in our modern landscape with social media and the continuing demise of newspapers. They seem to be gasping for breath and relevancy as sites like trip advisor and twitter democratize the audience experience. A friend and former music critic recently told me that the average time a reader spends looking at a review (this was in the popular online music magazine he worked for) was 1.5 seconds. I blame that on the scoring and point system. It’s anathema to art and art criticism and needs to be done away with.

JS: What do you ask of your audience?

MOC: I only ask that the audience allow themselves to be open. I want them. I want them to give themselves to me. I want them to be my partner in adventure. I love the moment I meet them. If I fuck it up (which I often do) then I allow and accept their judgment and scrutiny…..but those first moments together are always so exciting.

JS: What specifically would you change about what goes on in the world?

MOC: I am writing the answers to this interview a few days before the U.S. Election. I feel like there is a virus sweeping across the world. A virus of fear which is showing its symptoms as right wing extremism and xenophobia. There is a line in Shakespeare’s King John “And as I travelled hither through the land, I find the people strangely fantasied, possessed of rumours, full of idle dreams. Not knowing what they fear but full of fear.” That seems a pretty apt summation of today’s climate. I don’t know how to change it except to live according to the values and creeds I believe in…..that tolerance and love and beauty change things. As does truth to power. I sure hope when I read this interview things will have shifted for the better.

JS: If you could relive one experience from your creative life, what would it be and why would you do so?

MOC: I don’t think I would relive any artistic experience. What makes it so beautiful is its ephemeral quality. Of course, I am aware of having been terribly mediocre many times, but I don’t think I would change it. Acknowledging my mediocrity is an important part of getting better

JS: Tell us what it feels like to be a figure in the media. What effect does this presence have on you?

MOC: I am not really aware of being a figure in the media. Am I a figure in the media? I live in Niagara on the Lake which is one street and everyone knows absolutely everyone else. I think my 7 year old daughter is more famous in NOTL than I am. And in the winters I live in Vancouver where no one knows me. I think being a Canadian theatre actress pretty much guarantees you complete anonymity, truth be told. Which should fine by me. If people do recognize me from the theatre, I am always a bit shy because I have tended to play such tormented heroines and I often think they may carry a bit of those performances with them in their perception of me.

JS: Name two places you would like to visit, one you haven’t been to and one to experience again and briefly tell us why

MOC: I dream about travel hmmmm….I would say at least a couple hours a day. There are so many places I hope to visit. Probably not healthy but definitely an obsession. Today? If pressed I would say Greece. A sailing trip. And then spending time on a few of the smaller less known islands like Hydra and Sifnos. A villa on a cliff. A donkey. Some great people to share it with. As for a place I would revisit? I would head back to the North Coast (Haena) of Kauai any time. I have been there twice and I dream of it regularly. The hiking and kayaking and surfing are not to be believed. Its paradise.

JS: Please tell us about one or more projects that you have been working on, are preparing, or have recently completed. Why do they matter to you and why should they matter to us.

MOC: I have recently begun working on an audio documentary on acting George Bernard Shaw. The idea was born when I was looking for source material on how to approach his plays from an actor’s perspective and could find almost nothing. I realized that many of the actors at the Shaw Festival have acted in more Shaw plays than anyone on this planet and there is no record of their experiences save individual interviews. So…I have begun a massive project of interviewing as many skilled Shavian actors as I can get my hands on. The list is long (the Shaw celebrated its 55th season this year) and the interviews are completely revelatory. I am terribly excited about the possibilities. I have also been working on adapting a few stories by Edwardian satirist ‘Saki’ (aka H.H. Munro) into a theatrical piece. His work is brilliantly macabre. Stay tuned….

JS: Let’s talk about the state of the arts in today’s society, including the forms in which you work. What specifically gives you hope and what specifically do you find depressing?

MOC: I find the word “consumer” in reference to an audience member to be incredibly depressing. It’s used all the time. Not just in art but in society. I/we/they are not “consumers”, we are citizens, members of an audience, people. I reject that word completely. The theatre is in a tricky place but, you know, it has been for a very, very long time. In a strange way what gives me hope is the theatre’s old fashioned “outdated-ness”. At this point in history we are asking a group of people to put away their smart phones, their food, their booze and sit in a room and watch a story in the dark together. It’s positively fetishistic! In an artistic culture which has become a slave to the audience becoming the centre of the piece. “Look at you! You are the star! It’s your show…the audience is the show! Create your own mythology by using us, the artists, as your landscape”. The theatre still demands the audience abandons ego and give themselves to IT. It’s a powerful place to be and there are tremendous opportunities in it. We are so far behind we may just be ahead.

JS: Finally, what do you yourself find to be the most intriguing and/or surprising thing about you?

MOC: Many people think I am a wolf. I am actually a golden retriever.