Seeds, a documentary theatre style reenactment of a famous Canadian farming legal battle involving GMOs, runs Jan. 19 – 21 at the Kay Meek Centre, 1700 Mathers Ave., West Vancouver. Tickets: 604-981-6335, kaymeekcentre.com.
Saskatchewan's beloved son, acclaimed actor Eric Peterson, stars in a theatrical reenactment of the famous faceoff between a small-town Prairie farmer and agricultural biotech giant Monsanto - in a role that hits close to home for the thespian.
Peterson, of TV's Corner Gas fame, plays Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser in Seeds, the dramatic retelling of the legal battle between Schmeiser and Monsanto Canada, which accused the small-town farmer of patent infringement for planting their genetically modified canola seed without a licence.
"I was fascinated by this story, and I always say that any kind of theatre part or film part or television part that's got somebody my age from Saskatchewan, I should get first dibs on it," says Peterson with a hearty chuckle, when reached Tuesday in Montreal, where he's in final rehearsals for Seeds, produced by theatre company Porte Parole that's based in the Quebec city.
The travelling production will make its way to West Vancouver's Kay Meek Centre where Seeds will open on Tuesday.
Being from small-town Saskatchewan himself, specifically Indian Head, in the southeast corner, Peterson was well acquainted with the Schmeiser case. In fact, when Peterson returned to the heartland, most notably to film Corner Gas in the mid 2000s, he said he was amazed by the apparent shift in farming practices that had changed from when he grew up in the Prairies in the 1950s.
Genetically modified organism wasn't part of the agricultural vernacular until the '80s, when Monsanto scientists were among the first to genetically modify a plant cell, and later a herbicideresistant gene for the canola plant, called Roundup which the company patented.
After Roundup-resistant canola inexplicably cropped up on Schmeiser's farm in 1997 - he claims it was by accident - Monsanto sued the grower for patent infringement, because Schmeiser refused to pay them a licence fee, saying he owned the seeds harvested on his property.
Schmeiser, a soft-spoken senior, successfully countersued the international biotech giant all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, in what became a bona fide David versus Goliath tale and fodder for the Seeds documentary theatre show.
As far as being a farmer and having a right to use your own seeds, this is a "pretty revolutionary situation," describes Peterson.
He promises the complexities of the case - the legal, science, genetics and agricultural jargon - are executed in an entertaining fashion with a lot of multimedia elements and sounds effects. Audiences are pulled into the story, explains Peterson, because it's one that concerns the ordinary Canadian citizen. Seeds asks the question, "Who Owns Life?" "I'd have to say in many cases audiences come with a pretty biased opinion against Monsanto and multinationals," says Peterson.
The play is not a polemic, however, but rather attempts to give as much information on both sides of the debate and uncovers both Schmeiser's and Monsanto's "deep philosophical differences," adds Peterson.
Seeds has been performed across the country for three years now, and not surprisingly the subject matter touched a nerve in the Prairie provinces.
"It was very interesting to play it in Calgary ... because of the connection to that locality and to the big farming as part of the economies of those places," says Peterson. Weighing in on the GMO debate, Peterson says: "You can't but help but see this play and become super aware of what we are eating and where it comes from and how it's made."
As for using art as a vehicle for social commentary, Peterson figures it's an excellent way to open up the dialogue.
"I think that theatre requires the audience to participate in an imaginative way. That is, they have to suspend their own disbelief," he says, adding there is a connection between the audience and actors that enhances what you are hearing when you watch a live show.
Peterson also credits his Seeds co-stars, who play multiple characters, for keeping audiences engaged with their acting ability.
"So, it's great fun to watch them change characters. Women are playing men, men are playing woman, et cetera, et cetera, at some point in the storytelling of this play," explains Peterson.
The veteran actor and Canadian icon is no stranger to Vancouver - it's where Peterson launched his career.
"I got my start out there, yeah," he says with an excited tinge of reminiscence to his voice.
In the early 1970s, Peterson helped found an experimental theatre collective in Vancouver, called the Tamahnous Theatre. He later co-created and starred in Billy Bishop Goes to War, which premiered at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre in 1978 and went on to tour internationally, earning Peterson accolades on Broadway and in London.
Peterson's theatre career spans more than 40 years, with hundreds of plays under his belt. Canadian audiences also got to know Peterson as the curmudgeon patriarch Oscar Leroy on the award-winning Corner Gas, which depicts small-town life in Saskatchewan. The series ran from 2004 to 2009.
"I think first and foremost it was damn funny," says Peterson of the show's success. "I think that it was very well written. I totally tip my hat off to Brent Butt and all the writers on that show."
For Peterson it was a homecoming of sorts filming Corner Gas in Regina. He had left Saskatchewan because "nobody had been an actor from there and there was no acting going on."
"So, it was very thrilling for me to come full circle back and do something in that province which was my home, that I was so proud of being part of too and gave people so much pleasure," says Peterson.
To this day people stop him in public to talk about the 'Dog River' days and his oftused insult on the show.
"I can be walking down the street and people will go, 'Call me a jackass, OK,'" says Peterson, laughing. "And I'm happy to call them a jackass. It's just satisfaction for me that people liked the show."
While Peterson has other TV show roles in the pipeline, it seems the stage will always be his first love and where he plans to spend most of his time.
"You know, film and television is fun, but there's something very special (about theatre), says Peterson. "In such a virtual world we now live in, encounters with people watching live events - I've kind of rediscovered a whole new excitement about it."
