Kayak written by Jordan Hall at the rEvolver Festival. Remaining dates May 18, 19, 22, 24, 26. For more information visit upintheairtheatre.com/kayak-vancouver.
AS darkness fades the early morning light reveals Annie Iversen, alone, in a kayak, surrounded by a vast stretch of water.
"I don't like kayaks," she starts. "They're unstable. One second you're sitting there, the next you're upside down and underwater."
So begins Kayak, the latest production by Vancouver-based Alley Theatre, starring Bowen Island resident Susan Hogan as Annie, a peroxide blonde, SUV-driving, middle-class, suburban mother. When her college-aged son Peter (played by Sebastian Kroon) falls in love with environmental activist Julie (Marisa Smith), Annie sets out to save him from his girlfriend's radical influence.
Through conjured-up memories, Annie recounts the chain of events that led her to run adrift in a fibreglass vessel.
"I have the ability to flash back into these scenes earlier in my life with my son and with my son's girlfriend to try and figure out how I got here and where I went wrong and what choices I made that could have been better," Hogan explains.
Written by Jordan Hall, Kayak tackles global environmental issues and contrasts two characters with very different worldviews.
"Annie has a comfortable lifestyle, and she kind of pays lip service. She understands what's going on but because it's not in her own backyard she doesn't really feel the need to change things that would affect her comfortable life," Hogan says.
At the other end of the spectrum is Julie, who travels the world championing various environmental causes.
"It just ignites such a flame in both of them," Hogan says. "The fire is never out, even though we're in a body of water."
Winner of the 2010 Samuel French Canadian Playwrights Award, Kayak makes its B.C. debut at The Cultch May 14-26 as part of the first annual rEvolver Theatre Festival.
Organized by Upintheair Theatre, which previously produced the Walking Fish Festival and Neanderthal Arts Festival, rEvolver features new work by up-and-coming artists.
"What we're looking at is companies that are sort of on the verge of breaking into the public consciousness," says Daniel Martin, managing artistic producer of Upintheair Theatre. "They have a history of production, they've got some sort of level of professional infrastructure and practice, but they're still emerging companies."
With mainstage shows, staged readings, and a series of talk-show style talkbacks, rEvolver gives audiences a chance to see "high-quality art at an extremely low price point," Martin says.
"It also gives them the chance to see the next big thing, to get exposure to who the artists are that hopefully we're going to be watching for the next 10, 15 years."
Kayak is one of seven mainstage productions at the festival.
"It's just a fantastic script," Martin says. "It has won recognition at the national level and never been produced in B.C., even though it's from a B.C. playwright."
A 25-year stage and screen acting veteran, whose credits include Heartland and Battlestar Galactica, Hogan is more experienced than most of the participating rEvolver artists. But she was so impressed after reading the script for Kayak, she knew she had to be part of the production.
"You do things that you love and then you do things for money," she says. "This is for love."
Hogan spends the entire one-act play seated inside a platform-raised kayak with her legs outstretched. During rehearsals, she would remain in this position for several hours at a time. Co-star Sebastian Kroon had to lift her in and out of the boat every time she needed to take a break, use the washroom or answer her phone.
"If everybody left the room, I'd still be sitting there when they all came back," she says.
Fortunately, Hogan is used to boats. She has lived on Bowen Island for 12 years and rides the ferry to the mainland almost daily. She and her husband, actor Michael Hogan, whom she met at the National Theatre School, own five kayaks and, unlike Annie, they are both seasoned paddlers.
"One of the hard things about this rehearsal was that I had to pretend to know nothing about kayaking and what it feels like to be in a boat," Hogan says.
Though Kayak was written three years ago, the themes of environmental crisis, personal responsibility and the cost of doing nothing are almost more relevant today than they were then, Hogan says.
"This situation, unfortunately, hasn't gone away. We're even in more dire straits than we were when (Jordan Hall) wrote this in 2010, and I think that really hits home."
Without revealing any spoilers, Hogan says that Annie, over the course of the play, comes to better understand the far-reaching impact of her actions.
"It's really about her coming to terms with the truth, with her truth, and I think by the end of the show she realizes what her part was in this crisis that she's found herself in."
