James & Jamesy in High Tea, Sept. 24-Oct. 4 at Presentation House Theatre. Wednesday-Sunday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets: $28 (adults), $20 (Seniors), $15 (students), and opening night is half price. For more information visit phtheatre.org.
For Canadian Fringe festival darlings James & Jamesy, the theatres they perform in are as much a stage as they are a playground.
During performances, the artists are dedicated to fostering a spirit of play and endeavour to cultivate an environment where audiences members are given a variety of opportunities to join in on the fun.
"In clown training we call it the 'fantastic space,' where we are all in an experience. The clowns on stage, or us as physical theatre performers, we are facilitating that. And throughout our show we are feeding the audience invitations to participate," says Alastair Knowles, who plays one-half of the British comedy duo, Jamesy, and serves as the group's coartistic director. His onstage counterpart James is played by Aaron Malkin, fellow coartistic director. It's common for the performers to do public appearances as well as media interviews as their British characters, a means of inviting that sense of play off the stage. Supporting the performers from behind the scenes is their partner, David MacMurray Smith, who serves as James & Jamesy's director and co-creator.
"Our work has often been commended for our ability to foster an environment of child-like wonder and joy of embodying different emotions, different characters. That ranges with our audiences from single people being characters in our show, complete with costumes and character traits that they are endowed and discover, as well as the entire audience gets to play. So there really isn't a feeling of, 'Oh one person got singled out,' it's we are all celebrating that feeling together," says Knowles.
It doesn't take audience members long to realize they're in for a unique experience when attending a James & Jamesy show. For example, those attending their upcoming run of High Tea at North Vancouver's Presentation House Theatre, Sept. 24-Oct. 4, will be tipped off before even entering the theatre, served cups of tea in fine china upon arrival.
"As they come to the show, that feeling of inclusion starts right off the get-go," says Knowles.
James & Jamesy's inclusive approach has earned the company countless accolades since 2012 as they've continued to tour their three works across Canada, so far to 13 cities and an estimated 25,000 people.
"There's something about James & Jamesy and how we play where there's a feeling that anything is possible. A review in Toronto described our show as, 'An ode to the idea that anything is possible.' That sentiment I love. While our shows are scripted and structured, there's such a free-wheeling sense of imagination and permission that it embodies, which I think really carries the energy that we hope to convey," says Knowles.
James & Jamesy's upcoming run of High Tea, seeing the duo use their imagination to find innovative and comical ways to stay afloat when a catastrophic disaster floods the world in tea, at Presentation House Theatre, is kicking off the performance venue's 2015/2016 season. Additional upcoming season highlights include: I WISH... , an international collaboration exploring themes of poverty and immigration Oct. 14-25; Snapshots Oct. 28-Nov. 8; Listen to Me Nov. 12-27; and Mrs. Claus's Kitchen Dec. 1-20.
This is the first time High Tea has been performed on the North Shore. James & Jamesy previously presented their inaugural work, 2 For Tea, in March 2014 at Presentation House Theatre and were invited to mount its follow by artistic director Kim Selody, after seeing High Tea at the Vancouver Fringe Festival last year.
James & Jamesy are also the featured performers at A Night at the Museum FUNdraiser, presented by the Friends of the North Vancouver Museum & Archives Society, Wednesday, Sept. 23 at 6 p.m. at Presentation House Theatre. The evening will include a performance of High Tea along with a pre-show reception and live auction. Proceeds will support the North Vancouver Museum & Archives. Tickets are $60.
The Vancouver-based performers (Knowles grew up in Winnipeg, Man., and Malkin, Toronto, Ont.), met in 2011 through their involvement in a Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret production. After positive experiences working together, they went on to form a performance group called the Superhero Boy Band. Something else they shared was similar clown training, both having studied with the same instructor, MacMurray Smith, their third partner in James & Jamesy.
Their onstage alter egos emerged one day when Knowles and Malkin were playing around in the studio with friends, trying to come up with short sketches to one day present to an audience. British accents and tea immediately followed.
"We knew we had found something fun.
As soon as we put it on stage the relationship that these two characters have, these two friends who love each other dearly yet find misunderstandings throughout the way they
communicate and also the different ways in which they see the world, brought this really charming sentiment to the audience - both hilarious and touching," says Knowles.
The duo was further encouraged by MacMurray Smith who said, "'You struck gold. You can run with this if you want to,'" recalls Knowles.
They heeded his advice and started putting together a full-scale show, 2 For Tea.
"At the beginning it was very exciting to have characters and a skit that resonated so much with an audience. It was new for both of us and very exciting and so with that enthusiasm we looked for more opportunities to do more of that. We basically, one step at a time, turned an eight-minute skit into a 60-minute show and organized a cross-Canada tour with it," says Malkin.
The performers' unique backgrounds have been critical to the group's success. "Our skill sets off the stage have formed a really wonderful package for small-scale independent theatre," says Knowles. He has a business degree as well as a visual arts background to draw upon, and Malkin initially worked in visual effects for film, and is experienced in web design, and is good technically with sound design and lighting.
"I'm hitting the, 'OK, what direction do we want to take our work and what is the aesthetic that we create it in,' and Aaron is, 'How do we make the technical elements of our show really rich and vibrant,'" says Knowles.
"Something that I love about performing with Aaron is his stability on stage. It's so reassuring to have someone whose presence I can count on and is so in touch with the audience. His stature also gives me a lot to lean on - very literally in some cases," he jokes, explaining their differences in stature afford many opportunities for physical comedy.
The success of 2 For Tea led to second show High Tea and now a third, In the Dark, which the 13-time "bestof-fest" Canadian Fringe festival award winners are currently performing at the Vancouver Fringe Festival, on now through Sept. 20 at the Firehall Arts Centre (vancouverfringe.com).
So far, they've performed In the Dark in London, Ont., Montreal, Que., and Winnipeg, though they've spent the last two weeks reworking the piece with their director.
"We toured a first version of the show and now it's developed so we're really excited to put it back on stage and continue its development. It's a new direction for James & Jamesy somewhat in that it's not the same two characters that everyone knows. It's James & Jamesy before they're human," says Malkin.
The show, as suggested by the title, takes place in the dark. "We have large spotlights affixed to our heads with which we light the show. So we are the lighting designers and the performers constantly, which has been a very fun road of discovery," he says.
In addition to maintaining a busy performance schedule (James & Jamesy currently do approximately 120 shows a year), they offer workshops for children and adults alike. Through physical theatre, clown and improv methods they work to help their charges overcome obstacles to self-expression.
"We love sharing the work that we have studied and that we do on stage. It's particularly exciting when we get to share the work with students and then have them see our show so they can see the correlation," says Malkin.
"The James & Jamesy shows give audiences the opportunity to step into new versions of themselves.. .. One thing that really sticks with me is when audience members tell us how they've been inspired and that they've found new openings in their own lives for themselves. That's really inspiring feedback and it connects me with why I originally went into theatre and so now it's a really satisfying way that I spend my time. I was reluctant to call it a job because I never thought I'd have a job that I loved so much," he adds.
