{"id":11123,"date":"2015-10-07T06:12:15","date_gmt":"2015-10-07T13:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=11123"},"modified":"2015-10-05T14:15:01","modified_gmt":"2015-10-05T21:15:01","slug":"if-we-were-birds-doesnt-back-down-from-tough-subject-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2015\/10\/07\/if-we-were-birds-doesnt-back-down-from-tough-subject-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"If We Were Birds<\/em> doesn\u2019t back down from tough subject matter"},"content":{"rendered":"

If We Were Birds<\/i> director Wendy Merk claims that this particular production is going to be one of the most difficult plays she\u2019s ever directed.<\/p>\n

The play has graphic sexual violence and centres around the theme of rape used as a weapon of war against women. But Merk has the skills necessary to pull it off, having experience with duties as varied as singing, acting, and directing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI studied theatre at the University of Victoria, and then I was cast in a musical for the first time,\u201d says Merk. \u201cAnd I thought, \u2018I\u2019m not a singer\u2019; apparently they thought I was. So that\u2019s what evolved and, actually, when you\u2019re an actor, it\u2019s crucial to have as many skills as you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being a female director is a challenge in itself. Facing sexism and reviews missing the key point of the director\u2019s work is something Merk deals with on almost every production she works on.<\/p>\n

\"Director<\/a>
Director Wendy Merks says If We Were Birds<\/em> is one of the most difficult plays she\u2019s ever directed (photo by Clayton Jevne).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cA lot of times what happens is that people don\u2019t remember that there\u2019s a director of the play, so they will comment on the acting, and they might comment on the set design, but someone giving a review will rarely comment on the directing,\u201d says Merk. \u201cThey don\u2019t get it; they don\u2019t realize that the person in charge of all the casting and everything is actually the director. They don\u2019t even mention it. So, actually, it\u2019s not so much that I\u2019ve been criticized as a director, but just been ignored as a director.\u201d<\/p>\n

Merk usually directs plays with old-fashioned themes or ones set in eras past. However, If We Were Birds<\/i> tackles subject matter and includes scenes that are different from what Merk usually deals with, including a rape scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a pretty new area, because most plays aren\u2019t going to be depicting stuff like that,\u201d she says, \u201cwhich is interesting because we all know that rape happens all the time. It\u2019s not just in war times; it\u2019s in everyday life. But it\u2019s something that we, of course, don\u2019t really talk about a lot; people don\u2019t want to think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Merk has also worked in Toronto and says that despite Victoria being a wonderful city, the audience is not necessarily big enough to sustain a substantial artistic theatre career here.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of artists that work here and if you think you\u2019re going to make it big here, you totally won\u2019t, because there\u2019s not enough of a base of people to buy tickets,\u201d she says. \u201cSo, probably move to a bigger place. But you have to balance quality of living with your career; you have to decide what\u2019s more important.\u201d<\/p>\n

If We Were Birds
\n<\/i>Until October 17
\n$14\/$10 for students, Theatre Inconnu, 1923 Fernwood Road
\ntheatreinconnu.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If We Were Birds director Wendy Merk claims that this particular production is going to be one of the most difficult plays she\u2019s ever directed. The play has graphic sexual violence and centres around the theme of rape used as a weapon of war against women. But Merk has the skills necessary to pull it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,152],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-october-7-2015"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11125,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11123\/revisions\/11125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}