{"id":17199,"date":"2019-02-20T09:00:19","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T17:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=17199"},"modified":"2019-02-18T12:28:33","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T20:28:33","slug":"the-giver-gives-more-than-just-a-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2019\/02\/20\/the-giver-gives-more-than-just-a-show\/","title":{"rendered":"The Giver<\/em> gives more than just a show"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kaleidoscope Theatre is gearing up to mount the Canadian stage premiere of The Giver<\/em>. Based on the dystopian novel of the same name by Lois Lowry, it centres around Jonas, a young boy assigned with holding the memories and secrets of his community. The book is incredibly dark and disturbing; however, that\u2019s part of what makes it so exciting and relevant to mount, according to director Roderick Glanville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor me, the story is so compelling, it\u2019s compassionate, it\u2019s hard-hitting, and it says a lot about the world and where we\u2019re going,\u201d says Glanville. \u201cI think this is the kind of messaging we need to send to our youth to encourage dialogue as to what\u2019s happening in this world, which, as we know, is pretty darn chaotic right now; it\u2019s getting out of anything that\u2019s totally understandable. But I think that The Giver<\/em> gives us a different insight into the world that we\u2019re potentially facing and the results of our acquiescence\u2014or our lack of involvement or change of that, or even discussing it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That being said, Glanville acknowledges there is risk involved in taking the graphic imagery and shock value of the book and putting it on stage for children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy job as the artistic director for a theatre-for-young-audiences company is to not back off on the truth of those [elements], but it\u2019s not to push the shock value of those,\u201d says Glanville. \u201cSo, since it\u2019s set in future society, when it comes to, for example, when the memories of war are given to Jonas, we don\u2019t have to be so literal with the sound of that. You can stylize the sound of war [so] that the adults will understand what it\u2019s saying. The kids will go, \u2018Something\u2019s odd there,\u2019 but we don\u2019t need to give them literal machine gun fires and exploding bombs. We can create a slightly softer sound design so we don\u2019t terrify the children. Kids these days, they\u2019re smart, but they\u2019re also sensitive, so I need to make sure I don\u2019t shock them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Giver director Roderick Glanville says he\u2019s \u201cthat kid\u201d in the audience (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

With the mounting of this production come waves of nostalgia for Glanville, reminding him why he got involved with theatre for young people in the first place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have to turn back the hands of time here to a young 14-year-old in high school in Burlington, Ontario,\u201d says Glanville. \u201cI had already, by the time I was in Grade 3, hooked on performance, because it was a place where I felt I was in community, and where I was with likeminded people. And there was no competition; they were just complementing each other. I was the tiniest guy in high school, the tiniest guy everywhere, and so it was hard for me to find a place to fit in. Theatre is where that happened for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glanville says his world was transformed by a school touring organization who performed The Exception and the Rule <\/em>by Bertolt Brecht.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just felt this is exactly what I want to do with my life,\u201d says Glanville. \u201cAnd I saw these people actually making it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This transformation is part of why Glanville decided to mount this particular production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere is a play that is dealing with community, but it\u2019s a muted community,\u201d says Glanville. \u201cBut, where we have choice\u2014in this story, of course, they don\u2019t have choice. And so, as a young person in this world, I think it\u2019s important that we take a look at the questions that are pressing in our communities now. I care about kids because I\u2019m \u2018that kid.\u2019 I am the kid in the audience. Every single show I direct or create, I am its audience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Giver<\/em>
2 pm Saturday, February 23 and 2 pm Sunday, February 24
$12 to $22, McPherson Playhouse
kaleidoscope.bc.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kaleidoscope Theatre is gearing up to mount the Canadian stage premiere of The Giver. Based on the dystopian novel of the same name by Lois Lowry, it centres around Jonas, a young boy assigned with holding the memories and secrets of his community. The book is incredibly dark and disturbing; however, that\u2019s part of what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17200,"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":[4,227],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-february-20-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17199","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=17199"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17249,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17199\/revisions\/17249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}