Hope Springs & Swords Swing at Centaur Theatre with Thy Woman’s Weeds: in conversation with Amanda Kellock & Eda Holmes
By Darragh Kilkenny-Mondoux
In Thy Woman’s Weeds, we are promised showmanship in its most show womanly capacity, and theatricality for the theatre’s sake. Opening on April 23rd and closing May 12th, a luminous line up of seven of Montreal’s finest actresses will be leaving it all on the boards at the Centaur Theatre. A co-production between indie theatre juggernaut Tableau d'Hôte Theatre, local Shakespeare-in-the-Park company Repercussion Theatre, and the Centaur itself, Montreal's finest are behind the scenes as well.
Amanda Kellock, director of Thy Woman’s Weeds and Artistic Director of Repercussion Theatre.
Eda Holmes. Artistic Director of Centaur Theatre.
Speaking with director Amanda Kellock, and Eda Holmes, Artistic Director of Centaur Theatre, our conversation bubbled with the hope and excitement that come naturally to artists embarking on long-awaited projects at the outset of Spring in Montreal.
“I want people to come and get ready for a tsunami of thoughts and ideas that are new, and be overwhelmed with feelings and delight.” - Thy Woman’s Weeds director Amanda Kellock.
“It’s gutsy, it’s feisty!” chimes Holmes, “You’re embracing the theatricality of theatre itself - this is really theatre at its beautiful best. I think that’s what people are looking for in theatre, I think they’re craving that feeling of all coming into a room together and they can gasp!”
Playwright Erin Shields has a playfully revisionist body of work, approaching titans of English language texts, and breathing new life into them, and Canadian theatre benefits greatly from this. Thy Woman’s Weeds, in fact, has its roots in Montreal;
“What's particular about this show is that it started with conversations. It started at Playwrights Workshop, where Erin was in conversation with women and what their frustrations [...] could be. There are women who’ve been part of the process before whose essences are in the play, though not their bodies,” Kellock explains.
“I want people to come and get ready for a tsunami of thoughts and ideas that are new, and be overwhelmed with feelings and delight.”
As Artistic Director of Repercussion Theatre, Kellock’s vast experience and expertise in Shakespeare will surely enrich every detail of comedy, and every flourish of feminism in this play. Thy Woman’s Weeds was workshopped with Repercussion Theatre in 2018, with many of the same performers currently in Kellock’s rehearsal room. Bringing sonnets and history lessons to Quebec parks in the years following lockdown, the adaptability of the Shakespeare in the Park productions demonstrate this company’s fierce devotion to its mission statement. Its leaders have a keen sense of the successes that have shore up Shakespeare through Quebec’s narrowing capacity for its appreciation. Come plague, provincial pivoting, or political upheaval, Repercussion Theatre will have something to reveal in response.
For her part, Holmes brings Thy Woman’s Weeds to what she hopes will continue to be “a theatre for everyone in Montreal.”
Photo of Centaur Theatre.
“I was really looking to celebrate the remarkable work that happened during the pandemic.[...] It’s all dedicated to the people in Montreal who kept the faith and didn’t give up. A work like this, that’s what Centaur is for, to celebrate and elevate the artists of Montreal.”
- Eda Holmes, AD of co-producing company Centaur Theatre.
“The nice thing is that six years on, I know all these plays much better. I remember we were doing Much Ado when Erin sent me the script [of Thy Woman’s Weeds],” recalls Kellock. “Tackling the canon and writing this play, her impulse was always looking at all the things the guys get to do that the women don’t get to do – there’s something so fun about fighting with swords and using your body in that way.”
The title comes from the final scene of Twelfth Night, which Repercussion toured under Kellock’s direction in 2015, specifically the Duke Orsino’s line to the lately revealed Viola;
“Orsino and Viola have had this beautiful love affair growing, and then he says ‘Let me see thee in thy woman’s weeds.’ It just hit me as such a beautiful, sad moment,” explains Kellock, “It just had me ready to weep. It reads like ‘Okay… but let me see if you’re still beautiful as a girl.’ She’s had all this freedom, but now it’s ‘let’s put you in a dress and get married,’ I thought I had broken out of the Barbie box, but the world finds it better when we go back in the box at the end of the day.”
Holmes adds “It’s so hard to detach our value as women, and how impacted it is by standards of beauty,”
Kellock rejoins, “It’s so easy to underestimate how misogynistic our entire world really is.”
And yet, True hope is swift and flies with swallow's wings. ‘Richard III’ ACt V, sc. ii
A watercolour image of Centaur Theatre by painter Marc Taro Holmes, also at @m.holmes.art on Instagram.
Shield’s script under Kellock’s direction is at home at the Centaur Theatre. Beyond showcasing the work that persisted through the height of the pandemic, it is clear that the leadership of this theatre sees their obligation to Montreal as an opportunity to concretize unique works, to be a foundation for the return to form of audiences and artists alike. This is critical in a time when Montreal is enduring a venue crisis facing all sectors of the performing arts.
“[...] because we have the resources we have to make that available to the theatre companies of Montreal.” says Holmes.
“I was really looking to celebrate the remarkable work that happened during the pandemic.[...] It’s all dedicated to the people in Montreal who kept the faith and didn’t give up. A work like this, that’s what Centaur is for, to celebrate and elevate the artists of Montreal.”
For Repercussion Theatre, habitually unbound to the constraints of venues, bringing a show of the scale of Thy Woman’s Weeds to the Centaur Theatre is hardly a matter of scaling down to an interior.
“I want people to remember that we really need theatre. And if we’re not careful we’re going to lose theatre,” Kellock warns.
This union of Repercussion’s values of Shakespeare for everyone with Centaur’s vision of a theatre for Montreal in all its facets promises a punchy, stylish, and wildly entertaining production. Our conversation with the women at the helm of these long-standing institutions swell with their visions for its never-promised but always promising future. Kellock summarizes one of her main artistic values as an embracing of “productions that invite you in rather than holding the audience at arms length, and give the audience permission and an invitation to really get into it, and go ‘Oh yeah, I want to be part of this!”
“Montreal is not like any other place in the country, and it’s so important to celebrate that.” Holmes says. “Now that we’re four years out from the end of everything, this really feels like Spring.”