NAC French Theatre

Readjust, rebalance, harmonize, invent

A heavy weight. A feeling of going nowhere.

The crushing weight of everything.

Everything: the traffic, the news, the wars, the price of cauliflower at the grocery store, the wait time at the ER when I bring in my 85-year-old father because he can’t find a family doctor. The interest rates, the imminent end of the world, this whole entire era… oh, did I mention the traffic?

It’s a cruel sensation because at the same time, surprisingly, my entire body wants to move, to go forward. I want this, I feel a burning desire, but it isn’t easy to do.

Dissatisfaction with my own dissatisfaction is a powerful force. It drives me terribly, wonderfully, powerfully. This want—force, even—pushes me to move, to go outside, to dream of what could be. Yet it paralyzes me.

Every so often I break through. It’s fleeting, furtive, insufficient, but I break through.

When I spend time in nature, for example, I break through. When I speak with a child (especially my own), I break through. When I help someone in need, I break through. When I love, I break through. When a poem stops time, when a colour distracts me, when a melody strikes me, when a story reaches out to me, when the mind wanders and imagination joins the heart with wild abandon. When, for just a short moment, however fleeting, furtive and insufficient, there is movement, I break through.

I cling to this because I have no other choice.

Readjust, rebalance, harmonize, invent.

Try to tear down —or at least break out of— these structures that tower over us.

Accept that these structures are invisible, elastic, porous.

Invite someone, say yes to their own invitation, and so on and so forth, an endless circle of invitations.

So, let me start, okay?

I invite you to reach out to someone else, whoever they are, to reshape these structures that restrain us. Because they can’t hold us for long, especially if we push together.

Readjust, rebalance, harmonize, invent.

To all the dreamers

On stage, everything is still. A tiny world sleeps peacefully at your feet. But open your eyes, and you’ll see hundreds of specks of dust floating in the air. The show has only just begun, and you’re already witnessing something so sublime and sudden, you’d think you were dreaming. Even in the midst of darkness, minuscule particles celebrate; they dance in the light.

The theatre remains a place that thrills, something mysterious and magical. Artists create wonders that instantly rouse the senses. The things that come into being on stage feel more real than real. The gentle whisper of a baby’s thoughts, the exhilarating breath of a street in Mozambique and, resonating all the way down to the soles of your feet, the spark of life that beats in us as it does in every iota of nature. So many wonders, with more to come this season, ready to make the air buzz with excitement.