≈ 90 minutes · Sans entracte
Dernière mise à jour: 31 octobre 2019
Ce programme est seulement disponible en anglais ›
Artistic Director’s Notes
Like the National Arts Centre, the National Theatre School of Canada (NTS) is a unique multi-pronged endeavour. Its mission gathers the best and brightest from across the country through a highly competitive audition process and selects a very small cohort each year to study playwriting, acting, direction, design or production in either English or French. The student to teacher ratio is small, and direct access to current practitioners is one of the biggest assets of the school. Jeff Ho is a graduate of that program, and he worked on the development of trace at NTS with Yael Farber, a titan of a theatre creator who is known around the world for her incredible insight and mastery.
The solo theatre project at NTS asks students to write what they know. Mani Soleymanlou’s international smash Un came out of a similar initiative on the French side of NTS, and Ted Dykstra made an early iteration while there of what became Two Pianos Four Hands before creating the famous version with Richard Greenblatt. Many Ottawa theatregoers will remember the powerful Brotherhood by Sebastian Heins that played at Undercurrents, or Anita Majumdar’s Fish Eyes that played at GCTC, two further examples of far-reaching projects borne of this same educational self-exploratory initiative. In trace, Jeff also writes what he knows. This story, told through the windows of Jeff’s female lineage (and assigning all the roles of adult men to the piano), offers us a unique way to connect with this artist.
When he started the solo show project in his second year at NTS, Yael asked him, “What do your ancestors demand you speak?” Lucky for us, Jeff took this question as a provocation and put words into the mouths of his ancestors directly, reinterpreting their hopes and intentions in each brutal, life‑altering decision they enacted to make his own life better.
Thank you for taking this opportunity to spend a few hours with the women in Jeff’s family, and for welcoming this truthful, beautiful work into your world.
Playwright’s Notes
trace is a composition of love – a tapestry of memories and myths. Particularly, it is a celebration of the women in my family, the core pillars that have persisted and survived against all odds.
My Great Grandma is this legendary figure in our family – a single mother who fled from China to Hong Kong during the Japanese Invasion of WWII. Without her iron will to survive, our entire bloodline would not be here today.
In stories recounted by Ma, my Aunts and Uncles, Great Grandma stands as this lioness, ferocious when the family was threatened, yet equally tender and caring. She also held a deep secret, only known to us through whispers, one that drove my initial impulse to write this piece.
Similarly, my Ma too is a lioness. She was a single mother who brought my brother and me from Hong Kong to Canada, single-handedly transplanting our familial roots in the pursuit of “the better life.” A trace of my Great Grandma is evidently found in my Ma.
With everything they’ve passed on to me, with every capacity for expression I was raised with, I trace their parallels, their battles, their dreams, their nightmares and their sacrifices, through this play.
Thank you for joining us, and I encourage you to reflect on the traces of your own ancestral past, with me, here.
A Factory Theatre (Toronto, ON) production
trace was first produced by Factory Theatre in association with b current performing arts in Toronto, Canada, November 2017.
trace is presented by arrangement with Ian Arnold, Catalyst TCM Inc.
Artistes
Jeff Ho est un artiste de théâtre, originaire de Hong Kong. Comme acteur, il a joué le rôle d’Ophélie en tournée au Canada et aux États-Unis pendant cinq ans, dans la pièce Prince Hamlet du Why Not Theatre. Il a également joué dans les pièces suivantes : I Forgive You (Artistic Fraud), Orestes (Tarragon Theatre), trace (Remount – CNA/Factory Theatre), Box 4901 (Buddies in Bad Times), camera obscura (hungry ghosts) (the frank theatre/QAF – Prix Jessie Richardson pour la meilleure production – Small Theatre), Hana’s Suitcase (Young People’s Theatre en tournée à Toronto, Montréal et Seattle), Kim’s Convenience (CBC), The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu) et Orphan Black (BBC America).
Comme dramaturge, il a notamment écrit Cockroach (Tarragon Theatre), Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land) (Theatre Passe Muraille/Saga Collectif/Architect Theatre), Antigone : 方 (Young People’s Theatre), et trace (CNA/Factory Theatre/b current). Ses pièces sont publiées chez Playwrights Canada Press.
Jeff est lauréat du Toronto Theatre Critics Award for Best New Canadian Play (Iphigenia), du Jon Kaplan Legacy Fund Award for a Young Canadian Playwright et du Bulmash Siegel Playwriting Award. En plus d’avoir été cité pour quatre prix Dora, il a été finaliste du prix Drama de la Playwright’s Guild of Canada (Cockroach) et du Prix littéraire du Gouverneur général (Iphigenia Antigone). Il est diplômé de l’École nationale de théâtre et est actuellement candidat à la maîtrise en beaux-arts à l’Université York.
Nina Lee Aquino est une metteuse en scène, conseillère dramaturgique, directrice artistique, pédagogue et mentore d’origine philippino-canadienne. Directrice artistique du Cahoots Theatre de 2009 à 2012 et du Factory Theatre de 2012 à 2022, elle occupe actuellement le poste de directrice artistique du Théâtre anglais du Centre national des Arts. Elle a dirigé la publication des deux tomes de la toute première anthologie de pièces canado-asiatiques et a codirigé celle d’un premier ouvrage primé sur le théâtre canado-asiatique. Elle occupe également un poste de professeure associée au Département de théâtre de l’Université York et siège au conseil d’administration de l’Association professionnelle des théâtres canadiens. Parmi les nombreuses récompenses qui lui ont été décernées, mentionnons le prix John-Hirsch de mise en scène du Conseil des arts du Canada, un Toronto Theatre Critics Award pour la meilleure mise en scène, le prix de leadership culturel Margo Binhardt et Rita Davies de la Toronto Arts Foundation ainsi que trois prix Dora Mavor Moore pour la meilleure mise en scène.
Michelle Ramsay est une conceptrice d’éclairages primée qui œuvre dans les domaines de la danse, du théâtre et de l’opéra. Parmi les productions auxquelles elle a pris part, mentionnons Come Home: The Legend of Daddy Hall (Tarragon Theatre), Women of the Fur Trade (Festival de Stratford), Bed and Breakfast (Capitol Theatre), Prison Dancer (Citadel Theatre/Centre national des Arts), Beautiful (Arts Club), Redbone Coonhound (Tarragon Theatre/Imago Theatre), Martyr (ARC), The First Stone (New Harlem), The Doctors Dilemma (Festival Shaw) et The Tempest (Theatre Rusticle).
Elle a reçu huit prix Dora, un prix SATAward et le prix Pauline McGibbon 2008, et elle a été finaliste pour le prix Siminovitch en 2021. Elle fait partie du conseil d’administration de l’Association des designers canadiens.
Joanna Yu (elle)
Joanna Yu est une conceptrice de décors et de costumes primée qui a pris part à plus de 100 productions, dont plus de la moitié étaient des premières mondiales. Elle a œuvré pour le Festival de Stratford, le Festival Shaw, Mirvish Productions, le Soulpepper Theatre, la Canadian Stage Company, la Compagnie d’opéra canadienne, l’Arts Club, le Citadel Theatre, Theatre Calgary, le Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, le Grand Theatre, le Neptune Theatre, Theatre New Brunswick, le Factory Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, Buddies in Bad Times, l’Obsidian Theatre Company, le fu-Gen Theatre, Cahoots Theatre Projects, le Theatre Centre, le Young People’s Theatre, le Tarragon Theatre et beaucoup d’autres. Elle est membre du conseil d’administration de l’Association des designers canadiens (ADC659). www.joannayudesign.com
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