In brief (hopefully there will be more time to reflect on some of these things later):

May 13: Wrapped up the Sackville playwrights' retreat, having finished a draft of First Time Last Time. Puffin picked me up and drove me back to Fredericton, where we stayed with the McNutts.

May 14: Drove to Halifax with a (mostly) contented baby. Stayed with a family with two kids (one older than X, one younger). Lots of screaming.

May 15: Picked up my Mom at Halifax airport (back from Kathmandu and Abu Dhabi), and drove home to Glace Bay with a (less) contented baby.

May 16: Dress rehearsal for The Laramie Project reading. Stress because the hall was double-booked.

May 17: The Laramie Project reading. No double-bookings; almost no stress. Very, very powerful show. Raised $550 for two charities (one LGBT, one mental illness). Looked forward to a chance to relax with my family...

May 18: ...for about 30 seconds. Until our Realtor(R) friend, who knew we were idly thinking about moving to Sydney, brought a couple to view our house (even though it wasn't on the market yet). Suddenly, a tizzy; are we selling? Are we buying? Are we crazy? (Also had rehearsal for Promise to Repair. Got smacked in the ear by an over-eager actor who didn't know how to do a stage slap.)

May 19-21: A blur of potential sales conditions. The offer on the house fell through, but by that point, we'd arranged to view some houses in Sydney. One of them looked perfect...

May 22-24: ...So now, even though we haven't listed our current house, we're in the process of making an offer on a place in Ashby. I sort of hope it falls through; we've figured out a way we can afford it, but a couple of potential things about the house make me cringe. Today is the inspection, so we'll know more soon.

Crazy. Crazy crazy crazy. And summer hasn't even really begun.

I have spent the week in Sackville, New Brunswick (home of Mount Allison U), staying in a mansion-cum-residence with 8 other playwrights, doing playwrighty stuff -- mostly staying locked in our respective rooms and writing, then emerging on occasion to whine over wine.

The last full-fledged retreat was a self-directed exile in Vancouver in -- gosh, I dunno, 2003? 2004? This one has been largely self-directed too (sponsored by PARC, but without funding for the usual two-week workshopping extravanza, there are no dramaturges or deadlines, just time and space).  It's refreshing to get back into a writerly groove after such a stretch of cramming it into the gaps between other activities. It would be lovely to find a happy medium in my everyday schedule that would allow for a bit more of it (writing, I mean).

This morning I jogged through Sackville's Waterfowl Preserve (a marsh by any other name). Saw some geese and goslings, a duck, a chickadee, and a red-winged blackbird (or possibly a black-bodied redbird). The human menagerie in Sackville is similarly diverse; it's definitely a campus town, and it's only by contrast that I realize how little of this campus vibe there is at CBU, plopped out in the middle of the highway as it is.

Anyway, I got a draft done, and it's nice outside, and I have projects and a baby waiting for me when this retreat is over...but it's not over for another day and a half, so I'd best get out and luxuriate while I still can.

Spring has come limping up to Cape Breton. Most days, the Atlantic wind scuppers any serious attempt at nice weather, but at least it's not pissing sleet all the time.

Around here, a full nights' sleep ends around 5:30am, when X decides it's time to start the day. But more and more, he's learning that 7pm-5:30am is quiet time, and that's of immeasurable benefit to happiness, clear thinking, and general being-humanness.

I have a cast and crew for The Laramie Project -- 16 in the cast, which is impressive considering I only announced it a couple of weeks ago. Fingers crossed they all stay on board for the show. It will be especially weird, trying to crisis manage while I'm on a playwriting retreat next week. I wonder how much (if any) writing I will actually get done.

Other things to look forward to include:

• A month on my own in June, while Puffin and X are touring the west coast.
• Performing in A Promise to Repair in June (assuming I ever get around to memorizing my frakking lines).
• Seeing friends and family when I fly west myself in July.
• Friends' wedding in August -- in our backyard?!?

And the cherry on top: I just found out that Cape Stage got approval for federal funding to hire students for our summer play series. I applied for that grant. That's the first federal grant I've ever successfully received, I think. Man I'm good.

It's been less than a week since Raymond Taavel was killed in Halifax. On Friday, I went to his Cape Breton vigil, which was an odd affair because most of the speakers (like myself) didn't know the man personally. But perhaps that is the nature of a community -- even if you don't know another member personally, you still feel the effects of their death.

It's also been only four days since I announced that I'd be doing a staged reading of The Laramie Project here. I've received a lot of positive response, and about 15 people have expressed interest in participating -- actors and non-actors alike. I think that will be just about perfect (any more than 20 participants and coordinating suddenly becomes an enormous headache), but then I haven't quite grappled with most of the basic production issues. I don't have a venue...or rehearsal space...nor have I decided which charities we'll be working with.

But I'm not worried. If it were any other play I was trying to stage in under a month, I'd be flipping my gourd. But I have faith in the community to see this one through.

Early Tuesday morning, a 49-year-old Haligonian named Raymond Taavel was killed outside a nightclub. He was trying to intervene in a fight between two other men, and one of them turned on him and beat him to death. The police found the assailant hiding in a nearby alley and took him into custody. His name is Andre Noel Denny.

I don't know either man, but there are a lot of strange connections that put this random act very close to me and mine. First, Taavel was a gay rights activist, and he had written previously about having suffered from gay-bashing and homophobia in Halifax. I'm not gay, but enough of my friends and loved ones are LGBT that homophobia has, over time, become my issue too. Now that I have a son, I worry (probably way more than I should) about the pressure he may suffer if he happens to grow up gay. I know the climate is far better than it was even a generation ago, but Cape Breton still feels very conservative in a lot of ways, including tolerance for sexual diversity.

Taavel also happened to work for a publication called Shambhala Sun; although he wasn't a Buddhist, he was well known and well liked in the Buddhist community. He was a peaceful activist, and everything I've read about him suggests that the cause of peace is harmed by his loss.

Here's where things get weird, at least for me. Taavel may not have been killed because of his sexual orientation. In fact, he may not really have been killed for any reason. Denny, you see, is schizophrenic, and was on an unsupervised one-hour pass from a local forensic hospital. He failed to return on schedule, and ended up wandering the streets, probably off his meds, until something triggered a violent episode. What was going through his head when he assaulted one person, then switched to Taavel when he tried to intervene? We'll never know; even if we did, it could never fully make sense, coming from someone whose understanding of reality is profoundly different from ours.

Mental illness (and attitudes towards it, especially in the media) is another hot-button issue of mine because my best friend is schizophrenic. He has never been violent, thank god, but I know that when he is unmedicated, he can't be fully trusted to make sound judgements. So, now I feel squarely in the middle of this issue, mourning the loss of a pillar of the local gay community, but also hoping that schizophrenics are not tarred with the brush of homophobia just because of this random act of violence.

What can I do? I have never really been an activist; my specialty is theatre. But it just so happens I know a script that may address some of the issues surrounding Taavel's death -- or, failing that, at least commemorate his life, which entailed a courageous and compassionate struggle for acceptance. The script is The Laramie Project; I've been thinking about doing something with it ever since I came to Cape Breton; and now I think the time is right to get it done -- at least in the form of a staged reading, if not a full production. Proceeds could go towards a local LGBT group -- or, as Puffin suggests, split between that and a Schizophrenia support group.

May 17 is International Day Against Homophobia. Can I throw together a staged reading in under a month -- especially when I'm out of town the week prior? I don't know, but I'm gonna try. Why do it? Not for Raymond, who I did not know, but for my community, who needs answers or at least an event to give them closure. And for myself, as I seem to be badly in need of a spiritual boost right now, and what better way to stir my soul than to remind myself that the work I do does mean something?

There are many different types of irony in life. I teach my English classes about three of them: verbal irony, situational irony, and dramatic irony. But probably a better way to think of them is by their flavours. Some ironies are bitter, like finding out you got the dream job after signing an ironclad contract flipping burgers. Some ironies are sweet -- especially the ones that happen to other people, particularly people you don't like.

And some ironies blend the two, creating a bittersweet melange that only gourmets can fully appreciate. Case in point: X's sleeping habits. For nearly nine months now, we've been using all the traditional methods to soothe the little guy to sleep, but most of the time he won't go down, and even when he does, he won't stay down. Judging by the feedback we've received from other parents, this is not unusual (these comments are also a melange, blending compassion and sympathy with an off-putting sense of martyrdom, as in, "MY child refused to sleep for the first [insert ridiculous length of time here]."

Those same parents are strangely mum when it comes to solutions, too. Obviously, if their children refused to sleep for a fixed span of time, then that time has now passed...so what changed? When we first posed this question to other parents (begged, cajoled, etc.), the answer was always vague: "they just started sleeping" or "it's like a switch got flipped."

Long story short(ish): we got fed up, losing our minds, slipping sleep-deprived and cranky down the slope into the Valley of Bad Parents (and Bad Husband/Wife, and Bad Friends, etc.). We asked the doctor what could be done; we would try anything. She went straight to the method considered most taboo upon all the parenthood blogs: Ferberizing. The Ferber method bills itself as "sleep training," but the bottom line is: let them cry. Eventually, they'll get tired, and fall asleep. Then, they'll have learned how to fall asleep by themselves.

Short story long: we tried this for awhile, with measured success, but then a particularly bad bout of teeth coincided with a confounding new skill: X learned how to stand up in his crib -- even when half-asleep -- but couldn't quite get the hang of sitting back down on his own. This is how ridiculous babies are, in case you were wondering. So we back-slid for a month, letting X back into a co-sleeping arrangement that quickly became the Only Acceptable Solution.

Another month with minimal sleep. (Co-"sleeping" is a grave misnomer, as there is hardly any restful sleep involved.) Meanwhile, the party line from parents was changing. When we admitted to using the Ferber method, suddenly many of the same parents who'd refused to offer solutions were buying in. "Yeah, that's what we finally had to do." As if the method that works is a source of shame. As if they'll only come out of the Ferber closet to those who hold the same credentials.

Finally, this weekend: Puffin reads a book about French methods of baby-rearing, and declares that it's time to throw a French Ferber smackdown on the babe. The rules for La Ferbere are simple:

1. Put him to bed, and tell him to go to sleep. Be nice about it, obviously.
2. Leave the room, telling him you'll be back twice.
3. If he cries, come back in a few minutes.
4. Repeat step 3 only once. Then tell him he's on his own for the rest of the night.
5. No, seriously. He's on his own for the rest of the night.

Parents who concealed their Ferberizing beneath a cloak of shame would surely seize this opportunity to lord their judgement over us. What a terrible thing to do, they'd say, while secretly wishing they'd thought of it months (years, etc.) earlier.

And here's the sweet part of the irony. The first night of La Ferbere, he slept for ten hours, waking only once. And since then (two nights), he's been less consistent, but he always soothes himself back down within a few minutes of waking.

What's more, he's smart. He's figured it out. If I put him in the crib, he'll stand up and fuss. But after the first exit-and-return, he settles down (he's figured out how to sit now, thank you very much). The second visit usually isn't necessary. We taught him a new normal; he accepted it.

As parents, we thought we were doing the best thing for X by rushing to his side whenever he awoke. "Shh, shh, don't cry, mommy/daddy's here." And the especially bitter part of the irony is, all the other parents seemed to agree, even though their own experiences suggested otherwise.

(Note that I'm not including those parents who, when told about X's sleep problems, replied with the opposite sort of arrogance, to wit: "Oh, my So-and-so was sleeping through the night within the first month." Yes, but was all that peace and quiet worth the punch in the eye you're about to receive?)

In conclusion: if you are a parent, stop listening to other parents. They are all insecure liars. You can listen to doctors, but make sure you ask them the right questions. And most of all, do your homework. Somewhere out there is a study that will explain (a) why your baby is behaving the way s/he is, and (b) how to modify that behaviour. And if none of the North American studies help, try France. They invented romance, so you figure they'd have a few tips on dealing with the aftermath.

P.S. Since irony rules the roost, it's a sure thing that, the moment I post this, X will wake up and shriek like a banshee for the next 72 hours. But if that does happen, I promise never to tell another parent. It's the Circle of Irony.

The ship the S.S. Titanic
Met a fate that caused lots of panic:
It hit an iceberg
With a gurgle and glurg,
And sank into the Atlantic.

Yesterday I reconnected with an old friend. Mir and I did our undergrad together before she moved to Banff to work for one of the big hotels. We saw each other once every couple of years, and it was one of those magical friendships where it felt as if you could just pick up where you left off, no matter how much time had passed. I have other friends like that, but I've known most of them since before puberty (and most of them are guys). Mir was, and is, special -- apart from an affection for Shakespeare we really had nothing in common, yet we were both profoundly interested in each others' happiness.

We lost contact after I moved east. She was never a very good long-distance correspondent, and her phone numbers and email addresses have a habit of changing without notice. But, as we are planning a trip to Alberta this summer, I tracked her down and left a phone message.

I felt a strange, muted panic as I waited to see if she'd call back. One of my biggest life-long hang-ups involves the sudden, inexplicable loss of friends. Not that friends will die, or even move away, but rather that they'll simply decide to stop being close to me, and never bother to explain why. They'll simply vanish like smoke.

It goes back a long way, to Rob in elementary school. One recess, we were sitting together in the playground when he sprang up and ran away. I chased him all recess. I thought it was a game. He had to get a mutual friend to inform me that we were no longer friends. He may have cited reasons -- since it was grade four, they were probably reasons like "your butt stinks" -- but I only remember the confusion and futility of my pursuit. Nor was it confined to elementary school; later friends disappeared from my life, although their reasons were usually clearer (schizeophrenia; sexual jealousy; or, well, me being a jerk). Whenever someone I cared about severed ties without explaining, I hounded them relentlessly until I got some satisfactory answer. Often, by the time they caved in and told all, I had behaved so badly in my pursuit of the truth that my ex-friend would have plenty more reasons to shut me out of their lives.

For a long time, I believed that friends were people who like you because you have no flaws. They are the only ones perceptive enough to see how great you truly are. Gradually, I realized that friends are the people "who know you well but like you anyway" (so quipped that great crafter of epigrams, Anonymous). If some of them got fed up with my weaknesses and decided it wasn't worth the effort, who could blame them? But I still believed the decent thing to do was to be up-front, not scuttle away like a thief in the night. There's no potential for change there, for either party.

Anyway, all this worrying was unnnecessary, because Mir called me back within a few hours. Not only was she glad to catch up with me, and excited to see me this summer, but it turned out that we now have much more in common -- we both live in small towns, we both teach, and we are both parents. None of that means we'll automatically be compatible when we meet up again, but I have a pretty good feeling about it. After all, it would have been the easiest thing in the world to not call me back.

I just finished reading an article by Edmonton playwright Mieko Ouchi entitled "No Blood for Oil: Thirty Years of Playwriting in Alberta" (I am preparing to write a review of the anthology which contains it: West-Words: Celebrating Western Canadian Theatre and Playwriting, Ed. Moira J. Day). The article is an impressively comprehensive survey of the ebbs and flows of original theatre production in Edmonton, Calgary, and elsewhere in the province -- the names of hundreds of plays, authors, and theatre companies flit past the eye with dizzying speed. Mieko gives due respect to the 1980s pioneers, whose work in the earliest years of the Edmonton Fringe Festival (as well as companies like Workshop West, Northern Light, and Phoenix) paved the way for subsequent generations of artists; but she doesn't neglect to mention the highlights of those younger generations, either. Unless there is a book-length study of the subject, it is probably the definitive survey of modern playwriting in Alberta.

I'm not in it.

Nor is there any mention of either of the two companies for which I was Artistic Director. The first, Sound & Fury Theatre, did not last long in the 30-year scheme of things, and while it did produce a lot of original work (much it mine), it never got much recognition from the media or the theatre community -- I think we got two Sterling nominations in 2002, but no wins. The second, Walterdale Playhouse, probably got overlooked because of its non-professional status, or else because it isn't widely known for new play production (which is too bad, because they actually produce at least three new one-act plays per year).

So the omissions don't surprise me, but naturally I can't help but feel disappointed. My place in the "canon" was never assured, and if I had a shot at getting my name into the list, it sure didn't help that I moved to the other side of the country just as my plays were starting to see more frequent (and more professional) productions. But reading Mieko's article, and examining my own responses to its content, has led me to re-examine my role in the Alberta theatre scene, such as it was. In particular, I figured three years of distance from the community might help me determine why I always felt like an outsider, even when I lived and worked there.

First, what are my credentials? What business do I have expecting to see my name in such a survey? Productions of more than a dozen of my plays in Edmonton (and a couple in Calgary) -- but mostly self-produced, which doesn't make you anybody special in the town with the largest Fringe in North America. A few published plays (in anthologies), a couple of professional productions (with Lunchbox Theatre and Shadow Theatre, both of which are mentioned). And...well...I lived in Mieko's basement for a year in '99...

Here's where the problem starts. Is that an impressive CV for a playwright? Who knows? It's a notoriously difficult profession in which to measure success. I could be horribly petty, and point to authors who are mentioned in the article but who have had fewer published plays, or fewer professional productions...but does that make me more successful?

It doesn't help that my generation, which came of age roughly between 1992 (The Teen Festival of the Arts) and 1996 (NeXtfest), already found ourselves overshadowed by the Gods of the Fringe -- artists whose public and critical success seemed just as firmly entrenched as their annual guaranteed Fringe slots. Never mind that these artists had struggled for success and recognition in a theatrical wasteland; from our perspective, they had always been stars, and they always would be. Up to the time I left Edmonton, none of them ever showed any sign of moving over to give the young'uns a shot at the limelight (except maybe Stewart Lemoine, who announced his retirement from the Fringe in 2002, but was back at the game within 5 years).

Maybe, for us, the measure of success was one's ability to overlook the nepotism, the repetitiveness, and in some cases the blunt megalomania of those Old Gods -- to shrug one's shoulders and make art on our own terms, wherever and however we could. But, then, I thought that's what I was doing when I founded Sound & Fury in 2000.

And while I tried not to let it irk me that I never got invited into the Big Boys' circle, I did allow myself to get resentful when I started to feel shut out of the Little Kids' Table too. In 1996, my play Scorpions was one of 4 or 5 produced at the inaugural Festival of the Next Generation (they changed the name to NeXtfest hastily, after realizing that FONG was a regrettable acronym). So, clearly (I thought at the time), I was among the pick of the crop. But as NeXtfests came and went, my submissions got bumped to readings, and then got dropped altogether. This wasn't merely a desire to keep things fresh, either; other writers kept coming back to the well over and over -- and some were able to use NeXtfest as a springboard for re-mounts, tours, etc.

A few obvious explanations presented themselves. (1) I wasn't writing very good plays. (2) My plays didn't fit the aesthetic of the selection committees. (3) Once I founded Sound & Fury, people assumed I had my own career well in hand, and chose instead to program work by up-and-comers who didn't have their own theatre companies.

The truth may involve a cocktail of all three, but the garish pink umbrella in my drink was the nagging feeling that I was never part of the Cool Crowd, and if I only had more friends, I would get the opportunities I needed to feel like a success. Because let's face it, nepotism is important in a small theatrical community. I doubt I would ever have gotten a play produced at Shadow Theatre if the AD hadn't happened to be my boss for five years at the video store down the street.

One detail in Mieko's survey is telling in this regard. She writes, "The 1990s also saw an exciting new trend in Edmonton, where recent theatre school graduates from both the University of Alberta and Grant MacEwan College began to write an perform their own shows with great success." She goes on to drop a dozen names, and most of them either come in pairs, or else work with "multiple collaborators" (Mieko includes herself in the latter category). I remember this era, when graduating cohorts would do Fringe shows, then winter-season shows, and ultimately (in a few cases) take over existing theatre companies, like waves Red-Bull-guzzling Visigoths.

Although I did attend the U of A, it wasn't under the auspices of the Drama Department. Instead, I did an English Honours B.A. and then went east, to NTS's playwriting programme. Hence my cohort, such as it was, ended up spread out across the country. I didn't have a posse, or even a playwriting pal, from my school days.

But looking back now, I realize this had far more to do with my attitude than with my choice of institution. Some of my NTS cohort did end up in Edmonton, and a few even became playwrights -- they just happened to be in the acting programme at the time. And even if I had seen them as viable collaborators, I left NTS early and in disgrace, so my own shame would have kept me from approaching them. I mean, for crying out loud, I lived in Mieko's basement for a year, and yet it never occurred to me to head up the stairs with a pack of Red Bull and ask her if she wanted to write a play with me.

But who can blame me? I got my start at the Fringe, where it's every show for itself. And I grew up in Alberta, the hub of Canadian economic enterprise. Combine that with my failure to fit in at NTS, and I really did believe that it was me against the world. And that's not how theatre works -- or at least, how it ought to work. Now I live in a part of the country where collaboration is a necessity, because otherwise there just isn't enough (jobs, money, resources) to go around. I think I'm finally starting to realize that what kept me out of the parties, and away from the collaborations and maybe ultimately the productions, was my own unwillingness to give in order to get.

And I also realize that ego is only a crutch. At the end of the day, who cares if my name appears in an article about Alberta theatre? That doesn't put food on anyone's table. Neither does getting your plays produced, for that matter, unless you are one of a very, very few artists. I should be grateful that I am teaching the subject I love, and that it pays the bills (more or less). With luck and perseverance, maybe my teaching can help to create some powerhouse cohorts who go on to take Atlantic Canada by storm. Then I can read articles about them, and allow myself less self-pitying envy and more self-indulgent pride.

Today, a very special post, guest-starring Puffin, my wife and partner-in-theatrical-crime. This week's crime spree occurred in the context of a highly successful Elizabeth Boardmore One Act Festival; we saw productions of five "established" scripts (various levels of establishment), as well as five brand new scripts (three of which I had dramaturged earlier in the year). All the participants were Cape Breton community artists -- some of which, again, had years of experience and credentials, but most of which were young and fresh.

At the end of the week, adjudicator Bryden MacDonald gave out a quick round of awards, and then left the assembled artists and audience to mingle and nosh. All week, Bryden had been offering salient but controversial feedback to the artists, and this final set of acknowledgments was, in some ways, just as debatable. So Puffin and I decided to debate it a bit, without intending any disrespect to Bryden or to any of the artists who won. For me, it's mostly an opportunity to acknowledge some of the other great work that went on at the festival (since Bryden chose not to use a "nominee" system, none of the runners-up got any mentions), and to throw some props out to a few of the great playwrights, actors, and directors who may have felt overlooked last night.


( Click for long, Caper-centric ramblings )