Lögberg-Heimskringla - 19.11.2004, Blaðsíða 11

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 19. nóvember 2004 • 11
Playwright explores
isolation in Unity (1918)
Kevin Keix’s award-win-
ning play Unity (1918) opens
at Winnipeg’s Prairie Theatre
Exchange this month. Kerr,
whio is of Icelandic descent,
won two 2001 Jessie Richard-
son Awards and the 2002 Gov-
ernor-General’s Award for
Drama for the play.
Unity (1918) is set in the
final months of the First World
War in the small town of Unity,
Saskatchewan.
Fearing the effects of the
flu epidemic, the town bars
everything, from trains to the
mail, from entering. One of the
characters is Sunna, a fifteen-
year-old girl recently arrived
from Iceland who finds herself
carrying the burden of the
increasingly busy funeral
home.
Kerr says his family back-
ground exerted a strong influ-
ence on him as he wrote the
play.
“I’m of partial Icelandic
descent — a set of my great-
grandparents .emigrated from
Iceland early in the last century
and settled in Saskatchewan.
And when I was working on
Unity I had become a bit
obsessed with Iceland and that
element of my family’s past.
So it sort of found its way eas-
ily into the story. Also, by
virtue of family connections,
when I interviewed old-timers
in Saskatchewan as research
for the play, I spoke to quite a
few Icelanders which added to
the influence.”
He was also influenced by
a series of short stories written
by an Icelander about life in
the new world — stories that
were, ironically, written by
someone who stayed in Ice-
land. “So in a sense there was a
sort of ‘cautionary tale’ ele-
ment to them,” he says.
Kerr adds that he also
wanted to explore themes of
isolation and the idea of feeling
like an outsider in one’s com-
munity. Sunna becomes a pos-
sible scapegoat as the situation
in Unity becomes worse, and
she has a different perspective
on the events of the play.
Robert Metcalfe, PTE’s
Artistic Director, helmed this
production. “I was drawn to the
powerful images Kevin creates
of this community that is fac-
ing the power of the influenza
epidemic,” he says. “Even
though it is a dark topic he
managed to add a fair dose of
humour.”
In addition to the play-
wright and subject matter,
there’s another Icelandic con-
nection — actor Arne
MacPherson performs as Stan,
who is described in the play as
an incompetent farmer and
widower.
For more information orí
PTE’s production of Unity
(1918), see tlie Calendar of
Events.
PHOTO COURTESY OF PRAIRIE THEATRE EXCHANGE
Playwright Kevin Kerr lives in Vancouver, where he is co-
Artistic Director of the Electric Company Theatre.
If you want rock
... you’ve got it
Rock & Roll Kid
Danny Sveinson
Independent
www.rockandrollkid.com
Seeing as how one of
Danny Sveinson’s acknowl-
edged guitar heroes is Angus
Young, the title of Sveinson’s
fírst EP-length release comes
as no surprise. When Young
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in his teens, he was known as
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a bit misleading, might also
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11-year-old guitarist lays
down not just nimble solos,
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heavy riffs that evoke leg-
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Page on “Roll With It.” And
there’s a healthy dose of
Angus Young’s swaggering
blues style mixed in. If
Sveinson’s own style hasn’t
quite surfaced yet, he could
do a lot worse than inspiring
such comparisons.
It’s a shame there aren’t
any lyrics to the songs —
with writing and arrangement
like Sveinson’s, the right
voice to complement the
music would see Rock and
Roll Kid all over the hard-
rock airwaves. Watch this
space: Danny Sveinson’s fírst
full-length album, whenever
it arrives, promises to be
great.
— David Jón Fuller
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“WorkingTogether to Build
Our Communities”
A second book from Kevin Jon Johnson
PublishAmerica of Freder-
ick, Maryland, has published the
book Deep Structure Comedy by
Kevin Jon Johnson, a teacher in
Ashem, Manitoba.
According to the back cover
text, “This autobiographical
novel covers over ten years in
the life of Kevin Jon Johnson.
During that time he overcame a
bipolar mood disorder with
episodes of spiritual possession,
and eamed two degrees from
Canadian prairie universities. A
unique spiritual adventure, Deep
Structure Comedy confirms the
central position of faith, courage
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humour, poetry, candour and
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all human beings who have
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thoughtful narration of a true
metaphysical saga where virtue
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romantic centre in the love won
between Kevin and Barb, a
votary of the Grey Nuns and
chemistry student at the Univer-
sity of Manitoba, with the ensu-
ing climax in the defeat of meta-
physical evil, similar to the
exploits of the medieval Ice-
landic intellectual Saemund the
Wise.”
Kevin Jon Johnson has
taught English in Canada and
Japan. In 1997 he wrote, with
Melinda McCracken, the Cana-
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son: A Life on the Left.
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