Q&A: Occupy Toronto—One Year Later (Docket Theatre)

Docket Theatre artistic director Llyandra Jones and writer/associate producer Rosamund Small in St James Park.

On Monday October 15 at 7pm, Docket Theatre will stage a FREE remount of their verbatim theatre piece Occupy Toronto in St. James Park, marking the one year anniversary of the famous protest. Created by Rosamund Small during her third year as Playwright-in-Residence with the Paprika Festival, the script includes dialogue from interviews and transcripts of videos from the days she spent talking to people in the park, as well as words from Police Chief Bill Blair, Toronto city councillors, and critics of Occupy. Here, Small shares her thoughts on the Occupy experience and what the movement means today.

Theatromania: Tell us about Occupy Toronto. What inspired you to create this show?

RS: I wandered into the park with a vague idea that I cared about income inequality and wanted to be involved in a movement that focused on that. I had a lot of reasons initially to be suspicious of the movement and what I found there. I was confused by the lack of
specific leadership and the seemingly directionless political discussions. But I was compelled to go back many times because the people at the park all felt a sense of hope and passion and something akin to civic duty.

Few protesters talked about their ideas in terms of patriotism or nationalism, but there was an underlying sense of pride in what they could collectively achieve, and in what Toronto and Canada could become. I was fascinated by this sense of purpose. It drove people to turn their lives upside down for the movement. They worked incredibly hard to provide the food, shelter and activities that kept the camp going, and they committed to building a community where decisions are built on consensus. That’s not an easy thing to
do. I thought a documentation of that effort, along with a glimpse of of the silly theatrics that went along with the protesting, would make a good story.

Theatromania: How many people did you interview in the park?

RS: I’m not sure really, about thirty I think, some longer than others. But I also sat in on a lot of General Assemblies and recorded them so I heard from many, many voices, albeit in a limited way.

Theatromania: How were you personally affected by this experience?

RS: I examined my own tendency to sit back and judge other people instead of contributing to a political or social effort. I vote in every election, and I’ve always signed lots of petitions, but Occupy made me think how little I’m doing in the real world for the causes I care about.

Theatromania: In your opinion, what is the most important message to come out of the Occupy movement?

RS: The idea of the 99 percent is etched into the world’s mind now. That idea of inequality says a lot about this decade and how I think it will look in a history book. The sad message that Occupy may have also left is a sense of failure. Whatever good it has done, it’s hard to argue that it hasn’t faded away. This play is in a lot of ways a memorial. The movement continues to exist for some online or in weekly meetings but for the larger world I think the encampment—The Occupation—was the message and its absence was the end.

Theatromania: How were you able to get so many young artists to volunteer their time for this project?

RS: Llyandra Jones is the director of the show, and she’s a fantastic human being to have working on a project like this. Her passion seems to infect everyone she meets, and she personally called everybody she went to theatre school with and they all called their friends and suddenly we had a cast. Her and the rest of the team at Docket Theatre are nothing but creative energy and it tends to spread. The other factor was our connection with the Paprika Festival, which was a huge creative aid to me and is completely responsible for the script being finished. Paprika provided me with the environment I needed to work on the play, and also has connected me with over 100 emerging artists in Toronto over the last three years. I met a lot of our key performers through Paprika connections, as well as my dramaturgy Andrew Kushnir, who knows everything about verbatim work.

Theatromania: What do you hope audiences take away from this performance?

RS: I hope they find the show interesting or entertaining. Maybe it will also share some knowledge of Occupy Toronto and spark a bit of conversation, that would be great. But I really think theatre, even verbatim protest theatre, is mostly meant to engage an audience’s attention for the duration of the show. The rest is totally and completely out of my control. This movement interested me, so I hope it will interest the audience.

Catch Rosamund Small in Occupy Toronto on Monday, October 15 at 7pm in St. James Park (151 Front Street). Admission is FREE! Visit dockettheatre.com for more information.