RSA student’s final project asks challenging questions

By Laureen F. Guenther Times Contributor

Easter Island, a play by Edmonton-based playwright David Van Belle, will be performed by Heidi MacDonald in Rosebud, May 9-12.
MacDonald, a fourth-year Rosebud School of the Arts student, is producing and performing the show as her final project. It’s also the directing debut of Rosebud Theatre actor Heather Pattengale.
MacDonald performs the show’s three visible characters, whose stories weave in and out and around each other, she said. The voice of Rosebud actor Jeany Van Meltebeke portrays the fourth character, the Earth.
The first character, Nowikcx, is a tattoo artist living several thousand years in the future. When people come for tattoos, Nowikcx tells cautionary tales and chooses a tattoo that stamps on them their identity.
“Nowikcx says, ‘I give you a tattoo that shows what you’re afraid of, because then you have to change,’” MacDonald said.
One of Nowikcx’s tales is about Feather Bird, a plain bird who lives in a forest where people live for what they can get right now.
“Nobody wants to listen to the Feather Bird, because they want to listen to all the beautiful birds,” MacDonald said. “Even when she makes herself beautiful, they don’t know that she’s talking about them. They don’t know that she’s saying, ‘You are the one that needs to change.’”
Vish, the second character, is an earth artist in the near future.
“People have become so obsessed with the experience of being in (Vish’s) art pieces and remaking them that they just stop taking care of each other,” MacDonald said. “They stop taking care of the land. They stop growing anything. They just want to live in this experience of almost having a high, over and over.”
The third character, Patti, is an oil and gas prospector in the current day. She’s worked hard to thrive in a male-dominated industry and to survive the economic downturn. But when something unexpected happens, Patti begins asking hard questions.
And the questions Patti asks herself were the “clincher” that made MacDonald choose this play for her final project, she said. They’re the kind of questions that she herself wants to ask of the world.
“We are living in a time where – and I can speak for myself – I am so concerned with how can I be happy right now?” she said. “What can I do just to relive the happiest experiences of my life over and over and over?
“It becomes this way of gorging ourselves on emotional highs,” MacDonald said. “As a result, we also stop caring for other people. We stop caring about the land that we live on. It’s at a point where it’s just the normal thing to do. Why bother changing? This play explicitly asks us to change.
“It’s a story about valuing life in all of its forms from the earth that we walk on, to a baby in a womb,” she added. “It’s quite quirky, but it also is so well-written, you get lost in it, and it doesn’t leave you alone.
“It’s a beautiful, immersive piece of theatre that challenges, entertains and might even change you.”
Easter Island will be performed May 9-12 in the Rosebud Community Hall. The play contains mature language. For more information or tickets, see the Easter Island Facebook page or email furtherintheatre@gmail.com.