A Conversation with Director Marie Clements

An Approach Full of Vigor and Delight:
A Conversation with Director Marie Clements
by Tom Pearson

When Marie Clements and I met early on the first day of the festival, she had already hit the ground running, taking a short break from rehearsal to talk to me, before preparing to show the first reading of the festival that self-same evening. We immediately got down to brass tacks so we could get her back into rehearsal as quickly as possible.

Marie is a multi-talented, award-winning performer, playwright, screenwriter, and director. So immersed in the task at hand, she spoke a great deal about The Conversion of Ka’ahumanu, the play she was directing here at the Native Theater Festival, but quite understated about her other work and projects. To offer a little more information about her own projects, a link is provided at the end of this interview.

Tom: Tell us a little about yourself and the work that you do.

Marie: I’m Metis/Dene, and I’m based out of Vancouver. I started off as an actor and then began writing and now direct and produce and have a company called Urban Ink Productions, which I founded and am Artistic Director of for about seven or eight years, then I started a new TV and film company with a partner, Evan Adams.

Tom: And you are currently at the Public Theater directing a reading, which is going up tonight. Since I know that is currently commanding all of your attention, will you tell us a little bit about this work and what your point of entry was into it?

Marie: Where should we start, eh? We’ve been in the room all day and that’s all we’ve been thinking of and consuming. It’s a work that Victoria Kneubuhl began about twenty years ago, and I think what’s really remarkable about it is that it’s about contact. And it’s so well-written and so layered and complex that I think even though it’s about an historical witnessing, it’s as relevant today as it was when she wrote it, and as vital as when it actually happened. The characters are based on real people from her history and her land, so it’s a very powerful piece of work, very poetic, and it really breaks out the characters, five women, and how they embrace each other, how they repel from each other, to tell this one story.

Tom: I spoke with Victoria earlier, and one of the things we were talking about is the challenge of working with someone who is a historical character and rendering that character. The queen, Ka’ahumanau, the title character of the story, is a very powerful figure in Hawaiian culture and a very transitional figure as well. As a director, what research did you have to do to prepare for this? What challenges do you face in directing a character like that?

Marie: Well, Victoria was very generous from the get-go, so we had, you know, lots of conversations over the phone, talking about specifics and the general world of the play because it’s not something that I know. I’m a northern girl, so my references are snow and things that Hawaii…

Tom: …has never seen…

Marie: … has never seen. It’s a very different world. And I think there are similarities, obviously, between Native Americans and Native Hawaiians as indigenous people, but there are also differences, too, that are quite marked and quite spectacularly great to discover. Victoria sent me a book on Ka’ahumanu, and I asked more questions from there. But I think it’s a real honor to get to know this woman, not only the writer, but this powerful woman who co-ruled Hawaii because she is in some ways, not only a queen of godly decent, but a political figure, and feminist, and a very layered and complex woman, meaning she did also enjoy her womanhood. She enjoyed sex. She enjoyed ruling. She had a sense of humor. She devoured the language, not only her own, but English when it arrived. She was able to not manipulate, but maneuver the new world, not only for herself, but for her people, which is kind of a story of strength.

Tom: And it’s really interesting the assimilation that she brought about. I can’t wait to see this tonight. I got to read it, and have become kind of obsessed with this figure after getting this little nugget.

Marie: Well, she does get inside you.

Tom: I wanted to also ask you because you are so in the middle of this right now: What have been the most important questions and issues for you as a director?

Marie: Well, I think it’s a unique piece in the sense that it’s poetic. It’s powerful. It tells the story, not only from one perspective but from many. And it has a very clear woman’s perspective, which if anybody’s been in theater for a long time, sometimes it’s a very unique place to be allowed in, to go into a story with a woman’s perspective. Obviously history is usually written from a male point of view and documented very well from that point of view. So as artists, women artists, it’s great to be able to approach it with that kind of vigor and delight, to be around these very powerful women and to see what they are going to do with these very powerful characters that were real people. So, it’s very layered that way. It’s like an embodiment of history coming to life.

Tom: What are some of the opportunities that a play like this affords a director? Or a festival like this?

Marie: Well, I think it’s always an honor to work on something that is well written. I mean we die for those things. That’s what we need. We need to be fed [laughs] beautiful things, and definitely the play is that, for many reasons. I think that’s the biggest thing… and I think obviously the vision for the piece is that people should be able to witness it, and it has the capacity and the complexity to be in a big house. It has that kind of power. Whether it will or not is another thing. But it deserves the stage, definitely.

Tom: Do you have any other projects that you are involved with, anything coming up?

Marie: Sure. I’m working on a project called The Edward Curtis Project. It’s a piece that I’m writing and co-directing. It’s a commission of The North Vancouver Presentation House and we’re presenting it with the Cultural Olympiad for the 2010 Olympics in January.

Find out more about The Edward Curtis Project and Marie’s other endeavors at http://www.marieclements.ca/.