The Ottawa Public Library’s Main branch, with Ottawa Fringe, hosted Ken Cameron’s audio-performance entitled “How iRan: Three Plays for iPod” from Sept. 28 to Oct. 1.
The piece compelled audience members without traditional stars or a stage to explore the library through an immersive performance.
People are handed a set of earbuds, an iPod and a map of the library with some simple instructions: press shuffle and play.
Each iPod was pre-loaded with recordings recounting distinct scenes from the perspective of one of the three primary characters. Each character represented a different outlook on what it’s like to be an immigrant in Canada.
Cameron said he hopes audience members will “gain a new insight into new immigrants… and the way different people immigrate… and what it’s like for them when they do finally arrive in Canada.”
Cameron, a Calgary-based playwright and theatre director, wrote the play in 2012 after a trip to Tehran for a film festival.
There he met Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian-Canadian blogger who was imprisoned in Tehran until 2014. He was also the inspiration for one of Cameron’s main characters.
Cameron is currently working on a second project about Derakhshan called “The Blogfather” with the prestigious Alberta Theatre Projects in Calgary.
He said this piece will take a more “documentary” rather than a fictionalized approach.
There are no additional bookings for the performance scheduled in the near future, but Cameron said: “The beautiful thing about the project is that it can comfortably live in my basement until its needed and can be remounted quite easily.”
He added that it’s been interesting seeing the different audience reactions as the play travels from city to city.
“The show’s been running for four years…but just in this past year with the Syrian immigration crisis into Europe, it seems to be even more important now than when I first wrote it.”
As a listener, you don’t have all of the information necessary to piece together the entire story, since each character’s narrative is intertwined with the others. As a result, spectators can expect an individual experience in which they are prompted to tour the library floors and engage with the many installations found throughout, created by Cameron and members of the Canadian-Iranian community.
One installation in particular featured a quaint kitchen setting with matching chairs and a table. During some of the performances, Cameron placed a slow cooker in the setup filled with a traditional Iranian dish, so that audience members could smell food cooking while experiencing the scene.
At the end of their audible journey, audience members reconvene for Act Two, in which a facilitated discussion occurs about their experiences, and participants piece together the missing parts of the narrative.
Tony Westenbroek, the Main branch manager, said the program was part of the library’s effort to become a “community hub”. He said he and his team wanted to “bring the public into the branch and to show that we’re not just about books, we’re about all forms of media and we’re interested in the arts and the creative process.”
Cameron set the story in a library because he knew he wanted to create a narrative that spanned many decades. He also said that “the library is the first point of contact for new immigrants.”
Daniel Waselnuk, a Centretown resident who frequents the Main branch daily, said the play helped him appreciate the immigrant experience and to understand what people have gone through to get to Canada.
“It just helps me appreciate being a Canadian and being free here in Canada… it helps me to appreciate newcomers since we’ve just had Syrian refugees come to Canada just recently,” said Waselnuk.
Cameron said: “Because it’s audio-based… and the actors are right in your ear, you don’t see them — so you have to imagine them. Somehow that combination of having the actors both so close to you but so absent… really ups the empathy level, so (spectators) really start to engage with these fictional people.
“That, in turn, puts people in the position where they have a lot of empathy for these characters and for people in general coming to Canada,” he said.
Cameron, a Calgary-based playwright and theatre director, wrote the play in 2012 after a trip to Tehran, Iran’s capital, for a film festival. There he met Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian-Canadian blogger who was imprisoned in Tehran until 2014; he was also the inspiration for one of Cameron’s main characters.
Cameron is currently working on a second project about Derakhshan called “The Blogfather” with the prestigious Alberta Theatre Projects in Calgary. He said this piece will take a more “documentary” rather than a fictionalized approach.
There are no additional bookings for the performance scheduled in the near future, but Cameron said: “The beautiful thing about the project is that it can comfortably live in my basement until its needed and can be remounted quite easily.”
He added that it’s been interesting seeing the different audience reactions as the play travels from
city to city.
“The show’s been running for four years…but just in this past year with the Syrian immigration crisis into Europe, it seems to be even more important now than when I first wrote it.”
Westenbroek said the piece is “the next step making connections in the community,” and that he hopes it will bring a few more faces through the library doors.