By Daniel Kitts
“It’s the most harrowing thing in the world trying to concentrate for 55 minutes,” Michael Healey says.
Healey is talking about total, constant concentration — uninterrupted even for a second. It’s the type of concentration needed to perform a one-person play.
There are no other actors to help carry the load. There isn’t even any scenery to look at. It’s just you and your words. And a hundred-plus pairs of eyes staring at you. For one hour. Harrowing stuff indeed.
But despite the intimidation factor, Healey and fellow Toronto-based writer/actor Sean Dixon are performing a double bill of one-person plays at the Great Canadian Theatre Company until March 27.
First on the bill is Dixon’s Falling Back Home. The play revolves around a man’s attempt to emulate a moment in his grandfather’s life when a miracle took place.
Dixon says the inspiration for the play comes from an unusual chapter in his own family history. “When my grandfather got married he was afraid he was such a hairy man that he would frighten his bride on his wedding night, and so he shaved his whole body,” Dixon says.
“I found that act hilarious and kind of touching . . . It was just kind of a strange, imaginative, gentle thing to do that I wanted to write a story about it.”
Dixon says Falling Back Home explores how far you can take belief in storytelling. The play recounts the story of the grandfather, the grandson’s attempt to mimic that moment, and the consequences that result from the attempt.
Healey’s play, Kicked, follows a police detective as he tries to find out what happened to a missing 10-year-old girl. His investigation takes him to three different people who might be able to help him find her. All the while, he carries on an imaginary dialogue with the missing girl.
Healey acknowledges Kicked sounds like some kind of mystery-thriller. But he says it’s intended as an exploration of the differences between children and adults. “Even though we as adults used to be children, we still find them mysterious,” he says.
As with Falling Back Home, Kicked is inspired by the author’s personal experience. For Healey, the inspiration came in 1991 when he became a father.
“As a parent, one of the first things you do is you make a really sort of strong and implicit promise to protect (your children) as soon as they appear,” he says. But he adds “the more they grow up, the more you realize that’s a promise that you may not actually be able to keep.”
“I started working on (Kicked) originally to deal with that anxiety about whether or not I was going to be able to actually protect my daughter.”
So why explore these issues in a one-performer format? Harrowing bits aside, Healey says some aspects of going solo are quite rewarding.
“Having done it so many times you realize there’s a really interesting relationship in the room between the performer and the audience,” Healey says. “When you get an audience on your side, it’s almost like everybody in the room is breathing at the same time.”