[excerpt from director's notes, taken from the program]
Last Spring, I learned about Albert Einstein's wife, Mileva Marić, during some general interest reading I was doing on the principles of physics. I gravitate towards biographical work, because real lives are full of intricate layers of the mundane, the extraordinary, the real and the magical. It’s all perspective.
Marić at the Lake draws its inspiration from one of the great devised performance works of the 20th century, a collaboration between Robert Wilson, Phillip Glass and Lucinda Childs called Einstein on the Beach. Knowing that I would be leading a devised work, the temptation was too great…
So we have collaborated on a parallel world; contemplating the premise that while Einstein was at the Beach, Marić was at the Lake (lakes had figured prominently in her life – the title seemed serendipitous!).
And so the work began. To explore a life is a tall order: to give it justice, and to search for its truth while not imposing too much of our own reflections on it.
Marić’s life was by no accounts an easy one. She was a brilliant mathematician and physicist, but she also held a great interest in psychology and the study of the brain. She was formidable, and yet born female in a time that was not generous to women who did not fall in line.
Despite Marić’s hardships, we choose to believe she may have observed the patterns in her life with poetic objectivity, that she would have seen the absurdity, tragedy, and poignancy of her surroundings, and embraced the beauty of a life that appeared to have fallen on the wrong side of relativity.
We hope she remained inspired by it all.
Cathia Pagotto
PRODUCTION TEAM
Director: Cathia Pagotto
Stage Manager: Caitlin Stever
Assistant Stage Managers: Georgia Holland, Abi Sanie
CAST
Max Allen
Brianna Bagshaw-Stocks
Siarra Burke-Smith
Fiona Sophia Cousineau
Laurence Côté
Tamara May Fattouh
Charles Gao
Emme Grace Geryk
Julien Jung
Noah Henri Labranche
Elliot Pond
Eric Wakim
DESIGN TEAM
Design Supervisor: Cathia Pagotto
Set & Props Designer: Anna Toneguzzi
Assistant Set & Props Designer: Indigo Danielson
Costume Designer: Thorhildur Sunna Johannsdottir
Assistant Costume Designer: Ariane Brisebois
Lighting Designer: Tiffanie Boffa
Assistant Lighting Designer: Subin Bae
Sound Designers: Savion Achod + Andrew Bradt
THANK YOU
Special thank you to Jasna Sokolovic for her beautiful voice,
Dil Hildebrand and Danielle Eyer for helping with scenic painting,
and Dominique Leclerc-Catala, as always.
Endless gratitude to all our production and technical supporters: Norberts, Jen, Owen, Peter, Ted, Laura, Marlene and Dominique,
as well as David, Öykü, Tristynn and Vladimir.