Golden Stagers take on 'Collected Stories'

The play will be presented in a condensed form at the Westmount Public Library next Wednesday, Sept. 19, by the Golden Stagers, a troupe associated with the McGill Institute of Lifelong Learning.

This will be the fourth production the Golden Stagers have presented at the Library. Tickets for the event are free, but must be reserved at the library’s circulation desk.

A discussion period will follow the play, allowing the audience to consider the themes of the drama alongside the Golden Stagers, who worked with the text.

The play follows the relationship between two women. One, Ruth Steiner, is a writing teacher; the other, Lisa Morrison, is her student. How Ruth mentors Lisa, and what Lisa does with Ruth’s teachings, form the story of the play as the balance of power shifts between the two women.

“It’s the kind of play that provokes strong discussion,” reflected Golden Stager Ann Weinstein.

Evelyn Seligman will play the role of Lisa, while Ruth will be portrayed by Amy Shulman. Richard Lock will act as a narrator, an addition made for this version of the play. Lock’s narrator will help to summarise the action, allowing the two-and-a-half-hour play to be presented in slightly over one hour.

The staged reading is not static. The presentation will incorporate props and movement, in a staging worked out by the actors themselves as they rehearsed with the text.

“It’s collaborative,” said Weinstein, “and we all have an input.”

The roots of the Golden Stagers go back to 1998, when Weinstein co-moderated a theatre workshop which eventually metamorphosed into the troupe. The Stagers put on their first play in 2000, Where There’s a Millie There’s a Way, and shortly after began performing for the general public.

At Shulman’s instigation, the Stagers began to integrate movement into their performance. As she said, “It’s not just a reading, it’s a dramatised reading ... The staging aspect is very minimalist, but it is there.”

Following the September production of Collected Stories, the Golden Stagers will perform The Value of Names, by Jeffrey Sweet, at the Cote St. Luc Library on Oct. 11. Tickets for that presentation will cost $2.

For more information on the Westmount performance of Collected Stories, call 514-989-5386.