PREVIEW
The Cardiac Shadow
Northern Light Theatre with Good Women Dance Collective
Jan. 18 to Feb. 12
ATB Financial Arts Barns
10330 – 84 Ave.
Tickets: Start at $20. Call 780-471-1586 or at www.northernlighttheatre.com
Trevor Schmidt, artistic director of Northern Light Theatre, is a risk taker unafraid to challenge preconceived norms even if it means mounting what could be a polarizing production. And he makes savvy use of the internet to project his vision.
https://youtu.be/0ASldpsUg2I
That’s how he discovered author/playwright Clay McLeod Chapman’s (Pumpkin Pie Show) 12-page reading of The Cardiac Shadow. The multi-media play gives a voice to four women prisoners locked in a Nazi concentration camp where doctors perform grotesque experiments on people.
The Cardiac Shadow, which opened Jan. 18 at ATB Financial Arts Barns, runs until Feb. 12.
“I found it late on a late-night rabbit hole search of the internet. It was interesting, brilliant and moving,” said Schmidt.
But without resources he put it on the back burner. In a luck of the draw, Chapman brought the Pumpkin Pie Show to the Edmonton Fringe.
“I met him. By then his career had gone in a different direction. He was writing youth horror novels. He’d become a screenwriter. He’s written Spiderman comics and he works for Marvel,” Schmidt noted.
This season Northern Light Theatre focuses strictly on women and The Cardiac Shadow fit the theme. Although Chapman’s work veered in a different direction, he enthusiastically supported Schmidt’s undertaking.
The play is based on a historical footnote found in a doctor’s diary about the Cold Conference, experiments conducted in concentration camps to test the body’s ability to withstand freezing temperatures.
“Male prisoners were put in a vat of ice cold water and revived when they were almost dead. They would do it again and again and then open them up to see how it affected the internal organs,” said Schmidt.
Women were brought in to provide comfort.
“They were tossed into bed with women and their heart rate was checked.”
Chapman’s skeletal script was a seed that prompted Schmidt’s vision. He invited Good Women Dance Collective to poetically represent the four women with voice-overs from regional actresses including former St. Albert resident Eliza Benzer and St. Albert Children’s Theatre music director Rachel Bowron.
“I feel like so much of what was written could stand on its own. I just wanted it to be more visceral,” Schmidt said, adding the play starts with a 12-minute film.
For some, beating the Holocaust’s tattered image is a futile exercise. However, Schmidt’s fervent hope is that their voices have the power to stir compassion. These women are long gone, but there are still many fleeing destruction today.
“We have children in cages and refugees in camps. People are turning against minority groups and it’s very important you don’t forget the things that went on. We are on a precipice of a cultural, racial divide being stirred up by nasty political people. As much as we don’t believe it, it could happen again.
“That being said, it’s not a heavy play in politics. It’s not graphic or violent. It will be deeply moving, not because it shocks or offends. It’s about the relevance of the human spirit and where we go in our mind when we are faced with a horrible situation. It’s about hope.”
