Looking for catharsis

TOVA G. KORNFELD

Fifteen-year-old community member Matreya Scarrwener stars in the world première of award-winning playwright Colleen Murphy’s two-person black comedy Armstrong’s War, which opened at the Arts Club Granville Island’s intimate Revue Stage last week and runs until Nov. 9. She was joined by her co-star, 21-year-old Mik Byskov, for a chat between rehearsals with the Independent.

The Grade 10 Kitsilano High School student was born and raised in Vancouver and has acting in her blood. Her father is the drama teacher at West Vancouver’s Collingwood School and she was bitten by the acting bug at an early age. “I remember going to see a show with my parents when I was about five and thinking, ‘Wow, I can do that, and that’s exactly what I want to do.’” Although she has not had extensive formal training, she already has an impressive resumé of television appearances, including The Haunting Hour, The Killing, Spooksville and a recurring role in Steven Spielberg’s Falling Skies.

Vancouver audiences will be the first to see Armstrong’s War and Scarrwener said she is excited to be involved with a new work. “I have never done anything like it before,” she said. “It is such a fun script, and we have the playwright here sitting in on all the rehearsals. Often, we will be doing a scene and she will interrupt and say, ‘Oh, I like that better,’ and we make the change. So, it’s fantastic to be part of something that no one else has ever seen and to be contributing to the final product.”

The plot: a wounded Canadian Afghan vet, Michael Armstrong, returns home to convalesce in hospital from a fractured leg. Halley Armstrong, as a result of a car accident, is a wheelchair-bound 12-year-old Path Finder (one level above a Girl Guide) who needs to earn her community-service badge. She undertakes a project to read to Michael (she feels an immediate connection to him due to their common surname) once a week for six weeks. She starts by reading a girl detective story and Wuthering Heights but he is disinterested. “Don’t you have any books about war?” he asks. That comment motivates her to bring in Stephen Crane’s iconic The Red Badge of Courage, the tale of an 18-year-old Civil War deserter. This leads to the two protagonists fighting their own demons through the catharsis of their joint reads.

Byskov had never read Crane’s book until he won the part. “His language is beautiful, it is almost Shakespearean,” he said. “It is a great story that will resonate with all ages. It has certainly affected me.”

The play runs for 90 minutes without intermission. “It is very intense, just the two of us, all that time on stage together,” said Scarrwener. In fact, the two were the first pair to audition for the part. “I really felt we clicked that first time and I was so happy when Mik got the part,” she said.

There are some unique demands for Scarrwener. “I had to learn to use the wheelchair and be comfortable in it and I actually fell out of it once during rehearsal. My neighbor, who is an occupational therapist at the GF Strong Centre, has given me some technical advice on how to manoeuvre it. I am getting quite good at it. Now, it really is easy, all I do is sit in the chair and say my lines, but it has changed my perspective on people with disabilities. Now, when I see people in wheelchairs, I carefully study them and their movements because I can really relate to what they are going through.”

Scarrwener also learned a lot about life from this play. “My character is complex. She’s resigned to the fact that she is in the wheelchair but she is happy and blissfully naive about life,” she explained. “The soldier broadens her outlook on life and through the course of the play she matures.”

When asked why people should come to see the play, Scarrwener reflected, “Because it is a really good play. For awhile I could not read the script without laughing and crying. It is both a comedy and a drama that makes you think. It is about honor and courage and how much one can lose and still feel that life is worth living. As it says in the play, hope is a form of courage.”

The opening night crowd acknowledged the terrific performances by giving them a well-deserved standing ovation.

Tova G. Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

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