Odyssey Theatre starts a voyage

Latest production marks a change in the company

Steven: "It's a very big risk, any time you do anything different in this business"

Laurie Steven is anxious the morning we meet. I can see it in the way she peers around the room over her cup of coffee and in the quick, bird-like way she answers my questions. She’s the founder of Odyssey Theatre, a 23-year-old company in Ottawa that’s expanding its commedia dell’arte-inspired performance from their outdoor home in Strathcona Park to the gleaming new amenities at the Gladstone Theatre. There’s obviously a lot riding on their newest production, A Guy Named Joe, but how much only becomes clear as we talk.

“It’s a very big risk, any time you do anything different in this business. Because people expect you to do what you’ve always done, any time you launch something new is always a risk.” This isn’t Odyssey’s first indoor show, Steven explains, but she hopes it to be the first in a permanent winter season: “The ideal would be one summer and one winter show. To keep the summer theatre, but present a second indoor show per season.”

Odyssey is known for shows that incorporate music, movement, dance, comedy and tints of realistic drama. A Guy Named Joe is no departure from this formula, but it is the first Odyssey show that speaks to more adult themes, and with a more mature language. Steven wrote A Guy Named Joe to have a “grittier, more social satire edge,” spinning the plot of this comedy around the pivots of poverty, desperation and crime.

It’s also satisfying for Steven to see her work reflected in the skilled performers that she assembled.

“When I started this company 23 years ago, there was no mask or clown facility here… It now looks like a viable option, where in a lot of other cities there isn’t a viable option to do this work.” So far, her risks seem to have paid off.

As appeared in the Ottawa XPress – Apr. 09, 2009
http://www.ottawaxpress.ca/stage/stage.aspx?iIDArticle=17036