Bringing Back bliss (the birthday party play)
On October 28, One Yellow Rabbit will welcome back bliss (the birthday party play) for its second run, returning live performance to the Big Secret Theatre stage at Arts Commons. Written and acted by Verb Theatre director Jamie Dunsdon, critically acclaimed bliss approaches the inopportune moments in life when, like an errant balloon, our ignorance is popped. Perhaps it’s the dawning horror that Santa’s handwriting looks an awful lot like moms, or the burgeoning weight of climate change and environmental action––whatever the catalyst, bliss embarks on an exploration of our vulnerability, our curiosity, and our limitless capacity to ignore that which we shouldn’t.
bliss (the birthday party play) writer & actor Jamie Dunsdon
“The journey of the play is difficult to describe without giving everything away,” begins Dunsdon. “But it retells parts of my life through the lens of the question: what are all the things we don’t want to know about? There’s this mental gymnastics we’ve perfected to avoid looking at the things we need to evaluate in our lives. This is a play about that, about the very fair reasons that people have those kinds of responses to difficult topics.”
bliss (the birthday party play) originally launched in January 2020 with One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo. A sold-out run was promptly followed by talk of taking the show national, touring to cities where word had spread of Dunsdon’s heartfelt performance. It feels a cliché to write ‘and then the pandemic hit,’ but there you have it. Now, with the excitement of a live audience on the horizon, shows like bliss are preparing for a riot of emotions from both patrons and performers.
“I’m not sure if people are going to bring tension and fear and anxiety, or if it’s going to be a release. Recently at a show Verb Theatre is doing, people were walking in and exclaiming ‘Programs! I forgot about programs!’ They were excited over the tiniest things. It’s hard to anticipate how people will enter the space, and it will be different for everyone.
“One of the things I’ve noticed during the pandemic is people seem to be craving the things they can no longer get––they’re craving ritual,” continues Dunsdon. “The ritual acts of a play, whether you’re in it or going to it, is meaningful. An audience coming together in a room to experience something collectively, to go through a story together, laugh together, cry together––whatever it is, it’s an important ritual.”
Like many things and for many of us, live shows have become a hopeful idea for the future once we again find a modified normal. Now, with communities slowly starting to peak their collective heads out of pandemic burrows, Dundsdon’s performance is more apt than ever.
“I think a lot of us know what ‘ignorance is bliss’ means,” she says. “We all know that feeling of wishing we hadn’t learned something and wishing we could go back to a time before we learned it. But once you realize how little you actually know about the world, it breeds a kind of curiosity, which is kind of like ignorance, which is a kind of like…bliss.”
Presented by One Yellow Rabbit, Verb Theatre’s bliss (the birthday party play) will be performed from October 28 through November 7, 2021. Tickets are now on sale at artscommons.ca/whats-on/2022/oyr-bliss/.
