The Anorak: Audience Reaction
Playwright Adam Kelly - A Candid Chat on His Solo Show
Montreal playwright / actor's candid comments on the impact of this one-man show about the Montreal Massacre, which he has performed in Ontario and Quebec for five years.
The Anorak debuted in Toronto in 2002 before an audience of over three-hundred at York University's Burton Auditorum. The Montreal premiere took place in September 2004 at Zeke’s Gallery.
In March 2005, the show was performed at the Queen’s University Engineering Department in Kingston. Additional Montreal productions have taken place at Concordia University, Trafalgar School for Girls, and the Cartier Centre for Continuing Education in Beaconsfield.
On International Women’s Day, March 8, Kelly spoke about the Montreal Massacre at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) 2006 conference.
What has the audience reaction been like to The Anorak?
"I usually have a forum after my shows, and I just open it up to talk to people after the show and of course the first question they always ask is why have you done this? What is your interest in this? But what I find often happens with this forum is that through discussion people stop asking me questions and just start talking to each other about the issues that the play raises and I think that is great. I love it when I sat back in the forum and people are just talking, and to me that is always a good sign. People have said things like why have you chosen to recreate the persona of this killer, of this monster, why have you decided to do this? I always answer with the same basic response: because I am exploring him and I want to know more about him and I want to know more about why these sorts of things keep happening."
"There have been a couple of people who have been angry after the show and they have said things like ‘We don’t think you should be putting this up.’ I remember the first time I put this up at Burton Auditorum at York University, my first full-length show. There was a reaction of ‘Aren’t you afraid that someone might watch this play and then go out and do something like this because they have been thinking of it for a while?’"
"I don’t concern myself with that so much because I think it is my job to ask difficult questions and to put those questions out there. I don’t think I am being irresponsible for portraying someone and making people see perhaps or ask what’s really going on under the skins of the people who do this sort of thing.
I would hate for that to happen. Obviously if someone were to go ‘I watched Adam Kelly’s play and I went and shot people.’ then J.D Salinger wouldn’t have been able to write Catcher in the Rye, and musicians would not be able to do what they do. I don’t know."
"Honestly, most of the commentary I get is very positive and has to do with people not knowing so much about this issue and the research is translating into something that people take home with them. And the issues themselves that are being raised in the play, that’s something that they can take home with them too.
What comes up in the forum is really what people are asking and what people’s reactions are. It’s there. It’s in their commentary and what they have to say back and forth to each other. People talk about family issues, talking about the changing roles with men and women, and the importance of family in society, the difficulty within our educational structure, the difficulty within different cultural backgrounds, and the economy. There’s all kinds of issues that this play raises. I don’t want to say just this play, this issue raises.
The fact that you tell me about this shooting in Finland and I hadn’t heard about it because I hadn’t been reading the newspaper lately, really it does not surprise me.The fact that it is Finland sends a signal to me because it is one of those countries where young men under the age of 40 are killing themselves and there has to be reason for it."
Part Four - Adam Kelly was script consultant for a movie treatment of The Anorak which is being is now being made into a feature film in Montreal.
