Controversial playwright/filmmaker chats about her award-winning drama, the audience of tomorrow, the issue of increased campus shootings, and Sept 13, 2006.

Is the audience for this type of work there anymore?

“Here in Toronto, there is a sh*tload of money for architecture, a sh*tload of money for opera and ballet, and nobody is giving money to the theatre: the government, private investors, nobody. If you don’t have money, you can’t keep it going.”

Is there a solution for this problem, a way to nurture this audience?

“Yeah, it’s called education and it has to start in the public school system. When Harris came in he took all the arts out of school programs, and the music programs and killed all that off. There’s kids that grew up to be 18 years old and have never seen a play. Then you think, what, they are going to go to a play now? Fat chance…. And there’s also the critics. The critics here in Toronto... it’s like the Roman Empire when people would put their thumb up and their thumb down. It’s incredibly adolescent, and mean and sh*tty." The worst thing is that people will listen to the critics. They will not go to a show if they see a bad review because they are like sheep."

You must be doing something right to win the Governor General’s Award.

It was really nice that this play got it because this play is a French-, English-Canadian play about something that everybody in this generation... at least, even if people are too young, there’s echoes of. It was great for me, no kidding. But it was great that it was this play.

You have a son living in Montreal?

“Yes, and he’s at McGill. I was in Regina at the time of the Dawson College shootings. When it first came on the news they didn’t put where it was and I thought it was McGill and I just about had a heart attack. Then I waited because I was supposed to be going to the university, but I couldn’t leave.I couldn’t pull myself away from the television. Then they said Dawson College and I started phoning because actually my kid lived near there, about half a block away."

"I was phoning and phoning and I couldn’t get a hold of him all afternoon. I was fit to be tied. Then I got a hold of him and he was putting his bookshelf together. I kept frantically saying “What’s going on, what’s going on? I’ve been trying to call you and he said “Mum, relax. Do you have any instructions for how to put an Ikea shelf together?” I was thinking Oh My God.”

There are just too many random acts of violence…

"You have to assume that until people start talking to young people, or young people start talking, and people start talking to each other and their families, there will be more of these acts because there is a great, great, great, deal of unhappiness in family life and in life in general."

The idea of family these days is so different …

"It has changed an awful lot in the last 20 years, and I sometimes think the baby boomer generation is too… soft and squishy to talk about the hardcore stuff."

The parents are not always there, too busy working and not listening enough.

"There is no communication. Remember the Dawson College thing when the woman, the mother came on and she did this whole thing of .. “Oh, I had no idea my son was like that." She was shocked, saying "God willing, God willing." I wanted to shout at her. Like, wake up lady!

I know people say The December Man (L’homme décembre) is a very dark piece but there's actually some humour between Kathleen and Benoit…

"There’s lot of humour. These people live their lives. They struggle to be normal, to live their lives. They can’t do it, but they struggle to do it. Whereas Jean their son, things are going well for him at school. He’s a pretty smart kid but I think in his family they didn’t speak very much. He could speak but he couldn’t speak about certain things. They are a very repressed family in that way."

The three actors in the cast: Nicola Lipman, Brian Dooley, Jeff Irving. How did these roles come to them? Did you have them in mind?

"No, I never have anyone in mind. Brian Dooley was one of the original cast members. When the play premiered in Calgary (at Enbridge playRites Festival) Then Niki Lipman came aboard. I have never worked with her before but of course her reputation precedes her. Jeff Irving is from the Shaw Festival"

Did the actors do research for their roles – Niki Lipman is known for that.

"Never. They go from the script. I never did that either. I don’t really believe in that because these are fictional characters."

Part 3 - Colleen Murphy: talks about her work as librettist for new opera on sex trafficking with composer Aaron Gervais.