"PEPO: I was in the Zonders. How will I be able to face my child when he finds out.

RACHELIKA : We will not tell him anything, either about you or me.

PEPO: I did not join the revolt. I didn't want to.

RACHELIKA : We will name him for your brother. If it's a girl, will we will name her for your dead wife. You will talk to your children about Sol. Our children will be hers too."

-Scene From Les Mers Rouges

"This shadow thirsting for murder, that makes us shed seas of flames and blood, is our own."

-Les Mers Rouges

"Atlan's play (considered her best) offers a triumphant affirmation of life where the beautiful and the abject are in precarious balance."

-Kalli Paakspuu

"Liliane Atlan has always believed that if man and woman are capable of the worst, they are also capable of the best. In The Red Seas just as in all her other works, she prefers to place her trust in the divine form we carry within us."

-Leonard Rosmarin
Liliane Atlan ou la Quete de la Forme Divine
(Liliane Atlan or The Quest for The Divine Form)
published by Les Editions du GREF (Toronto)
and L'Harmattan (Paris), 2004

Surface and Symbol July/August 2005

The triumph of the human spirit :A Preview of Les Mers Rouges

By Nora Ohanjanians

The word ‘investment' makes most people think about a house, a car, or mutual funds.

Kalli Paakspuu is different.

This Genie award-winning filmmaker invested her savings in a theatre production this year. She founded Calipix Productions and, together with The Collective for Living Theatre, is staging French author Liliane Atlan's epic play, Les Mers Rouges (The Red Seas), for the Fringe Theatre Festival in July.

Paakspuu, who teaches screenwriting for film and video at York University and who has taught various subjects ranging from Politics to Women's Studies at the University of Toronto, as well as at McMaster, Western and Ryerson universities. She is currently completing her Ph.D. dissertation on the topic of “Rhetorics of Colonialism in Visual Documentation.”

I met her in the Guild Room of the Equity Showcase Theatre after a rehearsal. Genevieve Trilling and Philip Cairns, two of the five actors in the play, were also there and we sat down for a casual chat.

We talked about the play, which is based on the family history of Liliane Atlan. It depicts the story of Sephardic Jews' persecution over five centuries from the Spanish Inquisition to Auschwitz and the Holocaust. The play, translated by Leonard Rosmarin (Ph.D. Yale), into English, will soon be published.

The play explores not only the exile and persecution of a whole nation, but also the resilience, power and triumph of the human spirit. Liliane Atlan, considered one of the most prominent playwrights of the twentieth century, believes that, “The divine form exists within mankind, and when we draw from our reservoir of spiritual energy we are sometimes capable of transcending our known limits.” Sephardic and Ladino songs and dances, orchestrated by lyricist, composer and librettist, Eyal Bitton, contribute to the message of hope and survival.

The story is composed of fragmented pieces of memory, and is told by five narrators in a multi-layered fashion. Each narrator resurrects many characters, like Clarisse, who says, “I bear the given name of a multiple woman… .”

We talked about the challenge of reducing the length of the play from its original four-hour length to 90 minutes, in order to fit the requirements of the Fringe Festival. Then there is the challenge of staging 18 weddings with five actors, the physical arrangement of layout, props and costume changes to represent multiple scenes from various time frames.

But this cast doesn't shy away from challenges.

Trilling, a trilingual actor, embraces this opportunity since it will also give her the chance to act in the French language production of the play in the fall. “I've lived in France for a long time and this is a great chance to use my French in acting.” The part will also allow this young chisel-faced brunette to make use of her singing and dancing skills. Actor, writer and visual artist Philip Cairnes, who loves the Fringe Festival, is happy he could shuffle his schedule to fit in this engagement.

I asked Paakspuu why she has chosen this particular play considering the hefty investment of time and resources and the fact that she is not of Jewish heritage herself.

“Because it is along the lines of what I've done in my work so far,” she says with her smiling blue eyes. “It is a critique of global imperialism and colonialism, and having been written by a woman, it is a woman's take on war

and the Holocaust.”

“Yes,” Trilling joins in, “instead of women being in the secondary role of mothers and wives to men who tell the story of the Holocaust, in this play it is the women who are the main characters and are narrating their story.”

“And this year is the sixtieth anniversary of the Holocaust,” adds Paakspuu.

“How much of your investment do you hope to recover?” I asked.

“Well, we've been turned down by the Ontario Arts Council, but are still waiting for the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council to get back to us.” The company will also be organizing various social events, silent auctions and other fundraising activities to raise money.

For more information, go to www.lesmersrouges.com