Pierre Brault's high-energy one-man show, Blood on the Moon, puts mystery and intrigue between the words 'Canada' and 'history', writes Arminta Wallace.
'The two worst words you can use in Canadian theatre are 'Canadian' and 'history'," says Pierre Brault cheerfully. "Keeps 'em away in droves." Yet his one-man show, Blood on the Moon, based on a political assassination which took place in Ottawa in 1868, has been a sell-out for three summers in a row at Canada's National Arts Centre. It also garnered him two Best Actor awards and toured successfully everywhere in his home country from British Columbia to Newfoundland via city-centre Montreal.
How did he do it? "I didn't tell anybody what it was about," he says. "I just presented it as a murder mystery, a court-room drama."
Which, of course, it is: a fast-moving, wise-cracking roller-coaster in which Brault plays 18 different characters including prosecuting attorney, defence attorney, witnesses, judge and defendant. Irish audiences will have an opportunity to see Blood on the Moon when it opens a month-long tour at the Draíocht Arts Centre, Blanchardstown, Dublin on Tuesday. But - artistic merit apart - why should Irish audiences be particularly interested in a Canadian court-room drama?
Uh-oh. Here comes the history, right? "Well," says Brault, "I was walking down the street in Ottawa when I came across a spot on Parliament Hill where there was a little plaque which said: 'On this spot 1868 Thomas D'Arcy McGee, father of the federation, was killed by an assassin's bullet'. I went to the library and looked up the story - and found newspapers from 1868 with banner headlines which screamed 'McGee assassinated'. Not just Canadian newspapers, but papers from England, French, New Zealand and America. I thought, wow, this was a really big deal at the time, so I started to investigate the story.
"I quickly realised that here was a federal political assassination less than a year after Canada was conceived, and just a few steps away from the seat of power on Parliament Hill, and I - a Canadian - didn't know anything about it. Or at least, I knew there was a man called McGee who had been assassinated. Most Canadians don't even know that much. This happened three years after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; if it was the US, there'd be a theme park on the spot, never mind a dinky little plaque."
The more Brault read, the more fascinated he became. A member of the Young Ireland movement who was born in Carlingford, McGee had escaped to the US but rapidly became disillusioned with Irish-American politics, which he felt were locked into old, stale arguments and oppositions. He was invited to Canada and rapidly achieved political prominence, partly on a strongly anti-Fenian platform - at a time when there was a large and restless Fenian Army just across the border in the US.
"Part of the grand plan of the Fenians at that time was to invade Canada and hold it hostage," says Brault. "It sounds incredibly far-fetched now - however, they had already attacked the border. Battles were fought; people were killed; Canadians were really worried. McGee was an outspoken opponent of Fenianism and they swore to get him."
In the early hours of April 7th, 1868, somebody did just that, shooting McGee in the head at close range and causing panic on the streets of Ottawa. The fledgling parliament needed a scapegoat - and fast. "A tailor from Galway, James Patrick Whelan, was arrested and charged even though he was not an active member of the Fenians and claimed not to be a supporter. The evidence was very, very sketchy indeed; but in a five-day show trial he was convicted, then hanged a few months later in front of thousands of jeering people."
It was Canada's last public execution; and once Whelan was gone, the whole episode was swept under the carpet and forgotten. "So here," says Brault, "are two Irishmen, one who helped found the country and one who was accused of killing him. I didn't really want to tell McGee's story because it was huge - he wrote numerous books and was well known. But what I found fascinating was the story of this tailor nobody knew about. I wanted to give Whelan a chance to defend himself. In 1868 a prisoner wasn't allowed to defend himself at his own trial until after sentencing - which, you know, is a little late."
The result was Blood on the Moon, a high-energy recreation of the trial which, from a perfoming point of view, Brault compares to learning to run the quarter-mile. "You have to know how to pace yourself, where to take a breath. I know that sounds silly, but you really have to know that, OK, at this point I'll be able to take a deep, deep breath - it may be four minutes away, but I'll get there. Essentially, though, I think that's what audiences respond to. The quick, and very definite, character changes."
He demonstrates with a mid-sentence shift from the timid, apologetic Whelan to a Very Big French Witness. "Also, I was lucky enough to have, at the National Arts Centre, the services of one of Canada's top lighting designers, Martin Conboy - who happens to be from Roscommon. He created this fabulous set out of light. There's just a wooden chair, but the light creates the courthouse, the yards, the jail cell. It's very effective. When I'm in this cell of light which is three feet by nine feet - the actual dimensions of Whelan's cell - I can feel the audience's discomfort at the claustrophobia, which is increased because it's made out of light.
"I think they're surprised, too. I know I've been to many shows where I've sat down in the theatre and looked at the stage and went, 'Oh God, look at the set - it's just a chair . . . yee-haw. And he's gonna talk to me about Canadian history? Oh, boy.' Occasionally we get what we call hockey husbands who've obviously been dragged to the theatre by their wives. Sitting there with their arms folded, practically nodding off. That's who I go for. That's who I try to entertain."
Brault's personal background has played its own part in the genesis of this piece of theatre. His father was a French-Canadian who, after his marriage to Brault's mother broke up, married a woman from Dublin; giving Brault both a smattering of French and an interest in things Irish. More crucially, he worked for five years as a stand-up comedian.
"Great training for the one-man show form," he says. "It's a very brutal business. Was I a good comic? I dunno. I got paid. People laughed. But in comedy there are formulas, and when you've worked in it for long enough you can see the formulas. Like, there's the three. You probably know this one. A set-up, then three responses: ba-bah, ba-bah, bah-ba. As in, let's see - 'I go swimming at the YMCA, but the pool there is so chlorinated they got one lane for rats, one lane for pleasure swimming, and the third is for bleaching pulp and paper products.' See? It's all just one, two, three. You find it all the time in stand-up."
Why did he get into stand-up, to begin with? "Oh, it had always been at the back of my mind as something I wanted to try. But I knew I wouldn't do it forever. That'd be a sad life, frankly - to be a comic. The thing that really pushed me out of comedy is that so much bad comedy is really about re-inforcing stereotypes. Eventually I just walked out. But when I did leave the business, I had toughened up a great deal. I virtually lost my stage fright. Compared to stand-up, acting is a doddle. You go on stage with an audience which isn't going anywhere and, you know what? Even if they don't like you, they'll clap at the end."
Wait till he gets to Longford. Just joking . . .
Blood on the Moon is at the Draíocht Arts Centre, Blanchardstown, Dublin, from March 4th to 6th, then tours to Bray (Mermaid Arts Centre, March 7th and 8th), Galway (Town Hall Theatre, 10th and 11th), Letterkenny (An Grianan, 12th and 13th), Longford (Backstage Theatre, 15th), Portlaoise (Dunamaise Theatre, 19th and20th), Waterford (Garter Lane Arts Centre, 21st and 22nd), Limerick (Belltable, 25th and 26th) and Belfast (Old Museum Arts Centre, 28th and 29th)