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What If Theatre is set to take Winnipeg theatregoers away from the Gargoyle Theatre in the West End to the fictional town of Waska, Manitoba. There, a grisly crime that took place forty years ago involving cannibalism still haunts the streets and psyches of its residents, and the once-bustling tourist community is all but deserted as a result.
This is the setting for How They’ll Tell It, a new production written by Sophie Guillas and directed and dramaturged by Cali Sproule. The project, which will be on stage from May 29 to June 8, was first conceived almost two years ago, but Guillas and Sproule’s partnership was forged years before when they were both students in the University of Manitoba’s drama department.
“Interestingly enough, it started out as a novel,” Sproule recalls of the project’s origins. “[Guillas] is from Dauphin and is the family member of a provincial court judge and was really struck by how commonplace tragedy can be and how perpetrators of crime are in your grocery store.”
Sproule, who grew up in the Oakville area near Portage la Prairie, also notes another insidious quality of small towns that has an outsized effect compared to their more urban counterparts: gossip. In the context of Waska, the gossip helps to sensationalize the crimes and provides a unique parallel to the experience of queer people living in rural settings where their existence is more pronounced.
“When you have this idea of a cannibal, you think you have this idea of a monster,” Sproule explains. “Similarly, when some folks think of queerness, they have this idea of the monster.”
Guillas’s post-secondary studies explored this phenomenon of historical instances where accusations of cannibalism were used to perpetuate racism and other forms of discrimination. These studies became the basis for the novel that ultimately became How They’ll Tell It. “It’s really interesting looking at the queer identity and the cannibal identity... and you strip that away and you say, ‘Well, what about the human in there? What story is in there?’” says Sproule. “And the big question with How They’ll Tell It is what stories do we own and what stories can we tell.”
How They’ll Tell It runs from May 29 to June 8 at the Gargoyle Theatre on Ellice Avenue. Tickets and more information can be found on the Gargoyle Theatre’s website or on What If Theatre’s Instagram page.