Woven Hearts ties together old tales and new possibilities

School of the Art’s fall major theatrical production explores love and power through a reimagining of Greco-Roman mythology

From Nov. 8 to 17, 2024, the school of the arts presented Woven Hearts, this year’s fall major theatrical production, in the Lyons Family Studio in L.R. Wilson Hall. Divided into two acts, the original production incorporated a series of Greco-Roman mythological figures and stories, drawing from Ovid's poem Metamorphoses.

Woven Hearts was produced by students taking the course iARTS 3MP6 – Devised Theatre Production. Through this course, students get hands on experience with production aspects like set and lighting design, costume and makeup design and choreography. These students also serve in key roles such as stage managers, script supervisors and assistant directors.

The central set piece for Woven Hearts was a loom that stretched from floor to ceiling and across the width of the theatre, splitting the stage in half. The Lyons Family Studio is arranged so that the audience sits on opposite sides of the stage, facing into the centre of the room.

Throughout the show, the actors interacted with the threads of the loom in various ways, pulling them aside to walk through the loom, leaning against them and entangling themselves between them. Different textiles were also woven into the loom to create imagery for certain scenes.

Peter Cockett, a SOTA associate professor who directs the fall major each year, discussed his selected source material.

“I wanted to do something about love, so we turned to a classical source, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, that has all these stories about love. And when we went to that source we discovered that it also had a lot to say about power and it actually was really political in our times, especially around issues of consent around this very patriarchal world of Ovid’s poem,” said Cockett.

Cockett emphasized that the fall major goes beyond just retelling old stories.

“I don’t think they’re important because they’re classical . . . but they’re here. They’re constantly being told and retold. They’re being idolized and idealized. So I think taking them on and seeing what they’re really about and changing them, that feels important still,” said Cockett. “But I think the most important thing is what the audience is responding to, which is this notion of centering love and the potential for a kind of altruistic social love that humans are capable of.”

In the spring 2024 term, Cockett taught THTRFLM 3PR3 – Text-based Devising: Research and Development, which is where the devising process for the fall major began. Cockett explained that the process involved studying Metamorphoses before writing and designing the entire production around the themes and stories from the text.

Mikey Gough, a fourth-year theatre and film studies student, described his experience working with Metamorphoses.

“There’s this instinct to have a lot of wonder surrounding the Greek myths, have a lot of positive associations. There was a lot of excitement . . . and when we were really kind of getting into the meat of them, I feel like we were running into these issues . . . it feels like they’re so harmful at times. And I think that friction, that incongruence with the wonder we had surrounding the stories and our problems with them is almost where we found our thesis,” said Gough.

Throughout the devising process, Gough and his peers asked questions like: “What about these stories are we not liking? What do we want to leave behind? And why? And what are these kind of new interpretations which we somehow or we suddenly find super beautiful?” said Gough.

Gough shared that he had heard positive reactions from others who watched the production.

“People in my age group, other students . . . have found it really moving. They’ve really enjoyed the upward arc of the show, which I would say there is . . . and I’ve heard a lot of people saying that the dose of hope it brings in our unprecedented times is really refreshing and important to see,” said Gough.

The annual SOTA fall major is a testament to the artistic talent of McMaster’s student body. Each production is creatively designed to convey an important message to its audience. Cockett shared that next year's production will focus on prison abolition, with a research-based devising process set to begin in January 2025.