By Michael Scoular (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: April 1, 2015
Prof Talk is The Cascade’s oral history series, featuring the people best qualified to talk about what UFV has been like over the course of its first few decades: its professors. Each week we’ll interview a professor from a different department, asking them what UFV was like before it was UFV, and how they expect things will continue to change here.
Ian Fenwick is the founding member of UFV’s theatre department and has directed more than 50 plays since its inception, most recently the production of Age of Arousal in January 2014. Fenwick has also received awards for his creative work in theatre.
What brought you to UFV?
Well, there was an opportunity to begin a theatre program at Fraser Valley College in the spring of 1980. Several faculty members and the president at that time had wanted to establish a theatre program, and I guess they got the sufficient resources and commitment to hire someone to come in and get the program going, so there was an ad in the paper. I was in Vancouver, a professional artist in the city, and I had a young family and was kind of looking for the next step. So we came out for a weekend and looked around the area. Went out to Harrison and Cultus Lake. Thought it was just a beautiful area. I remember some rabbits ran across the road, and I thought, that’s a good sign. Fertility and all that.
What were you doing previously?
I was a professional director and co-founded a theatre company in Vancouver which is still going, TouchStone Theatre, and so I was basically in the artistic end of things, but also in the administrative end. You wear a lot of hats when you’re a small start-up company in the city.
Were there any performances, maybe earlier on, where you felt like, “Okay, this is something that’s really clicking,” or, “We’ve really got a good connection with the audience”?
Yeah, I felt good right from the first show we did. But, we did a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1982, it sold out, and I remember a comment from a pretty prominent person in the community asking, “How are you going to top that?” It sort of felt like we could almost do anything here. People said, “Well, you can’t do Shakespeare, they won’t be able to deal with the language” and it’ll all look very unorganized or amateur or something, and it came off really well.
Wherever you have a successful theatre, you have that great support from your community. You do programming which fits with their stories and their aspirations, and also artistically you try to broaden and introduce new things, stretch audiences, and that sort of thing. Most of the time you’re running your head against the door — sometimes it opens artistically, and sometimes it doesn’t. This door opened.
Do you find you’ve had any courses that have become your favourite to teach, or that you’ve had to adapt with the times to some extent?
I guess we’re just about to launch into the Director’s Festival. It struck me that one of the things that we wanted to do was see [how other universities] work, and share each other’s work, and see the students from other programs work, and maybe be involved in some way.
In a discipline like ours, you really need to highlight what’s going on and to create a wider base and a stronger organization and profile for what we’re doing and all of that.
I would not want to say that I don’t like playmaking or second-year acting, or first-year acting, or anything like that. But creating that course and starting the facilities and having something like that, have it be successful and have it going 20 years later, students sort of working here early in the morning or late at night — you can’t keep the doors closed because they’re so enthusiastic. Seeing them lead other students in the program and have a wonderful year-end celebration of theatre, it’s kind of one of those things that doesn’t happen too often in your career or institutions. It’s been a wonderful feeling to have that.
Any colleagues or students who have been influential in what you do?
As soon as I mention one or two, I’ll omit the others. One of the things has been people who have been through the program and then we’ve been able to hire them as staff. That’s been very rewarding in that they have a tremendous zeal for the program, and they understand it and are committed to it. There have been so many great people and you try to learn every day from your colleagues and students.
When it comes to UFV you’re kind of picking for the students or community, but are you drawn to any plays as well?
Oh yeah. You start reading plays in the beginning, a couple of plays a week in the year, and start building up your knowledge of dramatic literature. I think your taste changes, your interests change. I [choose] plays here for students to learn and grow, and that it is something that a paying audience will come and see, but it’s also something that the university can represent — the kind of inquiry and stimulation that we as a university want to see. Somehow, inside yourself, you align yourself with the play. You’re always like “these are the things that make up the perameters of this choice.” I have a wide interest in all kinds of theatre and I’ve always struggled with that question.
As I’ve gotton older, I have come to see comedies as wiser than tragedies. I sort of look at tragedy now as people making stupid decisions and I start to think of them as stupid people. But comedy is where we all are stupid and we all make stupid mistakes, let’s laugh at them. There’s great wisdom in that. We’re frail, we’re full of problems, and yet it can be great fun at the same time.
I want a play that speaks to the human condition, that gives insight into people, places, and events. I love the last project I did, Age of Arousal, a period piece working on a transitional period in history, working with some technology and design and a wonderful group of people.
I’ve always wanted to try to tell the stories of people in our community. Too often theatre in the past was often imported from England or New York or something, and I have always wanted us to tell our own stories, to see new voices come forward and support them in the Director’s Festival.
I’ve never felt like we’ve done less than we would or downgraded our expectations or choices. This is a great community to do theatre in — and I would say, per capita, the best audience in the province.
Is there anything you’ve changed in your teaching style or your approach to the subject over the years?
The theatre’s a wonderful thing — you can draw on all the life experiences at some point or another, and you can use them. I’ve always found it stimulating and interesting and I’m sure it will continue until I die. You learn so much about people and events and human nature. I guess this year, because I’m retiring, I’m watching [actor] coachings and I’m looking at it through a little different lens and trying to understand “Why do people do this?” It’s kind of a strange way to spend a Wednesday night. People are so committed to this fiction, this fantasy, what the heck is driving them? I’m not sure I’ve come up with an answer.
I guess I’m asking myself those questions to understand how fundamental it is to be able to put ourselves into other peoples’ stories, to create stories, be part of representing stories, and communicate with other people. Those needs are so deep in our human nature.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
