Pearle Harbour on Distant Early Warning: "it's the goofiest, bloodiest, horniest and most animal you've ever seen this typically polished gal"

11 May 2022 -photos by Dylan Mitro

Being a part of the audience for a Pearle Harbour performance is exhilarating, thought-provoking and frequently a little dangerous. Having an audience with Harbour is even more so. When her new much anticipated production, Distant Early Warning, was finally able to hit the stage, the press release was fascinating but to state that it is a "climate-fiction music spectacle about the irresistible cycles of hope, memory and violence" is puzzling theatre-speak. Of course anything Harbour does is impossible to summarize or even explain, it just demands to be experienced. Curiosity aroused, I reached out on behalf of all enquiring minds, and though Harbour was far too busy to chat, she consented to answer a few questions about Distant Early Warning from a safe cyber distance. Which she emphatically did.

The press release seems to posit that Distant Early Warning is partially your response to the pandemic. How did Pearle, who was born to command a stage, weather isolation? 

Pearle Harbour: She is, to put it lightly, weathered. She's aged like American cheese, discovered decades later in its individual packaging; for all intents and purposes, still classified as a product that's safe for consumption, but there's got to be something sinister happening below the surface. Distant Early Warning was not intended to be a pandemic play, and it isn't (formally). It's a nuclear romantic fantasia, but the toxicity of the past years seeped in and informed how it grew, and mutated. Blessedly, you'll never hear the word "covid" in this play, not-a-once. But there is a lot of isolation.

For many years you've been offering hope, solace and advice in a world of madness and horror. How does Distant Early Warning build on that foundation? 

Pearle Harbour: I've always thought of myself as a melancholic optimist: prone to great bouts of sighing and draping, in the classic homosexual style, but there's a sharp shard of something sunny, or a little playful ember, underneath the gloom. This is true of Distant Early Warning, even as this show aims to explode that very foundation. When does hope turn sour? When does a mantra of positivity deafen our ears to the signals the world is really sending us? How can we tune ourselves to be in harmony with the world, rather than forever chasing the beat of our own drum?

After being saddled with an ensemble in Retreat, how does it feel to be flying solo again? 

Pearle Harbour: I've always been lucky to enjoy a partner in performance; most of the time, it's my longtime collaborator and musical director Steven Conway; and then there's the audiences themselves, and how Pearle tries to rope and wrangle them into her mess. Distant Early Warning is a different beast. It strips Pearle of an audience. We see her, for the first time, lonely and alone. She'll still wink at you, lurking there in the shadows, but the pandemic forced a number of new discoveries, when my more physical relationship with the audience was cut. We didn't know what the world would be like when this play premiered. We didn't know what restrictions would be in place. We didn't know what people would be taking with them to the theatre. It has always been my philosophy (well, my borrowed-philosophy-from-Taylor-Mac) that I will always keep you safe. Distant Early Warning became the most formal solo show Pearle's ever done for that reason. But remember, 'safe' is not the same thing as 'comfortable.'

Will Pearle be taking on another classic role in the future? Audiences would kill to see your Lady MacBeth or Blanche DuBois (or Devereaux). And just how did Beanie Feldstein get the Broadway role that should have been yours? 

Pearle Harbour: Oooh. But howzabout Pearle as Stanley Kowalski? Or even better, Pearle as Shelley Levene. Pearle as Roy Cohn! But yes, please cast me.

"Distant Early Warning imagines what might come after the end: romance." Does this mean that Pearle finally gets the guy she deserves? Will you fulfill your dream from Pearle Harbour's Sunday School and finally give Justin Trudeau the love and lust he deserves?

Pearle Harbour: Ugh, for both our sakes' let's hope it's not someone as hopelessly flaccid as Justin Trudeau. In crafting this story of hope, love, and longing, I couldn't help myself, Pearle absolutely gets the ending she deserves: a happyish ending (self-service).

The world is truly a terrifying place at the moment, what is Pearle's advice to ward off despair?

Pearle Harbour: I've been trying to employ a handy reminder of Kurt Vonnegut's. Paraphrasing: One of the most objectionable things about human beings, is that they so seldom notice when they're happy. So pay attention, and maybe when you're sitting under a tree, on a July afternoon, drinking lemonade, talking about this or that, just stop, stop everything and go: "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."

John Turner of Mump and Smoot renown was brought in as a director. How did his clowning expertise mesh with Pearle's fervent sincerity? 

Pearle Harbour: A JT I can get behind. My clown daddy. John Turner brings horror, and heart, to everything he does. It's been a fever dream working together on this. I can honestly say it's the goofiest, bloodiest, horniest, and most animal you've ever seen this typically polished gal.

Distant Early Warning is billed as a "darkly comic musical fantasia," how many new numbers, did Steven Conway have to perfect? Which one resonates the most with Pearle's soul and why?

Pearle Harbour: Distant Early Warning put Steven through the wringer too. They're a very live creature, in how they live, and how they perform, so to tell them to go away and record was a huge change for us as a duo. But as ever, boy oh boy did they deliver. It's not my favourite song in the show, but Pearle's is most definitely "I Don't Want to Set the World On Fire." She'll gush all over you about it.

Will there be audience participation? It is always an honour to humbly interact with Pearle as in Chautauqua.

Pearle Harbour: It's hard to say. Pearle hasn't been with an audience in quite some time, she may not be able to help herself. But is this definitely more hands-off than usual, in a literal way at least. She'll still try to wrap her grubby mitts around your heart.

What does it mean to Pearle to be performing at Buddies as the climax to a season that didn't have much foreplay? What does Buddies mean to Pearle? 

Pearle Harbour: It's like a handjob from a monkey's paw. It's exactly what I hoped for, in a context (politically, epidemiologically, environmentally) I could have never predicted or wanted. But hey, that's what Pearle's built for: she hugs calamity.

How did Pearle survive the Buddies bloodbath?

Pearle Harbour: She kept her head down and nose outta it. Pearle's always been a bit of a satellite, swinging around in dizzying orbits. I'm not sure in what direction she'll be pulled to next, but it is sad to think that her time, my time, buzzing around Buddies is coming to an end. They've been so good to me: Evalyn Parry, Mel Hague, Daniel Carter, Patricia Wilson, everyone. Whatever's next for this place, both rot and regrowth, I hope people recognize how special Buddies was, is, can and will be, as long as we keep bringing our queer magic into it. And please, everyone, be kind to each other. It's bad enough out there without making it bad in here.

How does it feel after years of development and "multiple workshops and rebirths" to finally get to offer Distant Early Warning up for judgment and enjoyment? 

Pearle Harbour: There was honestly a time, not too long ago, when I felt sheer and utter dread, because I didn't think I would ever figure out what it really needed. But now, I feel absolute gut-wrenching blood-squirting heart-pounding thrill/joy/terror (the good kind) to share this beautiful, tender, funny, gross, and hopeful look into our bleak-ass future.

What do you hope that audiences will take with them when they leave Distant Early Warning?

Pearle Harbour: That they'll have laughed, felt uncomfortable, shrieked in terror, sighed in longing, and felt a pang of recognition in their hearts of what the heck we can do with all this horror we're carrying around, and all the horror that's yet on the horizon . . . and then, when they leave, they'll go: "If that wasn't nice, I don't know what is."