Graham Isador and Marium Masood grow art at Tarragon's Greenhouse

9 Jan 2024 - photos courtesy of Tarragon Theatre

Tarragon Theatre is about to bloom in the midst of winter with the Greenhouse Festival. The festival is "focussed on growing vibrant, theatrical ideas and facilitating exchange between artists and audience." As such it has recruited an eclectic collection of intriguing artists including Graham Isador (White Heat, Situational Anarchy) and Miriam Masood. They graciously offered to answer a few questions about their work and the Greenhouse Festival.

Drew Rowsome: Greenhouse Festival director Justin Miller (Mr Truth, Chautaugua, Pearl Harbour's Sunday School)  urges audiences to “be curious, be daring, be a part of the fun.” What in your piece piques curiosity? 

Graham Isador: Short Sighted uses stories and sounds to explain vision loss to a sighted audience. As a premise that’s like one of those late night stoner conversations: how do we know what my eyes see are the same as what your eyes see? The show is a peek behind the curtain at something people are curious about but afraid to dive into, punctuated by a lot of jokes. 

Marium Masood: The big glaring curiosity is that Hot Girl Yoga brings together two familiar environments in an unfamiliar way: theatre and a yoga class. That’s the first thing that gets you to do a double take. I find audiences have been curious to explore the space physically as they try to figure out the rules. We know how to behave in theatre, we know how to behave in a yoga studio . . . but both? As a performer this tension has been interesting for me to explore as no two performances feel the same. Every night we negotiate and write the rules together.

Daring?

Marium Masood: As a type-A control freak, giving audiences a say in their experience has been terrifying. I have no idea what they’re going to say or do each night, or how I will react. Additionally, Hot Girl Yoga says things we might be otherwise afraid to say. As an immigrant in Canada I live under a pressure of gratitude. I should be grateful to be here, and I am. However it often feels like I don’t get to criticize Canada because I chose to be here and was lucky to be let in. Hot Girl Yoga gives me a voice. 

Fun?

Marium Masood: Play is huge part of my creative process and for the performance itself. We cannot process information if we’re coming from a place of stress, shame, guilt - so the hard to swallow parts of Hot Girl Yoga NEED to be balanced out with play, fun and straight up whimsy. 

Both of you have experience with festivals, what is the advantage of being part of a festival over a theatrical fun? 

Graham Isador: Tarragon has given me space to kind of fuck around and try things out in front of an audience. You’re getting real time feedback on what works and doesn’t work for your script before it’s got to go to the next stage. I’m grateful for the opportunity, but would love a shot at a theatrical run in Toronto. My work has sold tickets and been well reviewed, but I’ve never been given the shot to move beyond a fest.

How have Miller and the Tarragon environment helped with the creative process? 

Marium Masood: Miller and Tarragon have been instrumental in the creative process by providing me with a safe space to experiment, listening to crazy half baked ideas and sculpting them into something coherent. During my time here I’ve felt immersed in theatre and have met a number of incredible people as well. 

Graham Isador: Justin is a uniquely talented and quick entertainer. His feedback on the script has been invaluable and getting time and cash from the Tarragon folks to explore is very huge. It’s moved things from an idea to an actual show. 

Both productions deal with health issues, how did personal experience inspire you to tackle a subject in the zeitgeist? The personal becoming universal. 

Marium Masood: I’ve tried a lot of things for my sanity. I studied psychology at U of T to understand myself/human behaviour better. I’ve been on the receiving end of psychotherapy. I’ve trained as a CBT coach to help others. I was obsessed with self-help and was religiously waking up at 5am for a year. I do acupuncture, I do yoga, I meditate, I journal, I lie in sensory deprivation tanks. Somewhere along that journey I began to question the efficacy of a lot of these practices but also the systems that allows $100 yoga classes and $150 therapy sessions to exist. I know I’m not alone in questioning these practices, and I’m definitely not alone in the pursuit of sanity. Hot Girl Yoga allows us to investigate ourselves and the systems we operate in. 

Graham Isador: My vision loss isn’t that bad compared to any legally blind person. But it does cause issues, particularly when it comes to jobs. A lot of digital work tools aren’t accessible to me. Because of that employers thought I was incompetent or dumb. My vision loss doesn’t fit neatly into any category, I was constantly explaining — or trying to justify — why I could do some things and not others. Why I could navigate my phone or email but was lost in spreadsheets or shared screens. It was a deeply frustrating experience. In the course of the year it cost me two jobs. Writing about it was partially an outlet to talk about what I was going through (early drafts of the show appeared in Toronto Life and The Globe and Mail) and partly because writing is how I make my living. I have this strange compulsion to overshare personal anecdotes with strangers. I think at some point I started to outsource my self esteem to an imagined audience and now I’m stuck telling secrets forever. 

Both of you are known for being darkly comic. How do you balance comedy with serious themes? How do you hope the audience will react? 

Marium Masood: I take the approach of a sugar coated pill. The core of what I have to say is serious, the wrapper I’m saying it in is silly, goofy, fun. I hope this makes it easier for the audience to receive the work without getting defensive. I hope they will laugh, a lot. But also I hope they will have a discussion on the car ride home. 

Graham Isador: I’m actually better at making people cry than I am at making them laugh, but no one wants to shell out 15 bucks to feel bad about themselves. And it’s irresponsible as a performer to bombard an audience with sadness and not give the courtesy of a little flair. That doesn’t need to be in the form of jokes, but I’m not talented enough to do anything else. 

How do you balance performing in your piece with being an objective creator? 

Marium Masood: I’m still figuring that out. Having an outside eye has been immensely helpful in this regard, shout out to Erum Khan for being an incredible mentor during this process. 

Graham Isador: I don’t know. I’m a bad actor but I’ve always been great at playing myself. And when you’re writing memoir it’s a coward's move to make someone else say all that stuff. 

Do you find the creating or the performing more rewarding? More difficult? 

Marium Masood: Ideation is easy, it’s an electric spark. Creating is difficult, turning the spark into something coherent alone in a dark studio. Performing is rewarding, feeling the spark again and again. 

How important is music, a soundtrack, to creating your vision?

Graham Isador: Above all else we are trying to create a vibe for the show. The tone is as important as the ideas. Sometimes the tone and the idea feel like the same thing. And that doesn’t happen without great sound design. 

Marium Masood: I need music to focus, lo-fi electronic beats. Even to sit and write music is around in the background. For Hot Girl Yoga, I had a 'Hot Girl Playlist' that I tuned into before every workshop/rehearsal to get into character. So music has been essential in the creation process. During the piece itself I’ve played with music as an element to augment the shifts in the show.  

Why choose a theatrical production as a vehicle for expression? 

Marium Masood: The message of Hot Girl Yoga falls flat in any other medium, or is reduced to a joke. The tension that live theatre brings is essential to grapple with difficult themes and the interactivity is necessary to safely guide the audience through their investigation. 

What other Greenhouse productions are you eager or curious to see?

Graham Isador: Blanket Fort 

Marium Masood: I’m excited to see them all! You will see me wandering the premises trying to catch the works of Graham Isador, Guilty by Association and Shira Leuchter as well as the studio activations. I’m really excited for Blanket Fort as well!