John Sebastian Helmcken, do you swear by almighty God that the evidence you shall give today
is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
So it's stuff like that, right?
That's circulating through the streets of Victoria.
The play is called the Queer Trial.
It is part of a course, Theatre 311,
and it's been funded very generously by
the UVic Office of Community-University Engagement.
And so the goal of the project actually is to create a work of musical theatre, which,
or musical play.
It's really not a musical. It's a musical play, which researches a historical problem and
brings that to life, but does so
through community engagement.
And so all through this process, we have engaged with the community as part of our research
and the development of this piece, right?
We've consulted a few local experts and historians on the Bastion Square, black Victoria community,
Jewish Victoria community, the legal community, aboriginal communities, and so on.
We are out there in the community, researching this play, and then of course, is the combination
of this course, this whole research project.
We are going to be taking this beautiful message of tolerance and humanity right into the heart
of the community by performing it in Bastion Square, by performing this historical play
on the very site, on the very earth, where the events originally took place in 1860.
Also reading off of the original script on what are the lines there and what is needed
here for the music, like what can the music say from this.
Cause like basic music theatre rule, if something is more important,
then you sing it.
Yeah we've avoided going 'let's add a nice violin line here', but at the same time, we've
really started hitting like okay, but what can like a chorus of voices be doing to
sound like an organ, what can a chorus of voices be doing to just sound like a rumbling,
or can people make a beat with their foot.
You know, that's really what popped into my head.
So, we wanted to try and find that balance.
Like what can we create our own, but what can we keep traditional.
A lot of the BC history that surrounds the Gold Rushes that miners were following.
Not only in British Columbia, but around North America.
And people were driving cows to this area because they were feeding the miners who were
searching for gold.
And all of that led me to uncover stories about first nations that were, of course,
the people who have been here for
thousands of years.
That's really interesting, too.
Because, again, the fourth wall doesn't really exist because people can walk away from you
and step up to you, take photos with you while you're performing, while you're doing
other stuff like that.
I find it just to be really, just really engaging.
What I find really interesting about this, on the subject of, I mean this is a research
project, but it's also a creative activity, right?
And people often, in their minds, separate those two things.
They think on one hand, there's research, and on the other hand, there's creativity.
But what you learn when you do with historical drama, when you write historical drama, and
try to discover
a historical truth through theatre.
It's that, actually.
There're always so many gaps in the historical record
that the only way to solve those questions
is actually to try to get these people on stage, to try to get them into a space with
each other.