A story of love and fading memory
The inspiration for time slips
While I was participating in the Humber College Puppetry Intensive a number of years ago we were asked to think about stories we might like to tell in a performance. In reflecting I thought about my relationship with my larger than life father and the role of my mother’s storytelling had in a role in shaping our family narrative.
I think adult children try to understand their parents at some point and begin to see them as people as we ourselves age. There is a change in relationship dynamics that allows us to look at our parents through a lens of compassion and insight. It has been made more poignant as in recent years as my mother has developed dementia causing changing roles are between my parents.
Through the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre Mentorship program and support from the NWT Arts Council, this show is now getting on its puppet legs to walk the stage on October 4th, 2019.
The story shares Eva’s world as it is being compressed but releases her imagination to expand and allow her to be the hero she sees as herself. This narrative is juxtaposed against her husband Dale’s, antics and freewheeling ways. As dementia advances time slips for Eva, it shows how our roles in relationships can change and that sometimes reveals an unspoken truth and the hidden hero in all of us.
My hope is for the audience to make a connection with the characters, laugh, escape, and be emotionally moved by the story to think differently about aging, our roles between ourselves and with those of our parents.