From May 28th – 31st the Société de Développement du Boulevard Saint-Laurent (SDBSL) hosted a four day party known as the Mainfest. Despite bad weather reports, the sun shone radiantly throughout most of the festival. This was wonderful for local merchants, musicians, performers, and pedestrians who converged at the Mainfest to participate in a multitude of activities. This was also fantastic for the Schering-Plough Corporation because their brand Coppertone set up a promotional stand at the festival to distribute sunscreen and inform pedestrians about Coppertone products as part of a guerrilla marketing campaign. An entire weekend of rain would have put a damper on Coppertone’s sunscreen publicity.

Under the bright sun, Coppertone promoters gave pedestrians free samples of sunscreen while warning them about the problems caused by the sun’s ultra violet rays. They also invited people to have a free evaluation of their facial skin to test for existing sun damage. The test was administered by a man in a white laboratory coat in the shade beneath a Coppertone branded umbrella. He performed his test with a “diagnostic camera” which took one picture, developed it in two different ways laid out side by side. On the left, the picture appeared overexposed and hid any skin blemish and on the right, the picture was underexposed revealing every wrinkle and spot on one’s face. The diagnosis was performed by comparing the two pictures. The man pointed out skin abnormalities from the underexposed picture. If he found skin problems participants were told that they could prevent further harm by using Coppertone products. If he found no damage, people were told to use Coppertone to prevent future skin problems.

Instead of thanking Coppertone for caring so much about my well being, I approached the Coppertone display to ask some very important questions. Why was Coppertone so concerned about my skin? Do they truly care or is this another marketing ploy to brand the Coppertone name? Is their diagnosis real or is it a sales tactic? How qualified is the man giving the diagnosis? I know that sun exposure can cause skin damage, but can Coppertone really protect me? Does Coppertone contain any ingredients which cause skin damage? These questions induced a little panic in the Coppertone promotion team. I guess the presence of my camera man didn’t help. Though, I didn’t get to the bottom of all these questions, I did discover some awful truths about their campaign.

Since the promoters didn’t work for Coppertone it was hard to find out anything about their products. Coppertone paid actors and event organizers from New Ad, a marketing company who delivers young people to corporations, and a nurse from Quality Health Services LTD. The nurse alleged that he could not make any formal diagnoses because he was not a doctor. In fact, none of the promotional staff could not answer any questions about how the product worked, how it was made, what ingredients were in the sunscreen or if any ingredients used in the sunscreen were harmful.

Like the glare of the sun, light shed on the true intentions of Coppertone’s promotional spectacle. Coppertone’s campaign was not designed to help people but to scare them.  If someone is told that they may develop skin cancer because they are not well protected from the sun, they should be more likely to take advice from the street promoters and apply Coppertone sunscreen. Furthermore, if people are told they have skin problems from someone that resembles a doctor, they may be scared enough to use Coppertone more frequently so the ‘damage’ doesn’t escalate, especially if the Coppertone name is associated with cancer prevention. If Coppertone was really concerned about people’s skin, they would have hired real doctors to make real medical assessments instead of contracting a nurse from Quality Health Services LTD who can only provide an unprofessional opinion. He only told me he was a nurse and that he was not making an actual diagnosis after I inquired. Those who didn’t ask may have assumed he was a doctor giving valid evaluations, prescribing Coppertone to prevent skin cancer.

If Coppertone sunscreen really prevented skin cancer, my argument could be moot. Maybe a little scare for something healthy wouldn’t be so bad after all. These tactics are commonly used in anti-smoking and anti-drinking and driving commercials. The main problem is that Coppertone sunscreen does not do very well in research conducted by independent sources.

In 2008, the Environmental Working Group conducted an investigation of nearly 1 000 brand name sunscreens. This report concluded that none of Coppertone’s 41 sunscreens met the Environmental Working Group’s criteria for safety and effectiveness. Coppertone was accused of using dangerous ingredients including Oxybenzone, which is reported to be a possible cancer causing agent (for a comprehensive list of harmful ingredients used by Coppertone, follow this link).

The other sources of research on Coppertone products are conducted and/ or  sponsored by Coppertone themselves. The Coppertone Solar Research Center is responsible for testing Coppertone’s sunscreen for safety and effectiveness. This center was opened in 1971 and is described by Coppertone as the world’s largest state of the art facility for testing the quality of their sun-care products. In addition, the Coppertone Research Fund was established to provide financial support for dermatology research in Canada. Research on Coppertone sunscreen is mainly conducted by their research center through their charity fund, a blatant conflict of interest. In addition, they hire promoters, like those at the Mainfest, who cannot answer basic questions regarding the safety or effectiveness of their sunscreen.

Coppertone’s Mainfest masquerade came to an end when members of the Optative Theatrical Laboratories drew attention to the hypocrisy of associating Coppertone sunscreen to cancer prevention, especially by promoters who know nothing about the product. Since Coppertone paid actors to promote their sunscreen at the Mainfest, we intervened by sending in actors of our own. Because of the insincerity of their campaign, they were culture jammed. Here is what transpired:

Six years ago this past Monday, 23-year-old Rachel Corrie, who grew up in Olympia, Washington and traveled to the Gaza Strip as a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer as she defended the home of a Palestinian pharmacist in Rafah.  Her memory, though, seems like it cannot be crushed and has only grown.

She kept a journal from when she was a small child and continued writing before and during her trip to Palestine.  That, along with a series of e-mails she sent to her parents became the text of My Name Is Rachel Corrie, a play edited by Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner.

It premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London with actress Megan Dodds as Rachel and was an instant success.  Its American premier was scheduled to be in 2006 at The New York Theatre Workshop, but was abruptly cancelled, er, postponed, according to a statement.

The play and Rachel herself had become a symbol of what was happening to the Palestinian people that people in the west and in particular the United States could identify with.  She was a passionate and talented writer and her words humanized a situation that was distant for many.  This, for some, was dangerous.

A memorial to Rachel Corrie (2007)

“In our pre-production planning and our talking around and listening in our communities in New York,” artistic director James Nicola told the New York Times, “what we heard was that after Ariel Sharon’s illness and the election of Hamas, we had a very edgy situationWe found that our plan to present a work of art would be seen as us taking a stand in a political conflict that we didn’t want to take.”

Many in the New York theatre community and in communities around the world saw this as censorship for political reasons.  From underground artists to Vanessa Redgrave and Harold Pinter, voices rose to oppose Rachel’s voice being silenced once again.  Some of the voices opposed to the censorship decided to start a viral theatre project called Rachel’s Words and placed some of Rachel’s e-mails from Palestine on the web and encouraged groups in communities around the world to read them on the anniversary of her death.  They did.

In Montreal, OTL staged Rachels Words with Rachel’s e-mails read by actress Cassandra Witteman.  This was preceded by The Words About The Words, a verbatim theatre script taken from all the raised voices in the media and online debating the censorship of the play from both sides.

video from the Montreal reading of Rachel’s Words (2006)

In addition to raising awareness about Rachel’s story and what people in Gaza were going through, Rachel’s Words raised money for The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice.  The foundation hosts forums, gives out a scholarship and helps to finance projects such as The Rebuilding Project to rebuild the Nasrallah home that Rachel died protecting and The Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project.  In general, it hopes to continue the work that Rachel began.  Rachel’s parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie sit on the board.

Despite the global outcry and show of solidarity, Rachels Words were censored again by CanStage in Toronto when they cancelled their proposed production of My Name Is Rachel Corrie for similar reasons as the NYTW later the same year.

The play eventually made its way to the New York stage when the Minetta Lane Theatre  finally staged it off-Broadway in October 2006 with Dodds as Rachel and was presented in Canada as a co-production between Vancouver’s Neworld Theatre and Montreal’s Teesri Duniya Theatre in 2007 and 2008 with Adrienne Wong as Corrie.  It has since been staged in many different cities.

promo image for Neworld Theatre/Teesri Duniya production

Hardships and war in Gaza haven’t gone away, as was made perfectly clear with the bombardment a few months ago.  Neither have the voices speaking out against occupation and oppression, be they prominent or not.  Rachel’s voice is still among them.

On Monday, Theaters Against War and Rachels Words combined readings of Rachel’s e-mails wtih a reading of Caryl Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children written in response to the events in Gaza this past January.  They also ran some videos of those events as part of an evening in tribute to Rachel’s memory.  Musicians have written and continue to write songs about and for Rachel and artists and activists around the world still continue to mark her death and remember her life.  Many use the occasion to reflect not only on her and what she stood for but for those she fought and died to protect.

Rachel Corrie’s words are still with us and the world is better for it.

Tony Nardi is not someone who likes to keep silent.  He’s also someone who likes to keep the discussion going and continues to incorporate new voices into the dialogue he started and performs as Two Letters…and counting.  Tonight, Sunday and Tuesday, he’ll be reading his letters live again at UQAM and filming what happens.

In Fall 2005, Nardi, a Canadian stage and screen actor received a script for the TV series Rent a Goalie which he found contained content which was highly offensive to Italians.  He wrote to about his displeasure to a film and television producer responsible for the project.  Around the same time, he read a series of reviews of The Amourous Servant, a commedia dell’arte play by Carlo Goldoni which he found completely ignorant of what the art form Nardi was proficient in was all about.  He wrote to the critics.

These correspondences were highly dramatic and while technically written to individuals went well beyond the artistic “middle-men” in question to speak of Nardi’s struggles with cultural stereotypes in the Canadian theatre, film and television world in the first letter and the misconceptions of commedia dell’arte and what Nardi sees as a developing actor-less theatre culture in the second.

After friends convinced Nardi to not let the letters die and go public with them, he decided they needed to be staged.  He began workshopping them with a handful of people in 2006 and got very strong responses.  The dramatic nature of some of the opinions gave Nardi the idea to incorporate the thoughts he heard into the letters in the form of “ghosts” talking to him and stage the two letters as a performance piece.

Two Letters exposes the fear many people in Canada’s arts industries have of coming forward about what they see as negative stereotypes due to the risk of not getting work in the industry.  Some of the “ghosts” that speak to him agree with him but suggest that he doesn’t rock the boat too much with his views.  Others, who are on the side of his project debate the format it should take (more letter, less performance vs. more performance less letter).  This is a work in progress in every sense of the term.

The first letter will be performed and filmed tonight, the second on Sunday and Tuesday will be a post-mortem on the two letters and a look to the future.  All performances are free to attend and begin at 7pm in Studio J2545 on the 2nd floor of UQAM’s Pavillon Judith Jasmin, 1495 St-Denis corner of de Maisonneuve.

Harold Pinter delivering his Nobel Prize acceptance speech by video

Harold Pinter, who died this past Christmas Eve at the age of 78, was not only an acclaimed playwright, actor, director and poet, he was an activist who wasn’t afraid to speak his mind.  He was also someone who saw how art could be used as a tool for social change and recognized, as an artist, some of the deceptive staging tricks employed by oppressors.

When he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, he used his acceptance speech to speak out against the war in Iraq as well as American and British imperialism in general.  Always a man of the theatre (it was revealed this week that Pinter even wrote stage directions for his own funeral), Pinter not only spoke of the imperialist policies and their effect, but also of the sick theatrics used to disguise what is actually going on.  He even plays George Bush’s script writer at one point.  This week, Democracy Now played this speech, called “Art, Truth and Politics” in two parts which you can read, watch or listen to here and here.

Shortly after wining the Nobel, the New York Theatre Workshop cancelled its planned production of My Name Is Rachel Corrie, a play taken from the diaries of the American activist who was crushed by an Israeli military bulldozer while defending the home of a Palestinian pharmacist, for political reasons.  Pinter had always been an anti-censorship activist and added his voice to the chorus decrying this move.

OTL took part in the international viral theatre protest Rachel’s Words, which saw people all around the world reading Rachel’s e-mails from Palestine.  We preceded our reading of the e-mails with a verbatim theatre mini-play The Words About the Words, which dramatized the various voices on both sides of the censorship argument.  Pinter’s quote was an important part of the script.

With all that is going on in the world right now, a voice like Pinter’s is very much needed. While it may be silent, it is one that can and should still be played loud for all to hear.

It’s New Year’s Eve, so what better time to look back on the past year and the year ahead.  2008 was a busy one for OTL on several fronts:

Sinking Neptune II: We adapted our verbatim theatre critique of Canada’s “first play” Lescarbot’s Theatre of Neptune in New France and those remounting it, racism against Native peoples intact, for its 400th anniversary, to deal with another colonial celebration, the 400th anniversary of Quebec City.  We performed Sinking Neptune II twice at McGill University (including a show at the EGSS Conference), at CEGEP Montmorency in Laval, at the University of Guelph in Ontario and at the Maison de l’amitié as part of the infringement Festival.

rehearsal in Guelph (photo: Matthias Elsdörfer)

Our run culminated at co-op bar L’AgitéE in Quebec City in July, where we performed to a receptive audience which included members of the alternative 400e.  This was following a day of culture-jams, first of the ceremony where the Canadian military was given the keys to the city and later at the official Rencontres show, celebrating Samuel de Champlain and ignoring the genocide he was responsible for.

Stage III of the project is in the early planning stages, to get involved, please contact neptune@optative.net

Culture-Jams: In addition to our jam of le 400e anniversaire de Québec, we were busy theatrically thwarting the monoculture in Montreal this year.

Along with Uberculture Concordia, we brought our Zeus, Aphrodite and Gaïa to the Gillette Venus booth set up at Concordia University, protesting both the takeover of university space for corporate interests and corporate co-option of feminist messages coupled with the reinforcement of  body image as part of their goddess grams campaign.

In partnership with Kinetic Aesthetic, we brought a sweatshop into a Wal-Mart and managed to keep our scene going for a good ten minutes, even when security physically removed the table that the two sewing machines were resting on and tried to kick us out.

jamming Wal-Mart

In the lead-up to the federal election, we found out that Stephen Harper would be in town to give a speech.  We brought our own Harper along with a bunch of dissatisfied artists to the growing rally outside the Sandman Hotel.  In the scene, Harper stole from and generally attacked the artists, proving that art imitates life.

We also performed once again on Buy Nothing Day, this time sending Mr. Monopoly and his assistants out to four banks, the interconnected shopping malls that make up the underground city and the streets asking for some bailout money that he can use on the stock market.  Eventually, he realized that as long as people kept shopping, he’d get his money back anyways.

Not only did we do actions in Montreal and Quebec City, but we also managed to jam a Tim Hortons in Rimouski with the ZoPA.  While this is quite a bit of jamming, it doesn’t include the jams we did as part of our ongoing Reclaim The Main campaign.

Next year promises to be busier.  If you’d like to jam with OTL in 2009, please contact otl@optative.net

Reclaim The Main: With all the corporate spam flooding The Main, a heritage site and the heart of the Plateau community, during street fests and all summer long on billboard trucks, we thought things couldn’t get much worse.  In 2008, they did.  A giant billboard appeared at the corner of St-Laurent and Sherbrooke over a building that was supposedly under construction.

This “scaffolding wrap” monstrosity, put up by a company called Time2Ad, was supposed to cover the building until renovations could be complete.  It managed to stay up most of the year.  The ad came down occasionally, once when some debris fell off the building, but mostly just to change it for another ad.  Eventually, after a large public outcry and media coverage, the ad finally came down, but the building underneath was untouched.  Surprise, surprise!  We even got an after-the fact letter from the Ville-Marie borough, basically telling us what we already knew.

unrenovated building on St-Laurent and Sherbrooke aftet the giant billboard was removed

Throughout the year, we challenged this ad and all the (sadly) now-usual corporate intrusions by starting petitions, contacting public officials, contacting the media and of course by culture-jamming.  PubPartout made a few appearances in “support” of all this corporate influence and we inspired others to take action as well.

As corporate spam on the Main doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon, neither will Reclaim The Main.  If you’d like to get involved, please contact main@optative.net

Car Stories: Yes, this year we brought Montreal’s longest-running theatrical experiment back.  Car Stories, an interactive guided theatrical joyride through the Urban Wonderland for three spect-actors at a time was performed as part of  both the infringement Festival in June and les journées de la culture in September.

Car Stories during the Montreal infringement Festival (photo by Joanne Cosentino)

This year’s theme had the executives of a bottled water company sending a tainted peace offering to environmentalists with the help of the audience.  On their journey, they got a dental exam and danced in the alley with a couple of folks from down south, among other things.  This year’s show will be available in January 2009.

It’s never too early to start planning for the next edition.  If you’re interested, please contact carstories@optative.net

The infringement Festival: Although created by OTL, this event has truly taken on a life of its own.  For its fifth anniversary in Montreal, the festival ran almost the entire month of June and saw many theatrical, musical and street performances, not to mention culture-jams, visual arts shows, film screenings and spoken-word events, plus an increased Francophone portion.  The Buffalo infringement also ran its fourth edition this year and featured over 300 performances.

Plans are underway for the sixth Montreal edition, and the festival is currently looking for volunteer organizers and will be taking artist applications very soon.  For more, please visit the festival’s site.  Buffalo infringement is going into its fifth year and there is a new festival budding in Brooklyn, New York.  There’s even infringement TV on the horizon.  It’s still in test mode now, but will be broadcasting live very soon.

OTL Blog: We launched this blog back in November and it has been publishing consistently every Monday, Wednesday and Friday since then, with no plans of stopping or slowing down.  We’re even looking for more contributors to this and two other blogs.  If you’re interested, please contact media@infringementfestival.com

And now, the most important part of this message – a very happy new year to you and yours from Optative Theatrical Laboratories, see you in 2009 !!!

Even though we’re known for guerilla-style culture jams and highly improvised performances like Car Stories, OTL also has also produced a significant amount of text over the years, some of it theoretical material and some of it scripts for theatre.

We’ve started collecting some of this in what we’re calling the Optative Library.  Just like many other libraries, membership is free!  Here’s what you can currently find:

Optative Theatre: A Critical Theory for Challenging Oppression and Spectacle by Donovan King (268-page PDF with one-page html intro) A thesis that outlines the theory that OTL was founded on and still operates with today.  It speaks of historical predecessors, contemporaries and the basis of some of our projects.

Rachel’s Words Montreal: The Words About the Words (15-page PDF) A verbatim theatre piece dealing with the controversy that erupted when the New York Theatre Workshop cancelled its production of My Name Is Rachel Corrie for political reasons.  The script is compiled from news reports, interviews and message board postings on the subject from both sides of the censorship debate.  We performed this preceding a reading of Rachel Corrie’s e-mails from Palestine as part of the international viral theatre reaction to the censorship called Rachel’s Words.

Sinking Neptune November 2006 Play Script (15-page PDF) A radical dramaturgy that combines Canada’s incredibly racist “first play” (Lescarbot’s Theatre of Neptune in New France) with verbatim source material taken from news interviews with the group that was attempting to remount it and contrasts this with native voices speaking out against the impact of this play and cultural genocide in general.  This is the script used in the first phase of the project that voyaged all the way to Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia.

We’re adding new material soon, including the play text for Sinking Neptune II which mixes in discussions surrounding another colonialist celebration, the 400th anniversary of Quebec City, so check back and for now enjoy what’s already available in the Optative Library.

Last night we played the first of two shows at The Bus Stop Theatre on Gottingen St. in Halifax. The crowd was lively and we had a very interesting talkback session with questions about the choice of images in our slide projections and what they meant for what we were hoping to accomplish with our show, as well as whether or not Lescarbot actually staged the show when, where and how it is said he did and effect anti-colonial deconstructionalist shows like this have on the discuurse and if they possibly take time away from groups like the Mi’kmaq telling their own stories.

We’ve got one more show in Halifax tonight at the Bus Stop at 8pm.