When the pandemic put a wrench in live theatre, it threw local director Fran Gebhard for a loop. Through her master’s degree, teaching theatre at UVic, and directing, she has devoted her entire life to the theatre. Now, after 15 months off from live shows, Salt-Water Moon—a love story set in Newfoundland in the 1920s—is the first show Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre will have in person since COVID-19 struck.
Gebhard, who is directing the show, says it didn’t take long to find her theatre legs again.
“We’re ecstatic; we’re ecstatic,” she says. “This is our life’s work and we haven’t been able to do it.”
While Gebhard directed online shows through the pandemic, she says they’re not the same. She says she could sit in a dark theatre for well over eight hours a day, as that’s where her heart is.
“I started acting in plays when I was six. I never wanted to do anything else,” she says. “I went back to university to get my post-graduate degree just because I wanted to learn how to be a better director, not because I was going to teach university, and then I just fell into the job. They needed somebody. I was getting my master’s; I said, ‘Okay, I’ll teach that course.’ I didn’t know how to do it. I learned on my feet, I decided I loved it, and one thing lead to another.”
Soon after Gebhard walked into the theatre to direct Salt-Water Moon, the last 15 months disappeared.
“It was a novelty for a bit,” she says. “Maybe a day, but it doesn’t take long. I’ve been doing this for 40 years… It was like riding a horse—just got right back on it.”
There’s also live music in the show—traditional fiddle player Pierre Schryer will be playing on stage. The original script doesn’t call for this; it was Gebhard’s idea. In the play, the actors can’t see the musician even though he’s on stage. She calls him “The Spirit of Newfoundland.”
“I wanted music in the play,” she says. “I thought it would be wonderful to have a live musician supporting us, and as I began to think of it—instead of having him backstage, or somewhere else, or using recorded music, I thought, ‘Why not incorporate him a little bit into the action?’ And that’s what I came up with: The Spirit of Newfoundland.”
Gebhard provides guidance and suggestions to the actors, and questions them about their motives when she has to, but she says it’s her job to stay invisible, especially for the duration of the show’s run.
“Things change; more of the actors become even more comfortable,” she says. “They own their roles now. I’m not there guiding them, and so they may start working on a deeper level… It changes because it’s a live entity and I want it to morph and grow.”
What intrigued Gebhard most about the show was the writing, she says. Written by David French, it’s smooth and full of seamless transitions.
“The writing is very strong. Sometimes when you’re working on newer work, you find that there’s a bit of lumpy dialogue, or places where you really have to work hard to find out what’s going on,” she says. “Not with Mr. French’s work. Not at all.”
Salt-Water Moon
Tuesday, July 6 to Sunday, July 18
$25-$42, Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre (in-person and live-streaming tickets available)
bluebridgetheatre.ca