Brown Girl In The Ring – september 10th to 18th at the Havana Restaurant Theatre Vancouver 2010 – www.vancouverfringe.com
Comments from the Show Brown Girl In The Ring
Does she think she is the Queen? Producer heard this said in the audience behind him.
Compelling, Super Intense, Hilarious, Gifted, Confused, Talented, Super Fit, Awesome, Moving, Poignant, I get it !
Valerie Mason-John (L) playing the Queen in “Brown Girl in the Ring” with her body guard Sir Matt during the annual Fringe Performers parade in Old Strathcona in Edmonton, August 12, 2010.
Photograph by: Ed Kaiser, edmontonjournal.com
Now playing at Vancouver Fringe BYOV September 10th – 18th Brown Girl In The Ring @ Havana restaurant and theatre – 1212 Commercial drive
tickets available from www.vancouverfringe.com
or one hour before each show at the Havana venue or at the Granville Island Box office – no telephone sales
Photograph by: Jack Bawden
Show: Brown Girl In The Ring
Reviewed by: Todd Babiak
Venue: Stage 9, Telus Building
Rating: 4 stars
Brown Girl in the Ring is a wholly successful marriage between traditional narrative and the avant-garde. Valerie Mason-John, the writer and solo performer, explores racism and bigotry without ever using the words racism and bigotry. In a pink dress, ballet shoes and a white wig, she prances and pronounces, jumps through time, chats with an imaginary friend, tell anecdotes and makes proclamations as Queen Regina II.
It is dreamlike, filled with haunting images, but also connected by both logic and a grasp at accessibility. Mason-John, a charismatic performer, does invite us to lose ourselves in the show. “Sweep it under the carpet,” she says, again and again, and talks repeatedly of her shrink. Thank you, Dr. Freud.
FRINGE REVIEW ****
Performer/Playwright Valerie Mason-John’s indescribably whacked-out insight into life is given full reins in this smile-inducing go-for-broke outing. At equal turns hilarious, exasperating and insightful, Valerie is all Queen Regina II as she relates her histories and lineages to the equally gob-smacked audience. Mason-John does a terrific job carrying the piece, accessing a magnetic stage presence that gives the controversial material a necessary grounding amongst the mayhem. Surprisingly rich in content and extremely thought-provoking, Brown Girl in the Ring is the perfect play for anyone wanting to know what the Fringe is essentially all-about.
Four out of five stars.
Edmonton Fringe – Telus Building Venue 9 10437 83ave
Monday August 16th – 4.15pm ASL
Wednesday August 18th – 7pm
Thursday August 19th – 12.15pm
Friday August 20th – 10.45pm (closing night)
(tickets available www.fringetheatre.ca or 780 409 1910 or from the ticket office)
VANCOUVER FRINGE – HAVANA Restaurant Gallery Theatre – 1212 Commercial Drive, Vancouver
Show Times are as follows:
Friday September 10 6:30 PM (opening night)
Saturday September 11 7:45 PM
Sunday September 12 5:45 PM
Monday September 13 9:00 PM
Tuesday September 14 7:15 PM Two tickets for the price of one
Friday September 17 6:30 PM
Saturday September 18 4:00PM (Closing night)
tickets available from www.vancouverfringe.com or from the Havana Theatre one hour before each show on the day, or from the box office on Granville Island, no telephone ticket sales.
Long live the Queenie
Fringe play queers up the Royal Family to explore identity
Ted Kerr / ted@vueweekly.com
Ted Kerr / ted@vueweekly.com
Writer, performer and educator Valerie Mason John, better known as Queenie, was given her nickname a while ago by a group of gay male friends from San Francisco who said that she was the biggest queen they had ever known. Years later, while maybe not as wild as she once was (who is?) but just as fabulous, the name Queenie has stuck.
This year, as part of the 29th annual Edmonton International Fringe Festival, Queenie will be bringing her camp sensibilities to tackle another royal highness, the Queen of England. In the North American premiere of her one-woman show, Brown Girl in the Ring—Queenie will be playing a black woman who has the duration of the play to convince the audience that she is the Queen of England.
Helping Queenie’s character out on stage is a small cast of identities, including a young , innocent and black Michael Jackson performing lines such as “You’ll be all white in the morning.” While the play has a humorous premise, queers will pick up on the interesting ideas around history, family, citizenship, belonging, people and populations being disappeared and the ways institutions such as the Royal Family replicate and inflict societal violence that come up in the play, making Brown Girl in the Ring a funny and thought-provoking experience.
Queenie wrote the first incarnation of Brown Girl in the Ring more than 10 years ago in the UK where she lived. The play was part of a theatre experience in which playwrights created work around their own cultural references. At the time she was thinking about how growing up the Royal Family (all white) dominated the cultural space, and how being the only black person in her adoptive white family was impacting her. Questions came up: how does the dominant, omnipresent image of the Queen in schools and on our money inform those who cannot see themselves in her majesty’s portrait? How is the Royal Family the ultimate symbol of heterosexism? Not only do they reproduce, they reproduce living gods. And, what can be gained by queering who gets to be the Queen? How do our own complicated identities get bleached out in the face of dominance as the Royal Family?
Through doing the work to write the play she started to understand herself better. “I am not black, I am coloured, we are all coloured,” says Queenie, sharing something she realized at the time. She also started to see how people of colour are disappeared from history including African descendant Princess Sophie Charlotte who upon marrying King George III of England became the Black Queen of England. She has been nearly written out of history. Queen Sophie’s story helped inspire Queenie to imagine and play on the theme, “What if a black woman really was the next Queen of England?” The play, braiding together humour, facts and contemplation, premiered in London to one critic writing that Brown Girl in the Ring is, “A royal meditation of bigotry from a royal highness with a difference.”
A decade later, now located in Edmonton, Queenie decided to revisit the play and rework it for Canadian audiences. Along the way, Queenie has provided herself a chance to learn more about Canada including the pride of Tim Horton’s and the shame of how aboriginals are treated. She sees how Canada is no different than the UK in the ways we wish—as a society—to not discuss some things. “Sweep it under the rug” is a reoccurring line in Brown Girl in the Ring referring to the ways in which difference—all kinds of difference: race, sexuality, religion, class and others—are not properly discussed in polite society. Through her art Queenie carves out a space for people to have these discussions.
While it is ultimately up to you whether you believe that Queenie’s character is the Queen of England the journey that leads you there may tell you a lot about yourself and the society you live in. The Queen is Dead, Long Live Queenie
Tour began in Canadia at the Taste of Edmonton.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAr9-2By3os
TOUR continues and HRH will be accepting visitors at the Edmonton Fringe Festival at the Telus Building on 83rd ave and 104st from August 13th-20th. She will also be accepting visitors at the Vancouver Fringe Festival at the Havana Restaurant and Theatre from September 10th to 18th.
We look forward to seeing you.
http://www.fringetheatre.ca/ online booking from August 3rd
http://www.vancouverfringe.com online booking from August 4th
further details please contact Her Majesties Secretary at
erincvalentine@gmail.com
Media Release July 21 2010
Her Majesty The Queen to visit Alberta in 2010
OTTAWA—Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, is very surprised to announce that Her Majesty Queen Regina II will visit Alberta and British Columbia in 2010.
The visit will take place from July 24 to September 19, and will include stops at Edmonton and Vancouver Fringe Festivals where Her Majesty is expected to inaugurate a special Command Performance of a rarely performed work - The Brown Girl in the Ring.
The tour program will be coordinated by the Canadian Secretary to Her Majesty, Mr. Ronald McIntyre, RNG, TFM. A detailed itinerary will be published at a later date by the Royalty Secretariat for Canada.
Preliminary Itinerary
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Edmonton, Alberta
2:00 p.m.
Arrival in Canada
The 2010 Royal Tour begins when Her Majesty The Queen arrives at Sir Winston Churchill Square for a Walkabout at The Taste of Edmonton Festival.
As they are welcomed by whosoever is there to greet her and other officials, The Queen’s Personal Canadian Flag is raised to signify the presence of The Queen of Canada – the country’s Head of State. The flag will be flown in her presence throughout the Tour.
Media Information
The Royalty Secretariat for Canada
Media Relations
780 690 9179
780-965-9376
Valerie Mason-John Aka Queenie as HRH Regina II
This one woman show will be opening in a few weeks – and so for the next few weeks valerie mason-john aka queenie will be keeping you in touch with the process. WATCH OUT EDMONTON – WATCH OUT VANCOUVER – don’t miss out on the buzz. This is a new show, rewritten, redirected with a royal approval.
Media Release July 19th 2010
QUEENIE PRODUCTIONS PRESENT – BROWN GIRL IN THE RING
HRH Regina II, born with an African hide, is claiming to be the new Queen of England. Is it plausible or is she barking mad?
Brown Girl In The Ring is a tragic-comic monologue. ‘The possibility that black people could be biologically connected to the European Royal Families has never been so outrageously explored and exploded.’ The Voice UK
Ticket Price: Adult: $12 Student/Senior: $10 – Telus Building 10437 83 avenue
This North American Premier is a regal meditation on bigotry from a Royal Highness with a difference. Regina II is a genetic throwback who pops up five hundred years down the line to turn a few faces very red indeed. This marauding monarch, connoisseur of champagne ‘n’ poutine ‘n’ sushi is back, and she’s black – and in the new millennium there’s no way she’s going to be swept under the carpet.
‘Brilliant writing and performing, blended in-yer-face laughter’ Kevin Le Gendre, Weekly Journal UK *****
Creative Team
Playwright: Valerie Mason-John
Director: Linette Smith
Cast: Valerie Mason-John
Stage Manager: Erin Valentine
Executive Producer: Ron McIntyre
Property Design: Verity Filipow
Ticket Price: Adult: $12 Student/Senior: $10
www.fringetheatre.ca or call hotline 780 409 1910 – or visit Fringe office10330 84ave
Schedule:
Fri. August 13 – 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Sat. August 14 – 2:15 pm – 3:15 pm
Mon. August 16 – 4:15 pm – 5:15 pm This show will be ASL/SLI
Wed. August 18 – 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Thurs. August 19 – 12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Fri. August 20 10:45 pm – 11:45 pm
Brown Girl In The Ring Queenie Productions Face Book Page – Brown Girl In The Ring – Public Figure
Media contact Erin Valentine Tel: 780 690 9179 Email: erincvalentine@gmail.com
If you miss our on Edmonton – catch the show at the Vancouver Fringe Festival – Havana Restaurant, Gallery, Theatre
Friday September 10th 6.30
11th 7.45
12th 5.45
13th 9pm
14th 7.15pm
17th 6.30
18th 4pm
tickets available from
http://www.vancouverfringe.com
Granville Island Box Office
at the Havana one our before each show
The Third Truth
The cessation of suffering is attainable. Now we know the good news, that there is an end in sight for the cessation of suffering. Let’s explore the third truth. After living with tooth pain for a week, I have to admit that I had no choice but to accept that the cessation of suffering is attainable. The cessation of mental suffering was most definitely attainable, but physical suffering? Well I have to admit I still suffered with pain, but the pain did not stay the same through out. Sometimes it was intense, and sometimes it was quite calm, but what I have to admit is that when the pain became more intense it was because I had created mental suffering.
I had become tight around my pain. I panicked, went into horrified anxiety began eating painkillers like smarties. If only they tasted like smarties, they didn’t but i still managed to shovel double dosage down my throat through fear of pain. Yes they say that tooth pain is one of the worst pain to experience. I can’t testify to that as I have been fortunate enough to experience little physical pain in my life. But tooth pain has been the most intense. And in this past week, I had a new root canal, and old root canal dug out, an abscess and a swollen face, which was so bad that it hurt to even talk. I wanted rid of the pain and I wanted to control it, but I came to the 5th day of taking pain killers and realized they were doing nothing to curb my pain.
I had to surrender to the pain and when I realised that, the cessation of pain seemed possible. I lived with the same amount of pain without pain killers, and witnessed how that pain changed, at times it throbbed, at times it just ached, and other times thumped throughout my jaw, my gums and my head. My life became bigger again, not just focused on my tooth pain, there was a lot else going on in my physical body and my life.
I was able to calmly survive without pain killers, but the pain was also helped with a double dosage of anti biotic, to annihilate the rampant infection.
The second tooth was treated today, and as the freezing began to thaw the pain gently began to pulsate again. And fear has blocked my way, will I have to go back to the dentist tomorrow, will the pain begin to lurk in my body. My mental pain is making the physical pain doubly worse. Why don’t I just go to bed and relax and see how I feel tomorrow ? Can I believe in that suffering is attainable? In this present moment no, because I want instant recovery, instant answers.
Perhaps I should begin to distinguish between the physical and the mental. With the physical we feel pain. With the mental we feel suffering. If we were to stop creating the suffering we would feel less physical pain. There can be physical pain, without the mental suffering. But with all mental suffering there will be some kind of physical pain, even if it is as subtle as holding on to tension in our body.
When I talk of happiness, of attaining ,Nirvana’ in the Buddhist tradition we talk about freedom from all worries, troubles, complexes, fabrications and ideas. Notice none of them relate directly to physical pain.
The Third truth – there is an end to suffering, but do not expect to be completely free of physical pain. But what we can be free of is, the mental suffering that adds to the pain. Anyone who has to live with long term pain, will tell you that the intensity of the physical pain is not the same throughout the day. But they can also tell us that the physical pain can wear you down.
Breathing into our pain physical or mental helps to soften the pain. Thinking into our physical or mental pain hardens the suffering. The best advice given to me during my onslaught of teeth drama was my dear friend who has lived with sickle cell anemia all her life. Which for many is far worse than tooth pain. She says go to sleep, let the body relax, you have to let go sometime in your sleep.
Sleep may not be the answer to achieving the end of suffering – and as we know some people have sadly taken sleep literally. And have taken their own life to end their suffering. As permanent sleep has meant no more. No more perhaps in that life time- but there will be more to come in the next. But sleep can be a great pause button, and give us energy.
Most of all have faith – there is hope, there is an end to suffering!!!!
