PRIZE: Governor General's Award for Drama to Banks

By Geoffrey Agombar

Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com “First of all, I was proud that she had accomplished something she really wanted to do, and I thought she had done it well. And, I was proud that I was somehow part of that. I don’t know just how, but I felt connected to it. It’s a play that if you have any rural experience and values, it certainly will grip you. Very much.”

That is how Garnet Banks of West Paradise remembers the night last Fall when he first watched his daughter's play Bone Cage. Last week, this same play earned Catherine Banks the 2008 Governor General's Award for Drama, among the highest artistic honours in the nation. But with her ear for dialogue, Catherine remembers a line from her mother Kathleen's reaction that night, “Mom was proud, too, but I remember her saying, 'Well, you certainly didn't learn that language at home!'”

Perhaps she learned 'that language' in her grandmother's kitchen in Brickton, then. Banks frequently cites her memories of 'Gram's kitchen' as influential in finding her voice as a playwright. “Gram had a large family. I must have 40 cousins living in the Valley. She had a particular cadence to her storytelling. There'd be some upset of some kind, and Gram would appear in the doorway, 'Well, I'm raging!' As a young child, you're fascinated by that. Velma Banks: she was a tall woman, six feet, and strong. My brother and I were chatting about her the other day, how hard she worked, physical-type work. She'd box my teenage brothers, take them on two at a time.”

ALWAYS A WRITER

Banks was always a writer, of poetry mostly. Then, she went to see a production of Michel Tremblay's Les Belles Soeurs (The Sisters-in-Law), “Before [seeing that play,] I always thought I had to write about stuff 'out there,' because I didn't lead an exciting life. I was a school teacher teaching special ed, who wrote a bit of poetry. I didn't think I had anything to say. Then I saw those women on stage, and I knew I had something to write. They were just like my aunts, and even though their story was a bit different -- they were in Montreal and I was in rural Nova Scotia -- I came out of there thinking I do have people to write about. My people, they're right here in Nova Scotia. When I started to write in dialogue, it was like I was coming home.”

Although Banks's parents moved eight times in 30 years following Garnet's work with the phone company, the ties to the Valley were always strong. “Dad was the oldest son, so he checked in with his mom on a regular basis. Plus, mom insisted on getting away from the fog on the South Shore. So growing up we were usually back in the Valley every second Sunday. I'm sure they'd tell you I don't get home nearly enough, but I still get back to visit my parents about once a month.”

STRONG CONNECTION

Banks sees a strong connection between writing for the page and writing for the stage. “I do constantly look to make my works literary. Writing plays, you are creating literature. A good play should be just as complex as a good novel.”

Even her literary influences are coloured by her links to the Valley. “Well, I love all Canadian literature, of course, but my all-time favourite is still Ernest Buckler's The Mountain and the Valley, partly because of the link to the area, but mostly because it is just so beautifully written. That opening scene where the mother is making the rag rug, starting with greens on the outside, moving up to the tip of the mountain, using a piece of David's shirt, a particular shirt from a particular age... The metaphors are just so amazing. And David is such a beautiful and flawed character. Such a beautiful piece of writing.”

MASTERY OF METAPHOR

Like Buckler, Banks has achieved a certain graceful mastery of metaphor. The title, Bone Cage, is a metaphor for the internalized limitations which both shield and imprison us, as the rib cage does the heart. The central character, Jamie, is 23 and trapped. He would have chosen to soar as a helicopter pilot, but instead he is trapped clear-cutting the very forests he loves. Trapped by a lack of education, trapped by marriage, trapped by his inability to articulate his dreams, trapped by his lack of courage to leap over his limits like the men who swallow their fears and jump from the dull green metal bridge to the swimming hole far below. He feels incomplete, less than human, comparing himself to the first beer of the day: “To the wood processor / I'm the first beer of the day / What's needed to get it started / At the end of every shift / It pisses me out on the ground.”

Banks says, “He's like a lot of young people today, whether they're in the oil fields, or the forests or hauling dragger nets. They're being asked to destroy what they love. Jamie is a very smart guy, very sensitive and poetic, but he can't articulate. I grew up in these communities, I know these people. I understand their deep, deep connection to the landscape. Their humour is huge. They face the complexities of life with spirit, and sometimes they're just pushed too hard. It's a way of life that I find fascinating and richly poetic.”

SLAVE TO WRITING

Her father Garnet's comments suggest a link between her admiration of hard-working rural life, and the life of an artist. “Nobody knows the dedication it takes to do what they do. But, that's survival today. Most playwrights live up under the eaves somewhere,” he laughs.

After more than 20 years slaving at writing and producing and surviving as an artist in Nova Scotia, Garnet says “[Catherine] was up against some strong competition, people she's admired since college. Just to be nominated and mentioned in the same breath as those people, it was honour enough. But, if you want to know the truth, as far as the [$25,000] prize is concerned, it may give her the freedom to write for another year, and that's nice. But as far that goes, her first thought in getting nominated was 'This might bring enough attention that some theatre will pick it for a second run.'”

Catherine's response when asked what she would do with the prize money confirms the hard-knock lessons she has learned from her grandmother and a couple decades as a Nova Scotian artist and mom. Despite sitting atop the national theatre pyramid this week, her answer is humble and pragmatic. “Oh, I'll pay some bills. There's a small renovation I want to do on the house. Then, I'll put some quietly away in case I end up self-producing my next show myself.” - - - - -

Catherine Banks has recently finished writing her sixth play, Missy and Me, about a Bridgewater housewife leaving for New York to pursue the object of her obsession Missy Elliott. She is working on her seventh, It is Solved By Walking.

Bone Cage ran for two weeks in Fall 2007. It was effectively self-produced by Banks and a handful of collaborators, as a co-production between Forerunner Playwrights Co-op and Ship's Company Theatre with grant support.

Despite writing plays since the 1980s, Bone Cage is the first of Banks's works to be published and is therefore her first play to be eligible for nomination for a Governor General's Award.

Banks currently resides in Sambro, NS.