DYING HARD

Interview with Mainstreet - CBC Halifax. (courtesy of Peter Janes, theatreinlondon.ca)

Interview with Weekend Arts Magazine - CBC Newfoundland.

Verbatim theatre at its finest

True, tragic stories in a premiere performance that must be seen.

I knew when I heard about Mikaela Dyke's Dying Hard that it would be something special. I had no idea.

One of the miners says "That's one thing I got, I got lots of nerve." So does she. This isn't an easy piece of theatre, for the actor or the audience, but it's one that defines the term must-see. The true stories of Newfoundlanders involved with the St. Lawrence fluorspar mines, told in their own words, reveal the devastating effects of a sad period in Canadian and Newfoundland history that went almost unreported for forty years, and had largely returned to the shadows in the three decades since. There are wonderful moments of humour—the former boxer's tales of his exploits in the ring and the story of the VE Day riots are two highlights—yet they're always tempered by the knowledge of the events that are to follow.

The stories stand alone—indeed, the interviews they've been condensed from were published as a book in the 1970s—but what makes Dying Hard shine is the performance. Mikaela doesn't act these roles so much as embody them. The native Newfoundlander creates characters... no, people... who are likeable, steadfast and accepting, but listen to their voices and look into their eyes: there's anger and deep hurt there. I've never seen such a series of effective physical and vocal transformations aided only by trivially simple props such as a pair of eyeglasses or a hair clip. The huge stage at the Wolf can be a hindrance to a one-person play, but in this case it's the perfect size; once she launches into a character you don't notice the stage, the auditorium, or the audience, only the performer.

...

Thank you, Mikaela, for bringing these remarkable people and your amazing performance to London.

- Peter Janes, theatreinlondon.ca

Mikaela Dyke is a slight, pretty girl with a radiant smile. When she steps onto the stage and announces that in Dying Hard she will be performing six verbatim monologues from men and women touched by Newfoundland's fluorspar mining industry, you have no idea what you're in for. The next moment, she slips on a pair of glasses and her face contorts. She opens her mouth and the voice of middle-aged man, complete with snorts and guffaws and a sometimes indecipherable Newfie accent emanates from her. His story, as well as that of the five other unique and uniquely captivating characters is moving and tragic. I challenge you to see this show without being deeply touched by its story and by Dyke's amazing performance.

[I was]... shaken to the core by Dying Hard.

- Kate Watson, The Coast, Halifax

'Dying Hard' depicts price of mining fluorspar.

Mikaela Dyke performs one-woman play to appreciative full house

Fluorspar is a mineral used in the production of steel, aluminium, and other industrial commodities, and was mined on the Burin Peninsula from 1933 until 1978.

The history of fluorspar mining in St. Lawrence is a home-grown human tragedy of miners who contracted cancers or who died slowly and breathlessly from silicosis, with lungs packed with silica particles as a result of the dangerous conditions of their underground labour. Shortly before the mine's closure, the human toll exacted was chronicled through a series of interviews with victims and families conducted by anthropologist Elliott Leyton and published in1975 under the title of 'Dying Hard."

The voices of six of the interviewees and their stories of stoic suffering and loss have now been recuperated theatrically, adapted for single-handed stage performance by award-winning Newfoundland-born actress Mikaela Dyke.

Staging is minimalist: a straight chair and coat-tree draped with shirts and jackets for costume change.
In blue jeans and black top, Dyke serially represents four of the dying miners and two of their surviving wives across a broad range of emotional response - from anger, to resignation, to sorrow, to wry humour, sometimes reflective, sometimes ebullient, as they recount their memories and experiences to an unseen interlocutor. Dyke's set of characters are varied and well differentiated, with marked local accents - although the first of them is so broad and so rapid-fire in delivery as to be only partially intelligible.

Stories and characters evoke a hard struggle to make a living while working through illness and disability - cancer and silicosis - and lives spent shuttling between mine and hospital, until the miners end up in one of the fat graveyards that are the price of temporary economic prosperity.

With a running time of 60 minutes, the theatrical experience is brief but intense, if not stilling on occasion. It is an evening you will not soon forget.

And for a reviewer who, as a boy, witnessed his Uncle Ellis, a retired coal miner, dying labouriously, lingering inch by inch from silicosis, this narrative struck home with particular force.

As the second of the two wives represented observes, "You don't die of silicosis, you perish."
Running at the Rabbittown Theatre for only two nights, Mikaela Dyke's powerful and poignant adaptation of selected interviews from Leyton's "Dying Hard," directed by Dahlia Katz, closes tonight at 8 o'clock. Admission is $20.
And in the appreciative and receptive full-house audience on opening night, Elliott Leyton was there front and centre.

- Gordon Jones, The Telegram, St. John's

 

REFLECTIONS ON GIVING BIRTH TO A SQUID
A+
Reflections is an easy play to summarize, but a hard one to wrap your head around. The title pretty much says it all: This show is about a woman who gives birth to a squid. But it's much deeper than its comedic title may sound, touching on themes of identity, love, and acceptance, and it doesn't give any easy answers. Reflections unfolds via a series of monologues delivered by characters trying to come to grips with, or take advantage of, this unusual event. While all three actors are great in their roles, Mikaela Dyke gives a truly heart-wrenching performance as the mother of the titular squid. Her nervous energy and uneasy love for her offspring really bring this play to life.

- Mike Sherby, Uptown Magazine, Winnipeg