Starting today, Scottish-Canadian multidisciplinary artist Claire Love Wilson and Austrian director Peter Lorenz bring to stage the World Premiere of their experimental musical Morag, You’re a Long Time Deid
Produced in association with Touchstone Theatre, the production takes the stage The Russian Hall, June 9 – 19 to wrap up its 45th anniversary season. The piece follows the story of Sam (Claire Love Wilson), who inherits her grandmother Morag’s piano and uncovers a cryptic love letter made from lyrics of old Scottish ballads. Compelled by the intimate correspondence and the silence surrounding Morag’s death, Sam imagines a secret queer romance and begins transforming her ancestral songs. In the process, she discovers a voice of her own.
“This play is part love letter to my own grandmother, part queer journeying, and part ancestral grappling,” performer and show co-creator Claire Love Wilson said. “I say grappling, because the show is about looking at the fullness of ancestral legacy- the joy, the grief, the trauma, the gifts and learning to take responsibility for one’s own role in a greater story.”
Morag, You’re a Long Time Deid is a dynamic musical journey where original compositions are playfully interwoven with electronic loops to tell old stories anew. The show invites audience members to close their eyes and listen to textured traditional songs, tap their toes to celtic grooves, and dance along to club beats.
“The ballads, and the way we slowly transform them are songs I wished I’d heard, especially as a young queer person. When I began to uncover my own queer identity, I looked into my own family and Scottish cultural history and felt a void. In some ways, this show is the act of singing into that void and following the songs into previously unimaginable possibilities.”
Morag, You’re a Long Time Deid plays The Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Avenue, Vancouver, June 9 to 19, 2022. (Opening Night June 10), For Tickets and more information visit touchstonetheatre.com