Taking the pages of a book and transforming them into a stage, a set, performers, and a play is a remarkable feat that requires patience, players, and talent. Fall on Your Knees, the 1996 novel by Ann-Marie MacDonald, had just that when co-creators Alisa Palmer and Hannah Moscovitch sat down to transform this Canadian classic from page to production.
Amaka Umeh, Eva Foote, and Dakota Jamal Wellman in Fall on Your Knees. Photo: John Lauener.
In a multi-way partnership among the NAC English Theatre, Vita Brevis Arts, Canadian Stage, Neptune Theatre, and Grand Theatre, the two-part series of Fall on Your Knees just completed its run in Ottawa at the National Arts Centre. The production follows the Piper family through three generations from the cliffside community of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to the urban sprawl of New York City. It is a tale of love, loss, family, secrecy, and redemption.
I originally read MacDonald’s award-winning novel when I was in high school and remember being entranced and at times shocked by the actions of the Piper family, from James’ blossoming and wildly inappropriate affection for his daughter Kathleen to Frances and Mercedes’ seemingly misguided but good-natured love for their family unit. So when I first heard of the adaptation, I was eager to see how the Pipers’ family secrets and the characters that shouldered them would be brought to life. In doing my own research, I was excited to learn that MacDonald had originally envisioned this novel as a play, but the stage directions quickly became prose.
From the start, the performance moves seamlessly from scene to scene, with most of the cast remaining on stage for the entire duration, acting as sound, set, and performer. When not centre, actors would use their bodies as tables, scarecrows, and stagehands.
Even as Kathleen Piper, our protagonist (and sometimes antagonist) is born, the talented operatic performer Samantha Hill uses her voice to create these eerily accurate coos and cries from centre stage. This tradition continues throughout the play as Mercedes, Frances, Lily, and Ambrose are also introduced to the story and audience alike.
The staging itself is simple, utilizing multiple chairs and ladders to allow for different sets to be envisioned and the simple turn of a piano to create an entirely new home.
Janelle Cooper, Samantha Hill, and Drew Moore in Fall on Your Knees. Photo: John Lauener.
Music plays a vital role throughout the two-night event, with a band on stage for the entire show, taking centre stage during brilliant recreations of desegregated jazz bars in Harlem. Tibetan singing bowls on stage also help to transition the audience from scene to scene. In a sense, the music becomes a character in and of itself. It is the love of music that brings Materia and James together, draws the hopeful Kathleen to New York, and ignites an illicit affair between vocalist and accompanist.
During the last half of Part 2, the piano strung up high above the stage along with empty chairs reminds audiences: “They’re all dead now.” The very same words that began our journey.
Deborah Hay’s performance as Frances Piper kept audiences enamoured with the complexity of her character. Standing on her head in the first number of Part 2, Hay as Frances delivered each line and song with humour, insanity, intelligence, and in the end, a kind, calm and quiet forgiveness.
The two-part production is a lot to take in, six hours in total. But to make it any shorter, audiences would lose out on much-needed character development, lighter sequences to brighten the harder-to-swallow moments or even entire characters.
Fall on Your Knees ends its premiere tour at the Grand Theatre in London from March 29 to April 2.
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