7 Important Things is the last installment in STO Union’s ‘How Can We Live’ trilogy. The Trilogy comprises of the internationally acclaimed plays Recent Experiences (2000) and Revolutions in Therapy (2004) and the newly presented 7 Important Things (2007). All three plays circle the same crux: once we fully grasp our profound human limitations and our inability to know anything for sure, how can we proceed with confidence?
In this final installment, director Nadia Ross collaborates with George Acheson, who, at the age of sixteen, was kicked out of his house because he would not cut his hair. Now a barber by profession, currently living and working in small village in Quebec, George faces the irony of his fate, and looks to the past in an attempt to reconcile a life profoundly marked by the times. Born in 1950, George was an active participant in two counter-cultural movements of the last half of the 20th century. He immerged himself in social and political upheavals of the 1960’s, and, after the movement fizzled out, he found himself working in London, England just as the Punk movement was starting to build. George has spent his life trying to find for himself a ‘way to live’ in a society he feels no kinship with. As he states: ‘democracy never worked for me, nobody I ever voted for got in”. Now in his mid-fifties, George sees himself as an invisible, generic, middle-aged man. And as such, he has a story to tell.
STO Union is a multidisciplinary company bringing together artists from a variety of mediums in the creation of new Canadian theatre. Founded in 1992 in Toronto by current artistic director Nadia Ross, STO Union has cultivated new forms and techniques within the theatrical tradition in order to reflect and respond to our evolving culture. Productions are characterized by an un-spectacular approach to staging, focusing on the simple human interaction in all its complexity.
Written and directed by: Nadia Ross and George Acheson. Performers:George Acheson and Nadia Ross. Technical Director for WAC and collaborator: Rob Scott. Set Design: Barry Padolsky. Lighting Design: Steve Lucas. Video: WAC.
Mask: Rick Ritza. Costume Design: Andy Tait. Tour Manager: Sarah Rogers. PRODUIT PAR/PRODUCED BY STO UNION (Ottawa). In co-production with THE NAC English Theatre (Ottawa) in association with WAC (Wakefield Art Collective). Touring Agent: Menno Plukker Theatre Agent Inc.