Oren Safdie’s play Beyond Ken Dryden will make its Toronto premiere at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts on May 15. The solo show touches on universal themes of identity, family, and what makes a hero, set against the volatile political landscape of Québec in the 1970s.
With an authentic sense of nostalgia — Oren’s father Moshe Safdie designed the iconic Habitat ’67 for Montréal’s Expo 67 — the personal and the political come together from a child’s perspective.
The Play
Personal memories and political events are woven together in the play.
Not much was going right at home for young Oren. Already in the midst of a divorce, his parents grappled with a devastating house fire, and the general political instability sparked by the growing separatist movement in Québec.
Hockey becomes the thread that holds both the play and the boy together, specifically Safdie’s childhood awe of Montréal Canadiens goalkeeper Ken Dryden. With his family’s home life in chaos, he found the stability he needed in the legendary goalie and his ability to stop the puck.
Young Oren watched the city change, and the ways in which the political tides affected friends and family.
Safdie’s stepfather is writer Roch Carrier, and his iconic children’s book The Hockey Sweater is also named as a source of inspiration.
Talent
Actor Max Katz performs the solo show. While he’s a native of New York, Katz went to school at Montréal’s McGill University, and along the way became a Habs fan himself. After his BA in Montréal, he went on to an MFA at the Drama Centre London at Central Saint Martins. He also trained in physical theatre at the Boris Shchukin Institute in Moscow.
Katz has appeared on stage from London’s West End to the Montréal Fringe and many points in between, including the Hudson Classical Theatre Company, and Sheen Center for Thought and Culture.
He’s probably best known for his role on The Thursday Night Club (Amazon Prime).
Oren Safdie’s play had its world premiere, (rightfully,) in Montréal. The playwright has brought several of his works to light first in the city, including Seamless, Gratitude, and Mr. Goldberg Goes To Tel Aviv, all three of which were subsequently staged in New York City. His Private Jokes, Public Places was staged off-Broadway and in London, and garnered glowing reviews.
The Canadian-American-Israeli began by following his father’s footsteps, and studied at the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University before making the switch to playwright.
He has also written for TV and films, including You Can Thank Me Later, which starred Ellen Burstyn, and Lunch Hour, with Thomas Middleditch and Alan Cumming). Oren teaches at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan.
Oren Safdie: The Interview
As a play, Beyond Ken Dryden took some time to take shape.
“I think it started actually when I was teaching a class,” Safdie says. He was teaching at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and was guiding a class in an exercise on turning personal narrative into performance.
“I had never written a one-person show before,” he says. Teaching is often a path to learning, as it was in this case. “I would teach for nothing, because I learn so much.”
An earlier play dealt with his own teenage years. “I think maybe even as you get older, you look farther back,” he says. “It’s just one of those things that just came together.”
Naturally, his childhood memories couldn’t be separated from where they took place: the politically fraught landscape of Montréal, which was mixed in with his family’s own divisive history at the time.
“It was a difficult time family-wise,” he recalls. It took eight years of push and pull before his parents would agree to finally divorce. “I remember that was also one of the most magical time in my life.”
In grade three, he remembers about half his classmates moving out of the province after the 1976 election that put the Parti Québécois in power. He also recalls details like being advised not to speak English if he went to any of the predominantly Francophone St. Jean Baptiste celebrations in the city during those years.
At the same time, the Canadiens were still bringing home the Stanley Cup, including a straight run of four years between 1976 and 1979.
“It made me realize the power of sports,” Oren says. “I would say it was the one thing that held the city together.”
The Habs players, as he points out, were largely from the province at the time, making it even more of a home team. It helped him as a child to feel part of the city.
“As an English Montrealer, you always felt like a little bit of an outsider.”
With everything about the world he lived in seemingly falling apart, the hockey’s unifying togetherness was an appealing escape. He says the play was fun to write, despite some of the darker memories.
“I do remember my childhood as being wonderful — and also painful.” It was a different time, with a different style of parenting. “So many kids in my class, their families were disintegrating. We were left to fend for ourselves,” he recalls.
“We were very free. I don’t know if that was a good thing.”
He remembers roaming the city on his own or with friends at an age that would be frowned upon nowadays. That includes going to bars by the time kids were 13 or 14.
“There were really no rules in Québec.”
The play is chronological as it unfolds, but the topics are linked by his specific thoughts. He begins the story in his late 20s when he learns that the Montréal Forum is closing. It sparks a string of reflections that centre around the years from 1971 until 1979, the years when Ken Dryden played for the Canadiens.
“It parallels the journey of my family,” he says of the timeline.
With a minimalist treatment, the set is, as he describes it, a guy with a chair, a hockey stick, and a ball.
“I wanted to keep it like that,” he says. “I’m a theatre person, and that’s the one thing that theatre can do.” Theatre has the ability to capture attention using the bare necessities with the right talent.
“It’s really about the actor,” Safdie says, adding that he searched for a long time to find the right person to take on the role. “I’m not an actor — and I can’t play 30 year olds,” he says.
The fact that Katz went to McGill was a key factor — he understood the city, and the hold that the Canadiens still have on the public consciousness.
“He’s a very unique actor.” Katz’ training in physical theatre adds to his suitability for the role. “There’s a lot of physicality in the play.”
Reception
The play premiered at Montréal Fringe, with many of the audience members sporting Canadiens jerseys. “It was amazing to see the superfans.”
Safdie didn’t actually meet Dryden in person before penning the play, but his publicist suggesting sending him a copy for his reaction.
“Ken Dryden was really gracious,” he says. “Within a day, Ken Dryden wrote me back.”
The former player had retained minute details of, seemingly, every game he played, and was able to correct a few of the scores and other game details Safdie mentioned in the play.
“It was great,” he says. He was impressed by the hockey legend’s low key attitude. “He’s a humble person.”
- Find more details about the performances of Beyond Ken Dryden, which runs from May 15 to June 1 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, [HERE].
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