Meg Taintor Brings Her Signature Style Back with 'Greenland'

Speaking with Meg Taintor, you are struck by her passion and her warmth, but most keenly, by her intelligence. For nine years she directed the acclaimed Boston-based ensemble theater company Whistler in the Dark, and their sparse, powerful plays were animated by the same spirit.

"We developed a reputation for cerebrally challenging plays that went after the heart by way of the brain," says Taintor.

Despite their success Whistler disbanded (amicably) nearly a year ago, allowing Taintor to broadened her aesthetic and embrace her newfound freelancer's freedom. "I thought I'd take a little breathing space, but I didn't need that... I needed to do something different." And that she has done. "My goal this year," she admits, "was to do a bunch of things that scared me, and do only things I didn't know how to do." In the past year, she directed her first ever Shakespeare play, an all-female version of "Henry IV part 1" at Boston University, and is now leading a teen program at the Charlestown Working Theater. Directing "Greenland" by Nicolas Billon at Apollinaire Theater Company is her first time ever being produced by another company.

Taintor has admired Apollinaire for nine years. After moving to the Boston area, Apollinaire's summer shows were some of the first pieces she enjoyed. Soon she was coming to the indoor productions as well. "I liked the season choices. I would look at the season and say, "Well, that makes sense...I saw a trend of really smart, political-based theater coming from Apollinaire. "Greenland" seemed a really good fit."

"Greenland" is one of three plays by Billon's "Fault Lines" series, which, Taintor says, deals with the idea of people as island nations. After catching "Iceland," another in the series, at Canada's Magnetic North Theater Festival in Halifax, Taintor was immediately struck by the poetic power of Billon's work. "That night," she says, "I was introduced to Nicolas, and I just couldn't stop talking to him about "Iceland," about how much I loved it, and how brave I thought it was to write something that sparse."

Hardly more than three monologues and a little under an hour long, with with no set beyond actors in chairs telling the audience a story, "Iceland" struck her as a remarkably trusting by the playwright. She gave up her ticket to another show the next night just so she could see Iceland a second time. She visited Toronto for a conference that summer, and met up with Billon. "I asked if I could read everything he ever wrote, and he just started sending me scripts." So, he gave her "Fault Lines," and it was in a Toronto hostel that she first read "Greenland." It had the same sparse aesthetic she prized and cultivated-three actors, sparse set-but she saw that "Greenland" went a level deeper. As she puts it, "all people in this play are writing their own creation myth, and then pitching it to us." A few months later, when Danielle Jacques, Artistic Director of Apollinaire, approached her to direct a play for the 2014-2015 season, Taintor knew what she wanted.

"Greenland" centers on a family that has fallen apart after a serious internal tragedy, which is mirrored by one of the characters discovering a new island off of Greenland's coast. In three monologues, we meet husband, wife, and adopted daughter, and we learn that something is seriously broken in their family dynamic. The island has separated from the mainland in the same way the three characters have separated from each other, and there is no turning back. "What has happened to this family is so much more complicated than any one of them understands. The tragedy that is in place here is that they're not talking to each other, they're talking to us. Because they're choosing not to engage with each other, there isn't any way for them to fix it." While "Greenland" addresses climate change in a forthright way (the island is practically a fourth character) it is not a climate change play. Rather, "Climate change is revealing gaps that we didn't really know were there in our globe and in our ecosystem-and those exist between us as human beings as well."

While climate change in many ways functions as a metaphor within the play, "Greenland" is also a very real conversation about how the changes in our climate are impacting the ways that we engage with our world and with each other. Taintor notes "I think it is an act of politics to get 50, 80, 100 people in a room, all thinking about an issue, then allow them space to engage in conversation afterwards." "Greenland," an intimate and sparse play, fits her aesthetic as well as her ideology, "I try to always work on plays that are going to allow space for a conversation about the way we interact with each other as humans afterwards." By giving space for the audience to come together and bridge the gaps of difference between them, by giving them an engaging story, art can make a difference. "If we choose not to come together and address the problems in our own lives," she asks, "how do we expect them to change?"

"Greenland" opens at the Chelsea Theater Works on February 20th. What is next, then, for Meg Taintor? While finding new avenues for her creative output, she doesn't want to commit to judgements of her newfound freedom just yet. "I'm trying really hard not to judge my life as I'm living it right now so that I can see what I learn. I learned a lot with Whistler that I didn't get to put into place. I really learned a lot about patience, and about being generous in spaces to make room for others. I'm enjoying not being in control of everything. That's kind of cool." Leave it to Boston's best ensemble theater artist to finally learn how to make space for herself: "I'm figuring out how to define success for what you're doing."

Performances will be followed by a Reception with the actors in the Gallery.

Performances of "Greenland" are February 20-March 15 at the Chelsea Theatre Works, 189 Winnisimmet St., Chelsea.

Tickets can be purchased by calling (617) 887-2336 or on-line at www.apollinairetheatre.com
Information and directions at www.apollinairetheatre.com