Sandra Shamas is one of Canada’s most celebrated artists; she produced her first performance of My Boyfriend’s Back and There’s Gonna Be Laundry in 1987. Two more Laundry shows followed and the Laundry trilogy was published, shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for English-Language Drama, and nominated for the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour. Next the three-part Wit’s End chronicled her divorce, her move from big city to country living and farming life, and climbing menopause mountain.
Looking at life on the other side of 50 with her brilliant wit, candid insights and hilarious physicality, THE BIG ‘WHAT NOW?’ is a personal journey of discovery with universal appeal. Because it‟s . . . 2017 women are finally talking about climbing menopause mountain, living life on their own terms, and asking „just WTF is next?‟ With earnest gratitude Sandra is honest, gutsy, wistful, and very, very funny
THE BIG ‘WHAT NOW?’ runs until February 19 at the Fleck Dance Theatre, in Toronto.
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Transcript
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Phil Rickaby
Welcome to Episode 62 of Stageworthy, I’m your host Phil Rickaby. Stageworthy is a podcast about people in Canadian theatre featuring conversations with actors, directors, playwrights, and more. If you like what you hear, I hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Google music or whatever podcast app you use and consider leaving a comment or rating. If you want to drop me a line, you can find stage worthy on Facebook and Twitter at stageworthypod. And you can find the website at stageworthypodcast.com Sandra Shamas is one of Canada’s most celebrated artists performing stories mine from her own life since 1987. Her latest show, the big one now runs until February 19 at the Fleck Dance Theatre in Toronto. In terms of you’re known as a solo performer, were you? You’re always like you’re always a solo performer. Was that always a thing that you wanted to do? Like,
Sandra Shamas
I’m just I didn’t know I had a choice to be. I didn’t know because I was I was compelled to tell my story of my life. And I just couldn’t understand. I couldn’t have envisioned or imagined someone else telling it or I again, I think of yourself
Phil Rickaby
as a as an actor. Did you think of yourself as a as a theatre artist to comedy artists? What was your like when you were trying? If you had to define where you are? What what you do? What rounds is that sit in?
Sandra Shamas
I have no idea. I can tell you I still call it the thing that it is that I do. Okay, I call it the thing that it is that I do. And it’s when when people ask me, Are you a comedian, I say, if the audience laughs otherwise, I’m a dramatist. Either way I’ve done, I’ve done my job, which is simply just to report back from wherever, whatever stage of life I’m in to an audience from the stage like, I’ve never called it theatre I but I perform in a theatre, I don’t call it stand up. Although I’m standing. It’s certainly storytelling, because I’m telling a story. But I’m sort of, I want to create something bigger than just one little story I’m trying to create, you know, I’m trying to spend time, if you will,
Phil Rickaby
that that impulse that you have to tell your story, the story of your life. Has that. When did that first? Were you always somebody who wanted to who was open and telling their story like that? Or is that something that happened? Was there an event? You? Have you needed to tell the story?
Sandra Shamas
As you’re, as you’re asking me that question, I’m thinking, like, it’s like asking, was there an event that made this diamond happen? Like, you know, pressure, years, aeons of pressure, and finally something crystallises. And it’s not an expected thing, but it’s sort of a dictate was very, very clear that it was my job to stand on stage and tell the truth. And I didn’t see anybody else doing that. I did witness Lily Tomlin stand on stage and perform. And that mentored me as to a single woman could command an audience. I’d never seen that before. But the you know, the content was completely different. So, I mean, I was just, it was a confluence of things, and it all happened around 30. Right. So
Phil Rickaby
and were you performing it all before that or did did was just at 30? You felt the need?
Sandra Shamas
No, I had. I had performed with Second City. I’ve done theatre sports. I was doing little bits at the Rivoli working with kids in the hall and we’d share the space and so I was sort of working up to it. But I honestly, I couldn’t have imagined it sort of all coming together. Then somebody introduced me to this idea called the fringe right? And said, Well, you you just pay your money. It takes your chances. They give you a venue in Okay, sure. You know, so I got in and the first day that I got there, I thought, you know, I I was just I didn’t know what I was doing to be go. I wrote the thing on the plane. On your plane on the plane I wrote, yeah, I had the title, but I didn’t have the content. So I wrote it on a five hour flight from Toronto to Edmonton.
Phil Rickaby
Wow, okay. And Dave, what was it like performing that the first time were you
Sandra Shamas
was astonishing. Yeah, I didn’t know I could do that. I came offstage. And I just like said to whoever was standing there, I didn’t know I could do that. Like I literally, like, Oh my God, and I only had to do it like five more times, right. And the title was so catchy, everybody, like it’s sold out?
Phil Rickaby
Was that was my boyfriend’s back and is gonna be laundry? Yeah, of course, that’s like, you know, that’s one of the most catchy titles I could think of. Yeah.
Sandra Shamas
So again, and, you know, the content was purely female, purely one woman’s take on what was going on in her life. And, you know, of course, I you know, the story at that time was I was with somebody that we broke up, then, you know, I was, I went to hell, and you know, you know, itemise all of my, you know, coping mechanisms, you know, alcohol, chocolate, and, and that resonated with the audience. And so they just kept coming, basically,
Phil Rickaby
that first show you when you performed it next, or did it evolve during the fringe, or did you change it up, or we got
Sandra Shamas
better at it, that’s for sure. I got better at it. But I was also just sort of finding my footing, you know, I came back to Toronto, we had a product I didn’t know quite what to do with it. I, I had a high approached a theatre that deals in, exclusively in Canadian women like I was their mission statement, I really was everything that they espouse. But I, they didn’t consider me theatre because I didn’t have a director and I didn’t have all the, the things. And so I, they wouldn’t produce me. And so I thought, well, I just need I just need to stage. So I called Factory Theatre. And I call I talked to the guy, Gerald, this is named Gerald LHINs. And I said, Hi, my name is Sandra. Like to rent a venue said, Sure. Come on in. And I sat down across from him. And I said, he said, How many? How many performances? I said, I think two weeks. He said, Okay, that’s going to be 1200 a week, and you get a technician and I wrote him a check for $2,400. And I had a venue. And then that was it. I went out and got a spool of beer tickets, because I didn’t know about tickets, printing things like that. And I just had somebody just fucking ripping them off and just like giving them a you know, yeah. And then the women came, like, you know, and it was, it was amazing.
Phil Rickaby
Did you feel like at that point that you were, how you how you were selling the show was like you were fine. Swimming in, in a lack of knowledge, or did you did you have Did you have a publicist at the time or was it just just you trying to make it?
Sandra Shamas
Well, I was using the theatres publicist, they allowed me to use John cares to Mattis. Play ended up working with for years after just because he, he was sensitive to my proclivities. He, you know, but again, it I mean, he, we sent out what we did the first time, he’s like, we actually sent out why front men’s underwear with the press release. And even though they kept the underwear, many of those members of the media did not come. So I was, I guess I was dressing men and you know, but some, but it didn’t matter. Because the audience’s were kind of like, like, if publicity is to bring in an audience, if you don’t have the publicity, then the audience is still coming. Fuck publicity. You know? So that was, that was the saving grace. My audience was my saving grace.
Phil Rickaby
When you decided to work on your next show? Yeah. Did you? Was there did you start to find a writing method at the time did you have Did you find some way that you that writing works for you? Or did you sit down and just write it in a similar way to your to your wrote the first one.
Sandra Shamas
The first one is just like a collision of stories, you know, all ending with you know, my boyfriend, Spock, and there’s gonna be blind, right? The second was, you know, we by then we had bought a house. So it was sort of like, okay, so who am I visa vie this house thing. I’m living with a man and we have a house and I have a mortgage and tell the story of buying a house in Toronto in 1987. And the market was like, blooming. You know, we like what does that look like? What does like sort of, like foundational adulting look like, when you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing? And oh, we should live together. We have a mortgage. Wow. That’s love, isn’t that? And yeah, so that was like, sort of both boyfriends back and the second was the cycle continues. And then of course, As wedding they’ll Hell was like a no brainer at that point because the whole culture is telling you, this is the best day of your life. And here’s the ways you can do that. And then of course, I had no money I had no, I wasn’t invested in that idea. Yeah. But as a culture, like, that show ran the longest, the winter garden that show ran 11 weeks, like, almost completely sold out at the Winter Garden. That’s pretty. That’s because of the culture because of all the women who were getting like, we’re all let’s all get married. It’s like, it’s like the gap. We’re let’s be in Chino is like every season there’s a thing, right? So yeah, the. So we’re like, I was like the vein, like, like, tapping into that vein was really amazing. So, yeah,
Phil Rickaby
how long ago was the one? That was?
Sandra Shamas
9290? I don’t know.
Phil Rickaby
And you’ve maybe I’m trying to think in terms of your performance, how you’ve been performing shows, you haven’t been on the stage in a while. Am I right about that.
Sandra Shamas
I took eight years off between the last end of the last trilogy, which was love life. And then I took eight years off, because I was postmenopausal and I didn’t have a memory, okay, because it’s hormonally it was, you know, being flushed into the, I think the Pacific Ocean was taking it back. I couldn’t I like physically wasn’t reliable, right? I couldn’t, I also was doing some very interesting gyroscopic actions, like because, like hormones, and balance and all of that, you know, I was like, like hanging on to stop sweating bursting into, you know, basically, and just like, so the first show of the wait a second. No, I took eight years off between heart’s desire and love life? Cause? Yeah. So I had to bring a fan on stage with me. So I could have that until the audience, you know, I can’t talk to you right now my brain is being scrambled. But luckily, because I have grown up with my audience, everybody else was having the same response. So like, everybody was compassionate and empathetic. So, but historically, they go about every four years. Like, that’s about how long it takes? Is that
Phil Rickaby
about how long it takes for you to find a story? Or is that how long it takes for you to have gotten rid of one story, having told it and then to have the new story to tell?
Sandra Shamas
Because there’s an excavation process? Right? It’s sort of like, okay, what, what is what’s happening right now what? Generally speaking, I kind of look at whatever the cultural dictate is. And then I compare it to what is actually happening in my life, and then use that conflict to start knitting the show.
Phil Rickaby
Um, and the new show, yeah,
Sandra Shamas
this one this one
Phil Rickaby
is, what’s the cultural thing that you’re seeing that you wanted to?
Sandra Shamas
Oh, retirement. I was like, I’m 59. And tomorrow, when you know, whatever day I turned 60, I was supposed to retire. Yeah. And fuck knows what that is. Like I, I discovered a pamphlet at the, at this shoppers. And it’s basically itemise the stages of life. So 20, to 30, education, and career 30 to 40 family and vocation 40 to 50 was wealth management, and then 60 retire. And then there was no more paper, like, nothing, no plan, no, nothing. And I was, I can’t be like, what Come on, like, we don’t go, we don’t do 70. We don’t do like, come on. Yeah. And that basically was, you know, the match that got stuck in terms of me being curious, going into my community saying, you know, have you heard about this? Apparently, there’s, you know, it ends and finding out what each person what that means to each person or each more group in my in my world. And then ultimately having to like, swing back and find out what it means for me, particularly, and how I’m going to manoeuvre that and doesn’t look like I’m going to retire.
Phil Rickaby
I don’t want I don’t want to ask about too much that’s happening in the show. Because people obviously should see it. Yeah. But in terms of, is there anything that surprised you about the stories that you were hearing from people about that? Sit turning 60 And then retirement or
Sandra Shamas
Yeah, well, a lot of people I found out had jobs. They didn’t I always think people just live like me. You know, Footloose, fancy free, chopping wood on a farm somewhere, but they don’t they have lives and they are looking forward. They’ve apparently been working for someone else for a very long time and they really get love to get the fuck away from Most people, and but there’s that weird like transition where it’s like, I need to feel like I am purpose and have a purpose. Oh, lucky me. I had children, and now they’re having children so I’m gonna ride the grandma train. Yeah, who and that’s not a solace to me I didn’t have children, I’m not going to have grandchildren. So, like, so what? So what? So what now? Right? Like how am I going to how am I going to manoeuvre this? So that was so it was surprising to me
Phil Rickaby
was one of those interesting questions I’ve been thinking about about it a bit myself. Like there’s I watch my my parents, they retired a few years ago. Yeah, I look at people around me and I’m thinking, so retirement is supposed to be the reward that you get for working a shitty job for for like 40 years. Okay, and why are we working a shitty job for 40 years, but
Sandra Shamas
I’m more curious as to why now you’re on your own recognisance You’re not up there’s like kicking the shit out of something, that you’re not starting fires and doing crimes like I just what I want to know. Yeah, it’s like, what? Why aren’t you in jail? Why are you calling me to throw bail? Like, like, why don’t we just fucking going at this thing? Like, if that we’ve got 30 years, let’s fucking go at it. Like, I’m, like, you know, I’m looking at my own mother sitting what I call Command Central. She’s got a Kleenex, her remotes her glasses, you know, her tiny, like her tiny little garbage can, you know, the phone, the lamp? Her, you know, she can’t dislike in an area. You know? Like, if she ostensively dies there she pushed. He’s been there for years, you know, she gets up out of bed goes to the chair and sits there all day. Like, this is not how I envisioned my life. I have no interest in that whatsoever. Anyway, so that’s just me, but I mean, maybe I’m just too. Maybe I’m too rebellious. But there’s no fucking way I want to do that. That’s not my life.
Phil Rickaby
I I sort of think that more and more people don’t want to do that. Like, why are they working for a shitty boss? And why are they in a shitty job? Yeah, they don’t want to be in. Yeah. Until they get to spend like the last years of their life when they write I don’t know, like, right. When it’s the command central are doing well, they
Sandra Shamas
wanted to do I looked into I did the research that I did says that, you know, the average age of someone who retires at 60 is like, is 18 years like you live another 18 years. So 78, right? You got 18 years. So I looked at my life and I looked at how many years I have taken off in between shows, and it kind of fucking adds up to 18. I’ve been like retiring occasionally. I’m occasionally retired. So this is not you know, I work I post I work I coast. So and then I then I just live my life. Like I’m not actually, you know, trying to live a life that is extraordinary. I’m just trying to live a life that is authentic to me. And then eventually I will find stories within that authenticity, to relate to an audience. So this is not a time for me to stop doing that. This is no time for me to I don’t know, just I it’s it’s not I don’t even have an imagination big enough right now to tell you what I should be doing. But it’s not going to be that
Phil Rickaby
when you’re living that that life that’s not the performing when you’re in those four years between shows. What does that authentic like life look like for you?
Sandra Shamas
I live on a farm. That’s about it. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
Are you Is it a is it a chickens and goats farm?
Sandra Shamas
It was a chickens and goats farm. And as you know if you know anything about livestock, eventually you have dead stock. So I had a weasel infestation. It’s not every day. Woman gets to say that. And that’s true. I you know, I had to I had to Google. I came out of the barn because I went in to see headless, a headless chicken, a chicken that had its head yesterday, but surprisingly did not today. So I went back into the house. I only had this and I Googled headless chicken. And the first hit was no your predator by the carcass. So that was some good reading there. And it turns out it’s weasel. Weasel takes the head and leaves the carcass. And what I realised was I couldn’t protect my chickens anymore, so I gave him Why
Phil Rickaby
did you then go? Are you corn, wheat bean farmer, or do you
Sandra Shamas
currently be oh no, i Hey, mostly 25 acres in hay not touched by chemical and the entire time I’ve lived there. I have a I have a massive garden. That’s about I don’t know by now. It’s like I don’t know 100 by 100 feet. And I just planted everything there like I plant I’m like when I’m when I’m choosing seeds from the catalogues that are coming again right now, I’m expensively doing my grocery shopping for the next six months.
Phil Rickaby
I asked me does my girlfriend’s family come from a farm and they used to do animals and then their, her dad figured that animals were getting too old for they did emu and you know, with an emu you have to chase it down for the vet. So
Sandra Shamas
yeah, no, it’s bash it. So now they are there. I mean, if they Yeah, so now
Phil Rickaby
they’re being being corn wheat. Is their cycle through the year?
Sandra Shamas
Yeah, that? Yeah. You just need equipment for that. Yeah. You know, to harvest and do that.
Phil Rickaby
And then when you’re writing. I mean, for me, I always write, I go away to write because I like don’t write at home because I don’t have an office. So my living room is where I write. So I go to Artscape on Toronto Island, or go away for a little while. Do you write at home? Do you have you write in
Sandra Shamas
places like Artscape is like the whole places like Toronto Island, right? Yeah. So I just move from one room to the other. But I’m writing always like I’m paying, I’m paying attention. I’m paying attention to how I am perceiving something. So and then that usually, that usually fuels it. And if I get a central if I get a central story, then other stories start attaching themselves. The first story that came together for this show, is a story I call the family fuckup. It came as a result of being at a social event and all the all the people that were coupled off. And the men had gotten up to get the ladies drinks was that Allegion as you can imagine, because we’re Canadian, and the woman next to me, grabs my arm and says Now where’s your husband? And I said, oh, boy, I think he’s with his wife, actually. And women all enjoyed that. And she says, Oh, pretty girl, like can you not married? I know, right? Like, what’s going on? And everybody chuckles right? The woman who’s sitting right beside her kind of leans around and goes, so what do you do all day? This is from a mindset that I’m a man, like, your husband is a job, right? And that’s how she perceives it. And so I don’t, you know, hit the ground, running, getting breakfast, making the bed, cleaning up the bathroom. If he’s had a shower, I don’t make sure the kids have their lunches. I’m not doing you know, I’m not picking up the dry cleaning and making dinner and like, What the fuck do I do all goddamn day? And she really wanted to know. And I, I like I said, Well, I don’t know what it takes me all day to do it. But I can answer. And so that was the story. Yeah. And that just that, like it started this whole way of thinking about being a partner. What does that mean? Now at this stage of my life, you know, like, just because it doesn’t mean the same as it ever meant ever. And I have no mentoring, like I have no mentoring. Most of the women I know that are my age have been married for a fucking Aeon and are like, I am not retiring because I’m not staying home with that man. Like they are just hanging on to the last vestige of work for them. You know, I love my community. I like going out with the girls on Friday, like, you know, he can put her at home in the garage like they really and actually, that’s part of the reasoning behind the, you know, the increased divorce rate of people in their 50s and 60s.
Phil Rickaby
Is the idea is not wanting to spend Yeah, every hour of the day. Yeah,
Sandra Shamas
yeah. Like, I can’t tell you how many women I have heard say, He’s driving me crazy. comes in and he just, he’s like a teenager, he just leaves this, like, you know, she cleans the house, right? Because that’s her power base. And he just comes in and just leaves like a slug and debris field behind him. You know? And he totally expects her to do all of that all
Phil Rickaby
over. You probably doesn’t realise you’re doing it. That is he’s like, putting down this putting. Yeah, he’s used to having her do it. I know thinking about I
Sandra Shamas
know. It’s sad. And she’s like, You know what, I fucking had it with that fucking had it. And yeah, and that’s why the divorce rate goes up.
Phil Rickaby
In closing, so we’re almost out of time. Yeah, I just want to ask is a question a friend of mine was wondering if there was something that you wish that you could go back and tell yourself your 25 year old self years ago
Sandra Shamas
like wait till I was sober? That’s the first thing I would do because she does love to drink God lover. And in what respects like just as like a like shoot a flare back and like
Phil Rickaby
Yeah, is it like some kind of warning some something you would want her to know that might lead her away from something was there is there one piece of advice that you could give to to to young Sandra,
Sandra Shamas
I don’t know. I’m just I’m not However, I’m not much on the past. I’m not much for it. I’m, I’m pretty content that whatever I did and however I did, it brought me to this moment. So I wouldn’t want to change this moment. I, you know, and who I am in this moment. I I think I’ve I’ve always been very grateful for my curiosity. And that rebelliousness that’s behind it. Yeah, it just, it just has served me so well. Even though you know, 25 Yeah, no, I was just high most of
Phil Rickaby
the time. Well, that’s, that’s fair.
Sandra Shamas
I thought so too. Like, I just, you know, you work some of the money goes for rent, some of the money goes for like, a decent chunk of cash. And then, you know, that’s how you live your life. It was good at the time. Yeah, you know, had nowhere to be.
Phil Rickaby
Well, thank you. That’s great. Thanks so much.
Sandra Shamas
You’re welcome. Thank you very much.