Living Theatre: Atomic bombs, Radium Mines, and Connection in Burning Vision by Canadian playwright Marie Clements

Burning Vision by Métis writer Marie Clements is play that connects people from three different countries and four different nationalities to a single event: the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945. Although this event is often thought of as an incident occurring just between the Americans and Japan, Clement shows the reality of the bombing as connecting strangers across the globe. The radium for the atomic bombs were mined at the Port Radium mine site by Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories by members of a First Nations tribe. From there, the radium was sent to the United States where it was made into atomic bombs and tested in New Mexico. On August 6 and 9, 1945, two atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an event that ended WWII but had long lasting effects as people faced horrific deaths from cancer from exposure to radioactive material. Clement draws a direct connection between the community by Great Bear Lake and Japan since the radium in the atomic bombs came from Canada. This story does not stay between America and Japan; it transcends borders and connects First Nations, Canadians, Japanese, and Americans together to a history that is not often told.

Clement explores the way the bombings connect people by creating an abstract world on stage where there are no borders and characters flow in and out of each other’s scenes, even though they should be separated by land and ocean. Even though they should be on different continents, Rose, a Métis bread-maker, and Koji, a Japanese fisherman, kiss and presumably make love (Rose is pregnant by Movement Four [95]) when they “sing into each other, merging their voices and bodies” (89). The Japanese Grandmother becomes the Widow by the end of Movement Four and Koji strangely becomes both her “young husband” and her “grandson” (111-12). It is hinted that Rose is the Widow’s daughter and that Koji is her son, since Koji calls her “Mom” and the Widow says, “Did I tell you she used to bring me bread?” (112). These connections are of course impossible, but Clement uses the impossible to drive home the theme that these characters are intricately connected to one another through the bombings, despite distance. Even Fat Man, Little Boy, and Round Rose, an American test dummy, a Slavey boy, and Japanese-American woman, connect and become a sort of family for a short time during Movement Three (87-89).

Clement also emphasizes the connection her characters have in their names. Clement uses the name “Rose” for both the Métis woman and the Japanese-American woman, who is distinguished as “Round Rose.” This is a confusing yet clearly intentional choice, since Clement could easily have avoided choosing identical names for both the Metis bread-maker and the Japanese radio siren. Despite their different nationalities and geographical locations, Clement wants the audience to see them as connected, like all the people and events in this play.

The connectedness and complete lack of borders in Burning Vision must be embraced when designing the stage and set for this production. In order to highlight the theme of connectedness, the play should be staged on a thrust stage, creating an opportunity for close connection with the audience. The stage will consist of a rectangular raised upstage, which is a foot higher than the circular turntable (very large, with a ten-foot radius) that juts out downstage to create the thrust. The turntable will have a lowered stationary center that represents the mine. The outside of the turntable will revolve clockwise at certain points in the play. Since Native Americans see the circle as symbolic of equality and connectedness between people, the use of a circular turntable will embody this symbol in the design but also help to literally connect the characters and force them together.

The different levels of the stage will be visually appealing but will also help to distinguish clear spaces and locations for different characters from different nationalities. As mentioned before, the mine will exist in the center of the turntable. An atomic bomb will be hung from the lighting rig directly above the mine, creating a clear visual connection between the source and the product. Fat Man’s house is set upstage left (USL) on the raised rectangle. The Japanese characters, like Koji will usually appear upstage right (USR) while Round Rose/Tokyo Rose, the Japanese American, exists upstage center (USC) between “Japan” and “America.” Native American characters will remain downstage on the turntable, which will not revolve the entire time. For example, Little Boy will begin in the static center of the turntable while the Labine brothers walk in place on the revolving turntable (8). Rose also walks around the circle, in place, as the table moves, so that the little line of flour ends up trailing around the entire circle (18). In Movement Two, the Miner will stand in the mine while the Radium Painter will stand CSL on the edge of the circle, which remains stationary during their conversation (50-52).

A scrim will be hung as a backdrop and can be used to help create visual effects. When Little Boy and Round Rose walk into the TV, there should be a slit cut into the scrim so they can literally “climb into the TV” and “into the Dene Seer” and then create the shadow of Tokyo Rose (89). In Movement Four, the shadows of the Dene Ore Carriers can be created by bodies behind the scrim. At the beginning of Movement Four, the “visions, the bombing, the burning” can be projected onto scrim and Little Boy can come back out from behind the scrim as he embodies the Dene Seer (93).

The turntable will be crucial to stage the scenes where characters connect and worlds collide with each other. About halfway through Movement Four, the scene “starts out slow and begins to escalate in fear as characters and world collide” (100). Here, the turntable will start spinning. The Labine Brothers will walk onto the revolving turntable so they stay in place while the other characters (like Rose and the Radium Painter) will allow themselves to be carried clockwise on the turntable. This can result in intentional collisions between characters as the worlds literally begin to “collide” (100). The Miner will remain in the mine at the center of the turntable. The scene will need to be carefully choreographed so that the Radium Painter and the Miner will be “together” while the Radium Painter is being carried around the circle. When the Radium Painter “holds out her hand to” the Miner and helps “pull him up” out of the mine, she will bring him onto the rotating turntable with her. They will dance as they are carried around in a circle (108).

When the bomb explodes in a great flash of white light (110) there must be snow machines placed up in the lighting rig that can rain down black “snow” that will represent the “black dust” of the radium (110). As the Japanese Grandmother “makes her way across the blackened land,” she will move from USL, by Fat Man’s house, and walk downstage across the revolving turntable, through the mine, and back up to USR where she will meet “the blackened body of Koji as he lies at the base of the burnt cherry tree” (111). The Grandmother will pass through the worlds of all the different characters, emphasizing that the events surrounding the atomic bombs have no boundaries and affect all the characters.

In the final moments of Burning Vision, Clement has the Slavey, Japanese, and Canadian Announcers speak in their own languages. The stage direction says that the audience should hear “[t]he sound of the radio dial gliding over voices…that are calling their loved ones home” (113-14). The entire play reminds the audience of how Burning Vision’s characters are connected through historical events; this final conglomeration of images emphasizes this theme even more as it shows the connectedness these Slavey, Japanese, and Canadian people share despite difference in language and geographical location. They are all “calling their loved ones home” (113-14).