{"id":33551,"date":"2019-11-01T03:57:35","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T10:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=33551"},"modified":"2019-10-30T23:20:09","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T06:20:09","slug":"finding-hope-during-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2019\/11\/01\/finding-hope-during-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding hope during war"},"content":{"rendered":"

Laura Reynolds and David Volpov in The Wars<\/em>, which opens Nov. 7. (photo by Javier R. Sotres)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Timothy Findley\u2019s award-winning novel The Wars<\/em>, adapted by Dennis Garnhum for the stage, comes to University of British Columbia\u2019s Frederic Wood Theatre Nov. 7-23. Directed by Lois Anderson, it will be performed by UBC Theatre and Film\u2019s graduate class of 2020, among whom is Jewish community member David Volpov.<\/p>\n

Volpov takes on the leading role of Robert Ross, who is described as \u201ca tender-hearted idealist who shares a strong bond with his wheelchair-bound sister\u201d and \u201ctrades his comfortable Canadian life for the harsh world of trench warfare in World War I.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I find challenging about playing Robert is imagining the play as a series of events, with each event slowly transforming him into a new person,\u201d Volpov told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cAt first, he\u2019s a shy city boy who comes from a wealthy family. Over the course of the play, he becomes a confident lieutenant, who\u2019s gained a lot more life experience. It\u2019s not until he escapes his domestic life and goes to war that he truly discovers who he is. He discovers more about his sexuality, his morality around war and his will to live.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs well as being a war story, the play is also a coming-of-age story. Finding those moments of change has been a rewarding experience because Robert is such a complicated character to crack. Even though he\u2019s so young, he has so much trauma and weight that he carries with him to France. It feels like a big step for Robert every time he grows or learns something, or pushes past his comfort levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Volpov is in his final year of the bachelor of fine arts acting program at UBC. As a writer, his plays include The Minimum-Wage Dame<\/em> and Ten Years Later<\/em>. His acting credits include Promethean Theatre Company\u2019s productions of Of Mice and Men<\/em> and Saint Joan<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love working with Promethean because we\u2019re a small group of friends who are passionate about theatre,\u201d he said. \u201cWe come together and discuss what stories we want to tell, what stories we think are important to tell. Then we go ahead and tell them. There\u2019s nothing high-brow about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Volpov\u2019s appreciation for storytelling comes in part from his parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents were Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union \u2013 my mom from Latvia and my dad from Belarus. Having grown up persecuted for being Jewish, they found it important to pass on their life stories to me, and that I understood what it meant to be Jewish,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Growing up in Richmond as a secular Jew, he said, \u201cIt wasn\u2019t until I was a teenager and spent one summer at Camp Tel Yehudah in Upstate New York that I felt connected to my heritage. The camp was oriented on teen leadership, so each camper chose a global issue which they were passionate about, researched it and created an activism action plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue I chose to dive into was gun safety,\u201d he said. \u201cMy group and I created a policy plan that we got the chance to take to Washington, D.C. We met with senators\u2019 aides and representatives of the NRA [National Rifle Association] and the Brady Campaign. It was very important to be able to speak with people on both sides of the issue and still be able to have a healthy discussion. The experience impacted me a lot because it was the first time that I felt like I had a voice about something I was passionate about, something that felt so personal to me. That\u2019s one thing that really helped in my acting from then on. Before that, I knew how to read and play someone else\u2019s script, but that was when I learned how to make someone else\u2019s text feel like it was my own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Considering the text of The Wars<\/em>, Volpov said that one of the reasons Findley wrote about the First World War \u201cis because that was the war that changed everything. It marked the first use of chemical weapons in war and the first time that the senselessness of war was widely reported. World War I marked a point where the world shifted to a much more cynical outlook, where the chaos of the world was realized.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresently,\u201d he said, \u201cwe\u2019re living in a similarly cynical time, in a new age of increasing isolationism \u2013 of Brexit and [Donald] Trump, and the climate crisis, too. The message that the play applies to the First World War can also apply to today: even when we\u2019ve lowered our faith in our leaders and in humanity, we can always hold onto hope and lean on meaningful connections to others to get by.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that \u201cthese connections take precedence over mere survival. The play is so life-affirming because it\u2019s all about finding hope and joy even during the hardest times.\u201d<\/p>\n

For tickets to The Wars<\/em>, call 604-822-2678 or email box.office@ubc.ca.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Laura Reynolds and David Volpov in The Wars, which opens Nov. 7. (photo by Javier R. Sotres) Timothy Findley\u2019s award-winning novel The Wars, adapted by Dennis Garnhum for the stage, comes to University of British Columbia\u2019s Frederic Wood Theatre Nov. 7-23. Directed by Lois Anderson, it will be performed by UBC Theatre and Film\u2019s graduate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[9419,6208,9420,3556,5412],"class_list":["post-33551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-david-volpov","tag-theatre","tag-timothy-findley","tag-ubc","tag-war"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}