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Ryan Ward Dreams of Drake

Written by Rachel Rain Packota Tuesday, 11 August 2009 14:32

Nick Drake lived a scant 26 years, created three albums worth of brilliant, soul-touching songs, and yet never achieved the notice and acclaim he so greatly desired. Ending his life in 1974, Drake never lived to see his music appreciated and adored by future music-lovers. But today, he is considered to have been “ahead-of-his-time,” both stylistically and content-wise. How could a man so gifted be unable to carry out his dream while alive?

Drake's story, notes Ryan Ward, is not so different from so many others', and not all of them musicians or artists. The director/actor, who portrays Drake himself in the Summerworks Theatre Festival production of The Nick Drake Project, is convinced that through the theatrical rendering there is a moral of sorts to Drake's life, and also an inspiration. "It's a really beautiful, moving story," Ward says with enthusiasm. "It's something that everybody can relate to... [that] the distance between us is not that far...[so] follow your dreams, follow your heart even if it's scary."

Many people live half-lives, or false lives, while trying to be "safe," he explains, and some are so discouraged by the first sign of setback that they "lose their way" and never try again. "[Drake] was one of those people who got lost on the way," Ward reflects. "He got so lost that he left this planet." He refers, of course, to Drake's suspicious overdose of anti-depressants that took the slender, promising young man's life one cold November morning. Although his family disputed the official cause of death as "suicide," all involved agree that in one sense or another Drake had indeed given up on life.

Ward proposes that Drake's crippling stage fright and almost unbearable sensitivity to criticism may have been his downfall. "He felt he had something to say to the world," says Ward, who points to that situation as a major theme of the play. "Nobody heard him no matter how well he said it [though]... I think the weight of it [felt like], 'If I can't do this thing [play music] that I'm meant to do... but nobody listens to me, I just can't bear to stay here."

In essence, he was lost metaphorically-speaking. In The Nick Drake Project, he appears lost metaphysically in The Heath, a purgatory for souls unable to either pursue or reject their life's calling. Billy Moon, an aspiring writer struggling to make his dreams a reality, is the protagonist who tumbles into the netherworld and tries to find his way back, but "all the people he meet tell him, 'You can't go out there, Man, you don't know what's gonna happen. Just grab something secure... if that makes you sacrifice who you want to be then that's ok, because it's better than going out there.'"

Ward, a graduate of Ryerson University's BFA Theatre program, acknowledges that finding the inner strength in his own life was elemental in birthing Nick Drake in the theatre. Researching Drake's life made him realize that he "hit a lot of the same roadblocks" in his own pursuit of the arts. This past year saw him directing his own self-written feature film, Son of the Sunshine. Although accepted at the prestigious Slamdance Film Festival (Park City, Utah), it was not however selected for the Toronto International Film Festival.

Ward was understandably frustrated to be rejected by what was ostensibly a group of his peers in his own city. "You try to do things artistically that have integrity and may not be the most popular choices, like [Drake] did... but most people don't understand what you're doing at all. You end up feeling like 'Why am I doing this?'"

Penned by Matthew Heiti and originally performed by Picture Box Theatre Co. in 2006, The Nick Drake Project (then called "A Place To Be: The Nick Drake Project") went through a transformation of workshops and intense editing before emerging as its present incarnation. Ward and Heiti worked tirelessly on the script to "focus it down into what we felt the theme of the play was." The theme, they ultimately determined, was about "the black holes a person can fall into on the road to their dreams" and "finding the courage to find your way back."

"Anybody, really, from any walk of life can identify with this play," urges Ward. "It is about the everyday person who dreamed of being something other than what they are, or... [is] struggling to fulfill their dreams and all the frustrations they come up against, and the way they question themselves." Simply put you must choose whether to accept the world as it is, and then "head out into the unknown and see what happens".

The Summerworks production features an ensemble cast of six performers, including a puppeteer (who operates "Robert Johnson," a puppet based on the real-life person by the same name), but an exciting main feature of this version is Nick Drake's songs, performed live and onstage by the cast (with eight separate guitars all tuned differently) and with proper permission from the Estate of Nick Drake.
Ward sees this as a particular blessing. "I like to think of this as the first official production," he muses.

The Nick Drake Project plays Summerworks 2009 at Factory Theatre Mainspace (125 Bathurst Street). Tickets are $10 (general admission only).

Show times:
TUESDAY, AUGUST 11 8:30pm
FRIDAY, AUGUST 14 8:30pm
SATURDAY, AUGUST 15 2:30pm

For tickets or more information, please call (416) 504-7529 or visit Summerworks Theatre Festival website at: www.summerworks.ca