Feature: An Interview with HAUI

Previews have just begun at the Stratford Festival's Studio Theatre for the World Premiere of HAMLET-911 and BroadwayWorld had the opportunity to speak with one of the creative forces behind this innovative and exciting new production. Mixed Media Artist, HAUI is the Video and Projection Designer for this production.

BWW chatted with HAUI over zoom about the creation of art, the exploration the abstract over a narrative, process vs product, and what audiences can expect from the projections in this new production.

BWW: Thank you so much for chatting with BWW today. I would love to start with a bit about you. How would you describe what you do? Have you always dabbled in different mediums or did you start with one thing and expand?

HAUI: It's such a good question because...where I've ended up is an amalgamation of years of practice. You build a process over a while and then it presents itself later...I still love performing, but there's a beautiful poetry in that I am of mixed heritage and gender and create mixed media. So being mixed is a huge part of my practice and really the goal for a long time has been blurring the lines between respective mediums. How can one medium inform another? A lot of people say it's greedy to want to do everything...but often, I don't know what the end form is because it will present itself when I'm in process for film or an opera or a theatre piece. So I now say in the simplest way, that I'm a director, a designer, and a deviser in theatre, opera, and film.

I started as a performer. I always had a knack for visual and Fine Arts. I actually turned down a degree in Fine Arts to study Theatre. And in some ways it's kind of funny because it's come back in so many interesting ways. Recently, I just finished probably one of the longest residencies I've ever done, but it was so fruitful. I was one of the Artists-in-residence with Black Lives Matter - Toronto. I was working there with a lot multidisciplinary artists and activists. That process is culminating this fall in my first exhibition showing. So it's nice to be able to blur between what is a theatrical space and what is a curated, exhibited space. So I'm just following the art really...It's not about trying to fit into something, it's about letting the work tell me where it needs to live.

BWW: That's so interesting. I was going to ask if you typically approach something based on the medium or if the process informs that...

HAUI: I don't mean to generalize but I think I find in North America, there is such a focus on 'What's the narrative?' and that is one way in, definitely, but as a Visual Artist sometimes my entry is 'what is the composition?' What is the idea we're going for? And so often right now, I think-because we've been away from theatre for two years-there's a lot of theorizing about what practice is, but really theory comes out of practice - and we forget that. So often, people are over-thinking the process and I fundamentally believe that 'theory comes out of practice, let's leave that for the critics.' Often I will enter with an idea. There's a beautiful entry that I started using in my practice in the last few years of - what Roland Barthes calls the 'punctum' and what is the 'studium'. The punctum, when you look at photography is that passion, what hits you in the gut without instinctually understanding it. And the studium comes later...that phenomenon that happens when our intellect catches up with our impulse. So it's a really interesting process. Sometimes narrative is a way in, but it is not the only way. Sometimes [it is] your impulse - and that could be an idea, an image, it varies for each process for me.

The Stratford Festival describes the story of HAMLET-911 as follows:

Hamlet-911 brings us into the life of fictional actor Guinness Menzies who has landed his dream role of Hamlet at the Stratford Festival. But just before a matinée performance, he suddenly finds himself in the Underworld, a strange realm as frightening as it is hilarious, where time is seriously out of joint. Has he gone mad? Is he dreaming? Has he died? Meanwhile, teenager Jeremy attempts to reach out to Guinness online as he wrestles with his own version of Hamlet's famous life-or-death dilemma.

BWW: How early were you involved with HAMLET 911. Did you have a lot of freedom to create when it came to the projection art?

HAUI: I was part of the show before the pandemic happened. There were some very different ideas that were happening then. One in particular was this idea of the space being a character. I would say there's less focus on that in this show in its current iteration. From the beginning, it was talking to [Director, Alisa Palmer] about whose world do projections live in. In Guinness' story, it feels like he's this maturing white man going through this existential crisis. And then you have the other story that's going on of Jeremy. You sort of get to see these generational divides in this world of internet culture. One of the first questions was 'Where do the projections live?' and it's become more and more prevalent now that Jeremy is the world of projections, the world of media, the world of Facebook. And so there are moments in the show where we try to abstract the idea of Facebook but then there are also moments that are less figurative and more illustrative - So you do see emojis and things that you usually associate with the internet. But something I've really been trying to play with is where do we lean into metaphor and where do we lean into something that is more illustrative, so we can actually keep the sense going - because it is a very mysterious show.

BWW: I don't know if it has to do with what we all, collectively as a society have been through, but I find that perhaps audiences seem to maybe be more open to the ambiguous these days...

HAUI: Often, and I'm not saying in this piece specifically, but often people want to reduce metaphor and rationalize it to have it make more sense...And I think that kills art - when you're trying to spoon feed sense to people. So that's something that you balance constantly as a designer.

BWW: Did you find there to be a lot of changes between 2020 and now? Do you feel like you as an artist have changed in these last 2 years?

HAUI: I've definitely changed as an artist. Definitely. I think the show - it's interesting when an AD curates a season, you can sort of see the connective tissue between the shows...It's interesting that we have a first time, that Amaka Umah (a Black Woman) is playing HAMLET [at The Festival Theatre]. In our show, that's subverted...Yes a woman in the show takes on Hamlet, but the woman in our show is Eva Foote (photograph). So there are certain racial and gender topics that do come up in this piece that have influenced the design...And I think there's a real need as someone who is mixed, Black, white, gender fluid- all those things. My own personal experience and intersectionality is going to influence the design.

BWW: Was there any dialogue at any point between the two 'HAMLET' productions happening at the Festival this season?

HAUI: I would say generally speaking there is little dialogue. Just because the crossing of shows happen at different times of the season. But at one point we were filming on the Patrick Lavender's set of HAMLET...It's a very small easter egg in the show, but because [HAMLET-911] is quite self-referential -looking at itself and the Festival, it felt important to pay homage to certain things.

It's also beautiful that my husband, Peter Hinton-Davis opened the Studio Theatre with his trilogy of THE SWANNE and 20 years later, I'm working here with (playwright) Anne Marie Macdonald. And also the year I was born, GOOD NIGHT DESDEMONA was published, so there are beautiful connections of just being here at the Festival, I just find are really nice reminders.

BWW: What can you tell us about the design of the projections in HAMLET 911?

HAUI: I don't want to give too much away. It's exciting...Dramaturgy is a huge part of what everyone does in the theatre. I think we're all pushing for authenticity and truth...With video for me, I'm less akin to wanting to use video locationally, I want to move to metaphor most of the time and I like using video to support narrative, to subvert narrative - there are moments where you want to sort of play with those key elements to surprise people. And hopefully we do surprise people with this show.

BWW: For you as an artist on a new production like this, it's got to be an interesting challenge that at the end of the day, I imagine it is not in your control what does and does not get cut...

HAUI: It's different process to process...Often with cuts, there's a mutual understanding between the team of 'ok this is not working at this point' or 'this is working.' As a designer, you have to return to your intentions. You can say to a director "I understand but I don't agree with you" and that's the part of process that people don't always acknowledge or are afraid of. Sometimes with collaboration...you have to fight for something that you think is actually going to be helping the story.

BWW: And really, that is what collaboration is all about. I don't think any creative would want everyone on the team to be thinking the exact same way. Speaking of collaboration, tell me about your video team.

HAUI: The video team. If I can shout out everyone - my assistant Charlotte Baker was incredible to work with and the video team Nancy McCune and Drew Rabetts are so wonderful. It's been such a riot with them.

BWW: And are those folks who you met through this process?

HAUI: Yeah! You just hold onto the relationships that are fruitful and my goodness, those three have been rocks for me.

BWW: Is there anything else you would like to share with BWW readers and Stratford Festival audiences?

HAUI: The Studio is a space to explore and interrogate new work. I invite people to come with inquiry. Even classical works were new at one point and I think we forget that. There's a beauty to see something that is newer, and asking ourselves 'will this be a classic.'

HAMLET-911 continues in Repertory at the Studio Theatre until Oct. 2nd.

HAUI has got some really exciting projects coming up in the world of art, theatre and opera and invites you to check out: https://www.haui.ca/

Photo Credits: HAUI

In First Photo: Micah Woods

In Second Photo: Eva Foote

In Third Photo: Andrew Iles

This Interview has been Edited and Condensed

**Correction: Micah Woods was originally listed with the incorrect last name

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