The Real Place

Puccini's famous aria from the opera Tosca, Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore ("I lived for art, I lived for love") provides a fitting summation of playwright John Murrell's life and work. Since the age of 13 Murrell has peopled his life with the creations of his own imaginings. "In opera and in Shakespeare, in locations that were both natural and supernatural, I have escaped the limitations of my own mind," he says. Born in Lubbock, Texas, John Murrell became a playwright in, of all places, an Alberta high school. Caprice and serendipity have marked his work ever since. Animator Cam Christiansen gives Murrell's imagination free rein, suspending the laws of time and space, to create a visual accompaniment to the playwright's fights of poetic fancy. Despite its more fantastic elements, Murrell's work is grounded in a profound appreciation for the real. History and place play a critical role in his work, where everyone from Sarah Bernhardt to Walt Whitman puts in an appearance. But behind the spectacle, the masque, and the play itself, is a man happily creating his own world.