Dayna Lea Hoffmann & Michael Watt Bring Their Personal Touch to Countries Shaped Like Stars

If you had to describe Countries Shaped Like Stars in one sentence, what would it be?

DAYNA: It’s like you have had the best day ever and you go to sleep – this is the show you dream about.

MICHAEL: It’s a story about love and magic across distance, and the power of it coming together, nevertheless.

Photography by Marc J Chalifoux

What drew you to this project?

DAYNA: Probably the direct address and that opportunity to break the fourth wall and be in conversation with audiences. There’s so much to work with in Countries – we are telling the story, but we are also characters in the story. The direct address is something I always crave when performing. Some people are shy, but I’m certain in Edmonton, we have audiences that will be very willing to talk back and provide energy to the performance.  

MICHAEL: I feel similarly, there’s so many spots in the script for open text, for improv, and the production really leaves the storytelling in our hands as performers. It’s so exciting and intimidating in the best way knowing every night will be different. We really get to explore how we tell the story throughout the run and also how the show changes based on the audience. I think that’s really, really special.  

DAYNA: Totally. I think my favourite part about receiving the script was seeing that it was only 20 pages long, and then being like, what are we doing between these lines? There’s also so much opportunity to change the dialogue in the moment too, so the creative freedom of the production extends beyond the improvisation available to us.  

MICHAEL: Yes! There are moments in the script that just say ‘love at first sight’ and it’s just asking you to explore that. There’s nothing asking you to do this for 10 minutes or 30 seconds. It’s so fun and cheeky of the creators and Murray to be like, ‘no you’re going to make this your own and find yourselves in these characters’. 

How are you hoping to bring these characters to life?  

DAYNA: Personally, I’ve avoided watching videos of the original production. There’s something so specific about that version of Gwendolyn and Bartholomew (performed by creators Emily Pearlman and Nicolas Di Gaetano) and I couldn’t watch how anyone else did it, because I didn’t want that to inform what I choose to do. I feel like there’s a lot of space for us to really lend ourselves to these characters and build them up in a way that suits us, whereas with other productions, you’re usually really trying to mold yourself as an actor to fit a character.  

MICHAEL: See, I accidentally watched a previous production of it. And in seeing clips of other productions, it’s clearly so immensely personal to each performer, and that’s what is so special about it. It showed me that to do this, to tell this story, it must come from a personal, meaningful place. 

DAYNA: I think this all really extends to the music too. It’s so personal in the way they sing it. The previous performers have a lot of inflections and that’s going to live with me. I have to find ways of making it my own now.  

MICHAEL: For me, it’s also interesting in that we’re the hosts telling the story to an audience, and then we’re the characters playing these roles, too. It feels like there’s real layers to the story. How people tell stories is so personal and it changes when I tell the story as the host, or perform it as Bartholomew. I find it really interesting and a gift as a performer. There’s so much to play with and so much opportunity in bringing that to life. 

How are you bringing that personal element to this production? 

DAYNA: I draw a lot from the play being allegorically very simple and the story is very transferrable. It’s about this bright burning love that is so important it’s all you can think about, despite alternative circumstances and distance. 

MICHAEL: What I find so striking is that I think everyone probably has had a relationship in their lives that they are talking about ten years later. Countries Shaped Like Stars captures a love that can be so magical and burn so brightly that it can, hopefully, resonate with everyone in the audience. Certainly, I can resonate with that in many types of relationships in my life, be it romance, or friendship!   

Gwendolyn and Bartholomew have a really immediate, passionate love. What do you think makes it so special and powerful?  

DAYNA: Maybe there’s something to be said about existing on different peninsulas. I’ve been imagining if all countries were shaped like stars, what would that actually look like. There’s a lot of separation and there’s a lot you don’t know or can’t know about these neighbouring peninsulas.

Trying to understand those images, literally and visually, makes me feel like this is a meeting that could have only happened under these circumstances. They come together because of an “intercontinental market of pivotal miscellany” – a direct quote from the script. There’s something about them coming together to share goods and community, in this place that bridges the divide of those peninsulas.

MICHAEL: Yeah, yeah, I feel like building on that, what’s so magical about their love story is it feels like it could only happen to them because of those very specific circumstances. God willing, everyone in life will have that magical moment that could only happen to them.

When I was 8 years old in Campbell River on Vancouver Island, we were driving past a motel that has a sign that said ‘just remember, you’re unique like everyone else’ and it’s stayed with me for years. I feel like this love story and this love is so unique. It could only happen to Gwendolyn and Bartholomew, but it happens to all of us, and I find that very special.

Photography by Marc J Chalifoux

Is there anything you think audiences could learn from their love?  

DAYNA: Maybe to be gentle with yourself, because what happens to them is so intense. I think about Gwendolyn the highs and lows of this intense love and I think it’s all a metaphor for, you know, how we talk to ourselves and how we treat ourselves, even over something as beautiful and engaging as love.  

MICHAEL: I feel similarly, and I’m still navigating it. The profound thing, is that they, as hosts and narrators, still find magic in celebrating the love they share and returning to it. It’s still worth remembering and retelling that story because there’s a lot to learn from every retelling. 

Countries Shaped Like Stars is a play with a lot of musical elements – there’s mandolins, there’s singing, but there’s a lot more to the musicality of the show as well. Can you speak on that and what it adds to the play?  

DAYNA: I think anything that’s sonically going on in the space is going to be really important to the play and its atmosphere. We’ve been playing around with the whirly winds and the sound of those are angelic. Then there’s like, the tinking of water glasses and crystal glasses. I’m also excited for the percussive elements of it.  

MICHAEL: Speaking of the whirly winds, I’ve never used one before, and it really feels like instantaneous magic. The first thing we do once everyone’s in the room and the lights are down is play the whirly winds. This weird hum suddenly fills the room with this ethereal sensation and magic is made right there. I think that’s what the music does throughout the play, it makes the experience sensory and tactile. We’re making sounds with everything and everyone around us and when all those things align… I don’t know, it feels magical to me.  

DAYNA: To add to that, it’s like the music is a curiosity. Like, the whirly winds will happen in the dark, you won’t know where the sound is coming from or what is it is. I’m excited to see how the music feels and fills the spaces between and brings people into this different world. 

What do you think the role of imagination is in Countries Shaped Like Stars? 

DAYNA: This script, this play, I don’t want to call it absurd, but it is whimsical, totally. There’s a lot for us as performers to create for it to make sense while being performed.  

MICHAEL: Yeah, the images that are painted in the script can be hard to even comprehend, and I’m excited and inspired to build these images in our own way. It’s hard to fathom these peninsulas in this magical, vast world, and there’s so many puzzle pieces to this universe. The magic is in the minutia. 

DAYNA: For me the whimsy also means there’s a lot of letting go to do, like this is a totally different kind of role. Normally I would ask questions and try to learn why my character is doing specific actions, like, what’s the reasoning? With Countries, there’s a lot of elements to the story that I’m realizing don’t need to make a lot of sense. I’m finding a lot of the images are more about the feeling and less about the sense. Like how do you use a strawberry binocular? It doesn’t matter; it’s about how it makes you feel.  

Photography by Marc J Chalifoux

And, as you both spoke about earlier, audience interaction is going to be a big part of this play, how do you think this will add to the experience for the audience?  

MICHAEL: We need everyone to tell this story. Being able to break through and be there with the audience really adds to the whimsy of the world. We’re telling a story and we just need them to listen and take it all in. I hope they’re ready to join us in these moments when we’re passing around a tin can telephone and inviting them along for the ride.  

DAYNA: To me, being able to interact with your audience is also pretty fundamental to storytelling. That’s how it began, people sitting around a campfire telling stories, and telling a story directly to your audience, instead of performing it in front of them, goes back to the roots of that. You have opinions on the matters, you have personal relationships with the events going on, and that becomes part of the story. There’s much more work to do as an actor from that perspective, but it’s really exciting work.  

MICHAEL: Completely. There’s so much power in telling a story to the audience. If the performance is hitting you and the performer sees it hitting you, you share that together, you hold it together, and that changes the performance. 

It also just becomes so much more personal to the audience. Sometimes you get to do a show, and you can feel a response happening, but you can’t acknowledge it because of the nature of the play. With Countries you really get to hold a response together with the audience, even in moments where, as the characters, you don’t want to be telling the story anymore, you don’t want someone to be there perceiving you. Love stories are very vulnerable tales, so to feel them share the tension of that vulnerability, to be there when the story becomes hard to tell, I’m really interested in navigating that as a performer. 

What do you think audiences will take away from seeing the show?  

DAYNA: Oh, people are too serious. I hope this lets people let go a little more. If I was an audience member watching this show, I could forget everything I know about theatre and just enjoy the spectacle and storytelling. It’s not always going to make sense, but again, it’s about the feeling that it evokes.  

MICHAEL: Yeah, I totally agree. Perhaps I’m less concerned with what the audience reflects upon after they leave, instead I’m really hoping they join us for the fun and the joy of the moment. I hope they surrender like we have to surrender as the characters, and feel as we have to feel.