The role that got Kristen Thomson to return to the stage

For long-time theatregoers, the name Kristen Thomson brings back vivid memories of unforgettable nights at the theatre.

Right before I began writing for NOW Magazine in the late 1990s, I recall catching her white-knuckle, Dora Award-winning performance as Denise in George F. Walker’s Problem Child. (Her quiet, desperate final monologue is seared into my brain.) A few years later, she debuted as a playwright with I, Claudia, one of the most poignant and profound shows about the effects of divorce on children.

In addition to her passionate youngest sibling in the Tarragon’s star-studded production of Shelagh Stephenson’s The Memory of Water, there were her many roles at Soulpepper, her wide-ranging output as a playwright (among them Someone Else, The Patient Hour, The Wedding Party, the latter of which inaugurated Crow’s Theatre’s new home), and then her all-too-rare performances in plays like The Watershed, Every Brilliant Thing and Pipeline.

It’s been a couple of years since her last big stage role as the title character in Rajiv Joseph’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. But when Coal Mine’s Ted Dykstra read Abe Koogler’s 2017 play Fulfillment Centre, he immediate thought of Thomson for the role of Suzan, a 60-something former folk singer who finds herself working in an online retailer’s shipping centre.

“In the script, Suzan has this laugh, this ‘haha’ reaction to things, and I immediately heard Kristen’s laugh,” said Dykstra on a recent Zoom call. He’s directing the show’s Canadian premiere, which opens this week at Coal Mine.

The two last worked together nearly 30 years ago, when Problem Child was extended and all six of Walker’s Suburban Motel cycle of plays were running as part of the Factory Theatre’s season. Dykstra played Denise’s TV talk-show-addicted partner, RJ. Ever since, they’d wanted to work together.

“Kristen has this huge amount of joy and silliness, and she understands what people are beneath their facades,” he says about her. “She has immediate access to tears, to laughter, to anger. She's just one of the most available actors I know; she‘s able to channel the universe the way it needs to be channeled.”

When Dykstra phoned Thomson up and emailed her the script, she read it and immediately said yes.

“You don’t get many characters like Suzan,” says Thomson, in a separate interview. “She’s not a grandmother, or at least not that we know from the script — that’s not her identity, you know? She’s a drifter, and she’s chasing her freedom at a great cost to herself. You don’t see a lot of 60-year-old characters doing that. She has such a different perspective on life than me, and I’m enjoying seeing the world from that perspective.” 

In fact, that last observation is something Thomson regularly looks for in roles.

“One of the things I always think about when I’m looking at a role is how a character thinks differently from me — to kind of get rid of my own blind spots,” she says. “I would say Susan has paid a very high price for her freedom. But when I’m inside of her, I feel like that’s just the price of it. I don’t think she assesses things the way that I do. And making that little discovery has had a big impact on the way that I approach each scene.”

It’s unclear in the script how successful Suzan was as a musician. She drops some hints about fans, but Thomson thinks she might be overstating things.

“I have a few images of people that I might have seen at, say, the Free Times Café open mic night,” she says. “She doesn’t lie about it, because I don’t think she lies. I think she has a story that helps her live her life, and I think it becomes a little bit difficult for her to keep holding that story up as her body gets increasingly exhausted.”

Suzan is one of four characters looking for some sort of connection and fulfillment in this odd Southwestern environment. There’s also Alex (played by Emilio Vieira), the company manager who’s responsible for hiring the crew for the busy holiday season; his restless girlfriend Madeleine (Gita Miller), who’s joined him from New York; and John (Evan Buliung), a slightly menacing drifter Suzan meets at a trailer park.

It’s hard not to think of Chloé Zhao’s Oscar-winning film Nomadland — partly set in an Amazon plant during the busy holiday rush.

“A bunch of people told me to to watch that movie,” says Thomson. “I feel like that character is definitely facing poverty. There’s a precarity that Suzan is facing, as a person unplugged from her family, with no real long-term relationships. So I definitely got a lot from watching it.”

Thomson has been selective about the theatre roles she takes on. While she’s done lots of film and TV over the years — Away from Her, most recently a series regular on Cardinal — she also raised three children.

“My youngest just went off to university, and so I’m an empty nester now,” she says. “For that last year, I didn’t want to do a show that would take me away for a long period of time. I wanted to spend time with her. So I chose film or TV things where I could show up for a couple of weeks and then be back to my routines at home. Now that my kids are off doing their thing, I’m gonna do my thing. It’s been great to be in rehearsal, not to be distracted, and enjoy what I love to do with this unbelievable team, this great cast.”

I, Claudia, one of Thomson’s best-known works — which was made into an award-winning film in 2004 by Chris Abraham, the original stage director — is turning 25 next year. Since its debut at the Tarragon, generations of talented young actors have taken on the role, like Amy Keating and Lili Beaudoin (the recent Juliet in Canadian Stage’s Dream in High Park).

“It’s one the joys of my career,” says Thomson about its longevity. “I can’t believe it. So many people have come up to me and said they did a monologue from the show for their theatre or arts school audition. The fact that they’re wrapping their hearts and brains and lungs around those words is just incredible. There is something satisfying about something being done, and out there in the world. I can just sit back in appreciation.”

Fulfillment Centre is now in previews and opens Thursday (November 20) at Coal Mine Theatre (2076 Danforth). Ticket details here