‘Brotherhood is different, and different is good’

Bringing together Hip Hop, R&B, Rap, Soul, Funk, and Gospel together, Canadian actor Sebastien Heins’ Brotherhood: The Hip Hopera is a one-man show. The parodied story of two brothers — CashMoney and MoneyPussy — living the Hip Hop Life, is an epic story of family and brotherly love and has now been brought to the city by Q Theatre Productions (QTP). Sebastien lets us in on the journey of the show...

Can you take us through your journey of becoming an actor?

When I was 10-years-old, I was cast in Julie Taymor’s The Lion King in Toronto. I had never done a play before, and that show was my education. It unlocked my passion for dance, music, storytelling, and I found my home in the theatre. Much later, I was accepted to the National Theatre School of Canada, and challenged myself everyday to be a better actor. It was around that time that I shifted my focus to performing work that I’ve written or created. And that’s how Brotherhood came about.

You enact a whole lot of characters in the play. How difficult is to do it each time you’re on stage?

I don’t really think about the level of difficulty, when I do the show. It’s more a matter of just getting up there and letting the show take over me and my body. The most challenging thing is staying in the moment, and balancing a lot of aspects. Things like audience interaction, pace, clear physical storytelling, and making sure that the narrative is moving with purpose and realness. Also, I’ve done the show a lot of times, so whenever unexpected things happen, it actually adds to the flow, rather than messing it up. We had audience members shout, “Pull up your pants!” which was funny, my necklace came off and I gave it to an audience member, cellphones sometimes go off — rarely — and I try to make a joke about it... there are a lot of possibilities.

There’s mime, there’s music, there’s a lot of physical theatre. What is the objective behind the play? Is it just to tell a captivating story or more?

I think telling a compelling story in a way you’ve never seen it before is a great way to spend 70 minutes in the dark. I’m not really an artiste who starts their work with an agenda, or an opinion I want to expose everyone to. My personal opinions on brotherly love, family, Hip Hop music, incarceration, and redemption all come out organically in the show, but the story is the king, it’s what we on the team care about most.

Hip Hop is such an integral part of the story. Was the attempt also to introduce the genre to an audience who doesn’t understand much of it?

In some ways, yes. When I was younger, I felt like my theatre community didn’t take hip hop seriously, instead opting for folk, alternative, and rock music. With Brotherhood, I saw an opportunity to show them all the things that I loved most about it — the rhymes, the humour, the sincerity, the wordplay, the creativity — but on my terms. While we don’t actually do an explanation of Hip Hop history — there are some great documentaries out there for that like New York 1977 and Just For Kicks — I got to write/compose original hip hop music — something I’d never done before — and immerse the audience in a story driven by Hip HJop beats, rhyming schemes, and larger-than-life personalities — the stuff of my favourite hip hop music.

Since when have you been on tour for the play? How has the response been?

We kicked off this tour at the beginning of January in Whitehorse in Northern Canada. The response has been extremely warm and supportive. Different cities like Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa have very different vibes, different expectations for theatre, and varying levels of ethnic diversity. Whitehorse, which is more remote, doesn’t have a lot of artistes come through, so whenever a show does come, the people are really hungry to come see it, and you can feel it when you’re performing for them. Parents were bringing their kids because they wanted them to experience theatre for the first time, in a way that was relevant to them.

Another stop we did was on Manitoulin Island, in Northern Ontario. Manitoulin has a large number of native reserves, and it was an indigenous theatre company that presented our show to the community. So the first two rows were elders. I was worried about how quiet they were, plus I say a lot of bad words in the first 10 minutes, but it was explained to me that there’s actually a very reflective way that people on Manitoulin and Northern Ontario watch theatre. They were just watching, listening, and feeling, no less engaged than in Calgary or Ottawa.

Now you’re performing In India. What do you look forward to?

I’m looking forward to seeing our friends at QTP again. They’re a great theatre company and terrific people. I’m excited to see what Indian audiences will take away from Brotherhood. Brotherhood is different, and I think different is good.

Brotherhood: The Hip Hopera from February 24-26 at Sitara Studio, Lower Parel at 4.30 pm and 8 pm.