Going to the movies can be a routine affair, but for TJ Dawe it was a life altering experience.
“I was taken to see Star Wars at the age of four in the theatres and my life has never been the same,” Dawe told the News Bulletin.
Since that moment Dawe dreamed of becoming a movie star and experience the adventures that he saw on the big screen.
“I wanted to be part of that world,” Dawe said. “I wanted to have adventures like that.”
Fast forward a few decades and the Vancouverite finds himself creating his own adventures in the world of theatre.
“It’s me on stage telling a story,” he said. “It’s about as simple as theatre can get.”
On Saturday (July 19), Dawe will be performing his newest show, Medicine, at the Harbour City Theatre (formerly the Nanaimo Centre Stage). The performance is part of a fundraiser for the Nanaimo Fringe Festival.
“One thing of the things that is that I try and capture the way I speak naturally, which is actually really hard,” Dawe explained about this performance style. “I mean a person might speak for an hour in a conversation, but to put that in a bottle and do it on stage reliably time after time is actually really tricky.”
Medicine touches on the subject of the enneagram and its nine basic personality types.
“The idea behind the enneagram isn’t that your personality is who you are. It’s a protective strategy developed early in life to get your needs met,” Dawe said.
While Dawe, who attended attended Saint Patrick Regional Secondary School in Vancouver, had always dreamed of becoming a movie star it wasn’t until he studied theatre at the University of Victoria that he discovered the art of creating original theatre work.
“Once I discovered that you can create your own thing I realized that I do like telling stories and I like telling them in my own way and that’s what I have been doing ever since,” Dawe said.
Since graduating in 1997, Dawe has gone on to have a successful career as a playwright and director. He has written and performed number of monologues including, Toothpaste and Cigars, which was turned into the 2013 film, The F Word, starring Daniel Radcliffe.
Dawe has become known for randomly jumping from subject to subject during his performances and then tying everything together in the end.
“All the stuff about the enneagram is interspersed with stuff about being a really bad long distance runner in high school track and field and the relevance of that to the enneagram only becomes clear that the very very end and that’s my trademark,” Dawe said.
TJ Dawe performs at the Harbour City Theatre at 8p.m. Tickets are $20 at the door.
Advanced tickets can be purchased for $12 at Fascinating Rhythm.
arts@nanaimobulletin.com