“Writing has made me a better actor, and acting has made me a better writer.”

Sara Farb is one hot trending artist right now. 

Her theatre work is currently showcased on two of Ontario’s live stages at the present moment.

Currently, she’s playing and wowing audiences as Fanny Brice in the Shaw Festival’s production of Funny Girl, directed by Eda Holmes. Our Theatre Voice contributing writer, Dave Rabjohn, reviewed the show and called Farb’s performance: “a natural talent who grabs the role with both fists and makes it her own. Big voice, big personality, and big silliness [which lends] authenticity to her portrayal.”

This month, Farb adds playwright to her resume.

The world premiere of her dramatic comedy Love Us Most runs June 17 – 28, with opening June 19, at Stratford’s Here for Now Theatre, 24 St. Andrew Street in the Rose McQueen Theatre.

The title is a line from Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear, in which the title character foolishly plays games with his daughters, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia, in the hope of childishly discovering which daughter loves him the most.

According to the Here for Now website, the play, set in the early autumn of 2016, takes place in a smallish dressing room that feels cramped with three people. The play asks the question: “What’s it really like to be a woman in the theatre?” The three leading ladies wade through the choppy waters of racism, ageism and rampant sexism.  The play becomes a biting, satirical look at what it takes for a woman to make it in what seems to remain a man’s world.

Farb took a few minutes from her busy performance schedule at Shaw to answer a few questions about Love Us Most via email.

Directed by Sabryn Rock, the cast includes Kevin Bundy as Julian Jeffrey, Jasmine Case as The One Who Plays Cordelia, Zara Jestadt as the One Who Plays Regan and Shannon Taylor as The One Who Plays Goneril. Rehearsals seem to be going great. Sara watched for a couple of hours and was deeply moved by the work. She credits director Rock for eliciting these emotions:

“Sabryn has been a collaborator on this play since the beginning, and I trust her eye and taste entirely. She understands the pace, the rhythm, the fine details very intuitively and is getting gorgeous work out of this cast.”

Farb then had written a line that made me do a double-take: “We are lousy with strong actors in this country, so casting was a dream.”

As a lover of theatre her entire life, Sara developed an understanding of dramatic structure early and decided to give it a shot. She had been writing plays since high school, where she’d write for the one-act play festival.  In her twenties, she was acting while simultaneously earning an English degree at the University of Toronto:

“I’ve enjoyed exercising both parts of my brain, so being a working actor and a working writer is a balance [to which] I’ve become accustomed.”

Love Us Most is deeply personal for Farb.

She has been an actor for a long time and has experienced, witnessed, and heard about all the kinds of things the play touches on.

While there’s a lot of glamour associated with theatre, Farb writes something that still makes one sit up and pay attention:

“The truth of what it is to be a woman in theatre, and learning about what it’s like to be a woman of colour in theatre from so many dear friends and colleagues, can be pretty traumatizing.”

Farb continues that the theatre industry is built upon obvious racism and sexism, and recent years have seen a deliberate attempt to undo much of that. But when things are rooted in someone’s DNA, it’s nearly impossible to extricate it entirely:

“Theatregoers need to know the whole picture of whatever show they’re watching.”

As the playwright of Love Us Most, what does Sara hope audiences will take away with them upon leaving the Rose McQueen Theatre?

Despite collective work to learn and undo racism in the theatre, it is an incredibly large issue. The patriarchal system is simply always going to treat women as unequal to men if the issue of inequality continues to be handled lazily. On the hopeful end, Sara hopes audiences walk away with the assurance that many people are actively working for change. These changes take a while, but small acts become big ones and soon will add up over time.

Sara continues to perform in Funny Girl and The Wind in the Willows at Shaw Festival. This winter, she will perform in Cabaret at Canadian Stage. In the meantime, she’ll continue working on writing projects as always.

To purchase tickets for Love Us Most through Here for Now Theatre, visit: :https://www.herefornowtheatre.com/love-us-most 

To read Dave Rabjohn’s review of Funny Girl: https://ourtheatrevoice.com/sara-farbs-fanny-brice-in-shaws-funny-girl-grabs-the-role-with-both-fists-and-makes-it-her-own-babs-who/