Trapped in Space

• Published in: Canadian Theatre Review
• Main Author: Cook, Michael
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) 1975
• Subjects: Visual Arts and Performing Arts; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/ctr.6.011; https://ctr.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/ctr.6.011

By the time this gets into print, the ice will still be holding us in the womb of the North Atlantic, the reason for our existence. From the air, it’s hard to distinguish land from the ice pack. Landsmen after seals walk out sometimes five, 10, 15 miles. The landscape is terrifyingly beautiful, a moon landscape of dumpers, bergs, growlers. From a distance, the sealers look like characters from a Noh play. Their movements are refined, stylized yet full of force and purpose. The world moves beneath their feet. It is an environment of immense menace and fluidity, subject at any moment to explosive and deadly change. Though the seals rarely come close to land now in vast numbers, men still go out. Because the ice is there. Children walk across harbours or practice jumping from pan to pan. The black water waits patiently, as it always has.