Seeds

by Annabel Soutar

Part courtroom drama and part social satire, Seeds presents an intelligent portrait of farming and scientific communities in conflict and at the same time penetrates the complex science of genetically modified crops. The play documents the 2004 Supreme Court of Canada showdown between Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser and biotech multinational Monsanto Inc., a David-and-Goliath struggle that cast Schmeiser as the small-farmer underdog fighting the unscrupulous major corporation. Monsanto accused him of growing their genetically patented Round-up Ready canola seeds on his property without paying the licensing fee they require. Through a suspenseful labyrinth of legal conflicts regarding patent rights, scientific showdowns about GM food and property clashes between farmers and the biotechnology industry, Seeds asks the essential question: “Can you patent a living thing?” Or as Schmeiser famously asked, “Who owns life?”

A most interesting aspect of the play is the ambiguity around the hero Percy Schmeiser. Is he a victim or an opportunist and self-publicist? Certainly, he’s no innocent; as he keeps telling us, he’s an experienced politician, in fact an ex-mayor. He’s a believer who knows how to frame his beliefs to advantage. He can be grand and he can be petty – and as such he is antihero as much as hero.

Named the top play of the decade by Rover Arts in its review of English theatre in Montreal between 2000 and 2010, Seeds takes us back to the seminal moment when a single farmer stood up to international agribusiness and almost won.

Cast of 4 women and 3 men.

Genres: Plays, 21st Century, School, Theatre

144 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 2012

About the author

Annabel Soutar is a Montreal-based playwright and producer. In 2000 she co-founded the theatre company Porte Parole Productions with actor Alex Ivanovici and she has acted as artistic director of the company since its inception.

Annabel takes a documentary approach to theatre and since 1998 has applied it to her original plays: Novembre, 2000 Questions, Santé!, Import/Export, Sexy béton, J'aime Hydro, and Fredy.

In 2012 Seeds was published in both English (Talonbooks) and French (Les Editions ecosociété) and presented across Canada in Montreal (Centaur Theatre), Calgary (Theatre Junction), Vancouver (PUSH Festival for the Performing Arts), and in Ottawa (National Arts Centre of Canada) in a production directed by Chris Abraham, a tour remounted in 2016.

In 2012 Annabel was commissioned with Chris Abraham of Crow’s Theatre in Toronto to write a new documentary play about fresh water for the 2015 Toronto Pan American / Para Pan American Games cultural program, Panamania. That play, The Watershed, premiered at the Berkeley Street Theatre (Canadian Stage) in Toronto during the Games.

Soutar lives in Montreal with actor Alex Ivanovici and their two daughters Ella and Beatrice.

Reviews

[Lily Taillefer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting matter but found it hard to read.

[mel🕯]

got assigned this play for a class im taking this semester about agri-food law and it was surprisingly not bad ? it's interesting story and case and its nice to know more about canada’s gmo system

[Lilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Suze · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can see this documentary style play being successfully staged if slick and fast paced. Using many interviews and court transcripts, Soutar presents waves of information and many tangents to the genetically modified food issue, based on a Saskatchewan farmer who took on Monsanto in the courts. I was both fascinated and overwhelmed, and closed the book realizing that the truth did not live with either side. But came away agreeing with the underlying question that needs to be answered: What is life and who owns it?

[Dominic Fortin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fort instructif... Par contre, il faudrait une suite vu tout le nouveau des dernières années.