Review: THE KNITTING PILGRIM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aga Khan Museum, 77 Wynford Dr., Toronto, Ont.

Co-written and performed by Kirk Dunn

Co-written by Claire Ross Dunn

Directed by Jennifer Tarver

Saying The Knitting Pilgrim by Kirk Dunn is a play about knitting is as much an understatement as saying Gateau St. Honoré is a simple dessert.

Kirk Dunn was first an actor who began knitting he says to pass the time while touring in a van with other actors. A recent newspaper article said he began knitting to impress a girlfriend. Whatever. He learned how to knit and became good at it.

When Kaffe Fassett, master knitter extraordinaire came to Toronto Kirk Dunn’s wife Claire suggested Dunn meet him and perhaps offer to apprentice with him. This came to pass. Dunn’s work became more colourful and intricate. Again, Dunn’s wife Claire suggested he take his knitted work to the Textile Museum of Canada.  This brought him to the attention of Nataley Nagy the Past Executive Director of the Textile Museum of Canada. She said his knitted work was a work of art, almost like an expressionist painting. She suggested he knit something that says something about the world. That was the birth of his triptych of tapestries—three panels that illuminated aspects of Judaism, Christianity and Islam—the commonality and differences of the faiths. The panels are about 11’ x 7’ and it took him 15 years to knit. They are astonishing.

Through Dunn’s one person play he shows the audience how to knit, from making the stitches both pearl and knit, casting off and knitting. His manner is mild, thoughtful and inquisitive. He is self-deprecating, personable and full of charm. He comes from a long line of Presbyterian ministers. His great grandfather was a minister. His grandfather was one. And his father is one. Kirk Dunn became an actor. Go figure. But religion is part of his life as is faith and compassion. He researched all three religions to be able to create an accurate work of art. He read widely. He tried to answer religious intolerance when he came face to face with it. And all the time he knitted his tapestries.

Jennifer Tarver has directed this with sensitivity, never getting in the way of Dunn and his storytelling, always enhancing it with a movement across the stage here, the projection of an image there. There are baskets of balls of wool and knitting needles and the audience is invited to know.  This is a ‘play’ you want everyone to see for his persistence and his devotion to such a worthy project.

Unfortunately it plays only for three performances over two days, May 11 and 12. The last performance is May 12 at 6:00 pm.

www.ergoartstheatre.com/knittingpilgrim