I WOULD PREFER NOT TO
A STRANGE VICTORY PERFORMANCE Available to tour. Archival video and rider available upon request. World premiere at High Performance Rodeo 2026. Heather Edwards Theatre, Contemporary Calgary. January 20-23, 2026.Workshop presentation at Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal. October 25, 2024.
Created and performed by David Gagnon Walker and Tori Morrison
Text by David Gagnon Walker
With material from “Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Herman Melville
Direction and lighting design byChristian Barry
Music and sound design by David Gagnon Walker and Tori Morrison
Dramaturgy by Fatma Sarah Elkashef
Automaton byChris Little of LoHiFi
Stage management by Dylan Tate-Howarth
Produced by Strange Victory Performance
Producing support by Elena Belyea
Promotional photos by Andrew Parry
Production photos by Mike Tan
In 1853, Herman Melville published “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” a classic short story about mental illness and capitalist alienation. Tori and David find this story helpful in understanding the patterns we’ve inherited and the lives we live. In this performance one of us talks about fiction and one of us talks about life. When words fail, we play music. When that fails, we try words.
I Would Prefer Not To is about what stories do; how families work; how to make shows with your life partner; how to care when you can’t keep caring and live when you can’t keep living; what art is and isn’t and should and shouldn’t be for.
The performance is vulnerable, playful, intricate, and intense. Featuring a custom-made wooden automaton and a pretty fancy hat, it’s deeply relatable and unlike anything you’ve seen or heard.
Candid. Romantic. Strange. If you’ve ever felt stuck, this one’s for you.
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Development support from Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Edmonton Arts Council, Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal, Tarragon Theatre, Nightswimming, Outside the March, and 2b Theatre Company.
Special thanks to Brad Walker, Fred Walker, Josée Gagnon, Ian Morrison, Rose Fitzgerald, Blake Brooker, Andrea Ritchie, Leni Parker, Zoë Glassman, and Ben Mike.
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“I Would Prefer Not To is raw, real, transparent, tender, touching, honest, slow, and quiet. The piece feels like a somatic confession, carried by really moving ambient music—think early Eno. Nothing is rushed or performative. The work allows space for what is difficult to be present with: despair. It is unflinching in its truth about life, depression, and hope.
As a therapist, I am moved by why this work matters today: it reveals a way we can meet our vulnerable states, with love. It doesn’t offer answers or resolution; it makes a difference by telling the truth, clearly and quietly, and by trusting the audience to stay with it. That honesty lands. This is seriously an exceptional piece.”
– Rita Bozi, somatic therapist and author
AUDIENCE TESTIMONIALS:
“Masterful and fucking obliterating. If you miss this, I feel bad for you.”
“Absolute magic.”
“I feel lucky to have witnessed this.”
“Heartbreaking and heart-healing.”
“I left kind of stunned.”
“Simultaneously personal and deeply relatable, this show felt like an old friend calling to tell me something important. I loved it.”
