“Pearle Is My Superpower”: In Conversation with Justin Miller (AKA Pearle Harbour) and John Turner
Pearle Harbour is coming to Buddies in Bad Times.
That’s not as dire as it might sound. Justin Miller, a theatre maker, playwright, and producer, created Pearle as a testament to hope and the dangers of nostalgia. Pearle is the ultimate pin-up girl, sweet yet sultry, a relic of when things were still Great — if ever they were.
Miller is bringing Pearle back to her fans on the home front with Distant Early Warning, opening at Buddies in Bad Times on May 19. Pearle’s not alone — she’s being directed by legendary clown creator John Turner, best known for his clown duo Mump and Smoot.
Turner and Miller go way back. Miller trained with Turner at his Clown Farm, and the two have maintained a colleagueship — or “more like a surrogate son”-ship, according to Turner — ever since.
“This is the first time I’ve been honoured with the task of directing Distant Early Warning,” said Turner in our early-morning Zoom interview.
“There’s also definitely a strong relationship between drag and clown. There’s not a whole lot of space between them. Plus, performer-created work is a very specific directorial task. My task in this work is assisting Justin in achieving his vision — for us to find the overlap in our visions of the work. That’s our playground.”
The playground here, Distant Early Warning, has been a total creative joy for Miller.
“It grew out of another piece I developed for Buddies called Battle Cry. That was created in 2018 and 2019, when things seemed to be as bad and as fractious as they would ever be. I didn’t think that it could ever get worse than it was, politically,” he said with a hollow laugh.
“I was invited into the Buddies residency program, and they challenged me to think a little deeper about the context of the show. In the process of that development, the show was written, and re-written, and burned to the ground, and re-written. Distant Early Warning arose when I became more interested in Cold War anxiety, Cold War paranoia.”
The play is a tense, high-stakes look at Pearle’s final three days on Earth, in which she repeatedly tells audiences, ‘he’s coming to save me,’ ‘he’s coming to give me everything I was promised in my past life.’” Pearle has pinned all hope for the future on a mysterious boyfriend we can’t see — all we can do is take her word for it that things will get better any day now.
But what is a distant early warning, exactly?
“It was an American and Canadian bilateral defense system erected in the late 1950s as a deterrent against Russian nuclear annihilation,” said Miller confidently.
“And there was a lot wrong with it. Simple flocks of birds were enough to fuck it up. It was obsolete within a couple years of being built. The system’s function wasn’t what was marketed to the public — a defense tool. Its primary purpose was not to intercept or stop any nuclear bomb, but to detect and therefore unload our own nuclear arsenal.”
“It was more a mutually assured destruction machine than it was any defense.”
Pearle slots into that narrative easily. She’s a figure of “toxic nostalgia,” as Miller puts it, an icon who understands these “dusty little bits of history.”
“‘Distant early warning’ is such a compelling set of words together. It’s confusing, and beguiling — a ‘warning’ is something immediately apparent to us. It’s seductive. What happens when we’re pulled off course by what we perceive as a threat?”
The promotional material for the show describes Distant Early Warning as a “post-annihilation love story” — equal parts romantic and desolate, perhaps even an oxymoron.
“It’s definitely a love story,” said Turner. “A self-love story. There’s no question about that. It’s not worth putting anything on stage if it isn’t somehow a love story.”
“It’s all love. Being human boils down to love and fear, life and death. That’s all it is.”
Miller agreed: life is a series of binaries, and often a frightening one.
“Audiences have seen depictions of the end of times since the beginning of time,” said Miller. “There’s no need to focus on that, on the boom, on the cannibals, on the mutation. I wanted to reckon with consequence — to give Pearle, who can be selfish and nasty and cruel and inglorious, some consequence.”
“Audiences focus on the loveable parts of Pearle. But there are deep and dark parts, too. I wanted to make her go through it, and set Distant Early Warning in the apocalypse, in what is essentially a mound of rubble.”
“What could possibly make that experience bearable for her? Simple: love and sex. The same things which have made life bearable this whole time.”
Miller’s journey with Pearle has been a transcendent one.
“There’s something about putting on drag, about making yourself spectacularly other, which gives you permission to get close to audiences physically, emotionally, spiritually. There’s something very ancient about sharing those stories and gesturing towards these truths. It seems so logical to me to pair clown and drag together. It makes sense to me,” he said.
“Pearle is my superpower.”
Distant Early Warning runs at Buddies in Bad Times through May 29. Tickets are available here.
Aisling Murphy
Aisling is Intermission's former senior editor and the incoming theatre reporter for the Globe and Mail. She likes British playwright Sarah Kane, most songs by Taylor Swift, and her cats, Fig and June. She was a 2024 fellow at the National Critics Institute in Waterford, CT.
LEARN MORE
iPhoto caption: Photo by Randy deKleine-Stimpson.
GCTC solo show traces the complex journey of parenting a trans child
“At the end of the day, the play is trying to show the messiness of parenthood, that it's not about perfection,” says Why It’s imPossible playwright Sophia Fabiilli ahead of the show’s run at the Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa. “It's about finding where the discomfort is.”
iPhoto caption: The team behind The Nine Lives of Ross Fordham poses for a photo. Photo courtesy of Theatre Aquarius.
Theatre Aquarius’ newest musical weaves a family tapestry out of stories and songs
Police officer Ross Fordham’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren are the talents behind the production, which opens on January 10 at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Trudie Lee.
A Christmas Carol makes a triumphant return to Theatre Calgary
“It brings me a lot of joy to know that the generations of Calgarians who saw this show when they were a young person are now, 37 years later, bringing their sons and daughters,” says artistic director Stafford Arima.
iPhoto caption: Photo of Mark Crawford courtesy of Theatre Aquarius.
Mark Crawford returns to Theatre Aquarius as A Christmas Story’s nostalgic narrator
“There’s a beautiful song that Ralphie’s mother, who’s played by Jamie McRoberts, sings to her boys in act two,” said Crawford. “I almost started weeping [when I first heard it] — the tenderness of a mom taking care of her kids in this moment, and [me] standing there as the adult version of one of those kids. I think that’s so identifiable for people: those moments of tenderness and love between this family.”
iPhoto caption: I Don't Even Miss You photo by Eden Graham.
Factory Theatre welcomes new audiences with shows that explore human connection
“I feel like I’m really looking to theatre for joy right now,” says artistic director Mel Hague. “I don’t mean works that are specifically funny or happy. I’m talking about something deeper where you can feel connected to the art on stage, the space that’s hosting it, the other people in the audience, and yourself.”
iPhoto caption: J. Kelly Nestruck headshot courtesy of The Globe and Mail.
An exit interview with Globe and Mail theatre critic J. Kelly Nestruck
J. Kelly Nestruck has left the building. (Or at least the aisle seat.)
iPhoto caption: Liz Appel headshot courtesy of Liz Appel.
Five questions with Wights playwright Liz Appel
Intermission spoke with Appel over email for a brief Q&A about Wights, now playing at Crow’s Theatre until February 9.
Call for applications: Publishing and editorial assistant
Intermission Magazine is seeking a dynamic and collaborative individual to join our team.
iPhoto caption: What Writing Can Do: The 2025 Musical Theatre Critics Lab
Announcing What Writing Can Do: The 2025 Musical Theatre Critics Lab
What Writing Can Do is timed to coincide with the Grand and Theatre Aquarius’ co-production of Waitress, which will serve as a jumping-off point for discussions throughout the Lab.
iPhoto caption: A Christmas Story production still by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: A Christmas Story feels fresh at Theatre Aquarius
If you want to catch A Christmas Story before it closes, good luck — the show is close to sold out, and with the talent on that stage, it’s not hard to see why.
iPhoto caption: Madame Minister production still by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Madame Minister is a star vehicle for actor Laura Condlln
Laura Condlln and Cyrus Lane offer performances that are worth the drive to Barrie — the two have terrific chemistry and timing.
iPhoto caption: Production still courtesy of The Bee's Knees.
REVIEW: The Bee’s Knees falls short of its timely premise
The Bee’s Knees might evolve into a stronger project down the line, but at present, the play and production feel swept away by the spangled allure of the 1920s setting.
Comments