?Government is bullshit.?

Risha Yorke looks up from a near-empty bowl of macaroni and cheese with conviction.

?You have to start with the people. If you can change the people, you can change everything. John got that.?

To clarify, that?s John, as in John Lennon. And Risha Yorke, as in the 29-year old writer/director of John/Yoko Bed Piece, currently running at the Theatre Centre until June 7th.

Yorke?s latest offering ? part re-creation, part re-invention ? focuses on the famous Montreal bed-in for peace that Lennon and Yoko Ono staged in 1969.

Seated at a table in the Drake Caf?, alongside long-time collaborator Graham Porter, Yorke laments the response of modern artists and celebrities to a society jaded about peace movements.

?Bono is meeting with every dignitary on Earth and kissing ass,? Yorke said. ?(And) the commercialisation of Puff Daddy with the ?Go and Vote? t-shirts….When John died, so did that level of commitment to a cause.?

The level of Lennon?s commitment ? dedicating the later years of his life to a campaign for world peace ? drew Yorke to the ex-Beatle at a young age. And the void in the movement left after Lennon?s death remains the chief reason that she decided a revival of the bed-in was due. Porter, Piece?s musical director, touts the benefit of experiencing the event first-hand.

?Even a guy portraying John ten feet in front of you can capture something that black and white film from forty years ago doesn?t quite do,? Porter said.

The sad truth is that years later no public figure has promoted a campaign for world peace on the level of the Lennon/Ono bed-in. In an era of ?raps about chicks, booze and money,? both Yorke and Porter question what the next 40 years holds for the peace movement.

?I think it?s literally going to take everything imploding for something to happen,? Yorke said.

?In 30 years we may be staging this in a cave,? Porter added.

Which is why, as Lennon might say, they?re taking their cause to the people. He often compared selling his message to selling soap to housewives. When asked what brand of soap she’s promoting, Yorke provides a simple answer: ?Peace.?

And though they promote the same message, the duo of Porter and Yorke ? the bearded musician and the female artist ? stop short of any comparison to their subject matter.

?Their problem was too much focus on them and our entire professional life is devoted to jumping up and down saying, ?Hey, look over here!?? Porter laughed. ?Maybe you could say we?re approaching the same end-point from exactly the opposite direction.?

See Mike Crisolago’s review of the show here. And check out his new blog, Bastard Type, for the rest of his interview with Risha and Graham.