Spring 2016 Department of English & Theatre Acadia University
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VOLUME 23 SPRING 2016 DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH & THEATRE ACADIA UNIVERSITY Oh dear sisters our life is not ended yet. We shall live! ~Anton Chekov три сестры (L. to R.) Nile Whidden with Robin Moir (Olga), Connor LaFarga with Katie Chevel (Masha ) and Blake Ward with Andrea Switzer (Irina). Acadia English & Theatre Spring 2016 1 THEATRE REVIEWS numerous revivals in the intervening years are telling. Seale’s adaptation is VOICE transplanted from its original cultural HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES context, lending itself more to a Cana- By John Guare dian sensibility with elements like 4 (Directed by Robert Seale) having Halifax stand in for New York THEATRE REVIEWS by Stuart Harris House of Blue Leaves or name-dropping Jian Ghomeshi. Its Three Sisters spirit, however, remains intact, and it Watching Robert Seale’s pro- Minifest 2016 proves that Guare’s play is still the- duction of John Guare’s The House of matically relevant in a time when new Blue Leaves feels almost like visiting ENGLISH SOCIETY EVENTS media reshapes our obsession with distant relatives remembered only in Bad Poetry Night celebrity and silent injustices are giv- photographs or long-forgotten child- Halloween Pub Night en the spotlight. The production’s po- hood memories. In this case, your Words on Tap tency lies in its human insight. It cri- place in the Denton Theatre gallery is Estuary Launch tiques our relationship with the notion both as an observer and as a house- ATLANTIC UNDERGRADUATE of fame using characters trapped in a guest in proximity to the dingy and ENGLISH CONFERENCE Lacanian nightmare, stuck in a de- nostalgic apartment set. The lead of One Book Nova Scotia Reading structive, futile chase with the myths the play gets on-stage to provide some and imagos we create for ourselves. musical entertainment in the opening AUTHORS @ ACADIA We tell ourselves stories of the heroes moments, almost directly acknowl- Anna Marie Sewell & Pam Palmater we’d like to be, and some sink to un- edging the audience’s role. He starts Dan MacCormack savoury behaviour to make sure these to play… and from there it slowly be- Daniel Scott Tysdal idealizations never escape them. For comes clearer why these people are Cornelia Hoogland instance… considered estranged in the first place. Joan Clark Artie Shaughnessy (Chris The House of Blue Leaves first Leanne Simpson McEwan) is an animal shelter em- premiered Off-Broadway in 1971 and Sheryl Craig ployee by trade, but he’s dead-set on though it originally concerned the Andrew Steeves making it big as a songwriter and per- state of a mid-60s America, its Rita Wong former in spite of a lack of talent. Liv- Sean Michaels ing a drab existence with his wife as mem- STAFF bers of the lower- Sarah Bishop middle class, his neu- Theodore Saunders Micah Carruthers rotic visions of fame Morgan Geauvreau and fortune often get Stuart Harris in the way of main- Rachael Laritz taining a stable rela- Allison MacDougall tionship. Of course, Andrea MacMurtry that’s not to say that Mark O’Reilly relationship could ever Georgia Woolaver be called conventional. Lance La Rocque (Faculty Advisor) Artie may be crazy, Wanda Campbell (Layout) but his wife is Bananas with a capital B If you would like to help (because that’s her with Voice 4, contact name). Portrayed by [email protected] Jenna Newcomb as Phone: 585-1146 ethereal with the odd bout of lucidity, she manages to be one of the saner personalities Stephen Roberts, Chris McEwan, Morgan Wright in an otherwise manic 2 Spring 2016 Acadia English & Theatre mélange of misfits. She’s also a between the dramatis personae are The coherence of the adaptation to schizophrenic at risk of being institu- punctuated throughout with slap- the 21st was strong and the play did tionalized by Artie’s sexually ac- stick, left-field wit, peripheral gags, feel more familiar. Chekov’s dra- tive but culinarily chaste downstairs and the occasional explosion. matic themes of longing, the search mistress, Bunny Flingus (Morgan There’s always uncertainty in antici- for purpose and love, deception, and Wright), who’s got plans to run pating how this comedy of blunders depression endure into our own time away with the wanna- will ultimately be diffused, and resonate more on a personal be musician to Holly- if it gets diffused at all, and level. The tension between the 19th wood in their vain this through-line of tension century romantic elements and the pursuits. keeps its drama compelling. abrasiveness of the 21st century anti- Of course, it all And for all the theatri- Russian city of Grožny foreshadows starts to go downhill cal volume that escalates the unfortunate end of the characters when the Pope comes over the course of the play, in the play. to town. It isn’t until The House of Blue Leaves Although certain elements, news of this esteemed knows how to end with a like the conflict between the antique arrival breaks that bang—without making so feeling in the Prozorov’s aristocratic Artie finds himself in much as a peep. The grim- home and the presence of cell the company of more mest shock is saved for last, phones on set ,were slightly jarring, quirkiness. His child- and it left the stands quiet the presence of such modern ele- hood friend, Billy enough to hear the air ments was a necessary side effect of Einhorn (Stephen escaping. making a modern adaptation. The Roberts), is a famous Over forty years on, use of the screen in the middle of the Hollywood producer John Guare’s hysterical cre- set, with still frame pictures coming working with a deaf ation continues to stand the up on screen as they were taken in actress named Corrin- test of time. In the face of the play, was surprisingly enjoyable na Stroller (Malia distressing human flaw, and fit in very smoothly to the play. Rogers). His brother Jenna Newcomb House of Blue Leaves works In contrast to this effective use of the Ronnie (Nile Whidden) has gone precisely because it gives us permis- technical tools of the 21st century— AWOL, hiding out in his apartment sion to laugh. the video messages sent by Baron with a terrorist plot to take down His Tuzenbakh (played by the likable Holiness. Even a trio of debauched Blake Ward) before his duel—felt nuns (Ashley Wells, Andrea Switzer, THREE SISTERS awkward in the context of the rest and Katie Chevel) show up to wor- By Anton Chekov of the play. The incorporation of (Adapted and Directed ship the man in the mitre on TV. modern music pieces and references, by Michael Devine) No matter how obsessive their with songs like Mary Costa’s “Once by Mark O’Reilly motives or misguided their actions, Upon a Dream” from Sleeping these personalities speak to a com- Beauty that was played on the record From March 9-12 & 16-19, mon human desire for validation. player, were familiar and fun addi- the Acadia Theatre Company per- The absurdity of it all is that what tions to the play that show how even formed Anton Chekov’s Three makes these characters seem more minor elements in modern adapta- Sisters, first performed in Moscow human, and keeps us invested, is tions can allow a contemporary audi- in 1901. The director of this produc- often the very same thing that alien- ence to relate to a play written more tion, Michael Devine, took on the ates them. Sympathy is tested against than a century ago. challenge of adapting the play to the ugly decisions, and this dissonance is The theatre in Denton Hall modern day by shifting the setting to where the darkness emerges between was comfortably full on both nights I the 21st century, and the geograph- the periods of comic lunacy. attended the play and the audience’s ical location to Grožny, the war-torn There’s a particularly feverish engagement created a supportive capital of the Chechen Republic. The pitch to the proceedings that extends environment. The set of the produc- Russian military garrison in an out- beyond the development of the off- tion immediately caught the eye. The post city remains from the original, beat cast. The anachronistically ret- seating and performing areas had and the three Prozorov sisters remain rograde set design upsets this adapta- swapped locations; the room was the thousands of kilometres from their tion’s grounding in the modern day. inverse of what I had become ac- beloved Moscow. The longer periods of back-and-forth quainted with during The House of Acadia English & Theatre Spring 2016 3 Blue Leaves (directed by Robert that is characteristic of Chekhov’s This fact is impressive considering Seale) shows just months earlier. plays was, at least in part, compen- the linguistic intricacies and subtle The cement ‘risers’, the gray-scale sated for by an aesthetically pleas- complexities in the script of the colour, and the lack of clutter on ing and meaningful set. play. the set were effective in relating In this play, many of the The debate over whether the both the context and the theme of characters had fairly significant play is tragic or comic has contin- the play. The set, with antique and roles and contributions to the plot; ued since it was first produced. elegant furniture, largely white in therefore the production relied Though the play does not contain colour, was useful in communi- heavily on the performance of the “one-liners, factory-made plots cating the inherited affluence of many actors of the Acadia Theatre and cartoon-level satire” North the Prozorov family in the opening Company.