The Belfry machine cranks out another one. The Fernwood theatre is putting on a musical adaptation of a novel from the early 1800s, Onegin (that’s on-yay-gen), by directors Amiel Gladstone and Veda Hill.
“It’s such a big, romantic story,” says Gladstone, “and the actors are so good. You get immersed in the world of this play, enjoying the experience of it and getting swept up in the narrative, and then also, for me, there’s this feeling of great accomplishment that we’ve managed to pull this off.”
The play has crossed the country from Vancouver to Toronto, but now it’s returning here to be put on again with its original cast. Gladstone says that he really enjoys working on new productions like Onegin.
“It’s my favourite thing, actually, working on new plays,” he says. “Whether it’s my own new play or someone else’s, it’s great because you have the playwright around with you and you’re building the whole house from the foundation up. With most plays you have a script that you know works and you’re trying to interpret the best you can, whereas this is another type of process.”
The Russian classic that inspired the piece was, in 1879, adapted by Romantic composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky into an opera, which was a strong inspiration and helped the directors with transitioning the book to the stage.
“When you’re adapting something into a two-hour piece you have to take out a lot of stuff,” explains Gladstone. “Tchaikovsky did a lot of the hard stuff in determining what scenes to take out and what to leave in, and so we used the opera as a guide. We had to reduce further from that because we have seven actors and three musicians, and he had more principal characters and a massive chorus, so we’ve shrunk it to Canadian-theatre size.”
The story involves betrayal and honour and is very serious, but Gladstone says there’s playfulness in regard to the relationship with the audience. One of the themes is about trying to fight against boredom—Onegin, the lead character, is completely bored, and so he begins to wreck his life.
“As we move forward into more and more technology, we have more and more leisure time,” says Gladstone, “but people don’t really feel so thrilled about what they’re using their leisure time for, so this is an opportunity to check back in. One of the opening lines is, ‘Untether now from day to day.’ This is an opportunity to do that.”
Gladstone says that the reaction to the play has been very positive, and that this is his first play where he’s observed the people who like it coming back to see it again and again. He says that the reaction of the younger audience members, some of whom watch it as part of their high-school curriculum, is especially interesting.
“Amazingly, the young folks are the people that get completely swept up in the story. Suddenly it’s like they’re watching the most incredible soap opera—they’re gasping and cheering and really following along, really getting caught up in the story,” says Gladstone. “They’re being brought there on a bus, so they’re not seeking it out, but once they’re there, they’re into it. That was really surprising—you think sort of disaffected young folks into their phones have seen it all, but they are getting caught up in it, so that was really exciting and inspiring and surprising.”
Onegin
Various times, until Wednesday, November 8
$20-$53, The Belfry Theatre
tickets.belfry.bc.ca