Open from January 28 to February 1 at York’s Ivan Faire and Sandra Fecan Theatre is a sold-out, modern take on John Gay’s 1728 political satire, The Beggar’s Opera.
Set in a medium security prison in Toronto, the play is about inmates who put on a production of the timeless ballad opera. The “hero,” Macheath, a smooth-talking gang leader and ladies man, seeks to scam the rich, outrun the law, and romance his many lovers, including Polly Peachum, the innocent daughter of a black-market businessman, and Lucy Lockit, the jailer’s daughter.
Excalibur had the opportunity to interview director Gwen Dobie, as well as actors Emilio Vieira (Macheath), Christopher Oszwald (the alternate Macheath), and Alison Campbell (Polly Peachum), who eagerly shared their thoughts and experiences.
Excalibur: What, in your opinion, is the most powerful thing about the play?
Emilio: The most powerful moment in the play for me is any time one of the prisoners decides to make the text of The Beggar’s Opera something they can experience. I think everyone has a moment for themselves that is particularly powerful.
E: How did your research of poverty, inequality, and social justice infl uence the way you directed this play?
Gwen: I think the whole concept of putting this in a prison came from an experience of witnessing true prison theatre. [Seeing that production] hit me hard. Experiencing these people who we can dismiss in a heartbeat as being not worth our time when 90 per cent of the time, the reason they’re there, the underlying factor, is poverty. When you witness people rise above that, it’s really powerful.
E: Emilio and Chris, you both play the part of Macheath. Is it normal for there to be multiple actors for the same role, and were you able to learn from each other in the shared experience?
Emilio: There are always understudies in giant shows, especially for shows that put an actor through what this puts Macheath through. Chris and I are very good friends and competitive classmates. It was good to help each other by watching each other.
Chris: When I explored the character, having done the audition, I realized that with the singing, technically I’m not on the level that Emilio is. Just watching Emilio makes it easier to know where I need to be, especially vocally. He’s a huge idol of mine when it comes to singing. I’m watching him, almost like a spy, trying to steal his tricks.
E: In the play, Macheath is a liar, a cheater, and a criminal, yet somehow everyone still loves him. Why do you think that is, and how do you, as actors, portray this paradox?
Chris: We both have different approaches to Macheath, and Gwen encouraged that. The scariest villains are those who don’t show it. So my approach is to play him like a lover, a fool in love who neglects his role as captain of a group of thieves for physical, sexual attractions to girls of any kind. He’s also a person who just can’t help it, and I can relate to that in my private life as well. I just love women.
Emilio: Women love bad men. Macheath’s the antihero everyone loves to be. Being a hero can be boring, but being an anti-hero is a lot more interesting.
E: How does the music in The Beggar’s Opera deepen the experience of the play?
Gwen: The songs are 30 seconds long. It’s just an amplification of that moment. The whole show doesn’t grind to a halt when they start to sing; it moves the action forward.
Emilio: I had a wonderful voice teacher, David Smukler, who said, “Actors will speak for as long as the spoken words can hold the emotion, and then when the emotion gets too large, they must sing.”
E: Gwen, what is the hardest thing about being a director?
Gwen: I think it’s wrangling artistic imagination and energy. When you’ve got 200 people involved in a production, that’s a lot of imagination and energy to harness and keep focused and moving forwards in a positive constructive, healthy, happy way. I came in with a whole lot of ideas but really, they’re just words on a page, just ideas. To actually manifest those ideas, it’s the harnessing of that energy, to be on that same path together moving forward.
E: Do you find it diffi cult to transition from being yourself to being your character?
Chris: I sometimes feel it’s hard to get into character when there’s no concentrated time of when I need to be this character. It’s sometimes hard to keep that focus going for six hours—stop and go, stop and go. The closer we get to having the show put together and running it, the easier it is to commit emotionally to this character for two hours or however long it takes.
Emilio: It’s tough. I spent most of my Christmas break making flow charts to decide who I am at which moment, and how that person affects the other people. It’s a very influential process. I tried to find the things in that beast that are like me, and if I can find the things I know are already about me, I can live in that part of me for a little.
E: What is your dream part to play?
Chris: It’s always been my dream to be in an epic war movie. I’ve always admired Saving Private Ryan or every war movie ever made. Especially coming from Austria, post-World-War-II era, my grandparents, and even my parents, are still shaped by this. Being in a war movie, I could die any second. People die next to me. That would be a crazy thing to do.
Alison: A lot of my previous experience has been musical theatre, and then I switched to classical. Three years ago, I would have said Juliet. I played her in high school, and I’d love to do that again, or someone in Phantom, or Les Mis. Now, I’d like to play Marie from the opera La Fille du Régiment by Gaetano Donizetti. It’d be so much fun as she’s all personality.
Emilio: I’d love to be Simba in The Lion King—the animated edition; I’ve wanted to ever since I was a child. The relationship between those lions is actually the story of Hamlet, so I guess Hamlet. And I’m very much in love with Shakespeare, so I think that’d be a happy medium for not being an animated lion.
Gwen: I’m in the planning stages of a new work. I have a company on the side, Out of the Box Productions. It’s an immersive theatre piece that explores the themes of speed, stillness, and time. I’m leaning on the text of Alice Through the Looking Glass. This is what I like to do—take existing texts, crack them open, and put in music and movement. That’s on my back burner until I get this puppy up.
Elizabeth Doutsis
Contributor
