Preview
OF MICE AND MEN
Echo37
Starring George Smith, Laurier Dubeau and Richard Halliday
Written by John Steinbeck
Directed by Laurier Dubeau
Runs until May 1
Engineered Air Theatre (Epcor Centre)
Have you seen any good movies on stage lately?
Local theatre troupe echo37 has established itself as a group that brings classic movies back to the theatre. Beginning with its inaugural production of 12 Angry Men in 2002, the company has succeeded in gaining a lot of attention and sold-out performances with its mandate of reviving plays that became or inspired great movies.
Echo37 followed up 12 Angry Men with Patrick Hamilton’s Rope, the inspiration for Hitchcock’s classic of the same name, and Dale Wasserman’s dramatization of the Ken Kesey novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which later became Jack Nicholson’s career-establishing film. Although known primarily as cinematic masterpieces, each of these movies was originally produced onstage.
Dave Gagnier, producer and artistic director for echo37, says the troupe thrives on the challenges inherent with these plays.
"We seek out plays that are strong stories, like everyone else, but I think the challenge is that our audiences come to the performances with preconceived notions of characters and plot from what they saw in the film," says Gagnier. "It’s tough at first to convince people that it is a worthwhile venture," he admits. But when people come to the shows, he says, "it has been very rewarding for us and the reactions have always been positive."
To wrap up its current season, echo37 is producing Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novella about two itinerant labourers looking out for each other in Depression-era California. The book was adapted as a play in 1937, the same year it was published. Since then, Of Mice and Men has twice been adapted for television and twice produced for the cinema, the most recent film being Gary Sinise’s 1992 version starring John Malkovich.
Both of the film versions of the novella were considered faithful adaptations and were critical successes.
"We had a lot of people within the theatre community warn us that we were taking a big risk by bringing these particular plays to the stage," says Gagnier. "Especially something like Of Mice and Men. We try to break away from what the audience expects. We are not about re-doing a movie on stage like the Max Fischer Players in (the movie) Rushmore performing Serpico: The Play."
According to Gagnier, audiences have responded very well to the unique take that echo37 brings to each of its interpretations. "People are surprised by our performances," he says. "There have been many times when people have approached us and commented on how we have brought these characters to life in new ways and directions that were not present in the movie adaptations."
Gagnier, who has done some stage writing of his own for such groups as Cappuccino Musical Theatre, says he realizes the play versions of famous films have a built-in audience. "But I think it is harder to produce a well-known play and raise the bar and bring another dimension to it, than to produce something on the fringe of theatre that no one knows about." |
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