>>PREVIEW
THE GRADUATE
Runs until April 22
Echo37 Productions
Engineered Air Theatre (Epcor Centre)
Its lines are iconic and often misquoted (Dustin Hoffman didn’t ask Anne Bancroft if she intends to seduce him, he tells her outright) and it coined a by-word that predates a slew of fresh terms for older women with younger tastes. Cougar and MILF simply don’t have the cachet of Mrs. Robinson.
At 30, echo37’s artistic director, Dave Gagnier, is too young to remember the 1967 premiere of The Graduate, but says that over the years the story has grown on him. Based on Charles Webb’s novel of the same name, Mike Nichols’s film adaptation has endured in no small part because the story of a disaffected youth speaks to every audience member who has found (or finds) themselves dragged confused and unwillingly into the adult world.
Directed by Iam Coulter, artistic director of The Shakespeare Company, echo37’s latest production will bring Terry Johnson’s theatrical adaptation of The Graduate to the Engineered Air Theatre (with Scott Roberts as Benjamin Braddock and CityTV’s Barb Mitchell as Mrs. Robinson). While a play adapted from a film and novel deviates somewhat from the company’s previous plays – producing shows like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest that owe their film adaptations to an original play – the challenges remain the same.
"I think people coming to see a show like The Graduate already have their favourite lines that made them laugh from the film," says Gagnier. "They expect to see them and they’re there, but there’s more to it than that. It’s a challenge for the playwright and for us as a producing company to satisfy those needs and to add a little something else."
Beyond the familiar, Johnson’s adaptation, which he also directed in its London and Broadway runs, borrows heavily from the novel as well as Nichols’s film, allowing for a less familiar portrait of these iconic characters. Where the film focused on two essentially selfish products of wealth, one a young man and the other his older seducer, Johnson’s stage version brings Mrs. Robinson’s daughter and Benjamin’s love interest, Elaine, out of the wings and onto centre stage.
"I think that the triangle that exists there now in the play version is a lot more engaging than if it were just Ben and Mrs. Robinson, because they’re really not likable people, for a lot of reasons," says Gagnier. "When you introduce the character of Elaine, who is very sweet and trusting and naive to a degree, but also intelligent, it kind of highlights the fact that Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson are not that likable, and in a way it gives the play a new protagonist, who is Elaine."
At least equal to its touchstone angst, The Graduate’s enduring appeal also owes a great deal to its humour, as Benjamin ineptly navigates the surreal landscape of his sheltered life and his own disenfranchisement. Had the story been a straight examination of post-war American life against the backdrop of privilege, Benjamin might have seemed a great deal more like J.D. Salinger’s Holden Caufield, another disaffected child of the upper class.
Of course, Catcher in the Rye certainly didn’t have Mrs. Robinson.
"I think character-wise, like most scripts, it has a certain humour embedded in the script that, as a reader, you’re going to pull out right away," he says. "(Coulter is) a comedian and she’s found a lot of humour in this script that’s not there on first read. This script, that’s essentially about a guy sleeping with his parents’ best friend and then dating their daughter – it’s a pretty horrific idea, but there is humour there, and she’s tried to flush it out more than might have existed in previous productions.
"Mike Nichols, when he was doing the film, commented on how loathsome Benjamin is," he adds. "He’s a horrible guy, yet he puts himself in such ridiculous situations that it’s hard not to laugh." |
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