>>PREVIEW
THE OVERCOAT
Runs until May 5
Theatre Calgary
Max Bell Theatre (Epcor Centre)
Since its 1997 premiere at the Vancouver Playhouse in collaboration with Langara College’s Studio 58, The Overcoat has been one of the most phenomenal Canadian touring successes of all time. Including productions across the country and the world, the wordless adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s short stories "The Overcoat" and "Diary of a Madman" has enjoyed success whose scale is matched only by the show itself – with 22 actors, 85 costumes and a 20 tonne set, it is also one of the largest Canadian touring productions. Now, the show will take the stage as the final production for Theatre Calgary’s 2006/2007 season.
The story of a bureaucratic everyman referred to simply as "The Man" (one of the play’s numerous departures from Gogol’s original character, Akaky Akakievich, which translates roughly as "Shit, Son of Shit"), The Overcoat is an allegorical tale of ridicule, redemption and loss. Mocked for his threadbare overcoat, The Man (played since the play’s premiere by Peter Anderson) effects a life-changing transformation when he contracts a tailor to produce a decadent new overcoat, its beauty launching the once-lowly bureaucrat into society’s upper ranks, only to have the inevitable loss of his prized possession send him back into despair.
Ironically, playwright and movement teacher Wendy Gorling, who co-created the piece with Morris Panych, is anything but wordless when it comes to describing the most recent in a line of collaborations with Panych that included The Company in 1995 and their first collaboration, Nocturne, in 1989.
A playwright, director and longtime movement instructor with Studio 58, Gorling revealed the inner workings of her silent co-creation in a recent interview with Fast Forward.
Fast Forward: The Overcoat is always described as a "movement" piece rather than a dance piece. What is the distinction between the two?
Wendy Gorling: It’s a movement piece in that there’s no need for words. If you think of Charlie Chaplin, it’s not as if we needed him to talk, the action is the story. So in that way there’s a wealth of movement that will then tell what’s happening within the character and in terms of the story. I think because of that you go inside the story more.
There’s one section where the lead goes to a soiree and then they dance, but aside from that, I don’t classify it as dance. It’s not for the beauty of the movement, it’s for the heightened awareness of the story. Having said that, the fun was choreographing every movement. So we sometimes have 20 actors on stage, and they each know intimately the music and what the beats are that they move to.
You and Panych have been creating pieces together since 1989. Describe The Overcoat’s creation process in comparison to your previous projects.
Once we’d gotten the basic story, then we had to choose the music. We liked the Slavic quality of (Dmitri) Shostakovich (selecting from the Russian composer’s concertos, ballets and jazz suites), also because it has so many layers and a great beat. What happened then was because we had to be loyal to the music, the music started telling us what had to be done in each scene. So, for instance, if the horn came in prominently in the office then perhaps that would be the entry of the secretary or the boss.
The Overcoat was the first time we used an existing story to get the basics of the story and from there, play around with it.
How involved were the production’s actors in its creation during the four-month rehearsal period?
They had the arduous task of doing a two-minute movement piece to music. So in that way we found we could define the people. Were they creative people? Could they use the music to tell the story rather than being a rhythmic background to the story? We opened the creative process to the other people as well. A lot of Peter Anderson’s work is created from his own genius and that was the case with many of the scenes.
With a production whose success has made it a virtual touring machine and given its collaborative creation, how many changes are still being made 10 years after its premiere?
This isn’t a machine. Every time we get together there’s that feeling of, "how can we make this better now that we have this opportunity?" Having said that, we’re into such detail that other people might not notice the change – "Your finger should be much wider, and why don’t you move your thumb a bit." You might not be able to see its beauty but we are entranced. |
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