{"id":14924,"date":"2017-11-01T09:00:34","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T16:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=14924"},"modified":"2017-11-06T09:47:15","modified_gmt":"2017-11-06T17:47:15","slug":"belfrys-onegin-captivating-to-all-generations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2017\/11\/01\/belfrys-onegin-captivating-to-all-generations\/","title":{"rendered":"Belfry\u2019s Onegin<\/em> captivating to all generations"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Belfry machine cranks out another one. The Fernwood theatre is putting on a musical adaptation of a novel from the early 1800s, Onegin<\/i> (that\u2019s on-yay<\/i>-gen), by directors Amiel Gladstone and Veda Hill.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a big, romantic story,\u201d says Gladstone, \u201cand 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\u2019s this feeling of great accomplishment that we\u2019ve managed to pull this off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The play has crossed the country from Vancouver to Toronto, but now it\u2019s returning here to be put on again with its original cast. Gladstone says that he really enjoys working on new productions like Onegin<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Onegin is a musical adaptation of an early 19th-century novel (photo by David Cooper).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my favourite thing, actually, working on new plays,\u201d he says. \u201cWhether it\u2019s my own new play or someone else\u2019s, it\u2019s great because you have the playwright around with you and you\u2019re building the whole house from the foundation up. With most plays you have a script that you know works and you\u2019re trying to interpret the best you can, whereas this is another type of process.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re adapting something into a two-hour piece you have to take out a lot of stuff,\u201d explains Gladstone. \u201cTchaikovsky 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\u2019ve shrunk it to Canadian-theatre size.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story involves betrayal and honour and is very serious, but Gladstone says there\u2019s playfulness in regard to the relationship with the audience. One of the themes is about trying to fight against boredom\u2014Onegin, the lead character, is completely bored, and so he begins to wreck his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we move forward into more and more technology, we have more and more leisure time,\u201d says Gladstone, \u201cbut people don\u2019t really feel so thrilled about what they\u2019re using their leisure time for, so this is an opportunity to check back in. One of the opening lines is, \u2018Untether now from day to day.\u2019 This is an opportunity to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gladstone says that the reaction to the play has been very positive, and that this is his first play where he\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmazingly, the young folks are the people that get completely swept up in the story. Suddenly it\u2019s like they\u2019re watching the most incredible soap opera\u2014they\u2019re gasping and cheering and really following along, really getting caught up in the story,\u201d says Gladstone. \u201cThey\u2019re being brought there on a bus, so they\u2019re not seeking it out, but once they\u2019re there, they\u2019re into it. That was really surprising\u2014you 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Onegin
\n<\/i>Various times,\u00a0until Wednesday, November 8
\n$20-$53, The Belfry Theatre
\ntickets.belfry.bc.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s on-yay-gen), by directors Amiel Gladstone and Veda Hill. \u201cIt\u2019s such a big, romantic story,\u201d says Gladstone, \u201cand the actors are so good. You get immersed in the world of this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-november-1-2017"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14924"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14927,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14924\/revisions\/14927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}