{"id":25965,"date":"2024-10-30T09:01:16","date_gmt":"2024-10-30T16:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/?p=25965"},"modified":"2024-10-30T12:24:21","modified_gmt":"2024-10-30T19:24:21","slug":"blue-bridge-theatres-sleepy-hollow-delivers-with-a-twist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2024\/10\/30\/blue-bridge-theatres-sleepy-hollow-delivers-with-a-twist\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Bridge Theatre\u2019s Sleepy Hollow<\/em> delivers with a twist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blue Bridge Theatre\u2019s adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow <\/i>has a bit of a twist.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sleepy Hollow<\/i> was primarily chosen for its autumnal atmosphere and Halloween associations, but the more Blue Bridge president and art director Brian Richmond and adaptation playwright Andrew Bailey dove into the story the more intrigued they became with the themes found in the original publication.<\/p>\n

\u201cWashington Irving\u2019s Sleepy Hollow<\/i>, I think it\u2019s a satire specifically on an element of what he saw as the rather provincial mentality of early America,\u201d says Richmond, adding that Bailey has taken a different focus. \u201cHe certainly stayed true to the satiric intent of Irving\u2019s original, but I think his focus, because he\u2019s a writer existing in 2024, is different. I would say the satirical focus is on a community that holds really antiquated views around the role of women in society and the disparity between the rich and the poor in that society.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Blue Bridge president Brian Richmond says classics should be reinterpreted (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Richmond calls Sleepy Hollow<\/i> a play within a play.<\/p>\n

\u201c[It\u2019s] set in 1960 in New York City, and it\u2019s being presented by a fictional company that [Bailey] calls the Coalmine radio players,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd they are engaging in what is the last radio broadcast for this station.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the antiquated views in question, Richmond looks at the main character, Ichabod Crane, to find the values being satirized by Irving, and newly explored by Bailey. There\u2019s a particular focus being given to the newfound social mobility developing in early America.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHis attraction to Katrina is all about money, that she\u2019s the heiress to a very large amount of money that her parents have accumulated. And that is matched to Ichabod with his enormous appetite,\u201d he says. \u201cUsing appetite in the literal sense, his desire for food\u2026 So he immediately uses his position as a supposed man of education in the community in order to work his way into the dining rooms of a number of the young women in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The radio show, which is being used as the framing device, is also looking at a shifting status quo; Richmond thinks it\u2019s a highly relevant topic to be considering.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s right on the cusp of radio stations in North America turning into all news and all music radio stations and essentially eliminating radio drama,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s also, of course, on the cusp of one of the more famous American elections in history, which is the Kennedy-Nixon election of 1960.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Richmond says the timing of the performance was a coincidence, but one that will be top of mind of audience members.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re on the cusp of what\u2019s probably going to be one of the more famous US elections in American history,\u201d he says, \u201cjust a couple of days after we finish, basically.\u201d<\/p>\n

The relevance of the subject matter, however, is no coincidence. Richmond says that it is the duty of those performing classics to bring the themes of the story into a modern context of understanding.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey create challenges for us because the world has just changed so significantly in terms of its values and the way that it sees these stories,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I think if you\u2019re engaged in the classics in 2024, you have an obligation to reinterpret them, and that can mean re-adapting them to make them meaningful to a contemporary audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
\n<\/i>8 pm Friday, November 1
\n2 pm and 8 pm Saturday, November 2
\n2 pm Sunday, November 3
\nTickets sold out but wait list being taken
\nbluebridgetheatre.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blue Bridge Theatre\u2019s adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow has a bit of a twist.\u00a0 Sleepy Hollow was primarily chosen for its autumnal atmosphere and Halloween associations, but the more Blue Bridge president and art director Brian Richmond and adaptation playwright Andrew Bailey dove into the story the more intrigued they became with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25966,"comment_status":"closed","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":[4,320],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-october-30-2024"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25965","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=25965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25967,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25965\/revisions\/25967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}