By Diane Peters
Climbing on a huge playground, dressed in costumes from all centuries and styles. Ryerson theatre students are putting on a serious play about war, life and death.
Bertolt Brecht’s A Caucasian Chalk Circle is not a simple or humorous play, but director Jack Langedijk envisions it through the eyes of a child.
“We used this playground as a world to exist in. This is where we start in our world, and it slowly becomes an army base and nuclear war waste and accountants and doctors,” Langedijk explains with intensity and arm gestures.
With third year Ryerson acting students, Langedijk is exploring the interpretation of the play for the second time. The first was in 1986, at the Centaur Theatre in Montreal.
“It was a very successful show. But it wasn’t very spiritual. It wasn’t soulful. It wasn’t magical,” says Langedijk. “This is a great challenge for me because I’m doing something similar. And how do I not repeat myself?”
Change is important to Langedijk, artistically and personally. His move from Montreal, where he has an established career as an actor and director, to Toronto a year ago, instigated both. It also hooked him up with Ryerson’s theatre school. Directing Chalk Circle is a chance for him to give not only the students, but himself, experience in Toronto.
The idea of having a playground for a set came from the 1986 production, but has been elaborated on and changed by Langedijk, working closely with set designer Jules Tonus. Julia Tribe’s costumes from a wide spectrum of times and places, styles and colours also come out of what a child would imagine for the characters.
But the biggest change to the production is the creative magic that Langedijk and the students feel from this play.
“I haven’t been this excited about a production since I did Stratford,” said Ellen Wilkes-Irmisch, one of the actors. Her classmates Jennifer Hall and Chris Clattenburg share her and Langedijk’s energy and enthusiasm.
All this good spirit hasn’t come about by chance. Langedijk has been working to maintain a positive, creative environment for the students from the start. Part of that involves keeping the stress-level low and respecting others. Through seemingly unstructured rehearsals, Langedijk encourages the actors to discover the script and come up with ideas on their own.
“Jack’s an actor-friendly director,” says Chris Clattenburg. “He is an actor and he can relate to actors.”
The students appreciate the chance to work with a professional director, but still in a school environment. They especially appreciate this lively, fun interpretation of a play known for its serious, political nature.
“It’s impossible,” Langedijk says of the text. “It’s filled with the circle of life, death, marriage, love, birth, taking care of a child, politics, religion, it’s the whole gamut.”
The bizarre environment is not meant to detract from the serious issues in the play, only to make them more digestible. Langedijk’s shortening of the play from three hours to two is an audience-friendly attempt to do the same.
“All of this costuming and this huge elaborate playground is going to lighten the whole thing. But if you stick to the reality of what you’re saying the message will come across,” says Jennifer Hall.
A Caucasian Chalk Circle is playing at the Ryerson Theatre from February 16-23.
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