What: The Small Room at the Top of the Stairs
Where: Langham Court Theatre
When: Opens tonight, continues to Dec. 6
Tickets: $19, $21 (student rush $10, 15 minutes before curtain) 250 384-2142
When director Naomi Simpson first read the script for The Small Room at the Top of the Stairs, she flung it across the room.
It wasn’t because the play is bad. “It was because I was so in love with the leading role. I thought, ‘I want to play it,’ ” Simpson said with a laugh.
The Small Room at the Top of the Stairs is a drama by Carole Frêchette, an acclaimed French-Canadian playwright who this week was awarded a Governor General’s Literary Award for her play Small Talk. Translated by John Murrell, The Small Room at the Top of the Stairs is a retelling of the old Bluebeard fable. In the folk tale, a wealthy man instructs his wife never to enter a locked room. Naturally, she cannot resist and finds herself greeted with a most macabre sight.
Frêchette’s contemporary version is similar. An older man tells his young wife she has the run of his mansion as long as she avoids the room at the top of the stairs.
Simpson says a key challenge in directing The Small Room at the Top of the Stairs was encouraging the cast to embrace naturalism in their acting while remaining faithful to the play’s stylized tone. The drama has a surreal, dream-like quality, she added. “I think of my own dreams, where I’m ascending a flight of stairs forever and ever, only to find myself in the basement. That’s how I saw this play,” Simpson said.
Joining actor Wendy Magahay, a Langham Court Theatre regular, are Julie Forrest, Michelle Morris, Justin Carter and Leanne Allen.
Simpson is no stranger to directing. Her recent credits include Theatre Inconnu’s In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play). However, she’s best known in Victoria as an actor, appearing in Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre’s Uncle Vanya and True West as well as The Beauty Queen of Leenane and Pack of Lies for Langham Court.
Simpson says the set for The Small Room at the Top of the Stairs, designed by assistant director Julian Cervello, will surprise audiences. She enlisted her friend magician Eric Bedard (stage name Cool Magic Dude), as a consultant for the production.
“There are a lot of little goodies throughout the play,” Simpson said.