GOODNIGHT DESDEMONA (GOOD MORNING JULIET)
Where: Roxy Theatre, 2657 Quadra St.
When: April 28-May 7
Tickets: $23.50-$42 from bluebridgetheatre.ca
Tamara McCarthy might had an easier go of things if playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald went dark and dour instead of effervescent and upbeat with her celebrated play, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet).
Finding the right tone was imperative for McCarthy, who is directing Blue Bridge’s upcoming production of the Governor General’s Award-winner about bucking convention. “It’s quite tricky,” McCarthy said.
“Dark comedy is almost easier, because you’re in the pits with these characters, and the comedy comes out of that. But a comedy that is not a dark comedy is a lot more challenging. It’s all within the text and the relationships. If you’re just trying to get a laugh, the stakes aren’t high. And this play is all high-stakes.”
The artistic director of Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre was tapped to helm Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), which runs through May 7 at the Roxy Theatre, in part because of her experience. McCarthy is a longtime fan of the company’s summer season opener, an instant smash when it premièred.
“I think every theatre student since 1990 has studied it,” McCarthy said.
Like many, she fell in love with the spunky lead character, Constance Ledbelly, who carries the play about an English professor at Queen’s University out to prove that much of what we know about Shakespeare’s work is wrong.
The dialogue MacDonald wrote for Ledbelly — with a page count that outnumbers that of Hamlet — is so revered, McCarthy said, it is often used for auditions by actors across the country. McCarthy, who is also an actor, jokingly said “she’s aged out of the role,” so chose to live vicariously through Lucy McNulty, who is playing Ledbelly in the upcoming run.
McNulty is joined by Keara Barnes (as Desdemona), Danica Charlie (Juliet), Pedro Siquera (Othello/Claude Night), and Isaac Li (Romeo/Iago), who beat 150 actors for their roles in the Blue Bridge production. Of the 80 actors who McCarthy saw read for parts in the production, 50 read for Ledbelly alone. McNulty ultimately offered something wholly unique, and brings some heft to the main role.
“Lucy just had a bit of an ‘It’ factor. I’ve seen her parents [Kevin McNulty and Susinn McFarlen] perform many, many times, and when I saw her I thought, ‘She was raised on this. She can handle this.’ I knew she had the capacity for it.”
It was a challenging piece to direct on several fronts, from the fight choreography to its extended monologues and scenes of intimacy. Attention is also needed to be paid to the dialogue. MacDonald wrote the play in iambic pentameter, so McCarthy brought in respected speech coach Iris Bannerman to help the actors navigate the tricky rhythm structure.
“It really is a masterpiece that Anne-Marie MacDonald has created. The text is really important.”
Making matters more complicated, McCarthy had what she mockingly described as a “brilliant idea” to have live sound design, rather than use pre-recorded audio. That put additional weight on the ensemble, she said, but it was worth it. The Blue Bridge production won’t be like all the others.
“I thought, “What can I do differently with this play?’ Most people have seen it or read it, so I wanted to do something with the version for right now, right here,” McCarthy said.
“And I kept coming back to the sound being created live by the actors. The show is really about Constance’s mind; she’s an academic and has all of these ideas spilling out of her. So why not have the sound envelop the space on the stage with us?”
mdevlin@timescolonist.com
