Hey freshmen! (Or is it “freshpersons?” Have we gone that far yet?) Are those constant toga parties wearing you down? Put those beer-stained bedsheets back where they belong and take yourself out for a different strain of Greco-Roman entertainment. How about taking a look at what’s shaking the stage at U of T’s grandest playhouse, Hart House Theatre?
Hart House Theatre was constructed in 1919, sparking the careers of such show-biz luminaries as Donald Sutherland, Norman Jewison, Kate Reid, and William Hutt (the Stratford mainstay who passed away this summer after a long and extraordinary career). Even without its impressive past, Hart House Theatre offers more than just history. With its Art Deco design, vaulted chambers and scores of photographs from past productions, the whole space is steeped in a kind of amber-tinted glamour.
Kick-starting the 2007-08 HHT season lineup is A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, Stephen Sondheim’s first musical as both composer and lyricist. Based on the plays penned by ancient Roman dramatist Plautus, Forum takes a farcical approach to crafty slave Pseudolus’s comical efforts to win his freedom.
Ushering Forum into the Common Era is director and designer Graham Maxwell. In speaking with Maxwell, it’s clear that he wants to bring some freshness to this everpopular musical. With his cast and crew, Maxwell has worked to incorporate elements of classic vaudeville and burlesque into the production.
Maxwell’s flexible set and costume design is inspired by the notion that the audience is actually watching a travelling theatre troupe—doubling-up roles, taping on fake moustaches, and generally playing as much as they can. Maxwell illuminates the backstory a little further: “I came up with the concept that the audience is watching a group of actors who have toured the show to death. To make their show “different,” the cast is not only to move the set around the stage—usually the set is stationary in productions I have seen—but the audience should see that they all have a shorthand with each other and help each other out when something is not going as planned— which happens a lot!”
With the mobile set and the play-withina play context, there’s a definite inventiveness to Graham Maxwell’s vision. “I told [the cast] to treat the rehearsal process like a sandbox,” he says, legs stretched over the back of a tomato-coloured seat in a far corner of the theatre. He further expounds upon his reasons behind putting the three houses that constitute the set on casters, “It looked better to bring the house to the light, rather than the other way around.” The DIY concept may sound delicate, but Maxwell is clear that he knew when in the process to keep something as it was. “We’re close to opening the show now and still have a lot of work to do, but each rehearsal is an exercise in laughing and making this the funniest musical Hart House Theatre has produced.”
The sound of this show will also be different than past season’s musicals: Maxwell has decided to keep his performers microphone- free. “I want this to be as live an experience as possible,” he explains.
In ditching the mics, the performers are faced with the task of exercising their voices more than usual to fill the vast house. Maxwell has faith in Hart House Theatre’s acoustics to help the performers pull the audience closer into the hijinks.
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum opens September 14 and runs until September 29. Hart House offers $12 student tickets, or you can visit the website (www.harthousetheatre.ca) for the chance to win tickets
