Montreal Gazette: Play on Words looks at truth of lies

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Play on words looks at truth of lies
Director Blair Williams’s love of Montreal and Ferenc Molnár lead him to the Segal Centre

By Pat Donnelly, The Gazette, October 21, 2011

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Why do people write plays? There are, no doubt, as many reasons as there are playwrights.

But in Ferenc Molnár’s The Play at the Castle, a writer creates a new theatrical work in order to get himself out of a tight spot.

A British adaptation of this Molnár comedy, titled The Play’s the Thing (1926), by P.G. Wodehouse, is about to open at the Segal Centre under the direction of Blair Williams. The Play’s the Thing is not to be confused with another British adaptation of the same Molnár work, Tom Stoppard’s Rough Crossing.

Director Williams, 48, is a native of North Bay, Ont., long associated with the Shaw Festival (17 seasons) as an actor and, more recently, as a director. He played the male lead in Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit at the Segal Centre last season.

Williams is not entirely sure why Molnár, who fled Hungary just before the war and took up residence in the U.S., has regained popularity in recent years.

“He deals with illusion and reality in a way that is a kind of constant,” Williams ventured. “But his love of the theatre and his belief in the theatre makes him always relevant. Because, obviously, the theatre is always relevant. There’s something about the way that what we witness, if it’s done well, transforms the world we re-enter when we leave the theatre. There is something about that collective experience of suspending our disbelief that changes the way we look at the world. Molnár makes a point of exploring that dynamic in this play, particularly.”

One thing is certain: Molnár has done Williams a good turn. His first professional directing project was Molnár’s The President, adapted by Morwyn Brebner, at the Shaw Festival in 2008. A runaway hit, it was brought back this season.

Williams’s directing career was launched in high gear.

The two Molnár plays have much in common, he said. They’re both about the value of expert lying. “How we view the world determines what we see,” he said. “And so both Norrison in The President and Turai in this play understand that hiding the truth is necessary to continue in the world as it is. It’s selfishness that drives these people. Both Norrison and Turai need to very quickly come up with a lie that will ensure that they remain comfortable and privileged and that their world is not shattered. It all depends on hoodwinking people. And they can do that by ensuring that people believe something that isn’t true. You tell a lie often enough and it becomes truth. This is a question that he explores in this play. Are lies truths? And they are, if we believe them.”

Until we find out the facts?

“But in these plays, they don’t,” Williams replied.

Speed is another common factor in both works. In The President, Norrison, a bank president, has to transform a taxi-driving communist into a capitalist executive within an hour, in order to convince some rich clients that he hasn’t allowed their (now pregnant) daughter to hook up with a ne’er-do-well. In The Play’s the Thing, a composer plunges into deep depression upon overhearing a conversation that suggests his diva wife is having an affair. To save the situation, and his own operetta, which is about to open, Turai writes a play based on the conversation hoping to convince the composer that what he had overheard was a rehearsal.

“Apparently it came from an experience that Molnár had himself,” Williams said.

The playwright and a friend overheard Molnár’s wife making passionate declarations in the next room. The friend became embarrassed and left. But it turned out that she was simply practising her German by reading a play.

When the Segal Centre’s former artistic director Bryna Wasserman approached Williams with the offer to direct The Play’s the Thing, which had recently been produced by Soulpepper Theatre in Toronto, he didn’t hesitate.

And not just because of the play. His love for Montreal harks back to his student days at the National Theatre School.

For this production, Williams has assembled an entirely local cast: Repercussion Theatre artistic director Paul Hopkins as Turai; James Kidnie as his collaborator, Mansky; and Chris Barillaro as the composer. Chip Chuipka, Michael Rudder, Jessica B. Hill and Jonathan Patterson round out the cast.

“We’re using our own voices,” Williams said. “We’re not going to put on British accents. We’re going to try to own it as much as we can. Some of the dialogue is a bit dusty. We’ve cut a little bit and changed a little bit. But for the most part it is the Wodehouse, which I think is a fairly clean adaptation of The Play at the Castle.”

Williams won’t be on stage, having resisted the temptation to cast himself as Turai. Someday, however, “I’d love to have a crack at the part,” he said.

The Play’s the Thing, by Ferenc Molnár, runs Oct. 30 to Nov. 20 at the Segal Centre, 5170 Côte Ste. Catherine Rd. Tickets cost $34 to $44; seniors $31 to $39; students $22; under 30 $28 to $34. Call 514-739-7944 or visit segalcentre.org for more information.

pdonnell@montrealgazette.com

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