Speaking truths

The Flower Girl (Erin Quigley) agrees the world has changed, because her flowers don't last over night anymore. (Nick Pearce Photo)

When French playwright Jean Giraudoux first staged The Madwoman of Chaillot in 1945, his audience was a world turned upside down by industrialization and war. The Vietnam era, in its turn, saw the creation of a 1969 film version starring Katharine Hepburn. Given the modern furor surrounding WikiLeaks and the TSA, perhaps modern society could once again benefit from a madwoman’s odd brand of wisdom.

Director Rob McClure seems to think so. He previously directed Dalhousie’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2008, and is enthusiastic about returning for The Madwoman of Chaillot. “I think it’s a product of having come out of the war, and the horrors of having come through that time,” he says of the play. Despite its grim origins, he also says the piece is “Odd, poetic… so many of the characters are archetypes, they don’t have names even… it’s a fairytale, really.”

This whimsical quality is compounded by the fact that the cast is working with a translation of the show from its original French. “There’s an odd poetic quality to the dialogue… (but) we play the scenes for real.”

So who is this titular madwoman? “I hate money, and I hate what it does to people, and I hate greed,” says Ellen Denny, the third-year acting student playing the character, by way of an introduction. “The people in Chaillot, they call her the madwoman, but… she’s probably the most sane person there.”

Countess Aurelia (Ellen Denny) is distressed to learn that the world is no longer happy. (Nick Pearce Photo)

The action of the play concerns this friendly neighbourhood madwoman, Countess Aurelia, as she gathers around her the various denizens of Chaillot – a juggler, a flower girl and so on – as well as the madwomen of neighbouring towns in order to expel the greedy capitalists plotting harm to their idyllic hamlet. Of her character, Ellen says, “It’s a lot of fun because you get to go a little bit wild… it’s been a lot of fun to work with the other madwomen and discover how each is mad in her own way instead of being a generic crazy.”

For the third-year acting students performing The Madwoman of Chaillot, the play itself – part parable and part call to action -- is a challenge. Furthermore, Madwoman is being staged “in the round” – with seating on all sides of the stage, so that the performance is visible from every angle. “You always have your back to someone, and you need to be sure those people always understand what you’re saying,” explains Ms. Denny. “It’s all a dance, in a way.”
“It’s an amazing challenge on this stage,” Mr. McClure agrees. “I’ve always wanted to work in the round… it’s a very intimate way of working and you can’t just call on your ‘actorish’ skills.”

That’s only the metaphorical dance of The Madwoman of Chaillot. There is also a literal dance, a Polish ‘mazurka’. “That is a good workout, singing and dancing at the same time,” groans Ms. Denny, who is also majoring in music. “I wish that I could sing while I was at the treadmill at the gym, but I think people would complain.” 

Erin Quigley as The Flower Girl looks up at Josh Cruddas playing The Ragpicker. (Nick Pearce Photo)

Despite the challenges inherent in mazurkas and Shakespearean stagings, the students performing The Madwoman of Chaillot appear undaunted by their task. Small changes have also been made to tailor the show to the Dalhousie acting class – most of the capitalists are now played by women, and cast talents (including juggling and ukulele abilities) have been incorporated. Josh Cruddas, a student and local composer, even composed original music for the show. The play has also been trimmed for flow.

A theme Mr. McClure returns to again and again is the play’s timeliness, even despite its fantastic subject matter. “If you look at our recent headlines, you have our 2008 financial meltdown… even today, most of the people who created those messes survived… while a lot of the people on the ground lost their homes, lost their savings... we just wanted to make sure we didn’t work in sentimentalism. We wanted to keep it as real as possible.”

Perhaps audiences at The Madwoman of Chaillot will discover that a little bit of whimsy can disguise a larger truth.