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WEEK of May 5, 2008 |
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Sicko: Middle School Takes On Molière’s Doctor by Jeffrey Stanley “There’s no point in passing wind. What’s in it for you?” “Gentlemen, I am not a doctor!” “Well, I suppose this is necessary.” They commence to beat him. In an ongoing year of classic comedy and as a followup to the Upper School’s winter production of Molière’s Tartuffe, the Middle School is performing the 17th century French playwright’s slapstick slugfest The Doctor in Spite of Himself on Friday and Saturday, May 9 and 10 in the Pearl Street Meeting House. “What I’m trying to do is link the Middle School and the Upper School together,” said the play’s director and drama teacher Jeremy Richards, “and bring the community together around a single playwright each year. With Moliere we can do a pushed out commedia type style,” he explained. Cast member Kirk Pearson explained his role in the slapstick farce. “There’s this man named Sganarelle who drinks a lot, he’s a lumberjack and he beats his wife,” explained the eighth grader, “so to get back at him she tells some people searching for a doctor that her husband is an excellent one but doesn’t like to admit it and that they’ll need to beat him.” The patient? “This girl who’s been struck dumb, Lucinde. I’m her father. She’s pretending to be dumb in order to get with Léandre.” The problem is dad Geronte wants her to marry a more established, respectable man. “Geronte is a good guy but we don’t like him,” said Kirk. In a clever twist on the usual role-splitting in BFS productions he will share the role of Geronte along with Matt Meyer who will serve as Kirk’s interpreter because his French accent is so thick. The play’s theme? “Marry who you love,” said Kirk.
Eighth grader Jun Horon is playing Jacqueline, Lucinde’s nurse who starts to suspect Lucinde’s apparent deafness just might be a ploy to get out of a bad engagement and that Sganarelle too just might be a fraud. “She has an insight into Lucinde’s personal life and is trying to get Geronte to let her marry Léandre,” Jun explained. “Jacqueline also has a jealous husband and decides to get back at him by flirting with Sganarelle and getting caught on purpose.” This is Jun’s largest role so far at BFS and likes the trajectory her nascent stage career has taken so far. “In sixth grade I was a fairy and had no lines. In seventh I was a panda and had a few lines. Now I’m a human and I have even more lines so I’m happy about the progression.” Daniel Epelbaum is sharing the role of the man himself, Sganarelle, with classmates Jason Brown and Olivia Parnell. “Sganarelle is the main character in the play. He has a fight with his wife and neighbor and then goes off to cut some wood,” said Daniel. The next thing he knows he’s being beaten into submission, forced to admit he’s a physician and brought to treat Lucinde. “He’s an alcoholic and a bum and now he has to pretend like he’s a doctor.” In order to avoid further beatings he makes up false remedies for the false patient which in the end just might lead him to the gallows. Eighth grader Daniel has done numerous roles at BFS but says this is his largest and the first time he’s had a turn as the main character. In a decided turn to meta theatre the cast will perform a prologue that they and Jeremy wrote to open the show, in which they pose as a Commedia dell’Arte troupe on its way to perform the Moliere comedy in New York. They argue over who is best fitted to perform each part, who can do the best French accent, and in the end decide to double or even triple up the roles. In fact the multiple casts will sometimes appear onstage together interplaying a single scene to a literally call-and-response crescendo. In doing so Jeremy said he hopes to stretch students’ ideas about what counts as theatre. “It’s more than just something that ‘makes sense,’” he said. “Sometimes we follow our muse, we follow our inspiration. Theatre doesn’t always have to ‘make sense.’” Along with expanding their definitions of theatre, said Jeremy, “I want the students to expand their definitions of themselves.” THE CAST The Doctor In Spite of Himself will be presented on Friday, May 9 at 4 pm and 7 pm, and Saturday, May 10 at 7 pm; tickets are $5 for students and $10 for adults. |
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