Calpurnia (play)

Last updated

Calpurnia
Written by Audrey Dwyer
Characters
  • Julie
  • Lawrence
  • Mark
  • James
  • Precy
  • Christine
Place premiered Buddies in Bad Times, Toronto
Original languageEnglish
GenreComedy

Calpurnia is a 2018 play by Canadian playwright Audrey Dwyer. It is named after Calpurnia, a character in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird .

Contents

Synopsis

Caplurnia centres around Julie, a twenty-something Black woman living with her father, an Afro-Caribbean judge, in Toronto. She is a screenwriter attempting to write a film about Calpurnia, the Finches' maid in To Kill A Mockingbird . Julie's brother, Mark, is an up-and-coming lawyer struggling to live up to his father's expectations. Julie's research on racial prejudice spark debates between her and her brother as Mark feels Julie is "not Black enough". Julie asks the family's Filipina housekeeper, Precy, about her life to further her research while Precy cooks dinner for Lawrence and his friend James. Mark's white girlfriend, Christine, also attends the dinner and sparks discussions of white privilege and respectability politics. [1]

Productions

Calpurnia premiered in 2018 at Buddies in Bad Times in Toronto. The premiere was directed by Dwyer and co-produced by Nightwood Theatre and Sulong Theatre. [2] The premiere starred Meghan Swaby as Julie, Carolyn Fe as Precy, Matthew Brown as Mark, Andrew Moodie as Lawrence, Don Allison as James, and Natasha Greenblatt as Christine. [2] Anna Treusch designed the set which stadium-style seating on either side of the stage. [3]

In March 2022, Calpurnia was performed at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. [4] [5] The 2022 production was directed by Sarah Garton Stanley and starred Emerjade Simms as Julie. The play featured Kwaku Adu-Poku as Mark, Ellie Ellwand as Christine, Rochelle Kives as Precy, Arne MacPherson as James, and Ray Strachan as Lawrence. [6]

Analysis

Calpurnia examines what it means to be Black in Canada and focusses on how its characters shift their identities to suit their environments. The character of Lawrence embodies the traditional image of an immigrant parent trying to make the best life for their children while also trying to educate them about their culture. However, Laurence does not speak Patois to his children, indicating his attempt to make his children "more Canadian". [7]

Julie and Mark engage in several conversations about the usefulness and worth of updating canonical texts as well as who has a right to tell what stories. [1] To Kill A Mockingbird is Mark's favourite book and he does not feel as though it needs any retelling. He also feels that Julie, a rich woman living in Toronto with no Black friends, does not know any more about being African-American in Alabama in the 1930s than Harper Lee did. Julie, on the other hand, faults Atticus Finch for his "slut-shaming" and refusing to call out the prejudice of white jury members. [2]

The character of Precy acts as a model for Lee's Calpurnia, in that she serves Lawrence and his children the same way Calpurnia serves the Finch family. [3] Dwyer was interested in using Precy to examine how different racial minorities interact with each other as well as to examine the concept of allyship. [8] [9]

Development

Dwyer began writing Calpurnia in 2012 after playing a maid in a show. [10] She developed the play with Obsidian Theatre as part of their playwriting unit. [11] During the time between the play's 2018 premiere and this staging, Dwyer made several changes to the script and the play underwent dramaturgy from Sarah Garton Stanley. Of the 2018 and 2022 productions, Dwyer said "this definitely is not the same play." [6]

Related Research Articles

Calpurnia may refer to:

<i>To Kill a Mockingbird</i> Novel of racial conflict, Pulitzer Prize 1961

To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by the American author Harper Lee. It was published in 1960 and was instantly successful. In the United States, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools. To Kill a Mockingbird has become a classic of modern American literature, winning the Pulitzer Prize. The plot and characters are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family, her neighbors and an event that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, in 1936, when she was ten.

Stratford Festival

The Stratford Festival is a theatre festival which runs from April to October in the city of Stratford, Ontario, Canada. Founded by local journalist Tom Patterson in 1952, the festival was formerly known as the Stratford Shakespearean Festival, the Shakespeare Festival and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. The festival was one of the first arts festivals in Canada and continues to be one of its most prominent. It is recognized worldwide for its productions of Shakespearean plays.

Matthew Modine American actor, activist and filmmaker

Matthew Avery Modine is an American actor, activist and filmmaker, who rose to prominence through his role as U.S. Marine Private/Sergeant J.T. "Joker" Davis in Full Metal Jacket. His other film roles include the title character in Birdy, the high school wrestler Louden Swain in Vision Quest, FBI agent Mike Downey in Married to the Mob, Joe Slovak in Gross Anatomy, William Shaw in Cutthroat Island, Drake Goodman in Pacific Heights and Dr. Ralph Wyman in Short Cuts. On television, Modine portrayed the villainous Dr. Martin Brenner in Stranger Things, the oversexed Sullivan Groff on Weeds, Dr. Don Francis in And the Band Played On and Ivan Turing in Proof.

Rhys Ifans Welsh actor and musician

Rhys Ifans is a Welsh actor, producer, and singer. He was the frontman of Welsh rock music bands The Peth and Super Furry Animals. As an actor, he is best known for his roles in Notting Hill (1999), Kevin & Perry Go Large (2000) and Enduring Love (2004) as well as his portrayals of Xenophilius Lovegood in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010), the supervillain Lizard in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) and Grigori Rasputin in The King's Man (2021). Other roles include Hector DeJean in the Epix thriller series Berlin Station and Mycroft Holmes in the CBS series Elementary.

<i>Miss Julie</i> Strindberg play

Miss Julie is a naturalistic play written in 1888 by August Strindberg. It is set on Midsummer's Eve and the following morning, which is Midsummer and the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist. The setting is an estate of a count in Sweden. Miss Julie is drawn to a senior servant, a valet named Jean, who is well-traveled and well-read. The action takes place in the kitchen of Miss Julie's father's manor, where Jean's fiancée, a servant named Christine, cooks and sometimes sleeps while Jean and Miss Julie talk.

Martha Henry American-born Canadian actress

Martha Kathleen Henry was an American-born Canadian stage, film, and television actress. She was noted for her work at the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario.

Mary Badham American actress

Mary Badham is an American actress who portrayed Jean Louise "Scout" Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. At the time, Badham was the youngest actress ever nominated in this category.

Rebecca Caine Canadian soprano

Rebecca Caine is a Canadian soprano, opera singer and musical theatre performer.

<i>To Kill a Mockingbird</i> (film) 1962 film by Robert Mulligan

To Kill a Mockingbird is a 1962 American drama film directed by Robert Mulligan. The screenplay by Horton Foote is based on Harper Lee's 1960 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of the same name. The film stars Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch and Mary Badham as Scout. It marked the film debut of Robert Duvall, William Windom and Alice Ghostley.

Atticus Finch Fictional character

Atticus Finch is a fictional character in Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird. A preliminary version of the character also appears in the novel Go Set a Watchman, written in the mid-1950s but not published until 2015. Atticus is a lawyer and resident of the fictional Maycomb County, Alabama, and the father of Jeremy "Jem" Finch and Jean Louise "Scout" Finch. He represents the African-American man Tom Robinson in his trial where he is charged with rape of Mayella Ewell. Lee based the character on her own father, Amasa Coleman Lee, an Alabama lawyer, who, like Atticus, represented black defendants in a highly publicized criminal trial. Book magazine's list of The 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900 names Finch as the seventh best fictional character of 20th-century literature. In 2003, the American Film Institute voted Atticus Finch, as portrayed in an Academy Award-winning performance by Gregory Peck in the 1962 film adaptation, as the greatest hero of all American cinema. In the 2018 Broadway stage play adapted by Aaron Sorkin, Finch is portrayed by various actors including Jeff Daniels, Ed Harris, Greg Kinnear, Rhys Ifans, and Richard Thomas.

Gideon Glick is an American actor. His Broadway work includes the role of Ernst in the musical Spring Awakening, Jimmy-6 in Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Jordan Berman in Significant Other, and most recently Dill Harris in Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. His film and TV work includes Ocean's 8, The Detour, Devious Maids, and Alfie in the fourth season of the The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Nightwood Theatre is Canada's oldest professional women's theatre and is based in Toronto. It was founded in 1979 by Cynthia Grant, Kim Renders, Mary Vingoe, and Maureen White and was originally a collective. Though it was not the founders' original intention, Nightwood Theatre has become known for producing feminist works. Some of Nightwood's most famous productions include This is For You, Anna (1983) and Good Night Desdemona (1988). Nightwood hosts several annual events including FemCab, the Hysteria Festival, and Groundswell Festival which features readings from participants of Nightwood's Write from the Hip playwright development program.

The St. Louis Repertory Theater is a repertory theater, based in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. It is often referred to locally simply as "The Rep". Hana S. Sharif is the Artistic Director and Danny Williams is the Managing Director.

<i>Go Set a Watchman</i> 2015 novel by Harper Lee

Go Set a Watchman is a novel by Harper Lee written before the Pulitzer Prize-winning To Kill a Mockingbird, her first and only other published novel (1960). Although it was initially promoted as a sequel by its publisher, it is now accepted that it was a first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, with many passages being used again in that book.

Teagan Croft Australian actress (born 2004)

Teagan Croft is an Australian actress. She stars as Rachel Roth on the DC Universe / HBO Max superhero series Titans (2018–present) and also portrayed the title character in the 2016 science fiction film The Osiris Child.

<i>To Kill a Mockingbird</i> (2018 play)

To Kill a Mockingbird is a 2018 play based on the 1960 novel of the same name by Harper Lee, adapted for the stage by Aaron Sorkin. It opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre on December 13, 2018. The play is set to transfer to London's West End at the Gielgud Theatre in March 2022. The show follows the story of Atticus Finch, a lawyer in 1930s Alabama, as he defends Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of rape. Varying from the book, the play has Atticus as the protagonist, not his daughter Scout, allowing his character to change throughout the show. During development the show was involved in two legal disputes, the first with the Lee estate over the faithfulness of the play to the original book, and the second was due to exclusivity to the rights with productions using the script by Christopher Sergel. During opening week, the production garnered more than $1.5 million in box office sales and reviews by publications such as the New York Times, LA Times and AMNY were positive but not without criticism.

Audrey Dwyer is a Canadian writer, actor, and director. She is currently the associate artistic director of the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. She wrote the 2018 comedy, Calpurnia.

Carolyn Fe is a Filipina singer and actress based in Montreal. She has released three full-length albums and an EP with the Carolyn Fe Blues Collective. Fe is also the recipient of 2018 Toronto Theatre Critics' Awards for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Calpurnia.

References

  1. 1 2 Fricker, Karen (January 22, 2018). "Racial drama Calpurnia is smart and important — but imperfect". Toronto Star . Retrieved October 7, 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 Nestruck, J. Kelly (January 18, 2018). "Review: Calpurnia's inconsistent characters undermine a play with promise". The Globe and Mail . Retrieved October 7, 2020.
  3. 1 2 Sumi, Glenn (January 19, 2018). "Calpurnia will make you laugh, think and shift uncomfortably in your seat". NOW Magazine. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
  4. ↑ Nestruck, J. Kelly (May 18, 2021). "Should theatres re-open this fall - or this winter? Manitoba Theatre Centre and Tarragon Theatre seasons show different paths". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved June 22, 2021.
  5. ↑ Zoratti, Jen (March 18, 2022). "Arts institutions work to better represent city's diversity". Winnipeg Free Press. Retrieved March 25, 2022.
  6. 1 2 King, Randall (March 22, 2022). "Topical, timely comedy addresses uncomfortable questions of race, privilege and class". Winnipeg Free Press. Retrieved March 25, 2022.
  7. ↑ Brown, Brandon (March 2, 2018). "Calpurnia's Class Conundrum". Bashy Magazine. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
  8. ↑ "Audrey Dwyer and Catherine Hernandez on the intentional awkwardness of their new play Calpurnia". CBC . January 25, 2018. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
  9. ↑ Liebembuk, Shelley (April 12, 2018). "REVIEW: Labour Politics in Audrey Dwyer's Calpurnia Problematize Allyship". alt.theatre. Retrieved October 8, 2020.
  10. ↑ Green, Bailey (January 19, 2018). ""Race, Allyship & How the Past Informs the Present" In Conversation with Audrey Dwyer, playwright & director of CALPURNIA". In The Green Room. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
  11. ↑ Dwyer, Audrey (February 9, 2018). "Calpurnia and The Quest to Write the Truth". Shameless Magazine. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.