Act One, The Butterflies Apatura Iris: Alison Gilroy Apatura Clythie: Audrey O’Gorman Ottokar, Fiancé to Clythie: Timothy Pace Victor, Everyone’s Friend: Mark Zenchuk Felix, a Poetic Soul: Allan Grant
Act Two, The Predators Chrysalis, about to be born: Jenny MacDonald Mr Dung Beetle: John MacLean Mrs Dung Beetle: Patricia Reid Another Dung Beetle: Stacy Anderson Mr Ichneumon Fly (a kind of hunting wasp): Don MacDougall Larva, his daughter: Sheila Jackson Mr Cricket: Michael Emond Mrs Cricket: Donna Christo A Parasite: Kristiana Painting
Act Three, The Ants First Engineer: Steven Cook-Abbott Second Engineer: Kristen Smith Blind Ant: Timothy Pace Inventor: Derek Kennedy Dictator: Mark Zenchuk Quartermaster: Aaron Sidenberg Journalist: Allan Grant Philanthropist: Kristiana Painting Signal Officer: Stacy Anderson Yellow Ant Leader: Michael Emond Chorus of Ants: Donna Christo Alison Gilroy Sheila Jackson Don MacDougall John MacLean Audrey O’Gorman
Epilogue First Snail/Puppeteer: Sheila Jackson Second Snail/Puppeteer: Aaron Sidenberg First Woodcutter: Steven Cook-Abbott Second Woodcutter: Kristen Smith
Crew Producer: Vince Brick Director: Stephen Johnson Dramaturge: Paul Rivers Choreographer: Michelle Hill Technical Director: Terry Shrive Stage Manager: Lisa Whalen ASM: Lisa-Marie Morris, Julie Payne, Rob James Set Design: Lauren McKinley Costume Design: Penelope Hammond Mask/Puppet Design: Christina Rozendaal Makeup Design: Stephen Clarke Lighting Design: Taras Cymbalisty Music/Sound Design: Cindy Carey Property Master: Greg Bride Master Technician: John MacLean Crew/Construction: Christina Rozendaal, Kerry Freeman, Lisa-Marie Morris, Kate Featherstone, Shirley Featherstone, John MacLean, Penelope Hammond, Javier Soyka, Sheila Jackson, Pamilita Cole, Kim Tuck Operators: Jennifer Rickets, Cindy Carey Makeup Assistants: Jen Tatone, Jennifer Covert, Christine Schuler
Musical Excerpts House Music: E. Varese: Amerique (1922) Prologue: E. Satie: Gymnopedie #1 (1888) G. Antheil: Violin Sonata #1 (1923) Act One: G. Tailleferre: Valse de Depeches (1920) Act Two: G. Antheil: Jazz Symphony (1924) G. Antheil: Violin Sonata (1923) Act Three: Mossolov: Iron Foundry (1927) Epilogue: E. Satie: Gymnopedie #3 (1888) G. Antheil: Violin Sonata (1923)
A NOTE ON THE PLAYWRIGHTS The artist Josef Capek (1887-1945) and the writer Karel Ñapek (1890-1938) were politically and culturally engaged. They played a small, but not unimportant, role in the establishment of Czechoslovakia, the only democratic republic in the midst of the chaos of postwar eastern Europe. They explored all of the most recent experiments of the early 1920s in their art and writing--Expressionism and Futurism in particular. Their creations were witty and inventive, their output prodigious, their popularity assured--at least in Karel's stories and the international theatrical hit Rossum's Universal Robots (source for the word `robot'). Ze zivota hmyzu (From the Life of the Insects) received productions in Brno, Prague, London, New York, and elsewhere.
Karel died just after Neville Chamberlain had struck an agreement with Hitler annexing the Sudetanland to Germany. Karel, it was said, `died of a stab through the heart from Chamberlain's umbrella.' Josef died in a concentration camp, consigned there, one supposes, for having been politically and culturally engaged.
A NOTE ON THIS ADAPTATION This is not a `translation' of Josef and Karel Ñapek's 1920 play, but an adaptation designed for contemporary production. The need for an adaptation was, for me, obvious. The three accessible existing `translations' of the complete text are quite old. Two of them are themselves `dated' adaptations, specifically rewritten for 1922 Broadway and London audiences, from an honest but untheatrical literal translation. In addition, the circumstances of the original productions--in the big, well-endowed National Theatre of Prague, and in the richest of commercial theatres--have tended to make the final published scripts read as if the play required grand expense and a cast of thousands that no one could afford today. They appear unproduceable as printed; and I can only imagine that anyone who pays the rights to these versions must, as a matter of practical necessity, `adapt' these hoary `adaptations'.
We might expect the play to have disappeared from the English language repertory under these circumstances; but it hasn't, quite. I hear, occasionally, that some form of it tours to public schools, and that high school drama classes sometimes use Mr. and Mrs. Dung Beetle and Mr. Fly for scenework and exercise. These are not full productions of the play, however, aimed at an adult sensibility. The play deserves more. It was the work of passionate men of the theatre and of the world, who made use of unorthodox and experimental theatrical techniques to explore a serious question--is there sufficient evidence of kindness, in a society apparently based on violent acquisitiveness and the abuse of others, to justify that society's continued existence? Despite the ease with which humor can be generated from this play, it does not treat the question lightly, nor give an easy answer.
It would be just too easy to say that this play is simply a cynically amusing, and therefore condescending, indightment of the world--as some early reviewers claimed. Not that a playwright hasn't the right to express that belief--and not that it isn't there in the text. A case in point: During the rehearsals that assisted in the development of this adaptation, the actor who played the Tramp read his lines in a variety of ways. In nearly every case, whenever a line was read with condescending cynicism, it worked--easily. But we knew that we could not rest there, because the Capeks were adamant that the play was more than this. We found more--the hope, the complex caring about the world that would drive a human being right away from his world. If the Tramp did not care, he would not bother to leave his world behind and look to the insects. He would not bother to live. He does, and so he does believe in something. That, I believe, is what the Capeks would have wanted us to find--the complexities of caring that lie just under the easy cynicism.
One by one, the following are apparently dismissed as selfish, meaningless, impossible, or all three--love, family, work, community, and religion. This is not quite true, however. The Capeks have written characters that care, that love, and that hope. The difficulty we have with them, and the source of the strongest satire, rests with the limits of their caring. Mr. and Mrs. Cricket care deeply for each other, just as Mr. Fly cares for his daughter. But all have drawn a circle around those things for which they care. Inside the circle, they focus their attention and lavish their sympathy, with however much frustration at their confinement. Outside the circle, the death of a cricket for the sake of one's daughter, or home, evokes no sympathy, no feeling, no caring. Nothing. This is true for every character. Only the radius of the circle changes, if you like. The Butterflies have drawn circles that include only themselves, the Beetles their families, the Ants their own anthill (read `culture'). None of these circles is large enough. The characters themselves may know this; but they are locked into the pattern of their caring, imprisoned by the circles they have drawn. They cannot escape without destroying the meaning of their world. The Tramp's cynicism comes from having cared too much for too many. His goal in this play is to diminish the size of his circle of caring, for sanity's sake. But as soon as he does, he diminishes himself as a human being.
PROGRAM NOTES FOR THE INSECT PLAY, 1998 VERSION
The Cast: Scott Atkinson: Ottokar, Mr Fly, Parasite, Ant Isaac Crosby: Felix, Mr Dung Beetle, Parasite, Ant Nicole Fougere: Chrysalis, Clythie, Larva, Parasite, Ant Kristiana Painting: Moth, Mrs Cricket, Parasite, Ant Richard Trevor-Williams: A Man Laryssa Yanchak: Iris, Mrs Dung Beetle, Parasite, Ant
The Crew: Adaptor, co-director and producer: Stephen Johnson Co-director and choreographer: Jennifer Johnson Chrysalis dance co-choreographer: Nicole Fougere Costume/Set designer: Lauren Renzetti Lighting Designer: Greg Bride Sound/Music composer: Simon Wood Videography: Timothy Lewis Stage Management: Luisa Fragale Dramaturgy: Erika Herrnsdorf and Gillian Stovel Operation and Construction: Shawna Green, Andrew Pritchard, David Renzetti, Pearl Van Geest
THE SOURCE The artist Josef Capek (1887-1945) and the writer Karel Capek (1890-1938) were politically and culturally influential men, who played a small but important role in the establishment of the Czechoslovakian Republic after World War One. They used all the most recent aesthetic to explore that turbulent and cynical postwar world, most famously in R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (which introduced the word "robot") and From the Lives of the Insects, both produced in the early 1920s. They continued to produce inventive theatrical works of fantasy-satire, as well as other writing and art, until the next great war ended their lives--Karel just after Neville Chamberlain had struck a deal with Hitler annexing part of his beloved new country, and Josef in a concentration camp. Their works were suppressed in their homeland until recently.
THE ADAPTATION Handmade Performance's The Insect Play uses the Capeks' script as the foundation for an original creative work. Those who know the play will find that we have followed the premise and general narrative, and most of their favourite characters are present in glorious insect-hood. But we have found contemporary equivalents to relationships where we believed the social conditions have changed, embellished characters we wanted to explore further, eliminated others for dramaturgical (and practical) reasons, and "translated" into movement, sound and design some of what, in the original, relied on words. We have been respectful to the Capeks' intention, and hope you will enjoy the results of our exploration.
THE SYNOPSIS A group of actors begin to rehearse "the fall of humanity." They invest one of their number with the role of "a man," and the other play all the other roles by turns. The "man" is lost in a technological world that confuses him with its size and speed. He limits his view to the insects, through which he sees the variety of human relationships. Butterflies play out their diva-roles, nearly breaking through their narcissistic rules of conduct toward intimacy. Mr. and Mrs. Dungbeetle share their love of the precious dungball they made together, and nothing else. Mr. Ichneumon Fly, a parasitic wasp, businessman and proud father, brags about the eating talents of his daughter, Larva. The lonely little Larva has dreams that she is really a cricket, hopping in a field full of company, instead of trapped in a hole. Mrs. Cricket, pregnant and missing a husband, talks about her new home while Fly plots her murder. A larger Parasite enters, attacks, and disperses, replaced by a bureaucracy of Ants, that seems harmless enough until infiltrated by an over-zealous stranger. Through all of this, a Chrysalis observes and, at the end, emerges from her cocoon. She insists on feeling everything she can, and on communicating with everyone she can--despite what she has seen. The play ends as it begins.
A NOTE ON INTERPRETATION The original script was criticized as cynical, leaving no hope for humanity in its comic-grotesque portrayal of relationships. The Capeks argued otherwise, and we explore that argument. The Capeks wrote characters that care, that love, and that hope. The difficulty we have with them, and the source of the strongest satire, rests with the limits of their caring. They have all drawn a circle around those things for which they care. Inside the circle, they focus their attention and lavish their sympathy, with however much frustration at their confinement. Outside the circle, the death of (for example) a cricket for the sake of one's daughter, or home, evokes no sympathy, no feeling, no caring. Nothing. This is true for every character. Only the radius of the circle changes, if you like. The Butterflies have drawn circles that include only themselves, the Beetles their families, the Ants their own anthill (read `culture'). None of these circles is large enough. The characters themselves may know this; but they are locked into the pattern of their caring, imprisoned by the circles they have drawn. They cannot escape without destroying the meaning of their world. The contradiction and complexity in this story is that we must limit the extent to which we care, in order to protect ourselves from danger, to order our world, to remain controlled and sane. But as soon as we stop caring for what lives beyond that circle, we diminish ourselves as sentient and ethical beings. The Chrysalis will not draw that circle. But then, how can she live? It is with this complexity in mind that the present adaptation was developed.