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Culture Stage

Eyes on the prize

FORTUNE AND MEN’S EYES by John Herbert, directed by Stefan Dzeparoski, with David Coomber, Julian DeZotti, Cyrus Faird and Alex Fiddes. Presented by Birdland Theatre at Dancemakers Studio (9 Mill, studio 313). Previews Sunday (September 1), opens Tuesday (September 3) and runs to September 8, 8:08 pm. $20-$29. totix.ca or brownpapertickets.com. See listing.


Birdland Theatre’s made its reputation on a trio of American plays: The Last Days Of Judas Iscariot, Assassins and Gruesome Playground Injuries.

Now the company tackles its first Canadian script, the classic and rarely produced Fortune And Men’s Eyes.

John Herbert’s play, involving a quartet of men in a prison cell, is for many a gay story – a brave focus when it was written in 1963. Two of the four characters are overtly queer, and all engage in homosexual acts.

“But I am more interested in the individuals here than in seeing it as just a gay work,” says Birdland resident director Stefan Dzeparoski. “Instead, I’m looking at the spiritual, intellectual and emotional conflicts that arise from the prison’s rigid structure.

“I think Herbert was concerned with the idea of the individual versus society, and what he explores is what happens when you strip people of all that makes them human. What is it that they retain to define themselves? What happens when you are denied the freedom to be who you are in the way that you want?”

Download associated audio clip.

He’d find similar themes, says Dzeparoski, if the four were terrorists or illegal immigrants.

At the play’s start we meet macho Rocky, in-your-face queer Queenie and shy, effeminate Mona. The naive Smitty becomes their cellmate and, over the course of the play, changes in ways that aren’t pleasant.

“They are all in different ways labelled as ‘other’ because they don’t fit into a conventional structure or system. In other words, they’re sentenced not only to prison but also to a life with no future. Either you have to alter or you’re lost.

“Their prison cell is a microscopic reflection of society’s inner workings, and even today, 50 years after it was written, Herbert’s play reflects patterns and situations we’re still dealing with.”

Rocky seems the toughest of the four, but Dzeparoski sees him as only trying to be the cell’s dominant alpha male. Queenie, he notes, is a “jester in this really weird palace, someone who knows everything and plays the fool to survive. After a gang rape, Mona separates body and spirit, mind and emotion, and is the character most alienated from him/herself.

“But it’s Smitty, the absolute innocent, who has the play’s major dramatic arc, slowly embodying the jail’s principles of social behaviour. He’s transformed from an ingenuous character, not just in literal terms but also spiritually and emotionally, into an evil man.”

Despite the sharp-edged material and language, there’s a fair amount of humour in the script.

“The laughs, though, come from fear,” suggests the director. “The comedy helps these four young people stay alive. By poking fun at each other, they somehow acknowledge to each other their humanity, that they exist for themselves and the others.”

By the way, don’t expect a traditional production. There won’t be a simple jail cell, and Dzeparoski handles the script’s fifth character, a bent guard, in an unusual fashion.

“Aesthetically, I’m interested in using design to reinforce the narrative, as I did for Gruesome Playground Injuries [which included chained torsos constructed of bubble wrap]. The visual aspect of theatre is important it’s another narrative, not just there to set a certain physical geography, but to help us tell the characters’ hidden, inner stories.

“Our prison is a merger of the four characters’ different perspectives on the situation they find themselves in. I want to suggest how their views affect them, and make that visible to the audience.

“Traditional prison walls and beds,” he says, smiling, “aren’t part of the concept.”

Interview Clips

Fortune And Men’s Eyes as a Canadian classic:

Download associated audio clip.

Restoring a cut line:

Download associated audio clip.

jonkap@nowtoronto.com

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