RESERVOIR DOGS “LIVE” by Quentin Tarantino, adapted and directed by John Christian Quinn, with Quinn, David MacKay, Jack Grinhaus, Drew Coombs, Irving Broughton, Robert Collins and Andy Frost. Presented by Johnny Q Productions at 376 Dufferin. Opens Tuesday (September 9) and runs to October 4, Tuesday-Saturday 8 pm. $20. 416-683-0270. Rating: NNNNN
You’ve got to give actor/producer John Christian Quinn credit for chutzpah, if not smarts. He’s been a fan of Quentin Tarantino’s neo-noir botched heist flick Reservoir Dogs since he was a Trent student a decade ago, and for the past five years has conceptualized how he’d like to mount it for the stage. Now, countless conversations with Tarantino’s lawyer and tens of thousands of dollars later, the actor’s ready to don those iconic shades and zip up into one of six black suits for a theatre adaptation of the cult classic.
A bit of background. Quinn’s never directed before. Never produced. And his parents have remortgaged their home to finance the show.
“Yeah, I went big, I know that,” he admits a week before the play’s opening at a warehouse at Dufferin and Queen. “But a couple of years ago I used to be a guy who worked at the Keg and told people he wanted to produce, direct and star in Reservoir Dogs. My then girlfriend told me she was sick of hearing me just talk about it. Now when people ask, I can tell them I’m finally doing it.”
Quinn says the film’s dialogue – Tarantino’s script remains untouched – and the fact that most of the action takes place in one location seemed very theatrical to him.
“I don’t want people to think they’re going to be at a theatre where they sit in one spot and they’re separate from the action,” he says about the production. “This is going to be very raw, immediate. The audience is stuck in the middle of this diamond heist gone wrong, with mayhem happening all around them.”
Some of that mayhem includes the notorious scene where Quinn’s character (Mr. Orange) gets his ear ripped off and he’s left in a chair bleeding from the wound.
“At first we were going to cheat and have me turn away from the audience,” he laughs. “But we’ve got an amazing makeup artist. You’re going to see Mr. Blonde cut off the ear, the lights will go off, and when the lights come back on, it’s really going to look like this guy’s missing an ear.”
After denying Quinn the rights to the project last year, Tarantino’s lawyer granted them this winter, but only if there was no tampering with the script and only if the show remained a not-for-profit amateur production.
“It was important that I receive Tarantino’s blessing,” says Quinn. “They didn’t want the show to become a three-ring circus. As for the script, I know the fans who are coming to see the show are coming to see Tarantino, not my interpretation.”
glenns@nowtoronto.com
