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NEWS & EVENTS >Newletters
> January 2002
Vallejo Gantner, until recently, was Artistic Associate of the
Melbourne Festival in Australia who last year hosted NYC's own Wooster
Group, as well as the Frankfurt Ballet, Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre
Company, and St Petersburg's Kirov Opera. He has produced and directed
theatre in Australia for various companies including Horned Moon
Productions, of which he was a founding member, Hirano, and others.
He directed Louis Nowra's Inner Voices and was Assistant Director
on Elision Ensemble's Yue Ling Jie (Adelaide Festival 2000, Melbourne
Festival 2001). He is also a director of Arena Theatre Company,
the National Institute of Circus Arts in Australia and Mountain
Goat Beer. After Brer Rabbit, Vallejo becomes Director of the Dublin
Fringe Festival, where he will program and manage a three-week festival
of dance, new media, theatre, visual and performance art this September.
Q: How would you describe the spirit of the stories?
A: I think the themes of using your wits rather than brawn, and
never accepting defeat, infuse the stories with an extraordinary
sense of resilience. They were originally oral stories derived from
African and European myths, but they were told in the U.S. by slaves,
people who were so overwhelmingly oppressed, and these themes had
tremendous resonance.
Q: Why does Uncle Remus not appear in this adaptation?
A: He added nothing to the stories themselves apart from a narrative
device that we felt was unnecessary given the relatively simple
structure of the stories themselves and the visual way we will be
retelling them. This production is very physical - we are incorporating
elements of circus, and slapstick, and commedia del arte... Also,
to have used Uncle Remus would have immediately located the stories
in a context of U.S. slavery, which was one I didn't feel competent
(without having spent far more time in this country) to deal with.
The stories existed as myths, fables and histories long before Joel
Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus told them, and we are seeking to re-find
that core of the stories.
Q: What was the biggest challenge of adapting these stories
into a piece of theatre?
A: Wow. There were a lot of challenges. First of all, the short
amount of time we had was terrifying. And collaborating with two
other Co-Authors can get confusing - which stories we each like
best, who has the final revision, and we had differing opinions
about a lot of it. While Dave [Travis, Synapse Associate Director]
and I were choosing stories and translating them from the Joel Chandler
Harris into dialogue with a neutral dialect and stage directions
without a narrator, Nancy focused on the sequencing, the character
arcs and the throughline for the entire production. It was insane
how many emails and drafts flew around the world from New York to
Melbourne and back. And the phone bills were appalling. What ultimately
made the script come together was our love of the material and our
commitment to the project.
Q: You and Adrian [Jones, Scenic Designer] have set the play
in a rural junkyard. How did you come up with the production design?
A: It is more a funny, abstract and urban version of a pastoral
hill scene. We wanted to avoid locating the work in an environment
that was immediately recognizable, but we still wanted to provide
points of access for people who don't relate to a rural experience.
We wanted a combination of an urban environment and a fun reference
back to the rural setting in which the stories were originally set.
I also wanted the actors to be able to climb, play and hang from
the set. So Adrian came up with this. I really love it.
Q: How does music contribute to the production?
A: The musicians will be improvising and developing their work in
rehearsal, so we're not exactly sure yet. They'll provide a rhythm
and backbone to the whole play as well as a range of sound effects.
What's so great about having them is that these guys [Alessandro
Ricciarelli and Trevor Exter] are such phenomenally good musicians,
they can really have fun with it and try all sorts of different
stuff. Also, there are a couple of instrument-playing characters
in the stories, so that will be fun, too.
Q: What your favorite Brer Rabbit story?
A: I think my favorite story would have to be one called 'Laughing
Place' because it speaks most eloquently about the importance of
a kind of mental self-sufficiency and independent thought. After
a laughing competition that includes the audience, Brer Rabbit takes
Brer Fox to his 'Laughing Place.' When they get there, Rabbit tricks
Fox, who gets his head stuck in a hornet's nest! Brer Rabbit almost
dies laughing. He rejects the idea of the competition because his
own 'laughing place' allows him to laugh at the things he finds
funny - what happens to the others is their own problem.
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