Shakespeare & Company presents Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost
Lenox — Shakespeare & Company welcomes internationally renowned director Irina Brook for her highly anticipated adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost, marking her inaugural production with the Company as its first-ever Director in Residence. The Canterville Ghost plays in the new Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre September 19 through November 9. Press opening is September 27 at 7:30pm. To RSVP or to arrange interviews, contact Publicity Director Elizabeth Aspenlieder at (413) 637-1199 ext 110 or aspenlieder@shakespeare.org.The new Elayne P. Bernstein theatre is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible. Performances in the evenings begin at 7:30 p.m. and in the afternoons at 2:00 p.m. There are also morning performances at 11:00 a.m. on October 9, 16, 23, 30 and November 6. Seating is general admission, and tickets are $36 for previews and $48 for September 27th and all performances thereafter. For a complete listing of productions and schedules, to inquire about student, senior, Berkshire resident and Rush Tix, or to receive a brochure, please visit the website at www.shakespeare.org or call the Box Office at (413) 637-3353. For special group rates and activities, contact Group Sales Manager Victoria Vining at (413) 637-1199 ext. 132.
Wilde’s enchanting tale turns the traditional ghost story on its head, placing a tortured but hapless ghost at the center, as all the traditional tricks in the book fail to scare away a very modern, very American family from their newly purchased English manor. As freely adapted by Brook and the company, this updated take on The Canterville Ghost is both a playful send-up of Victorian horror stories and a wicked satire of American consumerist values juxtaposed with an English insistence on tradition for its own sake.
The Canterville Ghost is Brook’s first full production at Shakespeare & Company (she directed The Island of Slaves for last year’s Studio Festival of Plays). Born in Paris and also spending time in England and the United States during her award-winning, globetrotting career as an actress and then director, Brook has been working in Paris for the past ten years. She has won five Moliere Awards and is a Chevalier (Knight) in France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Brook purchased a farmhouse in Great Barrington this summer and moved her family to the Berkshires in order to pursue an artistic partnership with the Company as its first Director in Residence. She will direct multiple productions each season, and join the full-time artistic staff.
“I realized that however successful my work in France could be, it would never go anywhere else because of the language barrier—which seemed crazy to me, because I’m English!” Brook says. “I was introduced to Tina Packer on a visit to New York, and at first sight I really felt there was something that connected us. I felt related to her.”
The Canterville Ghost leaps to life through the unconventional rehearsal process Brook favors for literary adaptations. She provided the cast with only the text of Wilde’s story, and the creative team collaborated through improvisation to develop a script. Brook has previously used this technique for adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, and Thorton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey.
“It’s a dangerous way to work but its one that I like enormously. It’s like tightrope walking without a net, a type of theatre we invent as we go along,” Brook says. “We arrive on the first week of rehearsal with nothing but actors and the text—which is not yet a play. The rest really is something that emerges from everyone’s creativity. That’s the wonderful thing about the creative process; one can jump in at the deep end and somehow hope that the magic of theatre will appear.”
The production is rooted in Wilde’s text, a story of the Otis family, which has moved to Canterville Chase, an English manor haunted by a previous occupant, Sir Simon. The Canterville Ghost enacts every tried-and-true theatrical trick to scare away the Americans, from making bloodstains appear on the carpet to rattling his chains at night. These techniques just inspire the practical, no-nonsense family to take care of things with brand name carpet cleaner and metal lubricant. The story turns on the question of whether the family’s young child, Virginia, will make a leap of faith and empathize with the ghost enough to allow him to finally find peace.
“It’s very funny, very witty, very Oscar Wilde—but it has real emotional resonance and depth behind it,” says Brook. “It turns from all that wonderfully written silliness into something completely beautiful, heartfelt, and profound. It’s ultimately about love conquering all, and forgiveness.”
Founder and Artistic Director Tina Packer says she’s delighted about the artistic possibilities that will develop with the arrival of Brook on the Company’s artistic staff.
“Our ideals are very much aligned. We feel similarly about the role of theatre in the life of our society. And she wanted to live in a community where she could see the impact her work his having. Since we’ve expanded our schedule through the winter, it’s an excellent time to see how Irina can fit into the gestalt of Shakespeare & Company,” Packer says.
Each member of the highly talented cast will play multiple roles. The cast is led by Associate Artistic Director Michael Hammond (who plays the title role as well as Lord Canterville, The Hypnotist, and Mrs. Umney), who appears as Iago in the box office smash Othello; it also includes Dana Harrison, Alyssa Hughlett, Alexandra Lincoln, and Michael F. Toomey, who appears in The Ladies Man and Othello this season.
