Doran Bell in
Good Woman of Setzuan

agine that you are a writer, and you have

just been given an assignment that has
caused a minor dilemma. You must perceive

how an audience will interpret a play. In this

ase, the Douglas College production of The

Good Women of Setzuan. Keeping in mind your
target audience will for the most part be college
students, you don’t want a lame preview of a col-
lege play. However, your dilemma is compounded
by the fact that you haven't even seen this play
yet. So you can scramble to get as much literature
on this play as humanly possible, but then it may
turn into an essay. Perhaps you might do some
research on the playwright, Bertolt Brecht, but no.
Then the preview would be in danger of turning
into a biography of the playwright. So what to do?

Eventually a writer must rely on the best
possible source available.

The only real experts in this situation are the
actors who perform in the play. So it was with great
haste and wide-eyed enthusiasm that I arranged
an interview with DC drama student Doran Bell,
one of the actors featured in the Good Woman of

The Other Press

 

 

March 22, 1995

 

Am actor’s DO unt of view

OP'er Paul Andrew talks to Doran Bell about a Good Woman

Setzuan.

Doran Bell is in his first year of the two year
drama program here at Douglas College. He is a
very well spoken individual, and was very eager
to talk about the production of Good Woman, and
the psychological challenges of becoming a pro-
fessional actor. We also talked for awhile about
the ‘play within a play’ concept, which is the form
this play will follow. And how it is sometimes dif-
ficult to get that idea across to an audience.

So how is this play different from last terms
production of ‘Our Country’s Good’, which also
had the ‘play within a play’ theme?

I would have to say the difference in this play
is the constant reminders...the music, that's a big
part of it. Our Country’s Good was a play within
a play, but it was more understood. Whereas this
one takes you by surprise, all of a sudden it’s right

_ in your face. It’s like [the audience will think] what

are they doing ; they’re singing now...now she’s
doing a poem, where did that come from? And
then you have to slide back into you character
again. It’s very different from Our Country’s
Good.

So there are interruptions that aren’t ex-
plained.

Exactly.

What is your role in the play?

I play an ex-pilot (Yang Sun) who is an abu-.”

sive lover. She (Shen Te) falls in love with me,
and I basically exploit her by getting her to sell
her shop to raise money for my re-entrance into
flying school.

Do you find it difficult preparing for a rol le
like this?

 
  

outside my personal ‘chéitacter, because I’m not

like this... he’s very rough. He's $ the-kind of char-

acter who can’t make up his mind. One® m t
he'll be soft and gentle with Shen Te, and t en,
the next moment in the same scene, he’ II be rous -
ing her up...as if he doesn’t care about her. He’s a
two fold character.

Like a borderline schizoid type character?

Exactly. And the one thing that drives this
border-line schizoid character is the fact that he
wants to fly again, he wants to get up in the air
again, and he’ll do anything to get it. Even if it
means he has to marry this girl just for her money.

 
  

For this particular character, I have to step’

If you make a direct parallel to our society,
Shen Te is basically like the welfare system...and
there’s a lot of people, whether they need it or
not, who totally. abuse it. They just keep taking
from Shen Tegand it drives her down.

Sol can tel that tg re really getting into it
so far, and you re
self.

 

   
    
     
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
  
  
  
   
  
  
   
  
  
  
 
  
  
  
  
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
    
 
 
       
 

r m really i sbi

that I’ve
e theatre

I wani

ore about your
personal tho

od Women of
Setzuan.’ :

(laughs) Okay. Personally, I’m not very fond
of the way Brecht writes. I mean he’s a political
writer. He doesn’t write for actors to show off their
talents in how good they can dramatize a scene.

 

He writes to get a message across, So I think, ina |

strong sense, it’s a very good challenge for ac-
tor’s to do a play like this...to make it entertain-
ing.

So it’s not a naturally dramatic play?

Exactly. The challenge is to make it natural,
and to present it in an entertaining way...that’s the
allenge. Of course there’s a message to every-
atch, but people want to be entertained.
ink Allan [Lysell] is excellent.
at were originally in the
ause it would only
ery straight-forward
ad a lot of actors say:

se. If we can convert it,
e’ Il just cut it and replace

fink people who don’t know
play will interpret it.? People
‘play or put it into a category.

thing you mentioned. But in gen-
ople will interpret it as a play about
0 gets exploited.

issic case of exploitation.

iter you leave Douglas, do you plan on
king a career in theatre?

I’m definitely going to do more theatre when
ave Douglas. But I would also like to get in-
lved in more film. The reason I chose theatre
is, unless you’re a really big name and you know
people on the inside, you’re not going to get the
lead roles. So you’ ve got to start somewhere, and
I think theatre is an excellent place to start. Also,
when you’ re in theatre, the actor is more free. You
don’t get stereo-typed as much as when you go
into the so called ‘real world’...the film world. I
get a chance to do a lot of things in theatre that I
know I would never get to do on film.

The Good Woman Of Setzuan runs
March 24 to April 1 (except March 27) in
the Douglas College Performing Arts Thea-
tre in New West, daily at 8 pm, with a two-
for-one matinee on Apri 1 @ 2:00 p.m.

For tickets or information, call 527-5488.

A gender-inverted Misanthrope, right here at DC

A classic play comes to modern days

review by somebody or other

Written by Leonard Angel
Directed by Charles Siegel
Gastown Equity Co-Op Productions

If there is any subject that enter-
tains me more than bagels and cheese,
it’s making fun of fake people. Fake
people- you know, the ones who kiss
you on the cheek when you walk in the
door, and then turn around and talk
about you when you walk away...

This is the subject of Moliere’s
play ‘Misanthrope,’ and entertainingly
brought to modern days by Douglas
College’s very own philosophy instruc-
tor \ playright Leonard Angel.

In this version of Misanthrope, the
setting is one of the fakest places I can
think of - the movie industry. Alice,
played by Lois Anderson, is the dis-
traught ‘real person’ writer who is the
pure soul in a group of bigwig
hollywood ‘friends’. Alice doesn’t talk
behind people’s backs, and lets the other
backstabbers in her crowd know it.
Unfortunately for her, Alice is madly
in love with the fakest, smoothest guy

in the crown, the movie producer
Soloman, played by Michael Kopsa.
The play revolves around Alice attempt-
ing to break Soloman away from his
fake life of woman, parties and movie
deals and into a ‘genuine’ love for her.

This isn’t apt to happen, as Phyllis,
Alice’s best friend, played by Sue
Elworthy, trys to explain to her the
length of the performance. Phyllis’ job
in the play is to wake Alice up to the
reality of Hollywood life and get her to
dump Soloman. She attempts to convice
Alice she should try for the nice-guy-
but-plays-the-game Eli, the entertain-
ment accountant who has got it bad for
Alice’s genuine ways, even through
Phyllis wants him for herself.

The batttle of love and wills is
extremely entertaining throughout the
play. The first act, in the den of
Solomans’ Vancouver condo, does a
fantastic job of introducing the charac-
ters. The second act begins as Frankie,
Alice’s rap-preformer friend played by
Catherine Lough takes the stage to
entertain with her rapster lingo. After
the numerous chuckles this generates

from the audience, the remaining dialog
suddenly slips into rhyme after rhyme,
which quickly grows irritating, consid-
ering the script’s potential at the begin-
ning.

The acting quality in the play was
better than I have seen in a long while.
Alice proves an exciting watch, and
Soloman, with Mr. Kapsa’s trademark
sexy booming voice, proves a fufilling
counterpart. The stage design was in-
teresting, with the break out of the VCR
and TV at one point to give a movie-
in-a-movie effect. However, the back-
drops and lighting weren’t interesting
in the slightest. The pale colors of the
set and unrealistic paint job didn’t add
to the play at all, but did centre the at-
tention completely on the redeeming
acting.

Misanthrope runs until April 1
and my take is 3 stars of 5. See the play.
It'll run you $10 ($8 Saturday matinee)
to see some great acting and a play that
managed to keep me interested from the
beginning to the end. And, it’s a wrtten
by a Douglas instructor! Get real, see
Misanthrope.

 

DC's own Leonard Angel (seated) wrote Misanthrope

 

 

w do I do these lines?’ :

mantic play? Ora violent play? ©