Prodigy focuses on a family of musicians
by AMY BARRATT
The “festival” of new English plays continued last week with two openings: Persephone Productions’ Prodigy, adapted from a novella by Nancy Huston; and Centaur Theatre’s Have a Heart, by playwright-in- residence David Sherman.
Huston, the Calgary-born author who lives in Paris, published French and English versions of Prodigy in 2000. The novella was subsequently adapted for the stage by French director Gabriel Garran and produced in Paris. Gabrielle Soskin, Persephone’s artistic director, got Huston herself to translate the adaptation into English for this production at the Théâtre Ste-Catherine. Karen Cromar, Nathalie Stechysin and Amelia Sargisson play three generations in a family of talented musicians.
Thematically, Prodigy reminded me (for different reasons) of two other recent creations. Having recently seen Anana Rydvald’s Section O on the same stage, I couldn’t help noting that both shows featured the image of a little girl hiding under a grand piano while her mother played. Both shows also address mental illness. Both shows have actresses speaking directly out to the audience. There is also a comparison to be made with Bye Bye Baby, Elyse Gasco’s stage adaptation of her own short stories, which is set for a remount at Centaur later this month. Mother-daughter relationships are central to both works.
Watching Prodigy made me think that Huston wrote it as fiction rather than drama because the material is more suited to the page than the stage. That’s not to say that this production doesn’t try hard to dramatize it. The tiny stage at TSC is completely dominated by an off-white baby grand piano. Although the imagery is appropriate—the characters’ lives are also dominated by the instrument—I worried at first that the three actresses would literally have nowhere to act. Soskin, who directs, has found some pretty creative solutions to this “problem” with her blocking. It’s the text itself, heavy on internal monologues, light on interaction between characters, that holds the production back.
The Mirror
The “festival” of new English plays continued last week with two openings: Persephone Productions’ Prodigy, adapted from a novella by Nancy Huston; and Centaur Theatre’s Have a Heart, by playwright-in- residence David Sherman.
Huston, the Calgary-born author who lives in Paris, published French and English versions of Prodigy in 2000. The novella was subsequently adapted for the stage by French director Gabriel Garran and produced in Paris. Gabrielle Soskin, Persephone’s artistic director, got Huston herself to translate the adaptation into English for this production at the Théâtre Ste-Catherine. Karen Cromar, Nathalie Stechysin and Amelia Sargisson play three generations in a family of talented musicians.
Thematically, Prodigy reminded me (for different reasons) of two other recent creations. Having recently seen Anana Rydvald’s Section O on the same stage, I couldn’t help noting that both shows featured the image of a little girl hiding under a grand piano while her mother played. Both shows also address mental illness. Both shows have actresses speaking directly out to the audience. There is also a comparison to be made with Bye Bye Baby, Elyse Gasco’s stage adaptation of her own short stories, which is set for a remount at Centaur later this month. Mother-daughter relationships are central to both works.
Watching Prodigy made me think that Huston wrote it as fiction rather than drama because the material is more suited to the page than the stage. That’s not to say that this production doesn’t try hard to dramatize it. The tiny stage at TSC is completely dominated by an off-white baby grand piano. Although the imagery is appropriate—the characters’ lives are also dominated by the instrument—I worried at first that the three actresses would literally have nowhere to act. Soskin, who directs, has found some pretty creative solutions to this “problem” with her blocking. It’s the text itself, heavy on internal monologues, light on interaction between characters, that holds the production back.
The Mirror
