Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute’ opens at BPA.
Vacation travel starts at home this holiday season.
For the price of a theater ticket, Bainbridge Performing Arts offers a special tour of an enchanted land where dragons cavort and paintings converse.
The wondrous realm is “The Magic Flute,” a new adaptation of the story Mozart set to music by BPA education director Steven Fogell, opening at the Playhouse this weekend.
Fogell found rich material in the story Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wove from elements of fairytale and fable.
Aficionados of folk literature will recognize the archetype in the quest that has protagonist Prince Tamino journey to save a beautiful princess from an evil sorcerer.
Other familiar fairy-tale elements can be found: Tamino is aided by three wise spirits and a magical animal helper, the comical half-bird, half-human Papagano.
And – perhaps comforting to older, as well as younger audience members – in the epic battle between Good and Evil, it is the bad guys who get theirs.
Elaborate sets and costumes, original choreography and visual art, mark the production, which has been in rehearsal since the end of September, as a full-fledged, mainstage BPA show.
For cast members who are veterans of BPA’s theater school and debut on the Playhouse mainstage with “The Magic Flute,” the increased demands of a full production have been something of a revelation.
“I’ve been in theater school before but this is my first mainstage (play),” said BHS freshmen Katie Donais, who plays a spirit. “A lot more people come and there are a lot more performances. For most (theater school shows) there are two weeks of practice. But this is more; you have to be there Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday for this.”
For BHS senior Ari Weinberg, the show marked not only a shift to the mainstage, but a shot at a starring role at BPA – and a first audition there. Like others trying out, she had to recite a monologue and then read from the script.
“I was really nervous, actually,” Weinberg said. “I didn’t think I prepared well enough, but I got a part.”
Weinberg was cast in an ensemble role, but the defection of a cast member early on left her with a starring role. She plays one of a trio of muses, a subordinate of the Queen of the Night.
“Basically I’m her little pawn,” Weinberg said. “I do whatever she wants me to do.”
Weinberg says that never having seen the opera version has proved an advantage, because she has not had to overcome a preconceived notion of the role.
And she is helped by her experience acting in BHS plays, including Monty Python skits from last year’s “Winter One-Acts,” and carrying a spear as a Roman soldier in last fall’s production of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”
Once the audition was out of the way, the biggest challenge was to develop the character she plays.
“I think the most difficult thing about acting most of the time is analyzing the character correctly,” Weinberg said. “But then you just have to sort of forget thinking about it and get into it. So I tried to balance those two things.”
She tackled the task of memorizing the long part by typing cards with her lines and the “cue line” before her speaking parts, and shuffling through the cards at home.
“My dad is really good about running lines with me,” she said. “He’s really nice to put up with me.”
The BPA production of “Magic Flute” features predominately high school-age actors, and the school year is in full swing, so the young performers must be a model of dedication to tackle such a complex theater project.
College applications make the first half of senior year especially demanding for seniors like Weinberg, who also carries several Advanced Placement courses.
But the time spent rehearsing “The Magic Flute” has been worth the time, Weinberg says, as she has savored the immersion into the world of magic.
“It’s unique from the other shows I’ve done because of its fairy-tale-like properties,” Weinberg said. “Those make it nostalgic, and the characters are just adorable.”
