With high stakes and truly operatic drama, That Bastard, Puccini! makes its delightful world premiere at Park Theatre this July
In the times of yore, a great rivalry emerged in Italy. Ruggero Leoncavallo and Giacomo Puccini, both friends and foe, have set their eyes on creating a great opera of the enchanting love story La Boheme. Both claim to have the right to the tale; Leoncavallo believes that Puccini stole the idea from him, while Puccini states that it was his to begin with, the suspicious timing a mere coincidence. This culminates in a desperate rush to the finish, a competition to see who can finish their opera first and with the most widespread acclaim. With his wife Berthe holding pretty much everything together, the three have it out over the approximate two hours of this play, a piece littered with laughs, high drama, and music.
Playwright James Inverne creates a scintillating spectacle of this largely unknown piece of history. When La Boheme comes up in contemporary day-to-day life, usually one name is recalled: Puccini. The notion that someone else may have the true claim to fame of this opera recalls something akin to cognitive dissonance. Inverne unearths the chaos that developed behind the scenes with wit and fast-paced vivacity.
With only three actors onstage (Lisa-Anne Wood as Berthe, Sebastien Torkia as Puccini, and Alasdair Buchan as Leoncavallo), the piece takes on an ambitious number of other characters, with actors openly debating who should pretend to be who, a pleasing sprinkle of meta-theatre into the mix. The performances are highlighted by Torkia’s command of the stage, Buchan’s bedraggled panic, and Wood’s chameleon-like multiplicity. Berthe in particular offers quite a challenge: with the most number of side-characters to play and some opera thrown in to perform, Wood amazes in her ability to embody whatever the circumstances require. While Berthe’s character seems to exist mostly in service of the storyline of her male counterparts, Wood makes Berthe stand out as an individual.
The spirit of meta is compounded nicely with intentional anachronisms and an overarching self-awareness, packaging this play neatly into a parcel of joyful silliness. This production knows that it is not performing a pensive tragicomedy that will spark national debate on the topic of ownership and storytelling. It’s fun and silly and tender and offers audiences a chance to disconnect and just have a giggle for an evening. Inverne seems to have set out to make a play that audience members will truly have a laugh watching, something that we all could do with a bit more of.
That Bastard, Puccini! plays at the Park Theatre until 9th August. Tickets are available here.