On Stage
Lookout Qatar
Love, Revolution and Redemption We go behind the scenes to talk to the crew of Les Miserables, which was recently staged here in the city by amateur dramatics group, the Doha Players. BY AYSWARYA MURTHY
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROBERT ALTAMIRANO
THE ENTRANCE to the Doha Players villa is blocked by a long, towering barricade, the same one that will be used a few days later by the students Marius and Enjolras to make their last stand against the French Army. To the right, and out of sight, sounds of hammering and drilling filter in as props for the other scenes are erected. The inside of the villa is a colorful, chaotic vortex of props, set pieces and costumes and it feels distinctly, even comfortingly, Bohemian. It is as if the villa is the fret-free zone in which the members of Doha’s most venerable and vibrant am-dram group – bankers, students, engineers, media professionals, housewives – shake off the order of their day-lives and explode into the creative mist that hangs heavily in the air. Elaine Potter, who has been an active member of the group for over eight years, acquaints us with the various pieces of the puzzle that will come together on stage at the Qatar National Theater, giving Doha a chance to catch the world’s most famous and long-running musical, Boubil and Schönberg’s Les Miserables. “It has entertained over 265 million people in 42 countries,” she says as she points out some of the more significant set pieces (“This is a garden at Valjean’s house where Marius confesses his love for Cosette, and here is the sewer through which Valjean carries an unconscious and wounded Marius after the students’ uprising goes south.”). Stunning as they are, it’s even more of a shock when we bump into the person who has been working on these elaborate period pieces, Virginia Christopher, who confesses she has never done anything like this before her whole life. On the walls surrounding her hang pictures and posters from the group’s past productions dating back to more than 20 years. With more than 130 crew and actors gearing up to stage six shows during the coming week, this isn’t even their biggest production, Potter says. But it is certainly something they have had their eye on for a while. “While we traditionally lean more towards pantomimes, some of our members have always wanted to stage Les Mis, and the license for amateur groups was made available only last year. In fact, it’s not yet been made available to amdram groups within the UK,” says Potter. So this could very well be among the first Les Mis performances by any amateur group in the world. While the musical numbers are being performed with help from the Doha Singers and Doha Community Orchestra, the group had to pay for some of the music, which called for a few unusual instruments.
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T Qatar: The New York Times Style Magazine
The seven-member board that currently oversees operations at the Doha Players is in the middle of a meeting, brainstorming some last-minute details over homemade popcorn. Allison Pressley is social chairperson, who manages the group’s membership. Auditions were particularly tough, she says. With Doha’s exploding expat community looking for any sort of creative distraction, the applications came pouring in. “We had to turn away over a hundred people,” she says. Haven Tsang, the expert on lights who spends all the performances in the lighting booth, nods in agreement. “Casting Cosette was so difficult because out of the 15-20 girls who auditioned, four were incredibly good and it was almost impossible to pick one,” he says. But pick they did, and they were even fortunate enough to find a very similar-looking actor to play the older Cosette. A little stage-like setup within the villa is right now stacked with boxes of props and costumes, but it’s hard to imagine over 47 actors, understudies and all, rehearsing in that tiny space for over three months. A handful of them have community theatre experience and a few have even been on West End, but most of them are there on a journey of experimentation and discovery. Today there are no rehearsals, though. A couple of actors trickle in to don their costumes and makeup for the promo shots, tastefully done and extending an irresistible invitation to theater-lovers across the city to witness this timeless tale of love, revolution and redemption during 19th-Century France brought to life at the beautiful and criminally-underused Qatar National Theater. While it is a bit overwhelming to be given a tour of the villa and see at first hand the mind-blowing amount of time and effort being poured into the production, the more incredible story is that of the group itself. With Qatar’s shifting population and changing landscape, both literally and culturally, it’s astounding to think the group has not only survived but thrived since it was first founded in the 1950s, consistently churning out memorable productions like The King and I, The Sound of Music, Grease, Sinbad the Sailor, Uncle Vanya, Annie and more. Even as we sit down eagerly to review Les Mis, we are already looking forward to Doha Players’ next production, Black Comedy by Peter Shaffer. Les Miserables was staged from May 13 - 17.