PL AYBILL the play’s the thing
the play’s the thing ferenc molnÁr adapted by p.g. wodehouse }{
approximate running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. there will be one 20 min intermission
ARTIST NOTE: DIEGO MATAMOROS We’re laughing... a lot, in rehearsal. Hoping the play and its magic will translate itself into moments undefined and undefinable. This is the third time I’ve played Sandor Turai for Soulpepper over a span of some 15 years and I’m finally about the right age for the character. This entire cast is outstanding and every day I look forward to working with all of them. The stage manager Nancy Dryden and the entire crew are no less admirable to me for all that they contribute on a daily basis. Victoria Wallace is one of my very favourite designers and she’s also always there to help solve design ‘stuff’ as it comes up. Our director László Marton is a dear and trusted friend whom I’ve worked with now for nearly 30 years, he’s been my great theatre master over all these years and I respect and love him dearly for all that he is and does for us at Soulpepper.
this: You enter a large, strange building and go to a little booth and pay some money. They give you a little piece of paper. You take your little piece of paper, go and check your coat at another stall and someone else there takes your coat and gives you another little piece of paper. You take your first piece of paper and at another door give it to a stranger in black who allows you to enter this large empty space full of seats in rows. You find your seat and sit down amongst strangers and you’re asked to turn off anything that might keep you in contact with the outside world. You wait. You start to wonder how it is that you ever got there in the first place and then suddenly and all at once the lights dim, the room goes dark, (someone coughs) and then... well... there you are... that’s the theatre for you.
Inspired by a story László told us one afternoon about what Molnár described as ‘Theatre’ I’ll give you my version of what ‘the theatre’ really is. It goes something like p roduc t ion s p on sor
DIEGO MATAMOROS, Sandor Turai in The Play’s the Thing