Creating Don Juan

What is Don Juan about?

The original story (in Moliere’s retelling) is about the escapades of Don Juan, a great lover and adventurer who relishes breaking all the rules and expectations of society. He seduces all he meets, he torments the pious, he mocks the dead, he refuses to pay his debts. Finally, he is punished for his transgressions by being dragged down to hell. It’s a very Catholic story. In A Slightly Isolated Dog’s adaptation, five faux-French performers retell the story in celebration and awe of Don Juan’s bravura, a boldness that perhaps everyone wishes they could imitate every now and then. But they wrestle with the harm that Don Juan causes to others and his completely self-serving actions, many of which are ethically/morally dubious. And finally, the troupe can’t escape the ridiculousness of their mundane, messy, ordinary relationships … especially when the audience is so very attractive. So it is also a celebration of the distance between us and Don Juan, about the fear and guilt that holds us back - a celebration of living in a constant state of desire in our everyday lives.

Why French? 

JP (deviser/performer): There are perhaps two answers to this question, a logical one based on the historical play we were drawing on, and a less logical but probably more important reason to do with the contemporary situation we felt we were in while making the show. So, to get the logical out of the way, one of the best known theatrical adaptations of the Don Juan story was written by the French playwright, Moliere. That’s the text we drew from and whose dramaturgical structure is, surprisingly, still relatively intact in our version. So the idea of French accents was probably sparked by Moliere’s presence in the work. 

But this connection is less important than what the accents do for us — they are a little gateway into a way of playing that helps us generate a particular feeling. When we began making, Gene was very clear what the show had to feel like: a sexy party where the actors are in constant relationship with the audience; a celebration of our ridiculous love-lives; and a chance for our audience to be and feel bolder than they usually do. Then the question is how to do that. If you tell someone they look absolutely ravishingly beautiful in a thick Kiwi accent they’ll think you’re up to no good. But by adopting a ridiculous accent your relationship to the audience completely changes. They understand they are part of a game, they get it immediately, maybe they get a little playful or flirty themselves and, even though it’s all pretend, they’re actually more open to really hearing that they’re gorgeous or stunning or sexy or whatever. It’s quite a lovely thing. 

What is your approach and style of story-telling in the work?

LGP (Director): I feel like the theatre is often obsolete. It’s based on a Victorian model, or it’s tied into this cinematic notion of audience relationship where you come in and sit there, and as actors we play a part, and we’re very good actors so you can watch us, and it’s amazing that you can watch us live. And that’s the notion I feel with most shows I see, that that is what I’m supposed to be appreciating. Some sort of art that’s ‘good for me’. But I don’t understand how it is good for me. And I feel often as theatre makers we don’t understand why or how anything is useful for anyone.

But, it is absolutely useful for us to come together and to play. I think that the need to build community is clear and crucial. So in making theatre I start to ask myself ‘what are the things that could help us come together and play?’ It’s like when you go to a fancy-dress party, and what makes a party really good is when everyone is on the same vibe, and everyone is just dancing and they commit. When a dance floor is great, it’s a magnet. When it’s bad, everyone just leaves.

So from there we think about what are the conditions or qualities that help us create that type of vibe in the theatre. You want people to be relaxed and having a great time, and laughing, and to feel comfortable being cheeky and playful. And that starts to inform how the space is set up, whether audience lights are turned on or off. Or if we have a bar in the theatre.

And I mean, the real joy of this work is you just get to tell people they are attractive for an hour.

Tell us more about the process of creating theatre like this.

The work is never finished, which can be very difficult. It would be amazing if we could make a perfect show, but the quicker we can acknowledge that we can’t, the better our lives will be. I still struggle with that sometimes. In rehearsal we’re always just playing and testing.

We try to bring people into rehearsal really early. As we’re creating scenes we want people in there playing with us. We just practice playing with people and learning as much as we can about bringing them into the story.

We spend a lot of the time talking about what the central questions in the work mean to us and how they manifest themselves in our lives. … That’s a thing we all do in the process of creating the work - we share our personal experiences of all those feelings and questions we are trying to express with our audience. 

Tell us more about the techniques you’re drawing on in your approach to audience interaction.

Some of the forms that we’re playing with and that inspire this work are very traditional, but at the same time, the show itself doesn’t fall into any of those categories. It’s not a Commedia show, or a bouffon show, or a clown show, but it uses elements of these different forms that are really theatrically aware.

These forms thrive when there is a connected relationship with the audience. So we made a choice that as performers we wanted to acknowledge the fact we were telling the story the whole time. And so the five performers who are telling the story, and their relationship to the audience evolves in its own way too. Their story unfolds along with Jekyll’s. That is as much, if not more so, the narrative of the show. And when the cast chat with audience directly, the audience become storytellers too. We build community, and trust, and a relationship, and a kind of complicite so we can all have this romp together.

The work just wants to be honest.