Interview with Paul van Dyck
Oroonoko: the past is present,
By Sharman Yarnell/ The Montrealer / January, 2013
Just in time for Black History Month, Director, Paul Van Dyck is adapting Oroonoko for a stage presentation.
Oroonoko is the 17th century novel writtenby Aphra Behn, who wrote what is considered to be the first humanitarian book. Aphra Behn was a woman. She was a spy for King Charles ll. She was a political activist. She was bi-sexual. She was a woman ‘born before her time.'
Virginia Woolf once wrote, “All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn... for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.”
Expanding on Behn’s novel, Van Dyck compares the slave trade and the treatment of blacks to the plight of women in society then and now. The story remains in the 1800's with two timelines and two stories running at the same time.
One story, the original, is the story of the black prince captured and sold into slavery. The other is of a young woman whose “views, manners and profession are ahead of her time”. Van Dyck felt “the play demands it” (the two stories). Times are better now but the repression is still there.” (All this following on the heels of the rape and murder of a young woman in India is most timely).
The young woman in the story is author, Aphra Behn, who achieved quite a feat in her time. She made a living as an author – hard enough to do in present times, one can only imagine the difficulties she faced in the 17th century. Behn is considered to be the firstprofessional woman writer of English literature. It is ironic that the first humanitarian book is written by a woman. Yet women today are still facing such difficult times the world over.
Van Dyck spent some time in Africa (Ghana where Behn’s story starts off), working on a film set. He stayed in an old castle built by Germans that was used for the slave trade. On one side of the castle was an “exuberant village” that juxtaposed against the castle that started slaves off on a trip to the horrors to come. It made him think. He thought of that castle again when reading a copy of Oroonoko given him by a friend. So taken with the story, “I read it in a day. It just led itself into becoming a play and the more I read about Aphra Behn, the more I realized there was another story here that had to be told”.
Tell it he does. The play has Aphra Behn as an older woman recounting the story of the young black prince to ‘Clarice’, who later becomes the young Aphra Behn in the second act.
The story of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and that of Aphra Behn and other women like her, indeed begs to be told. And what better way than through a live stage production. With a cast of nine actors, featuring Rebecca Croll as Aphra Behn and Jaa Smith-Johnson as Oroonoko, the production will also feature live African music performed by Dumisizwe “Vuyo” Bhembe.
Whether it serves as a history lesson or as entertainment, this Oroonoko is not to be missed.
“The world is as it is. You cannot save it Aphra Behn but you can start to change it....”
As can we all....
Oroonoko, produced by Persephone Productions, will open at the Mai Theatre on February 6 and run until February 17. For tickets – Box Office: 514 982-3386
theMontrealerOnline.com
By Sharman Yarnell/ The Montrealer / January, 2013
Just in time for Black History Month, Director, Paul Van Dyck is adapting Oroonoko for a stage presentation.
Oroonoko is the 17th century novel writtenby Aphra Behn, who wrote what is considered to be the first humanitarian book. Aphra Behn was a woman. She was a spy for King Charles ll. She was a political activist. She was bi-sexual. She was a woman ‘born before her time.'
Virginia Woolf once wrote, “All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn... for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.”
Expanding on Behn’s novel, Van Dyck compares the slave trade and the treatment of blacks to the plight of women in society then and now. The story remains in the 1800's with two timelines and two stories running at the same time.
One story, the original, is the story of the black prince captured and sold into slavery. The other is of a young woman whose “views, manners and profession are ahead of her time”. Van Dyck felt “the play demands it” (the two stories). Times are better now but the repression is still there.” (All this following on the heels of the rape and murder of a young woman in India is most timely).
The young woman in the story is author, Aphra Behn, who achieved quite a feat in her time. She made a living as an author – hard enough to do in present times, one can only imagine the difficulties she faced in the 17th century. Behn is considered to be the firstprofessional woman writer of English literature. It is ironic that the first humanitarian book is written by a woman. Yet women today are still facing such difficult times the world over.
Van Dyck spent some time in Africa (Ghana where Behn’s story starts off), working on a film set. He stayed in an old castle built by Germans that was used for the slave trade. On one side of the castle was an “exuberant village” that juxtaposed against the castle that started slaves off on a trip to the horrors to come. It made him think. He thought of that castle again when reading a copy of Oroonoko given him by a friend. So taken with the story, “I read it in a day. It just led itself into becoming a play and the more I read about Aphra Behn, the more I realized there was another story here that had to be told”.
Tell it he does. The play has Aphra Behn as an older woman recounting the story of the young black prince to ‘Clarice’, who later becomes the young Aphra Behn in the second act.
The story of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and that of Aphra Behn and other women like her, indeed begs to be told. And what better way than through a live stage production. With a cast of nine actors, featuring Rebecca Croll as Aphra Behn and Jaa Smith-Johnson as Oroonoko, the production will also feature live African music performed by Dumisizwe “Vuyo” Bhembe.
Whether it serves as a history lesson or as entertainment, this Oroonoko is not to be missed.
“The world is as it is. You cannot save it Aphra Behn but you can start to change it....”
As can we all....
Oroonoko, produced by Persephone Productions, will open at the Mai Theatre on February 6 and run until February 17. For tickets – Box Office: 514 982-3386
theMontrealerOnline.com