A New Take on Romeo & Juliet

THE INTERVIEW

Wherefore Art Thou…

Born in Paris and schooled in the French school system in Montreal as a child, Marie Farsi is a newcomer to Shakespeare. With fresh eyes and a global perspective from her extensive travels, her rendition of Romeo & Juliet is stylish and theatrical. She promises you will leave with your imagination recharged and your expectations about Shakespeare and the theatre subverted. Intrigued?

We are giving away two tickets to the performance. Be sure to enter for a chance to win our giveaway on Instagram.

In the meantime, get to know Marie. She shares her approach to directing theatre, her captivating personal style and where to shop her look, what she’s packing in her picnic basket for the performance, and her recos if you’re visiting Montreal this summer.

Here’s what she had to say:

When did you move to Canada from France?

In August 1999, I moved from Paris to Montreal with my parents and sister. I was 11 and went to French school. It’s a different education system, so I stayed there until the age of 17 and then went to New Zealand for a year and came back to Concordia University in Montreal to study performance theatre. I did a year of Chinese Opera and then went to the national theatre school there and finished my degree in Beijing. I visited the south of China a bit. From Beijing I moved to Vancouver, which reminded me of New Zealand, it was really the perfect place to grow as an artist. Also, with a father who is an artist it’s nice to have a bit of distance to find my own voice and establish myself. I was in Vancouver for 10 years. Now I live in Toronto, well, my home base is actually Stratford, Ontario because my partner performs there.

You’re known for taking risks as a director. What does that mean to you?

It’s exciting and scary to take risks because we have critics come in and audiences come and you want people to receive the show as much as you intended it. As a young artist you want to take risks. You want to try something that feels like you or feels like yours. You’re searching for your voice as an artist. I think throwing some paint on the walls really helps to figure that out. It’s not until you have a body of work that you have enough under your belt that you can really assess who you are, especially as a director because it’s so much about interpretation: interpretation of a text, interpretation of a character, interpretation of a moment. You are collaborating with writers and actors, it’s really about others and through others that I express myself as an artist. I have about 15 years of experience now and I can look back and really see the throughline whether its thematic or aesthetics, or even performance style or the way I’m interested in playing with form. Taking risk for me is never taking my understanding of theatre for granted.

A PATCHWORK OF INFLUENCES; COHESIVE STYLE

Marie Farsi’s Style

I do love fashion. I don’t compromise on who I am and the love I have for the world and you can see that in how I dress. It’s very personal. I have shoes that I got from a consignment store in Vancouver. I try to collect things in my travels in the world and I feel like I’m a big patchwork of all of it. Somehow it works because I pick everything with love. My favourite Canadian designer is Eve Gravel, who is in Montreal. It’s got a little edge to it that I really love. I also love Claudia Dey of Horses in Toronto. They give you a practical base, with good structure and shape. I would say my style is eclectic, practical and stylish.

See what Marie might choose from Eve Gravel or Horses to wear to a performance at Dream at High Park.

How do you define your style as a director? How does your work stand out from others?

I think my work is very theatrical, which is what you would expect from any theatre show, but I really only try to create work that could only exist on stage. There are so many forms of storytelling. We consume so much tv and movies, which I love, but I get very excited to give audiences something they cannot experience anywhere else. The notion of theatricality is always interesting, because I feel not every theatre artist knows how to do it, because we are rooted in a tradition of psychological realism, so it’s sometimes difficult to think outside of those performance rules. I like to think outside the box whether I transform the space or invite the audience to think about a character or a moment in a new way, it’s always a very interesting challenge to surprise people and subvert their expectations about what the theatre can be or what they assume about a world or a character.

You hope to attract new audiences with your rendition of Romeo & Juliet. What will my 15-year-old daughter take away from it.

I think it’s going to be a very energetic version of Romeo & Juliet. I want it to be very alive. That's what I like about the theatre. For me it’s the best representation of life because it’s ephemeral. I want it to be dynamic and full and exciting, and I want people to understand the story. I spend a lot of time equipping the actors with meaning. I want them to really understand everything they say, how they hold the meaning in their heart and in their body. I really want the language to be a full embodied version of the text and I think the story will be very clear. It’s a 90-minute version of Romeo & Juliet and it’s very plot forward. I wanted to preserve a lot of the poetry, especially in the most iconic moments. So, the skeleton is there and I've kept the interesting flesh, the most exciting parts in the show. I’m fairly new to Shakespeare too because I didn’t grow up with it. I grew up francophone, so I read Romeo & Juliet in French in translation, but it’s not part of my cultural tradition. I feel that I come to it with very fresh eyes. I can tell in the group there are so many assumptions about what a line means or what a moment should be. I don’t really have that. I get to explore each moment with fresh eyes and I think that’s very exciting for actors in the room because there are no preconceived ideas about what it should be.

How is your personal style reflected on the stage?

This one is a period piece. It’s the first time I’m doing this, but I'm keeping it in a loose 1930’s and 40s Italy. When Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, he placed it in an Italian Renaissance so it was also an imagined Italy. He wasn’t trying to portray a realistic or authentic Italy. I’m obviously doing that respectfully, I don’t want to misrepresent that culture but there’s enough distance with the time period that we can afford a representation of a place and time that really serves the story. The palette is cohesive with both set and costumes. There’s a timelessness we found through a collection of different period styles, that we kept within two decades. I wanted it to feel poetic, so I didn’t want to be constrained to historical specificity because then you really have to test the story against that and it can be more of a constraint than an exciting freedom. I’ve imagined my own Italy of that time, which is very me, I guess.

MONTREAL MUSTS

Experience Montreal with Marie’s Personal Recommendations

▶ Best way to spend a Sunday: At Atwater Market

▶ Best Restaurant: Le Vin Papillon

▶ Best Ice Cream: Bilboquet

▶ Best Montreal Bagel: St Viateur

A FITTING SNACK

What’s in Marie’s Picnic Basket?

It’s tradition to pack a picnic to watch a performance in the Amphitheatre at High Park. We asked Marie what we would find in her basket if she were in the audience: “I would grab a nice Neapolitan pizza from somewhere nearby, or pack some melon and prosciutto to snack on. Some Italian cheeses with focaccia, would be nice. I would keep the theme going, personally with some fresh fruits of the season. I would keep it light though, because it’s Shakespeare. You want to be as alert as you can be, but I promise it’s not going to be longer than 90 minutes. There’s lots of fights and dancing so I will keep you awake! I would definitely grab a little Aperol Spritz on my way there.”

Need a picnic basket? We found a perfect one from Baskits, a Canadian woman-owned brand.

keep sharing real stories