Developing into the adults we are involves overcoming challenges. It’s hard enough when we are flesh-and-blood human beings. When you’re made of wood, with strings binding you, it’s all the tougher. And when your nose grows at the first hint of untruthfulness, tougher still.
Of course, we’re talking about Pinocchio, the beloved children’s story delighting folks of all ages since Carlo Coloddi first serialized it in 1881. It’s being given a new stage treatment at Barrie’s Georgian Theatre, Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m.
The Montreal-based theatre company Tout a Trac is putting this version show on, and Hugo Belanger, the author of this treatment of the Carlo Collodi novel and director of the production, tells BarrieToday the object of the game is to leave certain expectations behind.
It’s “always a challenge, because people think they know the story, even though they’ve never read it, having seen the Disney (animated film) version. We’re doing our own version, very different from the Disney version.”
Belanger goes on to say kids like Pinocchio, because he’s “not a perfect kid. He makes mistakes, and we see the bad side of him, like kids who refuse to go to school or listen to their parents.” This version of the wooden boy seeking the Blue Fairy to make him into a “real” boy is, in that sense a real boy already.
As people see temptations to stray from the path of being a good boy, so they will see it in this Pinocchio, and viewers of all ages will discern real tension between him and his creator – his ‘father’, if you will – Geppetto.
And Geppetto, played in this version by veteran performer Claude Tremblay, also wrestles with whether is being a good ‘father’, having to corral this rambunctious ‘child’. It’s something that interested Belanger, having recently become a flesh-and-blood father himself.
“It intrigued me because my son was born during the creation of the play, and while I was thrilled to see this new human being, it’s as though he was a ‘stranger’ at first.
“Geppetto, at first, didn’t want to become a father, but when it happened, his tendency was to push his dreams on his ‘son’, when the ‘son’ doesn’t want those dreams. (Get set for new spin on Pinocchio… No lie!) wants to be a unique person.”
Krystel Descary plays Pinocchio; Tremblay is Geppetto and the cricket; Emelee Saint-German as the Cat, Blue fairy and Candlewick; and Michel Daviau as the Fox, and The Jolly Man.
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