Love and laughs in topsy-turvy world
Masters and servants learn about life by trading places in this 18th-century comedy
Servants pretending to be their masters, and vice versa, is the comic fuel in The Game in Love and Chance.
“The comedy lies largely in how bad the servants are at playing masters, and their perception of what the aristocracy is,” actor Callum Gunn said.
The 18th-century play revolves around an arranged marriage between Silvia and Dorante. In an effort to more surreptitiously get to know their intended, whom neither has met, they each ask their servants to impersonate them; in turn, Silvia and Dorante assume the roles of their servants.
“They put on this elaborate show to try to woo one another, and it’s quite over-the-top,” Gunn said. “You have a more serious love that is impossible between the two masters, then the servants have this flamboyant, hilarious bit. Whenever they meet, love is just this wild chase, and anything can be said to achieve what they need to achieve. And the masters struggle to not show off their education and refinement and entitlement. The humour comes from that, and cracking in their roles.”
Gunn plays Dorante in the United Players’ production of the play, written by French playwright Pierre de Marivaux. The rest of the cast includes Elizabeth Willow, Peter Robbins, Simon Garez, Matt Loop, and Rebecca Husain.
“When you first read it, it reads very simply,” said director Brian Parkinson. “But then, all the way through rehearsal we would have actors saying, ‘Who am I now? Am I talking as the person I really am or as the person I’m dressed up as?’ So there’s a lot of focus on clarifying what character they are at the moment. If the actors get lost, you are lost. It’s like a giant puzzle. Every piece has to go in exactly the right place.”
Parkinson and the cast are following a translation of the play by French-Canadian playwright Nicolas Billon.
“It’s got an understanding of French culture,” the director said. “To a degree, it tries to transpose what would have been funny back then into a modern context. There are some things that don’t make that transition. The master-servant relationship, and all of the subtleties of that, is something that for many people nowadays is pretty foreign.”
To bring it a little more up-to-date, Parkinson has also transposed the play to the 1920s.
“I was searching for a time in history, preferably more recent history, that would help us understand and contextualize what was happening in the classes that would have a parallel. The one that I came up with was the twenties. In some respect, I’m piggybacking on the success of Downton Abbey. Because so many of the social conventions in that period are paralleled in the play.”
Through the exposure of social conventions, Marivaux’s true subject comes to light.
“His purpose is to talk about love,” Parkinson said. “The metaphysics of love is his (Marivaux’s) favourite subject. He puts this couple in this situation to test strict social conventions, and expose them as being kind of meaningless. Because love can penetrate those barriers.”
In other words, it’s the perfect kind of diversion to ring in summer.
“There’s a lot of important theatre with complex messages,” Gunn said. “This is of a different era, and serves a different purpose in the theatre. I think they’re both equally valid. Sometimes you just need a little lighthearted comedy. It’s not questioning huge existential questions. It’s a lot of fun.”