onStage Pittsburgh – Jed Harris had declared The Odyssey for Quantum Theatre as his directorial swan song … until he was lured back by a tantalizing title.
The invitation to collaborate came from his longtime collaborator and friend, playwright Jay Ball.
“I was absolutely done. And then he said, ‘I’ve been looking at Dr. Caligari.’ ”
Harris replied, “ ‘Oh damn you! How dare you do that?’ And he roped me back in.”
Harris and actor Daniel Krell, who will play the title character in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. As the title suggests, the play is based on the 1920 German silent horror film, considered to be “the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema.”
The black-and-white movie features a nightmarish, theatrical landscape of sharp angles, dark shadows and streaks of light. The original is available on YouTube here, although as Harris notes, anyone who has ever taken a film course has seen it. He was speaking just inside the doors to the Union Trust Building’s gilded auditorium, where audiences will encounter Quantum’s evocative interpretation of the design, enhanced by Joseph Seamans’ projections.
The framing of the Jay Ball version of the story strays from the framework of the original, which opens with a young man telling the story of a mad hypnotist who uses a somnambulist to commit murders. The twists and turns include the head of an insane asylum and its inmates, all within the context of post-World War I Germany.
In the new version, the story is undertaken by an East German theater troupe in the 1970s, well before the Wall fell. Harris said the timing adds a third level of tumultuous times to the mix, including the what 2024 audiences, particularly in the current political climate, will bring to the mix.
“I mean, the insights into what Germany was like at that time versus doing it today, there’s a juxtaposition there that kind of works,” Harris said. “So we’ve got a three for one deal going on. Pick your era.”
Harris credits Quantum artistic director Karla Boos with allowing a long gestation period of development for the play, which has included two local workshops.
“Karla had some really important valid notes about what we had done so far – some of it having to do with the fact that I love to go dark – dark, with humor, is where I live. … Karla encouraged us to look for a slightly more effective way that didn’t just surrender to the ugly, to the dark, and that was great. Jay went back and did tons of rewriting and created the whole framing device that changed a lot about how we approached the play.”
The stage version also varies from the film in character development, Harris said. Nick Lehane as medical student Franz, Sara Lindsey as Hannah and Cameron Nickel as Uli are fleshed out in the Quantum production. They comprise “an idyllically happy trio enjoying their youth, in stark contrast to the woefully manipulated Cesare,” played by Jerreme Rodriguez.
Supporting cast members include Catherine Gowl as Helene and Mark August as Dr. Rauch, new characters in the Ball retelling. Gowl’s Helene Weigel (Bertoldt Brecht’s widow) is described as “a ghostly anomaly who’s dropped in to wrench this story in a different direction. But she too plays her parts as history demanded.”
“It’s such a great, odd piece in the way it tells the story that I was kind of curious, how literal would it be?,” said Krell, the man who will be Dr. Caligari.
It is a role that may be seen as representing “dark forces,” in a cautionary tale about the use of cult-like power to gain control over other people.
“If you get a Tennessee Williams play, it’s written, it’s there, and then you are telling the story that the playwright wants to tell the audience,” said Krell, the award-winning actor who most recently played multiple roles in Young Frankenstein for Pittsburgh CLO.
“But with a play that is in development,” he continued, “you add another hat on, which is you contribute. The playwright and the director are asking questions of you as an actor, as your thoughts about the development of the character themes and the dialogue, which is fun and challenging.”
In the movie, Dr. Caligari arrives at a festival, performing his hypnotist’s act with Cesare.
He is clearly meant to be seen as evil from the moment he appears. Krell is studious about starting with source material, but just at the starting gate.
“Then once I do that and I saturate myself, I like to leave that, and I like to do it early, as early as possible,” the actor said. “And so I have ideas, but then the specific ideas go away, and I’m left with a general thing where I can build my specific stuff for the role.”
One thing he is happy to report – no foreign accents are required of him. However, there are phrases in other languages.
“He’s a learned man, and so he uses that kind of language,” Krell said. “And he’s also a circus guy, so he’s weaving things with words.”
He’s also climbing a set of stairs, which stand in for many levels of storytelling.
The Quantum steps were built before rehearsals began, which was another way into character. More than a week before opening night on November 1, 2024, Krell said it was “a big plus” that he was already comfortable with navigating the spaces in an auditorium built for corporate meetings in 1917, and not for theatrical productions.
Also on the plus side, unlike many Quantum productions, it is indoors, with no need for portable toilets.
Although the setting is in the seemingly comfy confines of a Gilded Age auditorium, audiences should be prepared for a disquieting experience that extends the creepy Halloween season, at least through November 24, 2024.
Although Harris say he and Ball pulled back a bit from the dark, he smiles as admits, “Well, I have to say, it goes beyond dark humor in this.”
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Quantum Theatre’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: An Out of the Box Experience premiers November 1-24, 2024, at the Union Trust Building, Downtown (follow the “Q” signs). Tickets: Visit https://www.quantumtheatre.com/caligari.
