Harlequin Productions is doing a one-night, one-man play
called The Golem that sounds like it
might be a lot of creepy fun for Halloween. It’s an adaptation of Gustav
Meyrink’s classic novel, Der Golem written for the stage and directed by Daniel Flint and fellow
Taffety Punk company member Joel David Santner, with music by Jupiter Rex (Josh
Taylor, who scored Taffety Punk’s “Burn Your Bookes “and “Measure for Measure”).
The one man on stage is Flint.
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| The Golem and the ghost, photo by Phillip Bernett |
Now living in the other Washington, Flint maintains strong
connections with Olympia and Harlequin. He started working with Harlequin back
in 2002, playing multiple roles in King John. During Harlequin’s run of The
Lonesome West he met Frank Lawler and Jason Marr, and the three of them teamed
up to create The Elsinore Diaries, which performed at the Seattle
Fringe and at Harlequin. It was my choice for Best New Play in my annual
Critic’s Choice column.
In 2008 he moved to DC for graduate school but returned to
Olympia this summer to play Richard in King Richard III at Harlequin. While
doing Richard he asked about performing his adaption of The Golem.
“It means a lot to me that I can say to Scot and Linda
(Whitney), ‘Hey since I’ll be there for Richard, can I do
a performance of my show on Halloween?’ and that they would
without blinking an eye say ‘sure!’ That’s why I love them and
their Theatre. Because the show is designed to have live music they
are flying Josh Taylor here for the show. He
will arrive on Monday and we will have two days to rehearse
with him. The play is still in a kind of development stage, having been
performed only twice (after a full rehearsal process) at a festival in July.
After this, it will be having a full production in May at Taffety Punk Theatre
Company in DC.
“I had been given the book, The Golem, or Der Golem, by a
friend. It did what all great books do, it drew me in so deep that I
could almost not distinguish myself from the main character. It deeply affected
me and sometime not too long after I conceived of turning into a one-man
play for myself. It is a straight adaptation using the text of the novel
cut and honed into a tight narrative that as closely resembles the book as
possible.”
The
Golem follows the story of Athanasius Pernath, a jeweler in Prague’s Jewish
ghetto in the late 19th century who is afflicted with a curious amnesia. When a
strange man enters Pernath’s life with a mysterious book, the jeweler begins
his descent into a labyrinth of murder, madness, and plots of revenge and
unrequited love that eventually bring him face to face with his own dark past
and mortality
The
stranger with the book is the legendary Golem who roamed the streets of the
ghetto in the 16th Century. He is also the jeweler’s doppelganger – leading
Pernath to a spiritual awakening which must be embraced in order to escape the
madness of his past.
The
performance is Halloween night, Oct. 31 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 Advance or $20 day of the event.
http://www.harlequinproductions.org
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