Shakespeare Company takes a stab at The Three Musketeers
By Fernando Moreno, March 28, 2017 —
The Shakespeare Company is branching out this season from their typical Shakespeare-focused productions to showcase some different — but still classic — work.
The Shakespeare Company is presenting The Three Musketeers from March 24 – April 8.
“The show itself is about a young man named D’Artagnan who, in 1626, moved to Paris from a small farm town to hopefully become one of the king’s musketeers. There, he meets up with the three inseparables also known as the Three Musketeers,” actor Jacob Lesiuk says. “He sets his journey in getting involved in a lot of plots involving kings, queens, cardinals, love and romance.”
Lesiuk says that while the play is recommended for audiences 16 years of age and older, it can appeal to a large demographic.
“It’s a lot of fun for a lot of people,” he says. “There’s quite a lot of humour involved, some that will go over some people’s heads if they’re quite younger, but some that will definitely hit home if you’re older.”
Lesiuk says that while the company is known for its adaptations of Shakespeare classics, they want to branch out into other classical plays that might not be directly related to the Bard.
This play is an adaptation of the classic 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas. Lesiuk says that creating a play that closely relays the long novel was a challenge.
“I would say it’s quite close,” he says. “We’re trying to condense a 900-page book into a two-hour play. Quite a lot of previous renditions try to get quite accurate with the costumes the characters would have whereas this one takes a little more artistic liberty in trying to make the characters look sexy, make them look good and like they’re in the time period but they’re also kind of not. It gives that little bit of freedom.”
The play was co-directed by Haysam Kadri and fighting director Karl Sine. Unlike the company’s previous productions, Lesiuk says this one will have a lot more comedy.
“[The play’s] definitely making a little bit lighter of [the book] because with situations like that, you can’t quite sell it to an audience member completely dead-face serious,” he says. “We definitely embrace the craziness that is the world. My hopes and expectations would probably be that just everyone comes out of it thinking ‘wow that was a fun show. That was exhilarating. That was one of the best things I have ever seen.’”
The Three Musketeers will run until April 8 at Vertigo Theatre. Tickets prices vary and are available online.
For more information, visit shakespearecompany.com