BLAIR WOYNARSKI
Arts Writer

“We all go a little crazy sometimes.”

That immortal quotation from Norman Bates in Hitchcock’s Psycho also serves as a fitting tag line for Woyzeck, the upcoming play at the Greystone Theatre. It is a classic German play originally written by Georg Büchner, though left incomplete at the time of his death in 1837. It was completed by a variety of people before finally being published in 1879, and was not performed until 1913. It is an unconventional history suited to an unconventional play.

This production is based on the modern English adaptation by Daniel Kramer which updates the setting to the 1950s. It follows Franz Woyzeck, a soldier in a small Austrian town, who has an illegitimate child with a woman named Marie. Woyzeck tries to earn extra money by undergoing medical experiments, which include doing strange things such as eating nothing but peas. As these experiments wear down his mental state, he begins to suspect Marie is being unfaithful to him, and begins to behave more rashly.

But don’t just expect a run-of-the-mill drama of infidelity. Like the deteriorating mental state of its main character, this play is sort of unhinged.

“Sort of like a nightmare,” said Jacob Yaworski, who plays the title role. “Everything is heightened and exaggerated. The stakes are higher in a very dream-like way.”

Almost every character exhibits some strange behaviour, and it is not clear how much of what is going on is reality, and how much is simply filtered through Woyzeck’s perception.

Yaworski sums up the character as, “a pretty reserved guy who goes pretty crazy.”

The set itself carries with it an off-kilter and nightmarish sort of feel. The stripped-down layout of the Emrys Jones theatre allows for creative and variable staging of Greystone plays. This one has the stage set-up like a runway, with the audience sitting on either side, leaving the actors trapped between opposing views.

Fourth-year acting student Alyssa Bennett plays Marie, the unwedded partner of Woyzeck and the object of his jealousy and anger. She describes her character as a dreamer.

“She has this life with Woyzeck and she loves him and her child but she always had bigger hopes for herself, more glamourous hopes. She’s desperate.”

Working on Woyzeck has been challenging but rewarding. “Dwayne [Brenna, the director] is very explorative,” Bennett said. The actors need freedom in order to tackle the disjointed psychology of the play.

Bennett was previously seen in last spring’s epic Peer Gynt. Although both plays involve a certain amount of surrealism, Woyzeck has been a unique experience.

“One experience I took away from Peer Gynt was having stage sex, because I have it in this show too,” she added.
Though Yaworski has performed in several Greystone mainstages before, Franz Woyzeck is one of his biggest challenges because of the need to capture his fragile mental state.

“This is the most rapid deterioration of any character I’ve seen,” said Yaworski. “Midway through act one he’s already losing it.”

Though the play was originally written in the early 19th century, it seems ahead of its time, commented Yaworski. It deals with issues like adultery, common law marriage and children out of wedlock, which made people uncomfortable at the time, and still do to an extent today.

There is an Othello-esque sense of jealousy at the centre of the play, though it is not the whole story. The audience never knows for sure whether there is an actual affair, or whether it is all inside Woyzeck’s head.

More than jealousy, Woyzeck showcases how the military dehumanizes the title character, causing him to lose his mind. This, in turn, affects how he deals with his personal life.

“He is going insane — legitimately — and [Marie] isn’t helping matters,” said Bennett.

“The whole play is watching him crack before the audience,” said Yaworski.

In the end, it is meant to be a theatre experience unlike any you have had before, striking a unique balance between “naturalism and rampant expressionism.” It plays out like a dream, tracking Woyzeck’s breakdown, culminating in a final moment that will catch everyone by surprise.

“It all fits together when you look at it as a whole,” said Yaworski, “but it’s going to take a lot of thought after seeing the play.”

“They’ll be entertained and disturbed,” Bennet added.

Woyzeck runs from Feb 9-19 (with no show on Feb. 13) in the Emrys Jones Theatre in the John Mitchell Building. Shows begin at 8 p.m. nightly. Tickets cost $13 for students.

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image: Pete Yee