Award-winning actor Christopher Plummer returns to the Stratford Festival stage to take part in a historic double staging of Don Juan, one in English and one in French.
The Toronto-born, Montreal-raised Plummer is cast as the ghostly statue of the Commandant, “the death figure who beckons Don Juan to face l’enfer [hell],” Plummer told CBC News.
“It’s a tiny role but it comes at the end of the piece. Molière puts it at the end, anyway.”
The notorious Don Juan is portrayed by Colm Feore and the festival’s production, presented in association with Montreal’s Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, runs in English from Friday night until Oct. 10. It will then have a short run in French, with the same cast.
A new cast will remount the production next year, in Montreal.
Though the two companies have collaborated several times over the years (including for a bilingual Henry V in 1956), this is the first time Stratford has mounted separate French and English productions of the same play.
Plummer urges more French at Stratford
“I’ve been screaming at the powers that be at the Stratford Festival for years to please bring back the French connection,” Plummer said. “We need it: It’s what this country is all about.
“If we’re supposed to be a festival which invites other people to come — that’s a part of what the festival means — why not get the French back in? We owe it to them. They have such marvellous theatre in Quebec,” said the Stratford veteran, who was a regular performer at the reparatory theatre from 1956-1967.
Plummer’s career has crossed the worlds of theatre, television, film and narration. He has portrayed many of Shakespeare’s greatest male lead roles worldwide, has appeared in more than 80 films and has won a host of honours, including two Tony Awards for the 1967 musical Cyrano and 1997’s Barrymore (the one-man play that had its start on Stratford’s stage).
More work than ever
Though now in his 70s, Plummer says he’s working more now than ever.
“The older I get, the more ambitious I become,” said the actor, who has been named a companion of the Order of Canada.
“We don’t retire you know. Like old soldiers, we don’t even fade away. We die smack on the stage and that’s how I hope I go, actually. It would be the nicest way to go.”
Don Juan runs at the Stratford Festival’s Avon Theatre until Oct. 20. Théâtre du Nouveau Monde will remount the production in January as part of its 2006-2007 season.
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