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The
Rover is a seventeenth-century
play by Aphra Behn, the English language's first professional
female writer. I wrote a new adaptation of The Rover
and directed it for The
Chance Theater in Anaheim; the production ran in January
and February of 2005. That April, we remounted the production
for a live television broadcast on KOCE, Orange County's
PBS affiliate. DVD footage is available, and KOCE has been
rebroadcasting it every now and then.
I
had been thinking about adapting The Rover for
a few years before the gang at The Chance took me up on
it. They provided me with a great space and a fantastic
team. Here's the blurb:
An
audacious new take on a classic story about a young girl
who uses her wits and imagination to escape her fate,
defeat her rivals, and win a hard-fought battle of love.
This bawdy, rowdy seventeenth-century romp by the English
language's first professional woman writer is boldly reimagined
in this World Premiere staging at The Chance.
The
adaptation mostly uses Behn's dialogue, with some clips
taken from her sources and a couple of other plays -- the
idea is not unlike my "Remix" of Henry
IV. The big change, however, is that four young women
play all the roles. The idea here is that Behn's play is
about (among other themes) the power of the imagination.
The young heroine of The Rover uses imagination to escape
a bad situation, to outwit her enemies, and to win her man,
and she does this primarily by dressing up in costumes.
In the adaptation, four teenage girls act out the story
during a slumber party, using their imaginations to deal
with the complications of their friendships, to outdo one
another, and to explore their fears and dreams about growing
up and falling in love.
Another
production of the adaptation was mounted early in 2006 at
the Dallas
Hub Theatre in Texas, directed by Christie Shane. The
Dallas Morning News says "Updated Rover rolls with
youthful charm."
If you are a potential producer (or potential employer)
and this adaptation sounds interesting, please contact me
(joshcostello at gmail dot com) to request a script or additional
information. I'm very interested in directing this play
again.
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| "Bursting
with energy and creativity..." |
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| "A
teenage girls' slumber party is one of the least likely places
to find Restoration drama, but director Josh Costello's adaptation
of Aphra Behn's The Rover finds its voice again in Orange County...
Costello's work excels in his use of the young girls, whose
budding interest in courtship and sex takes centerstage... One
of the silliest but most effective conceits is to have the girls
use stuffed animals and Barbie dolls to represent collateral
characters. They rouse the audience to laughter more than once
as Ken and Barbie act out an amusing striptease or a big fluffy
dog gesticulates with nuanced motions. This largely collegiate-aged
quartet manages to be both worldly and unsophisticated, and
it comes off very well. Masako Tobaru's lighting is effective,
as her combination of subdued and key lights change moods...
Jeremy Golden's large double-decker bunk bed is a successful
bit of set design, allowing varied pairings of the cast. Kudos,
too, for Christopher Villa's fight direction, as the characters
wield umbrellas, canes, and toy swords in well-choreographed
skirmishes. Adaptations can be successful or clunkers, as many
directors have found, but this one is inventive
and pleasurable, showcasing Behn's sharp wit and Costello's
inspired imagination..."
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| "Rover
speaks, glowingly... Josh Costello’s ingenious spin on
Aphra Behn’s Restoration Comedy The Rover is anything
but sleazy or lowbrow. It’s actually quite innocent. Charming
even... Costello actually trusts the script to support his vision...
the way Costello relates the story — through a quirky
game of charades that slowly evolves into a metaphor on how
imagination can bring people together — results in one
of the cleverest and most well-intentioned plays in some time...Costello’s
highly talented and incredibly enthusiastic cast — Alex
Bueno, Emily Clark, Vanessa Martinez and Barbara Suiter —
provide an esprit de corps that infuses the 90-minute play with
an energy too seldom experienced on local stages. With so much
theater so self-important and posturingly pompous, it’s
refreshing to see something intentionally light that still manages
to make a keen point about how imagination can heal as much
as it can distract." |
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Exerpt
from
The New
Mermaids edition
of The Rover
edited by Robyn Bolam (2005)
The final section of the Introduction is "The Play
In Performance," ending with this paragraph:
Over
ten years later, The Rover's appeal appears to be undiminished
with numerous performances worldwide in 2005. One of the more
innovative of these was an adaptation by Josh Costello, who
also directed it for the Chance Theater in Anaheim, California.
In this, Behn's play (with some cuts, a few lines from Thomaso,
and even a couple from Shakespeare's plays in the introduction)
was enacted by four 15 year old girls on a sleepover or slumber
party, who used their imaginations and what they had on hand
– a dressing-up chest and some dolls and puppets. Their
skilled manipulation of the latter unexpectedly brought Don
Pedro to life as a dog with long drooping ears and a serious
expression, while Barbie and Ken dolls were effectively used
to dramatize Blunt's encounter with Lucetta. Alex Bueno, Emily
Clark, Vanessa Martinez and Barbara Suiter leapt in and out
of their shared bunk beds (poised on top of low bookshelves),
donning masks, wigs, and makeshift costumes to transport their
audience back to Behn's time, occasionally breaking the spell
to demonstrate the way in which the girls were taken over
by their imaginations. Despite the lively humour that that
pervaded this production and the all-female cast, the potential
threat of rape in III.v was menacingly conveyed. In its novel
exploration of gender roles and the female imagination, Costello's
thought-provoking adaptation marks another successful transformation
of The Rover on the contemporary stage. |
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starring
Alex Bueno
Emily Clark
Vanessa Martinez
Barbara Suiter
Set
Design
Jeremy Golden
Costume Design
Emily Stanford
Lighting
Design
Masako Tobaru
Sound Design
Dimas Diaz
Fight Choreography
Christopher Villa
Dramaturg
Jocelyn Brown
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