Daniel Arnold’s elevator pitch for The Ridiculous Darkness isn’t ridiculous or dark, but the concept isn’t immediately crystal clear, either.
Much of this stems from the fact that The Ridiculous Darkness – a stage play produced by Vancouver’s Alley Theatre in association with Neworld Theatre – has a lot of moving parts to consider in order to fully grasp its audacity.
First, the concept: The Ridiculous Darkness is an adaptation of a funny, award-winning German radio play that was an adaptation of the thoroughly unfunny Oscar-winning film Apocalypse Now, which itself was an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (an acclaimed 1899 novella exploring colonialism and imperialism).
And then there’s the scale of it all: The production features actors Clint Andrew, Miranda Edwards, Emilie Leclerc, Munish Sharma, Amanda Sum, and Arnold, as well as 39 members from local community groups who represent groups of characters in the story.
“It’s a large-scale adaptation of a funny play about things that are not funny,” Arnold quips in a recent phone interview.
The Ridiculous Darkness – which has its North American premiere this week at The Annex – is co-directed by Marisa Emma Smith and Nyla Carpentier and was adapted from Wolfram Lotz’s radio play by Arnold, a theatre artist, actor, and screenwriter who co-wrote the 2013 feature film Lawrence & Holloman and who, in The Ridiculous Darkness, will wear a giant 2D head (but more on that later).
On the surface, The Ridiculous Darkness is about two soldiers who go into a land that is foreign to them, with a mission is to retrieve a fellow soldier who has gone rogue. But, “that really isn’t what the play is about,” says Arnold. “The play is really about the journey to go and find that soldier, and how these two soldiers encounter a number of different local inhabitants and different groups in a military camp and village. It’s about encounters with what is foreign to us, and how we bridge boundaries of difference.”
Arnold and Smith were inspired to invite community groups to participate in the play after enjoying a similar type of production in New York City.
Participating groups include Theatre Terrific, Tetsu Taiko, Richmond Youth Honour Choir, Downtown East Side Street Market Society, Downtown East Side Vendors Collective, Afghan Benevolent Association of BC, Realwheels Theatre, and the East Van Powwow Crew. Thirty per cent of all ticket revenue will go directly to the participating organizations.
Arnold notes that the play is “working against isolation and trying to create a project that is by its very nature needing people to come together who wouldn’t normally come together, and create something, and then sharing that with the city. It’s our version of ‘by the city, for the city.’”
Oh, and what about the aforementioned giant head that Arnold wears in the play? It’s all pretty meta: “In the play, I play the writer Wolfram Lotz, but, at the time, I’m also doing the adaptation of the radio play to the stage. So I am not only the writer of the play, but I’m playing the original writer of a play.” He chuckles. “So in the way that this is an adaptation of an adaptation, my role is of the writer playing the writer who is playing the writer – which is why I’ve put Wolfram Lotz’s giant head on mine.”
Ridiculous.
Alley Theatre’s The Ridiculous Darknessruns Nov. 11-19 at The Annex (823 Syemour St.). Tickets at ridarkness.ca.
