Story of Don Juan has lived on for centuries
The story of Don Juan has lived on literally for centuries. Our appetite for this licentious rogue is as insatiable as his own appetite for the many many women he has brought to bed.
The first mention of Don Juan was in Spanish folk legends predating the 17th century. Over time the legend would travel throughout the literary world to Italy and to France. By the 19th century many foreign countries had created their own version of Don Juan and his many conquests.
Don Juan has appeared in the prose of Lord Byron though not as a womanizer but as a romantic easily seduced by feminine wiles. Through the eyes of Mozart in the play Don Giovanni he is both wicked and careless. And to Molière he is a contemptuous arrogant wretch. But Don Juan is after all the greatest lover in the world and in many more adaptations he is magnetic charismatic and charming.
In a sense it’s all these traits that Calgary actor Duval Lang has channeled in The Erotic Anguish of Don Juan . The show is put on jointly by Alberta Theatre Projects and the Old Trout Puppet Workshop. In their version Don Juan is a sexual deviant who’s been banished to hell for his thousands of erotic escapades. He’s convinced his keepers to let him out just long enough to tell his story and warn others who may follow the same path. But if you’re thinking there’s no need to go because you’ve seen it all before — think again.
“It’s actually a very different play from the first time” says Judd Palmer co-director of the show and part of the Old Trout Puppet Workshop. “But that’s traditional for an Old Trout play because you learn a lot every time you put it on” he says.
“It’s a long and tortuous process making a puppet show.”
This time around the play has a certain Spanish flair and the costumes and set are decidedly baroque. Don Juan himself is an old man with a big heart and an even greater love of sex. He’d probably feel just as comfortable in 2011 if not for his old-fashioned clothing. The character is loud vivacious and charming; in much the same way a grandfather is when recalling life as a young buck. And if Lang and Palmer are to be believed audiences are in for more than a few laughs.
“He’s more gripping more fun to watch… and more convincing. The script took a lot of turns to hone in on that aspect of him. He’s more of a sweaty low-to the-ground lover” says Palmer.
And the women in Don Juan’s life — well they are played as an orgy of puppet limbs crushed into his over-sexed imagination. This mash-up of limbs is reminiscent of the work of another infamous womanizer — artist Pablo Picasso.
“Part of the challenge” muses Lang “is that you have to commit yourself completely to falling in love with a little bit of wood and plaster of Paris.”
And Don Juan does fall in love — with the breast the arm and the leg of every woman he’s ever met. Make no mistake; this is no serial rapist he’s just a guy who wants to spread the love around.
