Forte rehabilitates Rasputin
Thanks to Boney M. the name Rasputin has been firmly etched into contemporary pop culture. Of course the so-called “Mad Monk” is much more than a musical refrain.
Grigori Rasputin was a Russian spiritual leader of sorts whom Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra kept in their inner circle because of his seeming ability to help heal their hemophiliac son Alexei.
Being that close to Russia’s political centre proved fatal for Rasputin; he was assassinated in 1916.
Joe Slabe — whose new musical Maria Rasputin Presents makes its world première with Forte Musical Theatre Guild — says audiences remain “constantly fascinated” by Rasputin.
But it was actually the Boney M. song that inspired Slabe to write a “tell-all musical” about the Russian mystic.
Finding a variety of “unbiased” sources to paint an accurate portrait proved somewhat challenging however as the main accounts of Rasputin’s life have been written by his daughter Maria and his murderer Felix Yusupov.
“You know they are both unreliable witnesses” says Slabe adding that their accounting of events changed from book to book and that Maria’s agenda was to “rehabilitate” her father’s name.
“She spent her whole life saying ‘My dad was just a guy who got caught up in the events of history’” he explains.
“The myth about him how he was a demon how he was controlling the Tsarina how he was plotting the destruction of the Romanovs she felt was wrong and was actually created by the guy who killed her dad” Slabe adds.
Maria had an interesting life in her own right. Following an unhappy marriage that did bear some children she became a cabaret dancer and a circus performer even touring with the Ringling Brothers Circus.
In Maria Rasputin Presents Maria decides to stage one final show to rehabilitate her father’s image. As long as she controls the narrative audiences meet the “loving father and family man and tender healer of the young Alexei.” However when Yusupov (Daniel Mallett) intrudes and takes over the narrative audiences see the other interpretation of Rasputin (Kevin Aichele): the “demonic Mad Monk who couldn’t be killed.”
“Whether or not Maria ever successfully rehabilitates her father’s image is the central question of the show. I certainly think she raises doubts” says Shari Wattling who steps out of her “day job” as Theatre Calgary’s artistic associate of new play development to portray Maria.
Audiences also meet Dmitri Pavlovich (Scott Shpeley) the co-conspirator in Rasputin’s assassination and Princess Irina (Allison Lynch) Yusupov’s wife.
But don’t expect any stuffy historical drama here says Slabe.
“It’s a comedy of tragic proportions or a tragedy of comic proportions” he says.
To give you an idea there are puppets representing members of the royal family.
“The whole puppet imagery came from the idea of control and who is controlling the story” Slabe explains.
Then there is tap dancing. There is tumbling. There is clowning. Fifteen songs are sprinkled throughout the show including some that offer a nod to Russian folk music. And there is even a drag number inspired by Yusupov’s penchant as a teen for dressing up in his mother’s clothing and heading out on the town. In fact he once performed at a nightclub in St. Petersburg dressed as a woman.
“Since the story is so extreme it seemed extreme methods of storytelling started to suggest themselves” says Slabe. “You cannot make this stuff up.”
Wattling says she tries to not get too caught up in the history of the whole thing.
“I can only play a person. I can’t play a historical figure. I can’t play a myth. I try very hard to leave the history to Joe and to take what is on the page and in the music to play a person” she says adding that Maria is also on a personal exploration of her own relationship with her father in the play.
Slabe estimates that about 95 per cent of the material in Maria Rasputin Presents is a matter of historical record.
“Whether it’s fact or fiction will remain up to the audience” says Wattling.
