Jeri Jacquin
In theatres this week from writer/director Atom Egoyan, XYZ Films and Variance Films comes the story entwined with the SEVEN VEILS.
Jeanine (Amanda Seyfried) has been asked to direct a theatre production of the opera Salome. Excited to be bringing her own vision to the story, she announces that there will be very small changes from her mentor Charles own production. Having a call with her young daughter and husband Paul (Mark O’Brien) to celebrate her mother’s birthday, Jeanine becomes leery of the caretaker Dimitra (Maia Jae Bastidas).
Her production plate becomes even fuller when Johann (Michael Kupfer-Radecky), who is playing John the Baptist, is becoming a headache but so are the requests made of her by management. They are questioning her ‘changes’ in the show and making it clear that she is being watched. Not allowed to have a Directors Statement in the program as well adds to her shock. Instead, she is being told to do a dairy of her thoughts of the play that can be posted on a website.
Amber (Ambur Braid) who portrays the role of Salome has personal issues with Johan that flows into Clea’s (Rebecca Liddiard) props and mask-making department. It is even more uncomfortable since Clea once had a relationship with Amber but is now currently with Rachel (Vanessa Antoine) who is Amber’s understudy. The drama has a lid on it slightly as Janine tries to get her players to truly understand the roles they are playing in thought, emotion, deed and reaches to Johann’s understudy Luke (Douglas Smith) from their younger years in theatre.
There is also a struggle with Janine as she deals with memories that come flooding in and out about her own past. From her father to her mentor Charles, it all becomes garbled as she tries to keep it from interfering with the opera. The stress is intermingled with the show, management, what is happening at home and the memories that refuse to fade yet the show must go on.
Seyfried as Jeanine is thrilled to be directing the story of Salome and to be able to showcase what she can do. The problem becomes the entwining of her past, demands from others and her own feelings about it all. Trying her best to keep things compartmentalized, it becomes difficult and overpowering at times. Seyfried handles her role brilliantly attempting to juggle it all as a woman fighting her past, her cast and what she can do for opera in the future.
Liddiard as Clea is working with Jeanine to bring the right props and tone to the opera. She finds herself in a difficult position with a past love and a present one with a connection that no one would want for either. Antoine as Rachel is a studious understudy with dreams of one day having her moment and Clea wants that for her. Smith as Luke is Johann’s understudy who has the same dream as Rachel.
Kupfer-Radecky is, well, a diva of the worst kind. Believing himself to be beyond reproach, he wreaks havoc in the sinister of ways. O’Brien as Paul is a husband who is supportive in a way that makes him feel good about himself but Jeanine begins to see through him. Bastidas as Dimitra is a caretaker but one of the worst kind.
Other cast include Lanette Ware as Beatrice, Maya Misaljevic as Lizzie, Ryan McDonald as Harold, Lynne Griffin as Margot, Tara Nicodemo as Nancy, Joey Klein as Charlie, Aliya Kanani as Kathy, Alex Halliday as Cappadocian and Michael Schade as Herod.
Variance Films is a privately held film distribution company founded in 2008 that uses an innovative model of self-distribution combined with select elements of traditional theatrical distribution to allow filmmakers to achieve quality theatrical releases for their films. Their offerings include BREATHE, ROSARIO and TAYLOR SWIFT: The Eras Tour. For more of what they have to offer, please visit www.variancefilms.com.
Atom Egoyan directed the opera, Salome, in 1996, the first opera in what would be many to come over his career. Best known as a prominent film director since the 1980s, Egoyan has proven he is a master of both mediums. Egoyan was interested in exploring what the production of Salome would mean in our current culture. This interest led Egoyan to write the script for SEVEN BEILS, about a remount of Salome that he filmed at the same time the opera was on stage, using the opera singers from Salome in the film.
Egoyan says of the opera and film,“Salome is a production I’ve done a number of times so when I knew that the Canadian Opera Company was remounting it, I thought this would be an ideal time to fuse the opera singers I knew they had booked with the script I had written. I wanted to explore how the themes of Salome could weave with the story of remounting this particular production. It’s not really an opera movie, it’s just using the world of the opera as a workplace like any workplace. We see the characters as they float in and out of scenes dealing with the preparation of the opera.”
The director has done exactly that with SEVEN VEILS. It is a stunningly beautiful film that mixes the human frailties in the story of Salome with the same human frailties as those portraying the characters. Keeping the staging simple allows us to immerse into the roles that each play and decipher for ourselves where each scene will take us. The final production presented is breathtaking with images I had never imagined in a production such as this but understand it completely.
In the end – life has its own tragedies!
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