Preview- The Open Couple- The Italian Cultural Institute and Aurora Theatre
11-5-22
Getting back on stage – Aurora Theatre opens 2022 with The Open Couple.
By Fannie Wang
The Open Couple, produced by Aurora Theatre, will run from May 11-14. Information about the show and how to get tickets follow this article.
The creative team of Aurora Theatre has wasted no time following the long-awaited loosening of social restrictions in Hong Kong. They will be presenting The Open Couple from May 11th through May 14th at the HKRep Black Box Theatre in Sheung Wan Civic Centre. The play was written by Nobel Laureate Dario Fo and his actress-wife Franca Rame. It’s a manic and hilarious comedy about a husband (Jan Brink) trying to persuade his wife (Nicole Garbellini) to open up their relationship to other people. When she finally gives in and finds a new man, the tables are suddenly turned, and the husband is the unhappy one.
The People
Director Ryan King has established himself in the local theatre community since moving to Hong Kong four years ago. He first got to know Aurora when he was cast in their production of Lauren Gunderson’s Silent Sky, and has collaborated with the company in various projects since then, including Covid & Cigarettes and their YouTube series Close Quarters.
Nicole Garbellini, playing the role of the wife Antonia, is the founder and the artistic director of Aurora Theatre. She has performed in various onstage shows, including Mussolini's Mistresses, Silent Sky, and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Abridged. She has also appeared in various roles on television for RTHK E-TV, and has several directing credits to her name, including The 39 Steps, Inherit The Wind, The Crucible, Dial “M” For Murder and Love Pings (in which she also starred).
Jan Brink, portraying the role of the husband, is an Award-winning performer, writer and director. After moving to Hong Kong, he has starred in many performances including The Aliens, Lady Death, Dr. Faustus, and Dial M for Murder. His own play, Sarah, won the award for best debut production at the Vrystaat Kunstefees Art Festival in his native South Africa.
I had a chance to sit down with the three of them a few days before opening night, and got their thoughts and feelings about the upcoming production. I begin by asking them, on a scale from one to ten, how eager they were to return to the stage?
"Twenty," Garbellini answers. "Maybe twenty-five," King adds. Brink nods in agreement.
I ask King whether it was difficult to direct something which is essentially one long dialogue between two people a la Before Sunrise?
"I love those movies, so it's a bad example," King answers. "You can argue that it should be difficult, but we’ve been blessed with great dialogue and great actors, so it was never an issue."
A Multi-Layered Work
The playwright’s work has been widely performed in Europe and North America, but Hong Kong hasn’t seen a great deal of his work locally. Given this, I ask, what should they expect?
"Dario Fo has a reputation for taking these strongly satirical political comedies and mixing them with elements of commedia dell'arte." Garbellini says. "The two are stock characters - Antonia is Columbina, and the husband is Il Capitano. There are huge dynamics of power play".
The play was written in 1983 and is still surprisingly relatable. "I interpret this as being about the balance of power of a relationship. Any relationship. Look at the MeToo movement in the news, feminism giving way to a broader-spectrum gender- and sexual-rights activism. That's about power - some people have power over other people, and the others don’t like it - and that’s what this play is all about," King says
In the play, the husband embarks upon affairs with other women, much to his wife's displeasure, and does not stop even when she becomes suicidal. He shoots for every man's dream: a wife and his mistresses. Is this just his issue?
"I think everyone's thought about it, whether seriously or not,” Brink answers about his character, “But the actual issue here is the gaslighting. It’s the fact that the husband is a bit of a sleazeball in general - a narcissist."
Would it be a problem for the audience to care for someone so unlikeable?
"The point is not for me to make them care for this person. The whole premise that we've been working on in bringing this to stage is that we’re both trying to convince the audience that we’re right – the audience is the jury. As the actor, rather than getting them to like me, I'm just trying to get my point across."
Brink pauses with a smirk. "But I'm sure some people in the audience will agree with me.”
How about the wife then? When the play begins, she is a hysterical woman who doesn’t buy into the idea of opening up. She would rather kill herself than leave him.
"Well, she goes through a lot,” Garbellini says, “She's quite a traditional woman, so she does what she has to do to keep her marriage alive. But then, she ends up in a situation that’s toxic for both of them. Whenever there is that level of toxicity and gaslighting, two people inevitably bring out the worst in each other.”
So is she the victim?
"I don't know how much of a victim she is. She just reacted in a way to get him where it hurts."
Deeper Themes
In The Open Couple, it's the husband who first betrays the monogamy of the marriage so he can go off and have sexual adventures with other women. Why then does he react so furiously when his wife attempts to do the same?
"It is a question that's been around for a long time,” says King. “It comes down to the stereotype that men can have sex without genuine feelings whereas women cannot. So a man can sleep with another woman and that’s it. But a woman must necessarily cheat emotionally in order to do the same thing. I'm not saying these stereotypes are correct, but that's at the heart of what's going on here."
The director says he can see another theme of relationships at work here – that the couple has simply evolved at difference paces, resulting in a divergence of their paths.
"There's a theory that people have a trajectory of development over their lifetimes. A man and a woman can be on the same trajectory for a while, and so it’s natural that they would get together. But over a longer period of time their trajectories can diverge, and so it’s not uncommon for this to end up driving a couple apart. You think you're the same person as you were fifteen years ago, but you're not. You’re a completely new person in the same body," King says, “And so is your significant other.”
He suggests that's part of the reason the husband reacts so badly – he’s grown so far apart from his wife that he simply finds it hard to understand why someone else would like her in her current state.
I asked them if they could each use an animal to describe their character.
"My character thinks he's a black Panther - stalking the jungles all sleek and shiny," Brink says. "But I think he's a bit of a dung beetle, growing his tiny balls and taking them everywhere."
Garbellini thinks about it. "For Antonia, I tend to go with a Flamingo: fast and dramatic.” She suggests that her opposite number would be better suited as a ram, because he’s “freaking stubborn.”
Working Together
What is it like when these three work together? The actors both say that the director gave them a lot of freedom, and doesn't micromanage. "I think if you want to micromanage, do animation. The point to having real people involved is to be open to their emotions and ideas." King says.
I ask him what was the big difference between this directing experience and that of the pieces he did for Covid & Cigarettes? He responds that it was not unlike the typical stage/screen directing journey. "Unlike C&C, where we could reshoot and edit until things were perfect, there is literally nothing else I can do the moment the curtains raise on opening night. It's all up to these two fine people."
"Oh." Brink responds, looking at Garbellini, "He doesn't know. And there's nothing he can do about it."
The Open Couple is running for four nights from May 11-14, 2022, at the HKRep Black Box. Tickets are available at UrbTix.