On a Tuesday afternoon, voice trills bounced around the grounds at the Yard off Middle Road in Chilmark. Some performers relaxed their diaphragms, lying on yoga mats on the floor of the barn studio. No dancers in tights or leotards ran in and out of the theatre on this day; opera singers have taken over the Yard for the next two weeks for the annual Yard Arts Opera performance.
Special guest Claudia Weill and Yard artistic director Wendy Taucher will present original translations and adaptations of Archy and Mehitabel and Mozart’s Impresario this weekend and next. While the stories are old, Ms. Weill and Ms. Taucher have made them their own, reshaping them for the summer audience at the Yard.
Ms. Weill is directing Archy and Mehitabel, a one-act opera based on the writings of the New York Evening Sun columnist Don Marquis and his story of Archy, the cockroach who tries to domesticate a wild alley cat named Mehitabel. The column was turned into a book and put to music by Gorge Kleinsinger and Joe Darion in 1954, and reworked into a Broadway jazz musical, Shinbone Alley, by Mel Brooks in 1957.
“My dad brought home the LP when I was a kid and he used to play it over and over again,” Ms. Weill said of her first experience with the story. “I began to realize it was about him and my mom, even though I was eight years old. People begin to relate to stuff because there are parts of themselves in it.”
When Ms. Weill began looking for an opera to direct at the Yard, Archy and Mehitabel seemed like the obvious choice. “[Music director] Glen Roven and I started looking, I listened to it, and I knew this was it,” she said. “It was perfect.”
Ms. Weill has been a film, television and theatre director for more than 30 years, and made her directing debut with the movie Girlfriends. She created short films for Sesame Street, and directed multiple episodes of Thirtysomething, My So-Called Life and many more. Her work in theatre earned her the best director award from the Drama Desk, and the chance to direct Doubt in Los Angeles. She has done productions at the Vineyard Playhouse; Archy and Mehitabel is her Yard debut.
“I love it because it’s kind of about archetypes of men and women and about relationships,” she said of the plot. “One is kind of the warrior, the person who’s all head, trying to fix things and keep control. And the other is the person who goes from their gut, who breathes life into things and is full of passion and has no boundaries. They’re attracted to each other because they are two halves to one whole, but there’s a lot of friction.”
Archy and Mehitabel is the story of the little guy who tries to fix someone who can’t change. “The theme of the piece really appealed to me,” she said. “The piece is kind of about acceptance, that’s what love is, accepting the person for who they are. And that starts with accepting you for the way you are.”
Ms. Weill noted the use of animals as a way to satirize human nature and society, something Mr. Marquis did often, inspiring E.B. White to do the same in Charlotte’s Web. “It’s nice because you’re working in that land, that playful area, where you don’t have to take it so seriously,” Ms. Weill said. “It has some depth but is also extremely playful and fun.”
She has been working on the script since November and has reworked it specifically for the stage at the Yard. After reducing an original cast of 14 to six, Ms. Weill then cut down parts that did not work and rearranged certain songs in the piece. “The essence is there, I just sculpted it into a piece that works on this scale,” she said.
Ms. Taucher extended an invitation last fall to Ms. Weill to join her opera. “We wanted to do something and we thought it’d be fun,” Ms. Taucher said, adding: “Claudia is a demon. She’s detail-oriented and has a terrific cast.”
She described the music director of Archy and Mehitabel as a “mad scientist genius,” bringing together a cast of some of the most talented opera singers around. When not performing at the Yard, they are household names at the New York city and Metropolitan operas in New York. “We cast the best singers we can find, but they can also act,” Ms. Taucher said.
Ms. Weill’s one-act opera is all singing and dance with little dialogue, in contrast with Ms. Taucher’s Impresario, where she has translated the four original tunes of Impresario into English and added what she calls a mix of “Mozart’s greatest hits,” including songs from Don Giovanni and the Marriage of Figaro. “It has really beautiful music but in different kind of contexts,” she explained. “It’s not completely a unique thing to do. But I’m a modern dancer, we have no shame. I kind of mess around with everything.”
Ms. Taucher has been working on the script on and off for the past 18 months with friend and cocreator David Richmond. Their version tells the story of a producer who has gone broke too many times and longs to get out of the business. But his love for music overpowers him. His assistant insists that he hire the most popular singers, even though they can’t sing.
“He’s the defender of art for art’s sake,” Ms. Taucher said. “It’s interesting because [the plot] could be written now.” Longtime Yard favorite Donavon Dietz plays the lead role, and although he’s not singing in this piece, Ms. Taucher still considers him to be “luscious” and “funny.”
Before heading back to rehearsal, Ms. Taucher was helping set up for a guest lecturer under the summer tent. Yard employees scurried about, artists in residence wandered in and out of the barn. It was a typical summer afternoon.
“It’s an exciting place,” Ms. Taucher said. “It’s just a delight. These pieces are charming . . . I hope people have some chuckles, but the main thing is that the music is so gorgeous.”
Ms. Weill echoed Ms. Taucher’s sentiments on the music, but for her, both performances promise to bring something more than a good laugh. “I think what art does whether it’s a painting by a five-year-old or the Bolshoi Ballet, it doesn’t matter, it hands you back to yourself. It makes you see yourself in a different way.”
Yard Arts Opera shows on Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 6 p.m. Next weekend’s performances follow the same schedule. For tickets, visit dancetheyard.org or call 508-645-9662.
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