“The big thing for me watching it all come together is a sense of pride—pride in my community, pride that Prince Albert can achieve great things.” – Mathew Derworiz, director
A adventurous story that will make you both laugh and cry—that’s how director Mathew Derworiz described Odyssey Productions’ upcoming performance of The Three Musketeers.
The story follows a young D’Artagnan who travels to Paris, befriending the inseparable three musketeers Athos, Pothos and Aramis. D’Artagnan gets caught in a love interest as the three musketeers train him to become one of their own.
The novel of The Three Musketeers was published in 1844 by Alexandre Dumas, although the story is situated in the 1600s. It was adapted into a play by Linda Alper, Douglas Langworthy and Penny Metropulos.
“We’ve worked to ensure that we have a show that fits for the audience of today while telling a story of the past,” said Derworiz.
“(Our audience will) be excited; they’ll be exhilarated. They will laugh at the comedy; they will cry at the tragedy and they will get swept away in the adventure.”
Derworiz has also participated in Broadway North, Prince Albert Community Players and Spark Theatre shows. He has a diploma in theatre arts from MacEwan University in Edmonton.
“The big thing for me watching it all come together is a sense of pride—pride in my community, pride that Prince Albert can achieve great things,” he said.
He described The Three Musketeers as particularly crowd-pleasing and unique because of its heavy sword-fighting scenes—a challenging, yet rewarding aspect for the play’s cast of 14 people.
They’ve been rehearsing three times a week at the St. Alban’s Hall since auditions were held at the end of August.
Nineteen-year-old Kiana Gallegos plays Constance Bonacieux, D’Artagnan’s love interest.
“I hadn’t met any of these people before starting the play, so walking in on the first day to the first read through and not knowing anyone to where it is now where this is like another family. I care for all of these people individually from the first day where I couldn’t remember anyone’s names,” she said.
She had just returned from a year of studying theatre in Vancouver.
Theresa Smith, 25, plays Milady Countess de Winter.
“It’s really exciting when it starts getting down to the crunch and all of those little things start coming together, because previously you’ve just looked at them each as their own individual thing,” said Smith. She said the lines, costumes, choreography and set production are coming together as a piece of art.
While people may look at the fight choreography as simply swinging swords around, the two said it’s much harder than it looks.
“It’s all down to memorization, like we’re not actually fighting out there. We’re doing a choreographed thing and so when you miss your cue, it just throws everything off,” said Smith.
“This is a whole play of it and I’ve been in most scenes where we do a lot of fight choreography. It uses so many muscles,” added Gallegos.
Gallegos said the entire cast is dedicated to becoming their characters, taking the audience into the story of D’Artagnan’s coming of age.
“I see everybody as their character and they’re so perfect in it that it really makes the show come to life because I’m seeing this like I’m watching a movie,” she said.
“I couldn’t imagine anyone else filling these roles.”
The Three Musketeers runs Nov. 20, 21, 22 and 23 at Plaza 88.
The Nov. 20 performance begins at 7:30 p.m. and tickets cost $25. The last three performances are a dinner theatre costing $55. Dinner is served at 7 p.m.
Tickets are available at Canadian Tire and must be purchased in advance for the dinner theatre shows.
