The thought of a Victor Hugo-inspired comedic romp might seem like an oxymoron, but according to performer Matt Chapman, his upcoming production at the Gladstone—The Hunchbacks of Notre Dame—is just that.
The play is about a struggling theatre company of three hunchback siblings trying to adapt Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame as they see fit, Chapman said.
“We, Under the Table, set out three years ago to make a marketable comedy,” he explained. “But then . . . we ended up making a play about marketability,” he laughed.
Chapman’s character Yohan, is the salesman who wants the play to have a happy ending. The older brother Paul, played by Josh Matthews is the artistic force behind the company. Hilda, the sister played by Sarah Petersiel, is a dancer who “has a lot of love to give . . . and it’s not the kind of love you can give your brothers,” Chapman said.
The siblings’ conflicting ideas about how to tell the story bring out themes that also appear in Hugo’s novel, he said.
“This is a story about what it means to be normal. What it means to be making art in this world, it’s about commercialism and the search for love,” he said.
The characters’ deformities are created through foam padded costuming and false teeth. The set is a cost-effective scaffolding, Chapman said.
“We’re making a play about people who don’t have a lot of money but we are actually people who don’t have a lot of money,” he said. He said those parallels exist within the world of the play as well.
When the company began developing the performance they knew very little about Hugo’s novel, Chapman said.
“There’s a hunchback . . . there’s an evil priest and we know that there’s like some kind of gypsy girl . . . there’s like bell towers involved and that’s kind of about it,” he laughed. He said the gaps in their knowledge of the story intrigued the company so they read the book.
Since 2011, they’ve toured across North America.
“In some ways this play is more about the experience as audience members than actors,” Chapman said. He added audience members will be encouraged to throw things onstage at one point, a “dream of [his] as an audience member,” and during every performance Hilda gives out her real phone number.
He said they get a few strange phone calls after some performances.
“People are afraid of us,” he said. “These are lovable characters but they’re also a little bit scary.”
The Hunchbacks of Notre Dame will be at the Gladstone from Oct. 22- Nov. 1.
