Casey Beynon, a third-year communications and media studies student, is directing a production of Yazmina Reza’s God of Carnage for Sock ‘n’ Buskin Theatre. The play opens on Jan. 26, and The Charlatan sat down with her to hear about the show.
The Charlatan (TC): What made you want to try directing a play?
Casey Beynon (CB): I’ve been acting for like 10 or so years, and I would do a show a year, and I’ve just had such a diverse range of directors that I was super interested in trying it out myself.
TC: What made you originally get into theatre?
CB: I was in grade eight, and my teacher was interested in this one particular show called I Never Saw Another Butterfly. We did a lot of studying of the Holocaust, so we made it our class’s mission to put on this show. I don’t know, I had just never thought about acting before, so when I auditioned I was all ambitious and I tried out for the lead and everything. I didn’t get it, but it just sparked this love of telling the story of characters that are not myself, and I think that’s really interesting.
TC: What drew you to God of Carnage?
CB: I wanted to direct a show that had a small cast, and because God of Carnage has four characters who are very distinct, interesting, relatable, that was a show I thought I could tackle. It’s something that I don’t think Sock ‘n’ Buskin would tackle had it not been proposed because there is a vomit scene in the show, and I don’t feel like those special effects have been tackled before, at least not to my knowledge. So, I wanted to try that out.
TC: What challenges did you face along the way as a director?
CB: I have been overcome with such an intense amount of self-doubt. It’s a feeling that’s really hard to explain to people unless you’ve been there yourself. The best way I can put it is every time I go to a rehearsal, I think like “am I approaching this correctly? Should I be asking for more input? What does a good director do?” I’m just plagued with these questions, and I feel like that’s a really difficult challenge. Also another one is with my cast—I’m already friends with all of them. It was very difficult at first to find a good balance between friend and authority figure without being overpowering. I have to remember they’re my peers, and though they respect me and I respect them, it’s still this fine line to walk, you know what I mean?
TC: What was your vision for the play?
CB: I just wanted to stay really true to the script. The dialogue is really witty but it’s also very robust and aggressive, and I didn’t want to change any of that because there are a lot of insults and horrible language. Originally my cast was a little nervous about it, they wanted to know if we were changing any offensive words. What I told them is to just remember that’s your character saying that, that’s not on you and doesn’t reflect the views you have or that the company has. It’s just fictitious, so it was really important to me to stay true to that.
TC: Any behind-the-scenes stories you want to share?
CB: One of our cast bondings that was really unique was we brought in a yoga instructor, who’s also a friend of mine. After a short rehearsal, we just did yoga together and it was this really nice, kind of different sort of intimate look into how we can just hang out in different ways other than going to a bar or something. I wasn’t interested in hanging out at bars or anything like that. Also, when we’re tackling the vomit scene, it’s hard to describe—we have this mechanism essentially that just holds soup and that is what the vomit will be. We’re actually rehearsing that tonight so I’m really excited to see how that’s going to go. Some funny stories have just been when we started rehearsing, we would put water in the bag and it just like sprays everywhere. The stage directions in the show are “a catastrophic spray” and that’s certainly true, and it’s super dramatic and we have a lot of fun with that every time.
TC: What has being involved in Sock ‘n’ Buskin productions meant to you?
CB: Oh my gosh, Sock ‘n’ Buskin has been everything to me. In my first year, I was actually acting with the Carleton engineering musical, and I auditioned in my second year and I didn’t make it. So, I turned to Sock ‘n’ Buskin with my roommate from first year, Lindsay Tannahill—she’s also in the show . . . It’s been such a fantastic experience working with people who are so dedicated, and everybody’s here because we want to be, and we’re willing to put in all of that extra work to not just learn how to work together on a team and collaborate on something fun, but we really care about art and theatre. So it’s been a blessing to work with everybody.
TC: Was having friends and people you’ve worked with before in the cast an influence at all on the production?
CB: For sure. I think with Matt Venner specifically, he was excellent at having his own vision for what he wanted for a scene. But even if he didn’t have it perfected in his mind, he was really great at asking for opinion and collaborating, because that’s what makes the best show—you have a group that’s willing to work with you, and collaborate, and give you different opinions. So he’s influenced me a lot. I was in Macbeth with Sarah Haley, and she was a lot of fun. That was my second time acting in [Kailash Mital Theatre] so we did a lot of projection exercises which was really useful. And yeah, everyone at Sock ‘n’ Buskin has been fantastic.
TC: What can we expect to see in the show?
CB: A lot of aggression, a lot of tension, couple awkward moments but there’s a lot of arguing and I really love that about this show. It’s so real, the characters are so relatable, and I think you can pick out pieces of every character, and you’ll be able to see that in people you know.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
– Photo is provided.
