Those beautiful, talented, seemingly perfect people — they’re the worst, aren’t they? The folks you really want to hang out with are the slobs and neat freaks, the neurotic worriers and bumbling stumblers. They’re the fun ones, the real human beings.
“If you lived in my mind, I guess that’s how it would look,” said Jaynie Roberts, the founder and artistic director of downtown Vancouver’s Magenta Theater. “I wanted to write something quirky and fun with unusual characters. It has a lot of English humor in it. And it has a lot of unfortunate people in it, the poor things.”
As Roberts’ fictional fairy godmother says: “Every family’s got their problems, and there’s no predicting what will swim out of the gene pool, is there?”
“Once Upon a Palace Purple,” Roberts’ original musical-comedy-fantasy, returns to Magenta Theater this month after a decade of mounting demand for a revival. It’s a revision of the same wry, whimsical show that proved a popular local hit and helped put Magenta on the map in 2008 — a time when the DIY theater troupe could not be found on any map. In those days, Magenta rented space for performances in the church across from the Main Street Dairy Queen.
If You Go
• What: “Once Upon a Palace Purple,” written and directed by Jaynie Roberts.
• When: 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday, Nov. 7-10, 15 and 16; 2 p.m. Nov. 10 and 17.
• Where: Magenta Theater, 1108 Main St., Vancouver.
• Venue website: www.magentatheater.com
Since then, Magenta has gone on to greater and greater things — from a shoebox theater on lower Main to a big, bright auditorium in the heart of downtown — and Roberts kept on generating the occasional original comedy for the group. She’s had success with a few, she said, and there really was demand for a “Palace Purple” redux, but there was also sufficient skepticism to keep her saying no. Until she finally said yes.
What’s the point of being founder and artistic director, she said, if you can’t make a decision and make it stick?
Exaggerated
Decision made, Roberts enlisted a group from her company — including some of the original cast — for a fresh, critical read-through of the decade-old script. They made many suggestions and Roberts fixed many holes in the plot, she said. She also shaved down the massive cast from nearly 40 to a slightly less unwieldy 30, she said.
The script wasn’t the only aspect of the show that got upgrades. Longtime Magenta fixture Steve Goodwin (an actor, comedy improviser, musician and arranger) took Roberts’ original musical backing, which had been recorded and replayed electronically, and arranged an actual score for a small group to play. So, this musical will finally feature live music — by a palace band that’s been dubbed the Knights in White Satin. Also, Roberts recruited Kristi Foster, the former executive artistic director of youth musical theater program Journey Theater, to direct vocals and choreography.
Another Magenta fixture, actor-singer-musician Michele Glover, is set designer and dresser. That’s a crucial role for a play set in make-believe kingdoms where what’s really king is color. All the furniture and props and decorations “have to be exaggerated and quirky and whimsical,” Roberts said. “You know it’s not real life. But you know it’s going to be entertaining.”
Three of the original actors have returned to their roles of a decade ago: David Bower as the perfectly awful Red Prime Minister, Dana Black as the bad-tempered Aquanetta Petite and Amy Baumgarten as the hyper-organized Persnickety Bump.
In the world of “Once Upon a Palace Purple,” the Purple Kingdom is home to the flawed and awkward Good Guys, while the Red Kingdom is where the “beautiful, talented and amazing” Bad Guys hang out. But the Red Queen and the Purple Queen are rival sisters, of course, and each is determined to marry off her many daughters — there are eight in all — with the biggest media splash possible. Scheming, songs and magic ensue. Not to mention allergy attacks and nervous breakdowns.
“I don’t want this in the newspapers. They always exaggerate everything,” Queen Violet bemoans. We couldn’t agree more.
“Beautiful and talented and wealthy people seem to have an easier life. But it’s not necessarily a good and happy and deep life,” said Roberts. “For my purposes, the unfortunate ones, the ones with so many issues — they’re the fun ones.
“It’s OK not to be pretty and glamorous and wealthy,” she said. “It’s OK to focus on your personality and who you are inside.”
