How do you like dark fairytales?
Wildwoman on stage at Alberta Theatre Projects is billed as the original story inspiration behind Beauty and the Beast, but there will be no dancing cutlery.
The story follows the life of Catherine de Medici from the age of 14, as she arrives at the French court as a future queen, through her struggle to become a mother, and into what lies beyond. At the centre of it all is a “wild man,” brought to court as a gift for the dauphin.
As Catherine ages and grows, his journey mirrors hers, eliciting questions of freedom, happiness, and whether one is required for the other.
Synthia Yusuf plays Catherine in the play. She says she did extensive historical research to ground her portrayal.
“Being able to follow her life was, I think, the most fascinating part for me,” she says.
Those familiar with Catherine’s story know it is not always a happy one, but pre-reading is not required for the entertaining romp through history.
Motherhood for a royal figure like de Medici looks nothing like modern expectations.
“I think Catherine’s always searching for her reason to be, her belonging throughout this play,” Yusef says. “She knows that she was supposed to be a mother. So when that’s not happening, I think she’s thinking, well, then what am I for?”
She says legacy becomes a central theme; Yusuf says the idea of children as immortality is a recurring theme in the play.
“I think that’s definitely something she learns as she’s becoming a queen, becomes the regent, what she’s leaving behind,” she says.
Director Jamie King says the joy of working on Wildwoman came from tearing familiar ideas apart and addressing common fears about life.
“Parenthood is such a scary concept and there’s so much weight to it and importance to it,” King says.
King says the humour in the show comes from living inside those contradictions.
“In that truth of the fears around parenthood and the joy of parenthood and all of these things, that’s where humour is,” King says. “There is humour in sex. There is humour in aging. There is humour in all of these things.”
Beyond the character of Catherine, King points to the journey of the wild man himself, played by Calgary actor Connor Stewart.
“He comes to court, and he doesn’t know how to speak,” King says. “He only knows his own name. He learns everything from the King and then from Cathy. And so his sense of the world is very small. And by the end, he really establishes himself as a grounded kind of worldly thinker.”
She says it was important that the transformation was clear.
“He really ends in a very significantly different place from where he begins,” King says. “That was a real intention of ours.”
MATURE CONTENT WARNING
There is a mature content warning attached to Wildwoman. Audiences can expect strong language and sexual content on stage.
“You know, it’s not very graphic,” Yusuf says. “I know for some people it feels shocking because these aren’t the things that you see on stage every day, but certainly it’s on television. What’s on stage, it seems PG compared to what we’re used to seeing on TV. But in person, it’s so much more impactful.”
Wildwoman runs April 21 to May 10 at the Martha Cohen Theatre at The Werklund Centre.
The show is two and half hours long with an intermission.
Tickets can be found here.