AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS
Where: Roxy Theatre, 2657 Quadra St.
When: Nov. 8-20
Tickets: $25-$42 from bluebridgetheatre.ca or 250-382-3370
As the director of Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre’s Around the World in 80 Days, Sanjay Talwar is shouldering a much different kind of responsibility than he was as the star of A Christmas Carol.
For the latter, which Blue Bridge also produced in 2020 and 2021, Talwar was the only actor on stage for the duration. He portrayed 50 characters over 90 minutes in the two Blue Bridge presentations of the Charles Dickens classic. His job is no less important for the upcoming run, but it requires far less physical endurance, Talwar said.
The heavy lifting is now the exclusive property of Talwar’s team of actors — Trevor Hinton, Tamara McCarthy and Pedro Siqueira — who are working from a Toby Hulse adaptation first produced in Britain in 2010.
“It’s been a lot of fun watching the actors,” he said. “Two of them are playing eight or nine roles each, and the third is playing four or five. I’ve done more than one role in a play before so I know how we should do this, but it’s going to be different for everybody. You look at their strengths, and play to that.”
Talwar came to Around the World in 80 Days with some first-hand experience, having read the book by Jules Verne when he was young; he also appeared as Scotland Yard policeman Detective Fix in a 2013 production of the family-friendly classic in Houston, Texas. But Talwar said he decided to approach the Blue Bridge adaptation, which opens the company’s 14th season, with fresh eyes and ears as a director.
“Eventually, it all comes together,” he said. “But I feel a little bit like Geoffrey Rush [who plays a theatre impresario] in Shakespeare in Love, when he says: ‘How’s it all going to work? It’s a mystery.’ ”
The Ontario-based Talwar is happy to be back in Victoria and working on a project that has in-person audiences. A version of the Blue Bridge production of A Christmas Carol was scuttled at the last minute in late 2020 due to the provincial lockdown, before being remounted in 2021 with both in-person and online performances.
He expects audiences to react warmly to Around the World in 80 Days, for reasons that have everything to do with a return to normal, where live theatre is concerned. “We’re not waiting for the audience to react,” he said. “We’re counting on the audience to react.”
When he’s not travelling Canada during the winter, he is stationed in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., home to the legendary Shaw Festival. Talwar is a full-time employee at the festival, and spends the better part of each summer immersed in Shakespearean culture. He welcomes diversions like Around the World in 80 Days before his inevitable return to A Christmas Carol each holiday season.
“It hasn’t gone away just yet,” Talwar said of the Yuletide staple, which has become one of his calling cards as a solo performer. “I don’t know if it’s going to be something I do every year, but once you learn all those words you might as well share it with people.”
