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Light The Lights | Pride and Prejudice director/Citadel artistic director Bab Baker is used to the glare of the spotlight.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Directed by Bob Baker. Written by Tom Wood, adapted from the novel by Jane Austen. Starring Lally Cadeau, James Macdonald, Tim Koetting. Shoctor Theatre, The Citadel. Sep. 20-Oct. 12. Tickets: 425-1820.

“I had to be reminded it was my 10th season, to be honest,” says Bob Baker, who really is celebrating a full decade as the artistic director of Citadel Theatre.

Is he merely being disingenuous. Well, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt — after all, he’s just spent more than two months working at the Banff Centre, building a curriculum designed to give an extra level of intensive training to 14 young actors from across the country. The program is sort of a bridge between theatre school and the professional theatre world, and it all culminates in the first show of the Citadel season, a new stage version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice by Tom Wood. “It’s been 12 hours a day, six days a week for two months,” Baker says. “And now we’re back home rehearsing Pride and Prejudice, an adaptation of a very sprawling novel with a lot of locations and lot of changes in scenery. It’s been non-stop.”

Luckily, Baker found time to look back on the shows he’s directed over the last 10 years and share his thoughts about his five favourites... plus a couple of disappointments.

POPCORN (1999)

“In my first season, I started off directing three plays in a row: Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Popcorn, and Into the Woods. Which is kind of crazy, but why not? Popcorn was the kind of play I love to do — take something that appears to be superficial and then find out what the guts of it are and make it more substantial and visceral. And of course, you had Jan Alexandra Smith on an all-white set soaking in her own blood for half an hour, and then exploding an aquarium over her head — I think one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life was the first time we had all that water come down on her head.”

A CHRISTMAS CAROL (2000-present)

“A Christmas Carol is probably a career high. It was so ambitious — all those actors, all that scenery, all those costumes — and we got it there in the amount of time we had, without any extra rehearsal time or tech time. And in subsequent years, all we really did was finesse the costumes and sets; there was nothing that we needed to go in and fix. I was well aware that a lot of other theatre companies do A Christmas Carol at that time of year, but I wanted something that was substantial and impressive and that if they came year after year, they’d still be getting their money’s worth. And the percentage of people who come see it who’ve never been to the theatre before is growing every year.”

CABARET (2001)/WEST SIDE STORY (2005)

“If I had to choose between these two, I don’t know which one I’d pick. They were both such satisfying, fulfilling journeys. I’m using these words a lot, but they were such visceral and substantial takes on shows that people thought they knew. Cabaret especially was fun, to infect that room with that decadence, that sensuality, that depravity — and have it be entertaining. I’ve seen so many productions of Cabaret where the cast is just ‘pretending to be,’ but I thought ours was really powerful and sexy. My only miscalculation may have been putting the musical at the start of the season, which is the only time I’ve done that. Had it been later in the season, it probably would have run for another two or three weeks.”

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (2004)

“This was a tremendously satisfying experience personally. The four leads in that show — Jan Alexandra Smith, John Ullyatt, Tom Wood, and Maralyn Ryan — all went to places I’ve never seen them go before. I’d never done Tennessee Williams before, and while I’m not sure I got the absolute essence of the play, I can’t imagine a more tortured Brick or a more pathetic Big Daddy. And Maralyn! I’ve never seen Maralyn disappear into a role like that before.”

PRESENT LAUGHTER (2002)

“I was really proud to do a Noël Coward on the mainstage and to make it real. I think we really nailed the elegance of the period, but made it relevant. Coward is very hard to do, because every actor has their own idea of the style it’s supposed to require, but for me, the important thing to ask is ‘What is the story? Who are these people?’ I was really pleased to freshen that play up and make it relevant — not that it was topical, necessarily, but that the emotions of the situation spoke to the people in the room, whether they were in their 20s or their 50s.”

And now, the disappointments...

MEASURE FOR MEASURE (2004)

“I thought we really nailed this show, but I was disappointed in the fact that, because it wasn’t a recognizable Shakespeare title, that it didn’t perform well at the box office. It’s not often done, and it’s dark, and of course we did it dark and had a man putting his hand up a nun’s habit and that was our curtain. But the schools didn’t come because the teachers were afraid of the material. I don’t know; I just thought it should have been seen by a bigger audience.”

VANYA (2005)

“I think I let down that production. I don’t know that I had the heartbeat of that show in me going in. I always felt like I was chasing it in the production. Maybe I felt intimidated by people’s expectations of Chekhov. That’s one that I’ve always thought, ‘Give me another crack at that show! Now I know how to do it!’”