An Interview with Daniel Krolik (Poldi)

How did you go about developing your character? Did you do any research?

Vivian's book has always guided our process. Even at this late stage (we move into the Al Green Theatre tomorrow!) I find myself returning to the book again and again.

We have been developing Ten Green Bottles for the past ten months in two different workshops. The first workshop was very broad and conceptual - the cast, the directors, and the designer in a room together, playing games, establishing relationships, taking risks. By the week's end, we had, in one shape or another, dramatized almost every moment of Vivan's epic story.

The second workshop was about re-evaluating and distilling what we had, and turning it into an eighty minute piece of theatre. We got rid of most of the book's secondary characters (how I still miss Marco, Herte, and the Secretary!), played around with the piece's chronology, and started experimenting with suitcases as props and scenery.

The past three weeks have finally brought us into full-fledged rehearsal. But things are still evolving and changing.

I have pages and pages of notes that I've been making on Poldi and his story since our very first day in July. When I get stuck, I re-read what I've written, and sometimes things that I discovered all those months ago will help me get back on track. I've gone back and read certain chapters of Vivian's book again and again to help ground myself in the worlds of Shanghai and Poland. And lots and lots of movies. Mark has been excellent in suggesting lots of great foreign titles to us, and they've been a great tool in terms of imagery and atmosphere.

What is your favourite scene? What are some of your favourite lines?

I rarely get to play out a full-fledged love story on stage, so I do love all my scenes with Nini and exploring every facet of Poldi and Nini's beautiful, complex relationship. I'm still making new discoveries every day.

One of my favourite lines was cut last week! Erna (Lauren Brotman) said "Even Vienna's not Vienna anymore" in the opening scene. Certain lines and moments were slowing the action down and had to be cut, and that's just the nature of the beast. But Lauren and I have been scheming and conspiring to find a new place for that line somewhere else in the show! Watch out!

What challenges does the production present for you as an actor?

Ten Green Bottles has become a fluid, very movement-heavy piece of theatre. We've been working very hard with Clare Preuss to create some really exciting dance and movement pieces. That kind of stuff always freaks me out and excites me in equal parts, so it's been a particular challenge for me. And I think everyone's big, general challenge has been to tell this epic, tragic, beautiful, funny, moving story in just one hour and fifteen or so minutes. I'm still trying to infuse each moment with as much drive and subtext as I possibly can.

One of the great gifts this show has given me is working with this amazing and inspiring group. Every day in rehearsal I get pushed and challenged by them to do the best work I can possibly do. So they make every day a challenge for me, in the best possible sense.

And as for who's playing Poldi in the movie...Sascha suggested Clive Owen, but I'm thinking more along the lines of Liev Schreiber or Jeremy Northam

Interview with Ginette Mohr (Stella)

How did you go about developing your character?

I gathered most of my character information from the novel, which vividly characterizes the family’s will to survive. I further explored Stella through improvisation and from answering character questions such as:

How does Stella change?
How does she change those around her?
What does she want? What does she need?
How far is she prepared to go to get what she needs? What is the line she will not cross? How does the narrative challenge her with that line?
What is her worst fear?

I also watched films from the era and documentaries such as ‘Shanghai Ghetto’ and ‘Port of Last Resort’.

What did you get out of the process of developing the script?

I’ve learned so much about adapting a novel since our first workshop last July, and it is a pleasure to collaborate with such a talented group of artists. Mark Cassidy is masterful in the process of sculpting a compelling piece of theatre, and I must remember to thank him for indulging our trippy Shanghai Ghetto improvisations and patiently considering our ideas. “Hey Mark, look how I can make this suitcase talk!”

I have a binder full of drafts of the play – enough material for ‘Ten Green Bottles’, the television series. Oh, today’s debate at break was who would play our characters in the movie. If you have any thoughts on this, please let us know.


What is your favourite line?

I like when Willi (played by Nathan) mentions the “fish concoction”. Nathan had fish for lunch today and then rehearsed all afternoon with greasy fingers and a fish bone in his teeth. He’s kind of a method actor.

What challenge does the production present for you as an actor?

My challenge is in serving this incredible story, in dropping into each scene cleanly with high stakes, specific relationships and immediate intentions. It’s the old acting adage: In a place, to a person, for a reason.

Interview with Lauren Brotman: Erna (Part I)

How did you go about developing your character? Did you do any research?

My approach to my character was in some ways similar and in some ways very different to my usual approach. In preparing for a role, I always seek to find out as many specifics about the world and the character as possible, to make it more real for me. This process began with reading the book, which is a luxury that one doesn’t normally have, and also a challenge. What presented a challenge was that the book was mainly told through the perspective of Nini so I really had to translate her experience into my own for Erna, and make as much out of the details as I could. The novel is filled with rich imagery and details about the Karpel family and their Viennese/Shanghai experience. The world became very clear and real for me. While reading the book, I took about 10 pages of notes, of things that may become useful to me later.

The next thing I did was read and re-read the script, marking down any initial impulses I had about the scenes and character. Then, I began my character work. I went through the script line by line, writing down the lines I say about other characters, the lines I say about myself, and the lines others say about me (about 13 pages). This gave me a huge amount of insight into my character—her values, beliefs, fears, wants, needs, and her relationships with every single character in the play. After that I created a timeline of Erna’s life, from the time she was born, until the end of the play. Some of these were things I gleaned from the book and script, others were made up so I could make her real for myself as an actor.

Next, I began text work which involves writing down all my lines, paraphrasing them into my own words, and writing down their subtext—that is, what Erna really means when she says each line. I then asked myself what are the needs and wants of Erna for each line, and what does she want to do the person she is speaking to. These 36 pages gave me even more insight, and it’s also a great way of becoming familiar with the lines! From here, I will breathe it all in, trust that the work is in me, let it go, and discover new things in the moment I get into the rehearsal space with the rest of my ensemble.

What did you get out of the process of developing the script? Can you describe the workshop process so far?

I love the workshop process. My experience is much different than the rest of the Ten Green Bottles team because I only came into the process last month for a one day workshop. I felt like I had a really thin essence of the play compared to everyone else who had been with the play for months. As well, the characters had been mainly developed through improvisations, and the text I had to work with came from someone else’s experience. This made the experience more like a traditional rehearsal period where you’re given a script, which is great because you have a bigger resource pool of choices, but also presents a challenge because I felt the character was so far from who I am as a person. She is thoughtful and quietly passionate, while I think my choices may have been much more explosive—but what a wonderful opportunity for me to play someone so far from who I am, and make her my own!

The one workshop day I took part in brought us all onto the same page; as an ensemble, and as characters. The cast and director and the rest of the Ten Green Bottles team made me feel incredibly welcome, and as though I had been part of the experience from the first day. We did some text work, which gave me a much richer connection to the material and we did some improvisations, which allowed me to contribute my own voice to Erna, and with the other characters, and solidified even more my relationships to the ensemble, both in and out of the play. We explored the movement vocabulary of the piece and of our characters, which I think is essential when telling this kind of a story, where we don’t have the time to tell a 30 year story with words only.

About the Author

Vivian Jeanette Kaplan was born in Shanghai. When she was two years old, her family immigrated to Canada, settling in Toronto where Vivian studied English, French and Spanish. Ten Green Bottles, which tells her own true family saga, is her first book.

Interview with Vivan Kaplan, Award-Winning Author of Ten Green Bottles: Part II

Why did you choose to tell the story from your mother’s perspective?

Right from the start, the words came to my mind through thoughts of my mother as if she were reflecting on the pivotal events of her life. I began to write in her voice, and in the present tense, not as a story that she might tell me, but how it would be to really relive the years from 1921-1949. How did she feel when those many experiences befell her? Only by projecting myself into her skin and her mind, delving into her senses, could I begin to understand what she had endured. I knew about her life to a great extent, from family stories and anecdotes over my lifetime and I knew her, the motivations and reactions that she would have had in various circumstances. In order to flesh out the events and bring the images to life, I researched considerably into the historical timeline, incidents occurring around her that impacted on her actions and I spoke to others worldwide who had had similar experiences to verify different aspects. As my mother was still alive at that time, I was able to ask her for specific descriptions and details that were unclear to me, and she obliged with her recollections. Then in my own style, I imagined one scene at a time and did my best to recreate it in words as precisely as possible. For dialogue, I created the reasonable expressions of the characters whom I personally knew with added insights that I, as author, wanted to provide.

What kind of reception has the book received since it was published?

I think that it is important to mention my husband, Barry Kaplan. His involvement was crucial in the amazing reception and success of Ten Green Bottles. After the book had been published in Canada by a small press, Robin Brass Studio, in 2002, he decided that the book had significant literary merit and appeal and took on the role as agent for me. He was able to have it republished as a new work in the U.S. by a major publisher, St. Martin’s Press, and also in translation in Hungary. As a result the book was catapulted onto a broader international scale. It then was translated again and published in Germany and Italy.

In 2003 Ten Green Bottles won the Canadian Jewish Book Award. In 2007 the Italian edition won the ADEI-WIZO Literary Award which I received at a lavish presentation in Florence. The world premiere of the stage adaptation will take place at the Al Green Theatre in Toronto in May 2009. In the interim I have had the opportunity to speak to many groups of people, now in the thousands, in numerous venues around Canada, the U.S. and internationally. Book sales are steady and interest in the story and the creative aspects continue to expand. I receive a regular stream of emails in praise of the book and I am delighted to say that both professional and personal reviews have been excellent. I could not have possibly asked for a better response to this first book and I am grateful to all who have helped in its continuing success.

Interview with Vivian Kaplan, Award-Winning Author of Ten Green Bottles: Part I

Why did you decide to write a book based on your parents’ experiences during the war?

Many stories have surfaced regarding Holocaust experiences, full of struggle, loss and survival. I did, however, realize that my own family’s story was not at all widely known. Most people whom I had encountered were completely unaware that about 20,000 Jewish refugees had fled from the Nazi demons in Europe, escaped from the terrors and pending death in concentration camps and gas chambers, and found a bizarre hiding place in Shanghai, China. My family was among them. When my mother reached the milestone of eighty years, I decided that it was time that her unique and compelling life story should be recorded. It was up to me to fulfill that legacy.

When I started to put the words on paper, or actually on the computer screen, I realized that her biography, tied together with my father’s experiences and other close family members, was a tale that had more significance than I had originally imagined. As the poignant and powerful images unfolded through my writing, I felt that the world at large should know about their lives. I was determined that the book should be professionally published.

Can you describe your writing process? Can you describe the process of now seeing their story adapted for the stage?

The writing, including intensive research, was a long and mostly solitary endeavour that took six years. The book materialized page by page, image by image until I felt confident that the story was told to the best of my capability and as engrossing as possible. It was an emotional roller-coaster for me as I sifted the young days of my family while flipping through albums of sepia photos. My father had already passed away before I began to write and it was, to a great extent, memories of him, his words and insights that spun in my mind and presented me with a muse. His life and my mother’s were separate threads that eventually intertwined into a stronger rope that would keep them together throughout many tribulations. With smiles and tears I was able to recapture the tumultuous episodes that I had heard about in my childhood and upbringing. As the story developed, I "met" my grandparents who had died before I was born, and learned more about the personalities of all my family members than I had expected.

With the stage adaptation of Ten Green Bottles, the book has taken a life of its own. Now the real people, who are the central characters, are gone, but their memory and spirits will live on in a new way. The audience is transported back in time to the gaiety of pre-war Vienna, the lilting strains of the waltz, bustling cafes and snowy ski slopes. But Vienna changes as the Nazis take over and fear becomes tangible. Then they are flung into the mysterious, heavily pungent world of Shanghai, replete with opium dens and rickshaws, an exotic land where law is non-existent and survival is a daily challenge. Through the skill, creativity and imagination of the director, Mark Cassidy, and cast of highly sensitive and talented actors, new aspects continue to evolve. Themes expressed in the book have become springboards to other thoughts. The dramatization brings the saga of the protagonists to realization beyond the words that I wrote. It is a tribute to the actual lives and memories that is at the heart of this thrilling development.

Mark Cassidy's Bio

Mark has a reputation for creating adventurous, thought provoking theatre. As co-artistic director of Threshold Theatre, Mark has devised and directed a number of innovative projects including, As I Lay Dying, In The Language of Love, White Buildings, Beautiful Losers, That Time, Howl, The Hairy Ape, Forms of Devotion, Terror and Kafka and Son. Collaborations with other Toronto companies have included Five Fingers, Tunnel and Whitewash (Platform 9), The Lost Supper (Shadowland Theatre), Borderline and The Dershowitz Protocol (DMT Productions), The Secret of Gabi's Dresser & The Shop on Main Street (Te-Amim), The Demonstration (Theatre Direct), The Pirate Widow Cheng (Puppetmongers) and Crush (Optic Heart). Mark recently directed: The Misfit, written and performed by Anita Majumdar at Theatre Passe Muraille. Upcoming projects include: i don't want to be inside me anymore, based on the writings of German autistic, Birger Sellin, being performed May 22-28 at Artscape Wychwood Barns (Threshold/New Adventures in Sound Art) , The City in which I Love You, part one of Threshold's SPRAWL and, Swan Song of Maria: A Tragic Fairy Tale by Carol Cece Anderson. Last year, Mark was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Direction, and for the Siminovitch Prize for excellence in Theatre Directing. This year, Mark was nominated for the John Hirsch Award in Directing.