“I am not a beast!” A haunting line declared by the hunchback himself in The Hunchback of Norte Dame (originally titled Notre-Dame-de-Paris, 1482). The story was written by French author Victor Hugo, who happens to be the author of one of my favourite stories, Les Miserables. What a pleasure to work on a piece of fiction with themes that are just as relevant today as when it was first written almost 200 years ago - themes such as beauty and ugliness, the mob and scapegoating, bread and circuses, sanctuary, compassion and pity, belonging and friendship.
We all mostly seem to agree that there’s something worth pursuing, something of "Beauty" or “Joy” that may one day be fully experienced. This is why we persist.
As a company, we first decided to present this story in 2019 to be part of our 2020 tenth anniversary season, following the devastating fire of Notre Dame in Paris. Amazingly, the cathedral is scheduled to re-open this December. This adaptation was just perfect for an ensemble theatre company, full of interesting characters to portray, lots of crowd scenes, and packed with important themes worthy of exploration with today’s lens. Working with this talented and passionate team of artists has been an incredible experience for me. We played and laughed and devised and collaborated. We discussed and created, tried crazy things, rolled and crawled on the floor (well, they did, not me), took vulnerable risks, and worked hard together building the show from scratch since April.
The Hunchback... represents the forgotten nobodies of our world, the forsaken, the one without a home, without a prayer, without a hope, the one excluded, the one blamed, the one banished, and the one scapegoated.
In our world where nuanced discussion seems lost, where brazen tribalism and political division seems to rule the day, and which online mobs and “cancel culture” seems common, where do we turn for refuge or “sanctuary”? Where do we find sources of “Beauty” and meaning for ourselves individually but also for ourselves as a culture? Where do we look for things that are sacred and universally valued? Some find it in art and shared experiences like live theatre, some find it in faith-based community, others find it in family, while others find it in a personal spirituality or philosophy. At the least, we all mostly seem to agree that there’s something worth pursuing, something of “Beauty” or “Joy” that may one day be fully experienced. This is why we persist.
In our production, we approached things with a contemporary aesthetic and with symbolic representation rather than telling the story literally. The Hunchback, Quasimodo represents the forgotten nobodies of our world, the forsaken, the one without a home, without a prayer, without a hope, the one excluded, the one blamed, the one banished, and the one scapegoated. He represents the great “Other” in any culture, time, or place. He is the one that is in need of our understanding and compassion, in need of our love. He is our noisy neighbour, our political rival, the ugly one on the street, and the one society often falsely blames for our problems.
Compassion and dignity are words I don’t hear much anymore in the common space. They seem integral to living alongside each other and seeing the Divine in the "Other".
Compassion and dignity are words I don’t hear much anymore in the common space. They seem integral to living alongside each other and seeing the Divine in the “Other”. In the words of Hugo’s character Jean Val Jean from Les Mis, “to love another person is to see the face of God.” For surely we have all been rejected or misunderstood or shunned or shamed at some point in our life. Surely we all know how it feels. I know I do. In the Christian story, Jesus does too. We are all Quasimodo in our own way, as we look up to the sky joining him in shouting “Look down on me, but not in pity. I am not a beast!”
JONATHAN HARRIS is 9th Hour's Producing Artistic Director and is the Director of the 2024 production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame playing in Ottawa's west end October 3-13.
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