Terry Pratchett’s Discworld on stage
Beginning with The Colour of Magic in 1983, Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series spanned 41 novels. The fantasy writer drew from mythology, folklore and the classics for stories that happened on a flat planet that balanced on the backs of four elephants, who in turn stood upon a giant turtle.
1988’s The Wyrd Sisters is a loose retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and director Jeannie LeGrow thought it would be great if there were a stage version; she’s a big fan of the Discworld books. Turns out that British writer Stephen Briggs has adapted more than 20 Pratchett novels into plays, including the one starring three witches, a Duke, his striving wife and a ghost.
“I just decided to re-read them,” she said by phone recently. “I find that I get something new depending on where I am in life each time I do, and I thought, ‘Wouldn’t this make a great play?” Then I was like, ‘Do you think it is one?’ ‘I Googled it, and there it was.”
In another bit of kismet, the publishing house with the rights to The Wyrd Sisters lets theatrical companies have the play in exchange for a donation to the Orangutan Foundation, a favorite charity of Pratchett’s. In The Colour of Magic there’s a character who is magically turned into a great ape and decides he likes it.
“He finds it easier to climb the shelves and somehow everyone understands him,” LeGrow said. “I imagine the donation was probably the brainchild of Sir Pratchett or his family and estate. He really seems to want his legacy to be positive … to have left behind something good and fun.”
In his writing, LeGrow likes the way Pratchett blended the medieval and magical with modernism. “In Guards! Guards!, another fabulous one that I’d like to do, this cult does a big thing and then they’re waiting, and one of them goes, ‘Should we get a pizza?’ He just loves to add that little touch of reality, which is not only humorous, but more relatable.”
Another thing she enjoys is that Pratchett’s worldview was very female forward. The Duke of Felmet, played by Village regular Bob Tuttle, is both wicked and hapless as Lady Felmet (Magner Peruto) guides him. The Wyrd Sisters’ men come off as mostly beholden to the women in the play — that is, when they’re not simply trying to keep up.
“My favorite Terry Pratchett book is Equal Rites, in which a woman becomes a wizard,” she said. “He says in the book, ‘Women are not allowed to become wizards because the wizards have realized they’d be rather better at it,’ He very much writes his women that way and I’ve always loved that about him … and yes, the women definitely let the men think they’re running things in the Discworld.”
The three witches in the play are Nanny Ogg (Jayson Andrews) — “very pragmatic, but a bit … well, she’s not very tactful, and that’s something I really like about her … you always know where you stand,” LeGrow said — and the outsized Granny Weatherwax, “in her opinion, and probably everyone else’s, the greatest witch in all of Discworld.”
Magrat Garlick, a character who’s often portrayed as dumb, is updated by Emily Marsh. “She’s more aware of the modern world, but also is very naive in other ways; not dumb, she just doesn’t know yet,” LeGrow said. “She makes it sweet and very funny.” LeGrow, who joined Village a few years ago, feels Marsh exemplifies something important about the theater.
“She grew up in this theater, it’s a second family to her, and that speaks to me so much,” she said. “These kids go off to college and they come back. It matters to them to come to this theater, and that speaks volumes of how welcoming they are. I’ve had such a good time with the group.”
The Wyrd Sisters
When: Fridays and Saturdays, Aug. 16 through Aug. 24, at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays, Aug. 18 and Aug. 25, at 2 p.m.
Where: The Village Players Theater, 51 Glendon St., Wolfeboro
Tickets: $20 at village-players.com
Featured image: Wyrd Sisters. Courtesy photo.
