C'EST LA 'GUERRE'

from page 71

"Martin Guerre" is based on a legend of a soldier

who arrives in the small village of Artidat in the French

countryside, claiming to be Martin Guerre,

a native son who had disappeared seven years earlier.

Stephen R. Buntrock as

Arnaud and Erin Dilly as

Bertrande in a scene from

"Martin Guerre."

11/26

1999

74

posed the music. Boublil wrote the
are from Michigan, a situ-
lyrics with Stephen Clark.
ation noted by cast and
"There's a kind of coincidence
crew as they head for the
between Boublil and me," Davis says.
Motor City.
"I think my experience with self-fash-
The musical is based on
ioning as a Jewish woman growing up
a book and 1982 French
in an older family in Detroit was one
film, both titled The Return
of
the things that attracted me to the
and
both
of Martin Guerre,
story of somebody who self-fashioned
the ideas of Natalie Zemon
so hard that he became an imposter.
Davis, a former Detroiter
"I think that Boublil picked up on
whose family has been very
that from my book. He wrote a very
active in the Jewish com-
lovely essay about himself in the play-
munity. Another former
bill, explaining that he was from
Michigan resident, also
Tunisia and understood about people
with Jewish commitments,
moving and changing their identity. I
appears in the play as a
guessed that he was from the Jewish
member of the chorus and
community in Tunisia, and not only
is almost continually on
was I right, but he went to the same
stage. Sophia Salguero,
high school as my Jewish Tunisian
who spent the first five
son-in-law."
years of her life in Ann
Davis also was attracted to the story
Arbor, plays Marie.
because of the plot, which is full of
Erin Dilly, who attend-
surprises. As a historian, she also was
ed Groves High School and received
a bachelor's degree in musical theater taken with some new insights.
"Because there was a court case
from the University of Michigan,
[about whether the man was an
portrays one of the leads, Bertrande.
imposter], it's possible to get into the
Hunter Foster (Victor) spent seven
minds of peasants to some extent,"
years in the state and also earned a
Davis explains. "Most of the peasants
bachelor's degree in musical theater
were illiterate, and we don't have
from U-M. Gregory Butler, dance
captain and assistant stage
manager, was born and
Ann Arbor native Sophie Salguero plays Marie: "I
raised in Detroit.
was raised Jewish, but I've always had identity and
"I saw the musical in
faith issues. The show makes me think about who I
am, what's important and the similarities among all
London, and I wrote
of these religions and cultures and how strange lit is]
something for the playbill
that we fight about the details," she says.
there," says Davis, 71,
Offe'
whose interest in the
story dates back to the
'70s. "I've been very
much in touch with Alain
Boublil, one of the writ-
ers. Even though I haven't
seen the final version, it's
changed quite a bit his-
torically in the sense that
it's put later in the 16th
century, when the reli-
gious wars were hot.
"In the book, I suggest
that Bertrande and
Arnaud were Protestants,
and they took that insight
and ran with it," making
the characters Protestant
and focusing on the
Catholic-Protestant break,
says Davis.
The play, written by the
same team that did Les
Miserables and Miss Saigon,
is in its third incarnation,
the version planned for
America. Boublil wrote the
book with Claude-Michel
Schonberg, who also corn-