Calgary independent theatre companies explore the political peril and pleasures of 15th century Italian life in Botticelli in the Fire

Zachary Parsons-Luzinski, Ethan Vasquez Taylor and Eric Wigston are part of the cast of Botticelli in the Fire, which opens March 4 at Werklund Centre.

Politics didn’t just start making life difficult for artists, which an award-winning drama from Jordan Tannahill, one of Canada’s finest playwrights, explores in his own unique way the perils of creativity in 15th century Florence.

Botticelli in the Fire, which opens March 4 at Werklund Centre, tells the story of Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli at a precarious historical moment when art, religion, politics, and personal desire were violently entangled.

As the radical preacher Savonarola rises to power and calls for the destruction of “immoral” art, Botticelli is pulled between his devotion to beauty, his startling love, and a society demanding ideological purity.

Calgary’s Eric Wigston, who plays the painter explained it in a Tuesday interview with CTV’s Adriana Zhang, describing Botticelli as “an awesome, amazing character.”

“We are kind of labelling him as a pansexual queer artist so that resonates with me,” Wigston said. “I am a queer artist here in Calgary, so it’s a really fun (part to play).

“He’s maybe a little bit more flamboyant than I am but it’s kind of fun to dig into that,” Wigston added.

The play explores how extremism took hold in Florence 550 years ago, how desire became dangerous, and how artists survived -- or were destroyed -- when their work got caught in the crossfire of political upheaval.

Botticelli in the Fire premiered in 2016 as part of a double bill including Sunday in Sodom, which jointly won the Governor-General’s Award for English-language drama.

Joel Cochrane, the artistic producer of Hit & Myth productions, which is co-producing Botticelli with Downstage Theatre, plays Lorenzo Di Medici in the show.

“He was a banker who married Clarice, who was royalty,” said Cochrane, “so that gave him a huge amount of power or status.

“The Medicis were bankers, not just for Florence but for all of Italy,” he added. “They had banks essentially all through Europe including as far away as London.”

Cochrane has played dozens of memorable characters over the last two decades in Calgary theatre, including the writer C.S. Lewis and a number of Shakespeare characters.

“From a macro perspective, Lorenzo represents power and patronage,” Cochrane said. “He’s also a patron of the arts --but he was also a great writer in his own right, a great warrior, but predominantly wanted to be known as a patron of the arts.”

The play’s style is playful and anachronistic -- it’s a historical drama where characters have cell phones, drive vehicles and play squash, said Downstage artistic producer Clare Preuss.

“It’s super fun,” Preuss said. “There’s lots of music and singing and it intertwines Renaissance music and electronic dance music.

“So if you like Bridgerton and A Knight’s Tale, that Health Ledger movie, this is your jam," she said.

Downstage is a Calgary independent theatre company whose mandate is to present work that challenges social norms. Preuss said that’s exactly what Tannahill does with Botticelli in the Fire.

“It’s looking at the disparity between the superrich and people that are just regular working class folks and what happens when that (disparity) gets too big and people start to revolt,” said Preuss.

“There starts to be protests in the street, and how that affects gig economy workers especially -- and I think so many people these days are living paycheck to paycheck gig economy workers so it’s looking at those kinds of questions in a really playful way.”

As for the squash-playing business, it turns out Wigston once played the sport competitively so that didn’t hurt either.

“When I was a lot younger, I used to play competitive squash,” Wigston said, “so it was fun to jump back into it and show off some of my squash skills.”

A co-production of Downstage and Hit & Myth Productions, Botticelli in the Fire at the Big Secret Theatre in Werklund Centre from March 4 through March 14.

With files from CTV’s Adriana Zhang