Making Alegria the Film

Fresh from the success of the fabled Cirque du Soleil, Franco Dragone is beguiled by the whole new process of film-making by Edna Tromans

Francis Ford Coppola, the celebrated film maker who made Godfather wants to work with him. So does actor Robin Williams. And every time Whoopi Goldberg runs into him she offers her time and services in her own individual way. Something like, "Hey Franco, when are we going to party?"

The subject of all this interest is an unassuming 42-year- old Italian-born director with a charismatic personality. Dressed from top to toe in black with dark eyes and a thick crop of ink-black hair, Franco looks like a soulful artist dedicated to his work and, almost mournfully, he agrees that he concentrates on his working activities to the exclusion of almost all else.

Twice married and father of two sons, he says, "I feel regret – deep regret – about not being a better husband and father. I once said to my son Lucas, ‘Shall I give it up? I don’t spend enough time with you.’ " His son urged him not to think of it. Now 16, Lucas got his reward when he bobbed up as production assistant alongside his father on Franco’s first film, Alegria which he made last summer.

During filming, Lucas’ mother Antoinette Capettas was also a beautiful and friendly presence on the set, accentuating Franco’s own deeply-held belief that,"Once these important relationships are formed, even after a divorce they remain precious and still last a lifetime."

The Cirque performers form a second kind of family, one with whom he travels throughout the world and many of them were cast in the film which was shot on location in Amsterdam and Berlin.

The same troupe is appearing at London’s Royal Albert Hall this month where it will be playing to packed houses in the Cirque du Soleil’s theatrical production of Alegria. Later in the year the film of the same name will be playing in selected cinemas.

In the film – with a screenplay written by Franco and producer Rudy Barichello – the magical universe of the Cirque du Soleil becomes the backdrop for a tender love story between a street performer and the lead singer of a travelling circus. René Bazinet stars as the love-struck mime artist who falls for a young gifted singer, played by Julie Cox, a dazzling English actress who once played the late Diana, Princess of Wales in the TV production A Prince’s Story.

The role of her father is played by Frank Langella who had barely taken the last curtain call in Noël Coward’s Present Laughter on Broadway before he hopped on a plane for Amsterdam and the film location of Alegria.

Was it Franco’s work with the Cirque that so impressed Frank Langella? This dazzling circus of human performers has no animals in the ring and achieves its spectacular effect from a dramatic mix of art, gymnastic skills and street theatre. It was understandable that someone as knowledgeable about the theatre as Langella could be drawn to the magic created inside the Big Top.

"It was actually because of Franco himself," says Langella.

"I knew about the Cirque, of course. My children had seen it and loved it. But as soon as Franco walked into the room I thought, ‘Yes, I want to work with this director.’ There are just a few people who can create that effect."

Langella now lives and works chiefly in New York after years in Hollywood in such films as John Badham’s Dracula and Mel Brooks’ The Twelve Chairs and Diary of a Mad Housewife. Big films with considerable budgets. Nothing like that with Alegria, and Langella says, "There’s no financial profit for me with a movie like this. I do it because I love the project. It’s not noble on my part. It’s survival, I think. It’s a way each day to wake up and think, ‘I’m working on some worthwhile material’ that gives me a reason for saying I’m an actor. I might as well test those abilities on something like this as opposed to, ‘Don’t move or I’ll shoot.’ "

The film is budgeted at about 10 million Canadian dollars, a mere fraction of the cost of a big Hollywood action movie and, as a first-time director, Franco is subdued about the costs. Like a new boy at school he listens attentively to the dangers of running over budget but in fact each day of the week with the Cirque he is handling productions that can soar beyond 60 million dollars. Until two years ago his own parents had no idea of the scale of his productions. They saw a show of his at Las Vegas and marvelled, "You did this?"

Great success has overtaken the Cirque. From its humble beginnings as the brainchild of a group of street performers in Montreal, it grew to become the actual Cirque du Soleil in 1984, and from a few dozen artists it has now expanded to include nearly 300 artists worldwide.

In 1998 it is creating two new permanent theatre projects: its first aquatic show in Las Vegas and another show in Orlando, Florida. Next stop is Asia, where the Cirque is opening in Singapore, in addition to a permanent show in Berlin in the year 2000.

And all this, everyone generally agrees, is largely because of Franco Dragone.

On the set of his first movie, his own demands appear surprisingly modest.

Franco doesn’t seem to realise that the question of the director’s trailer might even be a deal-breaker in some Hollywood contracts. No trailer has been allocated. He just didn’t get around to asking for one and when he needs to hold a private conversation during filming he humbly asks one of his cast if he might borrow his or her caravan.

He is as beguiled by this whole new process of filmmaking as his son Lucas. "A whole new box of magic tricks to play with" is how he describes it. He scoops up a handful of the paperwork that streams every day into the film’s production office. The day’s call sheet. Transport movements. Script changes.

"It wasn’t until I saw it written down for the first time that I realised what was involved," he says. "I’d never seen anything like this before."

His ingenuousness wins him friends because he remains one of the team. There is nothing dictatorial about his approach. "I don’t want to give orders and tell people what to do," he says. "I create an environment in which people can express themselves."

At the age of 65, Brian Dewhurst, a Mancunian performer and mime artist, is happy to be playing his first speaking role in Alegria. He plays Old Taps, a café owner and retired performer who can still go through all his physical paces, tap-dancing and standing on his hands. Now living in Las Vegas, Brian comes from three generations of circus performers and knows Franco well from his 10 years at the Cirque. "Franco is the spirit of the Cirque," he says. "He brings great depth to each of the productions. It’s not just a matter of putting on a show. He has great respect for the playing space and what he puts in has to be of an exceptionally high standard."

Franco Dragone himself came to the circus from a background in theatre. His collaboration with theatrical companies across Europe led him to integrate theatre and circus through new forms of expression. He has directed all but one of the Cirque’s internationally acclaimed award- winning shows that have won worldwide recognition. His aim throughout has been to create not only dazzling shows with surprise and beauty but for them to be about something. While his film is spun out of imaginative images that delve into the world of dreams and nightmares, it remains rooted in reality. A sub-plot of his story Alegria tells the plight of children who are exploited for adults’ gain as they toil for a pittance: today’s story of many millions of children who are being exploited worldwide.

He wrote the part of the disillusioned mime artist for René Bazinet, an internationally renowned mime artist and clown who toured for four years with one of the Cirque’s productions. Traditionally there is a sadness about the character of the clown, and Franco detected a pervasive melancholy in the personality of René himself. "It’s why I wanted to create this character for him," he says.

Away from the set, René appears subdued, but he chuckles when a clown – a street entertainer with baggy trousers and red blob for a nose – appears at his table with a harmonica and a powerful tenor voice and is persuaded to leave only when René offers him a fistful of change. "I know what has to be done to be left alone," he says. For many years he was a street artist in Paris, struggling to make a living in a city that he found fiercely competitive and often unfriendly.

There was also a lot of partying, he says, and a bohemian way of life to which he was highly drawn in his twenties. "Living in Paris and pretending to be Parisian means almost being debauched, I guess," he says. "There was a particular period around the late Seventies when I was full of red wine and into indulgence on a big scale. I could do a street show any time I chose, weather permitting, and party the rest of the time. I used to hang out with a prominent group of street artists. There were many raucous nights. Too many. My body is my tool and if it does not function I can’t work. I can’t support myself."

In 1980 – a year that is deeply etched on his memory because of the fundamental changes it brought – he was overtaken by personal disaster. He contracted hepatitis and for six months he couldn’t work. "I was sick. I had no money, my girlfriend left me and I had to spend my last few francs on a few kilos of rice," he says. "I was in bed, all alone in a garret in Paris. There were flies everywhere. Every day there were more and more of these little flies in my tiny apartment. They were driving me mad. Then one day I found a white worm exploding in the rice in the larder. Now I couldn’t even eat. It was enough to make me want to jump out of the window.

"In fact, there was a logical reason for it all. There was an open tin of cat food lying somewhere on a shelf, but I didn’t realise it at the time. I was in a dreadful state. I thought I was going mad. I thought. ‘What have I done wrong to find myself in such a predicament?’ "

It marked the beginning of the end of René’s days as a wild young man and took him into the realms of an important new friendship with a tutor and mentor named Annette Lask, who gave him the confidence he needed. It was she who illuminated some of the areas which were giving him such difficulty. Through her he discovered a new discipline, the Feldenkreist exercises, which taught him how he could conquer the physical limitations of his body. Performing the exercises showed him how he could move with precision and economy and trained him in the easy rhythmic movement which he uses to great effect in the Big Top. "She also made me aware of what I was doing to myself and where I was heading – which was right down the drain," says René. "She made me see I was on a self-destructive course and made me question a lot of things about myself and my background."

It is his unexplained background that niggles away at him. He possesses extraordinary talents and has little idea where they came from. He has never known his father, who was a circus performer and moved on to some unknown destination shortly after he was born. He knows his name – William Dégé – and that he came from Essen in Germany.

René was born in Bochum, Germany on April 26, 1955 and lived in and around Essen until he was 16, when his mother, Ellen Fiener, remarried and the family moved to Canada. At that point he was flung into high school speaking not one word of English or French. He is now fluent in both languages but before he mastered them, as a solitary child he used to go for long walks in the park where, for his own amusement, he learned to imitate birds. That was when he mastered the idiosyncratic squeak that has become his professional trademark in the Big Top.

He was always able to make people laugh. Following graduation he studied theatre in Montreal where a teacher, detecting a particular ability to communicate using his body, encouraged him to specialise in mime.

Unconsciously, he was already following in his father’s footsteps. Among his most treasured possessions is a snapshot of himself as a four-month-old baby being held in a firm one-handed grip – in the typical manner of circus folk – by the man who was his father. Shortly afterwards William Dégé disappeared. No one knows where.

Although his mother was briefly in touch with him in later years, he remains a stranger to his son who has taken numerous trips to their old home town to try to find him. Perhaps by now, René estimates, his father is in his mid to late seventies.

"He was a very clever performer," says René. "My mother told me he could play three or four harmonicas at the same time. It feels so strange. I have never met this man but I have his talent. I don’t know him but I’ve turned out exactly like him. It’s hereditary. It’s all in my body. He is the missing link. If I could find him it would be the moment of my life."

Over 15 million people have seen the Cirque worldwide. The chances are that the audiences for the movie Alegria will dwarf that number. Is there a chance, he wonders, that William Dégé might be one of them and that he might perhaps find the person who provides the missing link in his life?

It would mean even more to him than the shot at screen stardom offered by Franco Dragone.