BWW Q&A: Craig Francis on JUNGLE BOOK at Brampton On Stage/The Rose Brampton

Through immersive staging featuring live action, video, shadow-play and original music, this family-friendly multi-media performance takes audiences on a wild adventure from the urban jungle to Mowgli’s childhood in the jungles of India. It’s a familiar yet timeless story that delights both kids and adults alike!

Written and directed by Craig Francis and Rick Miller, “Jungle Book” reimagines this childhood classic with a contemporary setting. In a jaw-dropping multi-media twist, Mowgli is instead a 25-year-old architect in New York City, and the jungle book is his old childhood journal. Upon receiving a text from his sister Maya that says “Happy birthday, Wolf Boy!”, he re-lives the stories of his youth.

When toddler Mowgli and his family are attacked by the tiger, Shere Khan, he gets lost in the jungle. Luckily, Mowgli is then rescued and adopted by Akela and Raksha, two wolves who raise him in their pack. He also learns about the laws of the jungle from Baloo and Bagheera, a bear and a panther. However, when Shere Khan turns the wolf pack against Mowgli, the young boy must leave the jungle and reconnect with his human mother and sister in town.

As the town hunter Buldeo threatens to harm his family, Mowgli requires help from both his animal and human families to vanquish his foe. In the process, he learns that we need to “let in the jungle”, connecting the human world with the natural world to keep everything in balance.

Craig Francis (he/him) is a writer, director, illustrator, and multidisciplinary creator. His shows have toured Canada and the US, including Off-Broadway in 2016 and 2019. A founding member of The 20K Collective, Craig co-created Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, Game of Clones, Jungle Book, and HANS: My Life In Fairy Tales with Rick Miller; and FRANKENSTEIN: A Living Comic Book with Miller and Paul Van Dyck. He's a producer, dramaturg, and stage manager for Miller's solo trilogy (BOOM, BOOM X, and BOOM YZ) in Canada, the US, France, and Taiwan. Craig co-directed a workshop of the musical Blocked (TheaterWorksUSA), and is a mentor of emerging artists, including co-authoring Redwood Avenue with Andrea Friesen. New projects include CYNIC, and The Time Machine. Craig is a speaker on LGBTQA2S+ issues. He performed improv comedy with Just For Laughs, CBC, CTV and Showtime. His videos with Kidoons and not-for-profits are installed in museums in six provinces. Craig lives in Montréal, has illustrated several books, and voiced animated series.

What inspired you to create a new adaptation of the Jungle Book?

Rick and I discovered that we both loved the stories and poems of Rudyard Kipling as kids, and wanted to find a highly theatrical way to bring them to life for a new generation. For Jungle Book, we included the other half of the Mowgli narrative – when he leaves the jungle for his human town – from The Second Jungle Book, and some of our own inventions, like Mowgli's little sister Maya. The idea of finding your identity, choosing your family and your home, is still so relevant. Finally, we wanted to challenge some of the work's colonialist assumptions, while expanding on the idea of humans needing to recognize our impact on nature. Kids are already so interested in animals, and so receptive… and if we can excite them about theatre as well, mission accomplished!

Can you tell us about the process of co-authoring and co-directing Jungle Book with Rick Miller?

Rick and I have co-authored six plays over the past decade, and have developed a remarkable shorthand: we respect and complement each other's contributions, often writing together with him in Toronto and me in Montréal. We've increasingly taken a hand in fully designing our shows, too. That's rare for playwrights, and so is our method: we involve our theatrical designers (lights, sound, puppets, costumes, props, multimedia) in our script workshopping process. That way the final play is more immersive, and all these artists working together help create those illusions and magical moments that make a show memorable. And although I appreciate that you're interviewing me, I should add that this show is also incredibly well-acted by our cast: a fantastic four (Shaharah Gaznabbi, Matt Lacas, Navtej Sandhu, and Arun Varma as Mowgli) who together play over 20 human and animal characters.

How do you incorporate modern perspectives into this classic tale?

Jungle Book has a modern framing with Mowgli as an adult, and urges kids to see and respect the nature around them. Because we're including the human part of the story, we also wanted to be less generic than many adaptations, and set it specifically in Madhya Pradesh in India, the large state where cities and towns exist next to ancient temples and the living jungle. Researching the place helped ground this fantasy in reality. We also researched the animal characters – it's been exactly 130 years since the book, and we know a lot more about nature now! – and some facts, like that elephant herds are actually matriarchal, helped the storytelling. Our sound designer, Debashis Sinha, and our song composer and arranger, Suba Sankaran, have created a gorgeous soundtrack that is distinctly not North American in tone, to help transport audiences there.

Can you share some details about the use of immersive video, shadow-play, and original music in the production?

We strive to create works that really immerse audiences, so they feel they've entered the world of the story. Rich sound and visuals, as well as our cinematic transitions, make a work of theatre that even young people can intensely watch like a movie. But this is theatre! So we also want to directly engage the audience – Mowgli and other characters address them directly. Finally, Rick and I love to mix what we call a "high-tech, low-tech" approach using some of the oldest theatrical techniques in the world: in this case, shadow puppets. The puppets (designed by Astrid Janson and Melanie MacNeill) are stylised so that we can see the actors wearing them, which heightens the knowledge you're seeing live theatre, not a movie. Using shadow play allows us to create characters at different scales, from a small porcupine to a huge elephant or a 30-foot python. It also connects the past to the present, as shadows on a cave wall connect to the high-definition projections of today.

As a multidisciplinary creator, how do your different skills blend into your work in theatre?

I have been an illustrator and cartoonist since I could hold a felt pen. I also performed for years as an improviser and comedian before creating theatre. Those skills all come into handy in designing a scene and writing dialogue, but in our Kidoons family productions, I take it even further. Jungle Book has onstage a real book illustrated by myself, Rick Miller, and our longtime multimedia designer Irina Litvinenko. The pages of this book come to life and form the backdrops of our theatre scenes, creating a real fusion of form and content. Our follow-up to Jungle Book is FRANKENSTEIN: A Living Comic Book, which uses cartoon panels, word bubbles and written sound effects over top of live theatre actors to tell the original science fiction story. Kids really connect to our multidisciplinary approach: whether using my skills as a cartoonist, Rick's as an architect, or Irina's as a graphic artist, all help tell the story 'by any media possible' and fire their creative imaginations.

What can the audience expect from the upcoming performance of Jungle Book at The Rose presented by Brampton On Stage?

The Rose audiences can expect to experience one of their favorite stories as they've never seen it before! It's a really wonderful way for the entire family – grandparents, parents, kids – to bond over a timeless tale, told as imaginatively as possible.

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