‘Handmaid’s Tale’ in a gym? Boston Lyric Opera transforms a new space.
To mount an adaptation of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the Boston Lyric Opera took a page out of the original novel. Specifically the first page. The opera company is staging its May production in the very same gym described in the opening scene of Margaret Atwood’s feminist story, which unfolds in a dystopian version of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The meta setting is part inspiration, part necessity, as the 42-year-old opera company no longer has a permanent home. In 2015, the group and its longtime host, Boston’s Shubert Theatre, disagreed on the terms of a contract renegotiation.
The BLO
