Robyn Godfree (the Stratford Gazette) reviews Palmer Park:
"In 1967 there were race riots in 59 cities in the United States, the worst of which were in the Detroit civil rebellion, or the 12th Street Riot. Shortly thereafter over 100,000 Caucasians left the city in a 'white flight' exodus. As a result, property values and their taxes plummeted. Funding for school boards was tied to property taxes, and so schools and their students soon suffered from overcrowding and under-funding. However, some upper-middle-class districts had been succeeding in racial integration in both their neighbourhoods and schools: Palmer Park is the story of one such neighbourhood that tried – but ultimately failed – to uphold this ideal.
"The story is much more complicated than this brief introduction, and Joanna McClelland Glass’ play does not gloss over the very real, very volatile issues that this era contained. No solution is offered, no happy ending is tied off in a sweet red bow: the events preceding the play are still very much retained in the memories of a living generation, and Ms. Glass deftly navigates the issues without judgment, pity or moralizing.
"That being said, every person in the audience for this play will hear and see something different, depending on their own experiences. For me, white and born after the events, it is a revelation of my own naivety; for someone with memory of the events themselves it may evoke all the emotional turmoil of the time; for someone who is black, it may stir up a lot more than that. During one monologue by Dan Chameroy, who plays the white Martin Townsend, I suddenly realized that his reasonable, impassioned plea for the ideal of integration would sound completely different – and possibly arrogant – to someone with less pasty skin than I, who was overworked and whose children were suffering in an under-funded school. As such, it is a powerful piece of theatre.
"Mr. Chameroy and Kelli Fox play the idealistic and naïve Townsends with just the right amount of nervous confidence and compassion as they learn more and more about the realities their neighbours, the African-American Hazletons, must endure on a day-to day basis. As the Hazletons, Yanna McIntosh and Nigel Shawn Williams are both outstanding as they (mostly) patiently explain to their new friends the lay of the land – that, as African-Americans, they will not be seated in a road-side restaurant unless they are well-dressed, for instance. The look of incredulous pity on Ms. McIntosh’s face as this is explained to Kate Townsend is heartbreaking.
"Also living in the neighbourhood of 65 per cent whites and 35 per cent blacks are the Rifkins (Brad Rudy and Severn Thompson), the Marshalls (Kevin Hanshard and Lesley Ewen) and the Lamonts (David Keeley and Jane Spidell). Kevin Hanshard doubles as the beleaguered Alvin Wilkinson, who is determined to ship the extra students from their poor school to the relatively wealthy Palmer Park school; his just rebuttal of Martin Townsend’s plea is firm and leaves the audience wondering: how was such a dilemma ever to be solved fairly?
"Palmer Park is not all about social issues – it is as much about the things these neighbours had in common as it was in exploring their differences: the way they grew as a community and in friendship. ('The Baseball' scene is the most memorable example of this and is pure joy to watch – a mad three or four minutes of rapid-fire, hooting dialogue from the men as they cheer on the World Series winning Detroit Tigers of 1968). It makes their subsequent departure from the neighbourhood all the more poignant.
"Although the characters discuss what it is to be prejudiced and they discover perspectives on race that they had never recognized before, Palmer Park never becomes preachy, for all the education it provides. It is an illuminating play, directed with sensitivity by Ron Parson and is definitely worth the price of admission."
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Moby Dick Moves
Paula Citron (the Globe and Mail) reviews Moby Dick:
"Morris Panych's new production of Moby Dick is ambitious and audacious - but it needs work.
"In collaboration with creative associates - movement designer Wendy Gorling and choreographer Shaun Amyot - Panych has adapted and directed Herman Melville's mammoth 1851 novel as physical theatre. Simply put, Panych and his team have manifested Melville's masterpiece as movement to music.
"Yes, there are some words. The voiceover of Shaun Smyth, who plays the narrator Ishmael, is heard from time to time reciting text from the novel, but sound designer Wade Staples has sampled the words to the point where they are superimposed over each other to be rendered almost incomprehensible. This is one of the show's first weaknesses. Why have this text at all if it is difficult to understand?
"Panych and Gorling are responsible for the brilliant 1997 non-verbal treatment of Gogol's The Overcoat, one of the most successful theatre productions ever to have come out of Canada.
"Comparisons are inevitable.
"That adaptation is anchored in rich character portrayals and cleverly timed movement to music. Moby Dick lacks that detail to its detriment.
"On the positive side, Moby Dick is filled with images of staggering imagination. On two tall ladders placed on rolling stands, the actors range themselves in a descending order from top to bottom. Holding their jackets or shirts with outstretched arms, they move gently from side to side in strict synchronization, recreating the fluttering of sails. Instantly, the tall ship Pequod is before us riding the wind in full glory.
"Unfortunately, the production's many visual strengths are offset by weaknesses. The greatness of Melville's novel rests on the unbridled obsession of Captain Ahab. The terrifying white whale Moby Dick has chewed off one of Ahab's legs and he is bent on revenge. In the universal picture, Melville sees this quest as a metaphor for the self-destructive violence of humankind that must lead to tragedy.
"David Ferry is generally an impressive actor, but his Ahab does not radiate this magnificent obsession. There has to be more work from the creative team in terms of physicality and presence to build up this role into a dominant position onstage. At least his ivory peg leg, depicted by a white stocking and limp, is clear.
"Similarly, the scenes aboard the Pequod detailing the day-to-day existence of seamen mending nets and swabbing decks are wonderful, but their individual characters are not clear. We get only hints of personality.
"Smyth's Ishmael has his journal, and the fierce South Sea cannibal tribesman and harpooner Queequeg (Marcus Nance) has his colourful tattoos. We see their friendship. From the stance of W. Joseph Matheson, the authority of first mate Starbuck comes through. The mate Flask (Eddie Glenn) has his bottle and his bravado, but the other men, the multicultural village who populate Melville's book, are, for the most part, ciphers.
"The meetings at sea or 'gams' with the captains of Jungfrau and Rachel (Shawn Wright and Eric S. Robertson respectively) are important, but they are not played up enough. From the Jungfrau, Ahab hears news of the white whale, while the grieving Rachel captain tells of the loss of the whaling longboat with his son aboard. Ahab refuses to help the Rachel in the search because his obsession to go after Moby Dick overpowers human sympathy. That the captains are portrayed as mere caricatures is a failing.
"And then there is the misguided use of the Sirens (Kelly Grainger, Alison Jantzie and Lynda Sing). These three women in flimsy costumes are both the lure of the sea and its destructive power. They are also the manifestation of whales. Unfortunately, Grainger and Jantzie are not effective dancers. The repetitive prancing simply becomes irritating. The production needs better dancers who spend less time onstage, with better choreography.
"Finally there is impressionist composer Claude Debussy's music, which is the soundscape for Moby Dick. It certainly speaks of the power of the sea with its swirling, crashing patterns, but it almost becomes much of a muchness over time, despite the artful placement of individual pieces. One wonders if the insertion of another composer's music at climactic moments - say, Benjamin Britten's sea interludes from the opera Peter Grimes - might spice up the sameness of the score.
"One is moved by Panych's images of dead bodies floating in the sea, the fury of the storm scene and the chase after Moby Dick. Dana Osborne's costumes capture the seamen's life beautifully, while Ken MacDonald's representational set is a marvel, as is Alan Brodie's atmospheric lighting.
"This Moby Dick could be a triumph. It is just not there yet."
"Morris Panych's new production of Moby Dick is ambitious and audacious - but it needs work.
"In collaboration with creative associates - movement designer Wendy Gorling and choreographer Shaun Amyot - Panych has adapted and directed Herman Melville's mammoth 1851 novel as physical theatre. Simply put, Panych and his team have manifested Melville's masterpiece as movement to music.
"Yes, there are some words. The voiceover of Shaun Smyth, who plays the narrator Ishmael, is heard from time to time reciting text from the novel, but sound designer Wade Staples has sampled the words to the point where they are superimposed over each other to be rendered almost incomprehensible. This is one of the show's first weaknesses. Why have this text at all if it is difficult to understand?
"Panych and Gorling are responsible for the brilliant 1997 non-verbal treatment of Gogol's The Overcoat, one of the most successful theatre productions ever to have come out of Canada.
"Comparisons are inevitable.
"That adaptation is anchored in rich character portrayals and cleverly timed movement to music. Moby Dick lacks that detail to its detriment.
"On the positive side, Moby Dick is filled with images of staggering imagination. On two tall ladders placed on rolling stands, the actors range themselves in a descending order from top to bottom. Holding their jackets or shirts with outstretched arms, they move gently from side to side in strict synchronization, recreating the fluttering of sails. Instantly, the tall ship Pequod is before us riding the wind in full glory.
"Unfortunately, the production's many visual strengths are offset by weaknesses. The greatness of Melville's novel rests on the unbridled obsession of Captain Ahab. The terrifying white whale Moby Dick has chewed off one of Ahab's legs and he is bent on revenge. In the universal picture, Melville sees this quest as a metaphor for the self-destructive violence of humankind that must lead to tragedy.
"David Ferry is generally an impressive actor, but his Ahab does not radiate this magnificent obsession. There has to be more work from the creative team in terms of physicality and presence to build up this role into a dominant position onstage. At least his ivory peg leg, depicted by a white stocking and limp, is clear.
"Similarly, the scenes aboard the Pequod detailing the day-to-day existence of seamen mending nets and swabbing decks are wonderful, but their individual characters are not clear. We get only hints of personality.
"Smyth's Ishmael has his journal, and the fierce South Sea cannibal tribesman and harpooner Queequeg (Marcus Nance) has his colourful tattoos. We see their friendship. From the stance of W. Joseph Matheson, the authority of first mate Starbuck comes through. The mate Flask (Eddie Glenn) has his bottle and his bravado, but the other men, the multicultural village who populate Melville's book, are, for the most part, ciphers.
"The meetings at sea or 'gams' with the captains of Jungfrau and Rachel (Shawn Wright and Eric S. Robertson respectively) are important, but they are not played up enough. From the Jungfrau, Ahab hears news of the white whale, while the grieving Rachel captain tells of the loss of the whaling longboat with his son aboard. Ahab refuses to help the Rachel in the search because his obsession to go after Moby Dick overpowers human sympathy. That the captains are portrayed as mere caricatures is a failing.
"And then there is the misguided use of the Sirens (Kelly Grainger, Alison Jantzie and Lynda Sing). These three women in flimsy costumes are both the lure of the sea and its destructive power. They are also the manifestation of whales. Unfortunately, Grainger and Jantzie are not effective dancers. The repetitive prancing simply becomes irritating. The production needs better dancers who spend less time onstage, with better choreography.
"Finally there is impressionist composer Claude Debussy's music, which is the soundscape for Moby Dick. It certainly speaks of the power of the sea with its swirling, crashing patterns, but it almost becomes much of a muchness over time, despite the artful placement of individual pieces. One wonders if the insertion of another composer's music at climactic moments - say, Benjamin Britten's sea interludes from the opera Peter Grimes - might spice up the sameness of the score.
"One is moved by Panych's images of dead bodies floating in the sea, the fury of the storm scene and the chase after Moby Dick. Dana Osborne's costumes capture the seamen's life beautifully, while Ken MacDonald's representational set is a marvel, as is Alan Brodie's atmospheric lighting.
"This Moby Dick could be a triumph. It is just not there yet."
Moby Dick Artistic, With Great Actors
Sharon Malvern (the Stratford Beacon-Herald) reviews Moby Dick:
"This famous 'whale of a tale' got a fresh new look in the Studio Theatre's production that opened Sunday.
"Moby Dick, the well known novel written by Herman Melville in 1851, has long been considered a classic of American literature. Its opening line, 'Call me Ishmael,' and its theme of the quest for the great white whale by the one-legged Captain Ahab, are legendary. Moby Dick has been adapted to numerous art forms, from movies to television, opera, dance and even comic books for children.
"But this version of Moby Dick, commissioned and premiered by the Stratford Shakespeare Festival for the 2008 season, is original. Moby Dick has been adapted and directed by Canada's celebrated playwright Morris Panych.
"It's not easy to describe this creation. For one thing, there are very few words spoken. The story is told through the movements of the cast, rather than words. The plot, based on the 800-page novel, is revealed through 13 brief episodes. There is no conventional scenery. It takes a leap of the imagination to put all the pieces together. But it's well worth the effort.
"The basic storyline is the arrival of Ishmael in New Bedford, where he meets the native Queequeg, and the two sign on to the whaling ship, the Pequod, as harpooners. When Captain Ahab finally appears, he reveals the purpose of the voyage -- a hunt for the White Whale. The protests of the first mate, Starbuck, are in vain.
"The usual work of sailors on board ship is seen as the crew swab the decks, raise and lower sails and climb the masts, fight and engage in horseplay and peer through spyglasses to spot whales. One unusual event is the appearance of female sirens that bewitch the sailors.
"Whales are sighted and one is caught, dismembered and eaten. A terrific storm comes up, and the crew battle it for their survival. Starbuck wants to abandon Ahab's obsessive quest, but the captain prevails. The sailors meet the Jungfrau, and Ahab interrogates the captain about the White Whale.
"Events move rapidly as Queequeg becomes ill, the Pequod meets the ship Rachel, and the Captain tells of his son, lost at sea. But Ahab is determined to pursue his personal quest for revenge. Finally the White Whale is spotted, a chase follows and Moby Dick fights back. The story ends as Rachel rescues Ishmael.
"This adventure story isn't so much told, as experienced, through the gorgeous orchestral music of French impressionist composer, Claude Debussy.
"The audience experience of Moby Dick is mainly communicated through the expertly choreographed movements of the cast. The effect is that of a ballet, though many of the movements on the wildly rolling ship are very acrobatic.
"Mime, body language and facial expressions are also significant modes of the storytelling here.
"The conflict of man versus the awesome powers of nature is predominant throughout.
"David Ferry is an excellent Captain Ahab, as he portrays the obsessive personality of this strange man, poring over maps and gazing out to sea. Shaun Smith, as Ishmael, captures the initial youthful idealism of the man, his friendship with Queequeg and his fight for survival in the closing scene. However, his inexplicable stuttering mars his speeches.
"Marcus Nance effectively plays the extraordinary-looking Queequeg, with his little idol Yojo. Shawn Wright as Father Marple epitomizes religious zeal as he sermonizes on Jonah. W. Joseph Matheson is convincing as Starbuck, the first mate who is at odds with Captain Ahab.
"The most unusual characters are the three sirens -- Kelly Grainger, Alison Jantzie and Lynda Sing -- who execute graceful balletic moves around the sailors. Clad in flesh-coloured body stockings and wispy, fluttering garments, they are sexy and unforgettable seducers.
"Costume designer Dana Osborne dressed the men in neutrals as early Victorian seafarers.
"Designed by Ken MacDonald, the set is simple, yet representative of the ship, with a compass painted on the floor, doors that resemble the wooden ribs of a ship and huge cream coloured sails. The furniture is used creatively: ladders as masts, planks to represent the sides of small boats and benches as beds.
"Sound effects of wind, waves and seabirds add to the overall effect of life at sea.
"Even without the realism of a film, the storm still appears a wild and frightening experience, thanks to the movements of the cast as they are tossed about the deck and on the sea.
"It's difficult to determine who contributed what to this production, as there is a list of 32 artists who participated in the development of the piece. But it's probably fair to say that Wendy Gorling, creative associate movement, and Shaun Amyot, creative associate choreography, deserve congratulations for their work. Alan Brodie's lighting was superb.
"Moby Dick is an unusual artistic work, brimming with creativity and innovation. "
"This famous 'whale of a tale' got a fresh new look in the Studio Theatre's production that opened Sunday.
"Moby Dick, the well known novel written by Herman Melville in 1851, has long been considered a classic of American literature. Its opening line, 'Call me Ishmael,' and its theme of the quest for the great white whale by the one-legged Captain Ahab, are legendary. Moby Dick has been adapted to numerous art forms, from movies to television, opera, dance and even comic books for children.
"But this version of Moby Dick, commissioned and premiered by the Stratford Shakespeare Festival for the 2008 season, is original. Moby Dick has been adapted and directed by Canada's celebrated playwright Morris Panych.
"It's not easy to describe this creation. For one thing, there are very few words spoken. The story is told through the movements of the cast, rather than words. The plot, based on the 800-page novel, is revealed through 13 brief episodes. There is no conventional scenery. It takes a leap of the imagination to put all the pieces together. But it's well worth the effort.
"The basic storyline is the arrival of Ishmael in New Bedford, where he meets the native Queequeg, and the two sign on to the whaling ship, the Pequod, as harpooners. When Captain Ahab finally appears, he reveals the purpose of the voyage -- a hunt for the White Whale. The protests of the first mate, Starbuck, are in vain.
"The usual work of sailors on board ship is seen as the crew swab the decks, raise and lower sails and climb the masts, fight and engage in horseplay and peer through spyglasses to spot whales. One unusual event is the appearance of female sirens that bewitch the sailors.
"Whales are sighted and one is caught, dismembered and eaten. A terrific storm comes up, and the crew battle it for their survival. Starbuck wants to abandon Ahab's obsessive quest, but the captain prevails. The sailors meet the Jungfrau, and Ahab interrogates the captain about the White Whale.
"Events move rapidly as Queequeg becomes ill, the Pequod meets the ship Rachel, and the Captain tells of his son, lost at sea. But Ahab is determined to pursue his personal quest for revenge. Finally the White Whale is spotted, a chase follows and Moby Dick fights back. The story ends as Rachel rescues Ishmael.
"This adventure story isn't so much told, as experienced, through the gorgeous orchestral music of French impressionist composer, Claude Debussy.
"The audience experience of Moby Dick is mainly communicated through the expertly choreographed movements of the cast. The effect is that of a ballet, though many of the movements on the wildly rolling ship are very acrobatic.
"Mime, body language and facial expressions are also significant modes of the storytelling here.
"The conflict of man versus the awesome powers of nature is predominant throughout.
"David Ferry is an excellent Captain Ahab, as he portrays the obsessive personality of this strange man, poring over maps and gazing out to sea. Shaun Smith, as Ishmael, captures the initial youthful idealism of the man, his friendship with Queequeg and his fight for survival in the closing scene. However, his inexplicable stuttering mars his speeches.
"Marcus Nance effectively plays the extraordinary-looking Queequeg, with his little idol Yojo. Shawn Wright as Father Marple epitomizes religious zeal as he sermonizes on Jonah. W. Joseph Matheson is convincing as Starbuck, the first mate who is at odds with Captain Ahab.
"The most unusual characters are the three sirens -- Kelly Grainger, Alison Jantzie and Lynda Sing -- who execute graceful balletic moves around the sailors. Clad in flesh-coloured body stockings and wispy, fluttering garments, they are sexy and unforgettable seducers.
"Costume designer Dana Osborne dressed the men in neutrals as early Victorian seafarers.
"Designed by Ken MacDonald, the set is simple, yet representative of the ship, with a compass painted on the floor, doors that resemble the wooden ribs of a ship and huge cream coloured sails. The furniture is used creatively: ladders as masts, planks to represent the sides of small boats and benches as beds.
"Sound effects of wind, waves and seabirds add to the overall effect of life at sea.
"Even without the realism of a film, the storm still appears a wild and frightening experience, thanks to the movements of the cast as they are tossed about the deck and on the sea.
"It's difficult to determine who contributed what to this production, as there is a list of 32 artists who participated in the development of the piece. But it's probably fair to say that Wendy Gorling, creative associate movement, and Shaun Amyot, creative associate choreography, deserve congratulations for their work. Alan Brodie's lighting was superb.
"Moby Dick is an unusual artistic work, brimming with creativity and innovation. "
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Casear Strikes a Chord
J. Kelly Nestruck (the Globe and Mail) reviews Caesar and Cleopatra:
"With a marquee star, spectacular, sparkling sets and costumes, and a pair of topless women in a sauna, director Des McAnuff doesn't skimp on the razzle-dazzle with Caesar and Cleopatra.
"But the production of Bernard Shaw's 1898 play from the Broadway director and now Stratford Shakespeare Festival head honcho is also thoughtful, well-staged and finely acted. After McAnuff's flashy but underwhelming Romeo and Juliet earlier this summer, this hilarious play leaves us less concerned that Canada's largest theatre is in worthy hands.
"Indeed, McAnuff promises to bring a welcome HBO sensibility to the festival, delivering sensational but adult entertainment.
"With Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw let his Shakespeare envy show by penning a parodic prequel to Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra.
"The comedy tells us little about its two famous protagonists, however, and much more about what Shaw thought about Victorian mores and the British Empire.
"Here, the invading Roman general is a classic Shavian contrarian dispensing uncommon wisdom to the shock of all around him. Intervening in the throne struggle between the childish Cleopatra and her younger brother Ptolemy, Caesar teaches the queen of Egypt how to rule like him.
"Though most historians tell us Caesar had a child with Cleopatra, the most intimacy the asexual Shaw allows his pair of protagonists is a fatherly peck on the top of her head. This is decidedly not a romance.
"Rather it is a first draft of (the far superior) Pygmalion, but with the obstinate older man teaching an impetuous, rough-around-the-edges younger woman how to conquer Phoenicians instead of phonetics.
"Christopher Plummer, the big draw of this production, is well worth hailing as a mischievous Caesar. The charming actor has the audience in the palm of his hand from his opening monologue delivered to the Sphinx (beautifully designed by Robert Brill). With his wry smile and Friendly Giant haircut, Plummer wrings the laughs out of every quip, getting particular play out of Caesar's self-deprecating remarks about his age and balding pate. At 78, the Canadian stage icon may need a body double to leap from the Pharos lighthouse (blink and you'll miss the clever switch), but when he shifts from indulgent gabbing to imperious ordering you have no doubt of his ability to command an army.
"Originally, the Tony-winning actress Anika Noni Rose was slated play Cleopatra, but when she pulled out to film a television series, in stepped Nikki M. James, an American actor who is also starring as Juliet at the festival.
"After James got universally bad reviews in Romeo and Juliet, many predicted that she would be yanked, but McAnuff stuck to his guns.
"McAnuff's loyalty to his protégé has turned out to be based on more than stubbornness. The actress, who had previously performed mostly in musicals, has learned to project without straining her voice after a few months on the Festival Stage and is obviously more comfortable with this modern, comic text. Though still not the most modulated actor, her childlike voice and natural inclination toward a petulant tone works well for Shaw's 16-year-old and condescendingly childish Cleopatra (five years younger than she actually was at the time).
"The cream of the Stratford company fill in the gaps around Plummer and James. As Caesar's ornery right-hand man, Peter Donaldson completes a hat trick of memorable supporting performances this season, while Diane D'Aquila is a stealthy scream as Cleopatra's nurse, the vicious hissing Ftatateeta.
"In smaller roles, Paul Dunn is a ridiculous sight as Cleopatra's 10-year-old brother Ptolemy, Steven Sutcliffe is a fey Brittanus – a character Shaw uses to mock his own countrymen – and Ian Lake makes a strong, brief impression as a Roman sentinel.
"Layered on top the mostly solid performances is the McAnuff flash. He has Cleopatra's consorts (Michelle Monteith and Sophia Walker) take a steam bath onstage, their Ftatateetas fully on display, and he sticks in a marvellous, bloody throat-slitting.
"McAnuff has cut the long-winded prologue spoken by Ra, but has an actor dressed as the hawk-headed God stand motionless as a statue as the audience enters in homage to it. (He's cut the so-called 'alternative to the prologue' as well, another excellent decision.) The production is full of these street performance-inspired human statues played by company members. McAnuff can apparently whip his troops into disciplined shape just as well as Caesar."
"With a marquee star, spectacular, sparkling sets and costumes, and a pair of topless women in a sauna, director Des McAnuff doesn't skimp on the razzle-dazzle with Caesar and Cleopatra.
"But the production of Bernard Shaw's 1898 play from the Broadway director and now Stratford Shakespeare Festival head honcho is also thoughtful, well-staged and finely acted. After McAnuff's flashy but underwhelming Romeo and Juliet earlier this summer, this hilarious play leaves us less concerned that Canada's largest theatre is in worthy hands.
"Indeed, McAnuff promises to bring a welcome HBO sensibility to the festival, delivering sensational but adult entertainment.
"With Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw let his Shakespeare envy show by penning a parodic prequel to Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra.
"The comedy tells us little about its two famous protagonists, however, and much more about what Shaw thought about Victorian mores and the British Empire.
"Here, the invading Roman general is a classic Shavian contrarian dispensing uncommon wisdom to the shock of all around him. Intervening in the throne struggle between the childish Cleopatra and her younger brother Ptolemy, Caesar teaches the queen of Egypt how to rule like him.
"Though most historians tell us Caesar had a child with Cleopatra, the most intimacy the asexual Shaw allows his pair of protagonists is a fatherly peck on the top of her head. This is decidedly not a romance.
"Rather it is a first draft of (the far superior) Pygmalion, but with the obstinate older man teaching an impetuous, rough-around-the-edges younger woman how to conquer Phoenicians instead of phonetics.
"Christopher Plummer, the big draw of this production, is well worth hailing as a mischievous Caesar. The charming actor has the audience in the palm of his hand from his opening monologue delivered to the Sphinx (beautifully designed by Robert Brill). With his wry smile and Friendly Giant haircut, Plummer wrings the laughs out of every quip, getting particular play out of Caesar's self-deprecating remarks about his age and balding pate. At 78, the Canadian stage icon may need a body double to leap from the Pharos lighthouse (blink and you'll miss the clever switch), but when he shifts from indulgent gabbing to imperious ordering you have no doubt of his ability to command an army.
"Originally, the Tony-winning actress Anika Noni Rose was slated play Cleopatra, but when she pulled out to film a television series, in stepped Nikki M. James, an American actor who is also starring as Juliet at the festival.
"After James got universally bad reviews in Romeo and Juliet, many predicted that she would be yanked, but McAnuff stuck to his guns.
"McAnuff's loyalty to his protégé has turned out to be based on more than stubbornness. The actress, who had previously performed mostly in musicals, has learned to project without straining her voice after a few months on the Festival Stage and is obviously more comfortable with this modern, comic text. Though still not the most modulated actor, her childlike voice and natural inclination toward a petulant tone works well for Shaw's 16-year-old and condescendingly childish Cleopatra (five years younger than she actually was at the time).
"The cream of the Stratford company fill in the gaps around Plummer and James. As Caesar's ornery right-hand man, Peter Donaldson completes a hat trick of memorable supporting performances this season, while Diane D'Aquila is a stealthy scream as Cleopatra's nurse, the vicious hissing Ftatateeta.
"In smaller roles, Paul Dunn is a ridiculous sight as Cleopatra's 10-year-old brother Ptolemy, Steven Sutcliffe is a fey Brittanus – a character Shaw uses to mock his own countrymen – and Ian Lake makes a strong, brief impression as a Roman sentinel.
"Layered on top the mostly solid performances is the McAnuff flash. He has Cleopatra's consorts (Michelle Monteith and Sophia Walker) take a steam bath onstage, their Ftatateetas fully on display, and he sticks in a marvellous, bloody throat-slitting.
"McAnuff has cut the long-winded prologue spoken by Ra, but has an actor dressed as the hawk-headed God stand motionless as a statue as the audience enters in homage to it. (He's cut the so-called 'alternative to the prologue' as well, another excellent decision.) The production is full of these street performance-inspired human statues played by company members. McAnuff can apparently whip his troops into disciplined shape just as well as Caesar."
Monday, August 18, 2008
Palmer Park "Spell-Binding"
Sharon Malvern (the Stratford Beacon-Herald) reviews Palmer Park:
"If you remember the late '60s you'll enjoy Palmer Park for the nostalgia it evokes. If you are too young for the memories, you'll get a history lesson you won't forget. And in both cases, you'll be intensely moved by a spell-binding drama that depicts the complexities of racial integration.
"The world premiere of Palmer Park gives us a poignant glimpse into events of just 40 years ago, revisiting Detroit just after the violent race riots of 1967 that destroyed much of the city. Although the play deals with social and racial issues that are still problematic, it is also a fascinating, humorous and ultimately painful portrayal of idealistic neighbours attempting to create a better world for their children.
"In 1968, Palmer Park was an upper-middle-class Detroit neighbourhood made up of young, white (65 per cent) and black (35 per cent) families who were working hard to maintain racial diversity both in real estate and in the community school, Hampton Elementary. They were very aware of the 'white flight' when nearly 300,000 names left the Detroit phone book in the six months following the race riots. The result was bargain-basement prices for the beautiful homes of Palmer Park but financial disaster for the Detroit school system which is funded by property taxes. And they also knew the real estate mantra: 'Integration is what occurs between the first black moving in and the last white moving out.'
"The play begins when a young white couple, Martin and Kate Townsend, buy a house in Palmer Park next door to a young black couple, Fletch and Linda Hazelton. Martin is a professor of physics at Wayne State; Fletch is a pediatrician. The newcomers are soon caught up in their neighbours' endeavours to sustain the racial diversity of their community. They put their 'feet on the street,' knocking on doors to request financial donations to buy much-needed supplies for the school. And they also use their professional connections to persuade white people to buy houses in Palmer Park.
"For a while, the Palmer Park parents succeed. But the parents of black children at a severely overcrowded nearby school resent the financial advantages that parents have brought to Hampton Elementary. They want their children to have a decent education too. When they threaten to send 130 black children to the school, the racial balance is at risk, and so are the allegiances and values of Palmer Park. The white people are surprised by the class and cultural differences of the black community that come to the forefront. Finally, the idealistic dream is shattered.
"'Palmer Park is a lament for the failure of integration in the United States. It is also an examination of the plight of upper-middle-class African Americans," states Canadian-born playwright Joanna McClelland Glass in the program notes.
"Palmer Park is based on her personal experience, between 1968 and 1974, when she lived in an integrated neighbourhood in the University District of Detroit, alongside Palmer Park. She calls that experience 'haunting,' because she and her neighbours pursued their ideals, though naive, with tenacity and ardour, but ultimately they failed.
"The setting, 1968-1972 in Detroit, is brilliantly detailed by the use of a huge screen as backdrop, with a montage of visuals: the houses in Palmer Park, the streets of Detroit, singers, television stars like Flip Wilson from the popular comedy show, Laugh-In, news clips of political figures like Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy (both of whom were assassinated in 1968), logos and more. The soundtrack was a musical journey into the era.
"Designer Jessica Poirier Chang deserves credit for the minimal yet effective stage furnishings and props.
"The costumes, designed by Katherine Lubienski, are authentic outfits from the '60s, colourful and appropriate for the characters.
"Director Ron O.J. Parson skilfully captured the turbulence of the times, the idealism of the people and the cross-racial friendships with a first-rate cast. The lead actors were outstanding. Dan Chameroy's speech to the Detroit school board was impassioned and inspiring, and Nigel Shawn Williams depicted the dilemma of the black American with sensitivity and anguish."
"If you remember the late '60s you'll enjoy Palmer Park for the nostalgia it evokes. If you are too young for the memories, you'll get a history lesson you won't forget. And in both cases, you'll be intensely moved by a spell-binding drama that depicts the complexities of racial integration.
"The world premiere of Palmer Park gives us a poignant glimpse into events of just 40 years ago, revisiting Detroit just after the violent race riots of 1967 that destroyed much of the city. Although the play deals with social and racial issues that are still problematic, it is also a fascinating, humorous and ultimately painful portrayal of idealistic neighbours attempting to create a better world for their children.
"In 1968, Palmer Park was an upper-middle-class Detroit neighbourhood made up of young, white (65 per cent) and black (35 per cent) families who were working hard to maintain racial diversity both in real estate and in the community school, Hampton Elementary. They were very aware of the 'white flight' when nearly 300,000 names left the Detroit phone book in the six months following the race riots. The result was bargain-basement prices for the beautiful homes of Palmer Park but financial disaster for the Detroit school system which is funded by property taxes. And they also knew the real estate mantra: 'Integration is what occurs between the first black moving in and the last white moving out.'
"The play begins when a young white couple, Martin and Kate Townsend, buy a house in Palmer Park next door to a young black couple, Fletch and Linda Hazelton. Martin is a professor of physics at Wayne State; Fletch is a pediatrician. The newcomers are soon caught up in their neighbours' endeavours to sustain the racial diversity of their community. They put their 'feet on the street,' knocking on doors to request financial donations to buy much-needed supplies for the school. And they also use their professional connections to persuade white people to buy houses in Palmer Park.
"For a while, the Palmer Park parents succeed. But the parents of black children at a severely overcrowded nearby school resent the financial advantages that parents have brought to Hampton Elementary. They want their children to have a decent education too. When they threaten to send 130 black children to the school, the racial balance is at risk, and so are the allegiances and values of Palmer Park. The white people are surprised by the class and cultural differences of the black community that come to the forefront. Finally, the idealistic dream is shattered.
"'Palmer Park is a lament for the failure of integration in the United States. It is also an examination of the plight of upper-middle-class African Americans," states Canadian-born playwright Joanna McClelland Glass in the program notes.
"Palmer Park is based on her personal experience, between 1968 and 1974, when she lived in an integrated neighbourhood in the University District of Detroit, alongside Palmer Park. She calls that experience 'haunting,' because she and her neighbours pursued their ideals, though naive, with tenacity and ardour, but ultimately they failed.
"The setting, 1968-1972 in Detroit, is brilliantly detailed by the use of a huge screen as backdrop, with a montage of visuals: the houses in Palmer Park, the streets of Detroit, singers, television stars like Flip Wilson from the popular comedy show, Laugh-In, news clips of political figures like Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy (both of whom were assassinated in 1968), logos and more. The soundtrack was a musical journey into the era.
"Designer Jessica Poirier Chang deserves credit for the minimal yet effective stage furnishings and props.
"The costumes, designed by Katherine Lubienski, are authentic outfits from the '60s, colourful and appropriate for the characters.
"Director Ron O.J. Parson skilfully captured the turbulence of the times, the idealism of the people and the cross-racial friendships with a first-rate cast. The lead actors were outstanding. Dan Chameroy's speech to the Detroit school board was impassioned and inspiring, and Nigel Shawn Williams depicted the dilemma of the black American with sensitivity and anguish."
Miss Caesar At Your Own Peril!
Richard Ouzounian (the Toronto Star) gives Caesar and Cleopatra 4 out of 4 stars:
"If you've been waiting for a perfect combination of high art and high entertainment this summer, then wait no longer.
"The production of Caesar and Cleopatra that opened at the Festival Theatre last night is a superb example of what our festivals can do at their best.
"It's a big, bold, beautiful, bounteous piece of crowd-pleasing theatre, filled with laughter and excitement, but also capable of provoking some serious thought as well.
"Shaw's wonderful story of how the aging Julius Caesar encountered the teenybopper Cleopatra when he invaded Egypt, and they wound up teaching each other a lot about the ways of the world, is given full measure here by director Des McAnuff.
"This may only be the third show he has ever directed on the festival stage, but he handles it like the most skilled of veterans, creating striking pictures that take your breath away, while keeping the space alive with the constant pulse of actors in motion.
"From the very first moment, when the statue of an Egyptian god proves to be something different that what we thought, McAnuff grabs our imagination and never lets go.
"Robert Brill's set is a series of boldly iconic Egyptian images that are capable of constantly fascinating reconfiguration. And Paul Tazewell's costumes splash the stage with welcome colour and help McAnuff create the stunning images he keeps dazzling us with.
"But although this Caesar and Cleopatra is visually splendid, it's so much more than that.
"I know you're supposed to save the best for last, but Christopher Plummer is such an essential part of this production's success that he must be mentioned first.
"In the hands of this master, Shaw suddenly seems like one of the wittiest playwrights alive and the theatre rocks with laughter as the Sahara-dry Plummer flicks line after line off with seeming aplomb, only to have them reap gigantic returns of hilarity.
"He's sweetly touching as the old man holding on to the shreds of his 'middle age,' cringing as Cleopatra mocks his baldness, then preening at every compliment she deigns to give him.
"But in an instant, he can turn into the imperious warrior, whose very glance could freeze the Nile as he shows his pupil Cleopatra that war is perhaps the most dangerous of all sports.
"Watch Plummer in the deep manly friendship he shares with his 'shield,' the gruff military man Rufio, or watch him as he plays a game of intellectual give-and-take with his trusted secretary Britannus.
"He knows that every character, every person needs or wants something different from Caesar and he's willing to provide it.
"This once-in-a-lifetime performance contains all these things and more. It's also mischievously insouciant, capriciously flamboyant and unexpectedly resonant.
"Death is in the wings for Caesar throughout this play and although he jokes about it with a steely bravura, you know that it chills him deep inside.
"This role is proof that Plummer remains the finest classical actor of our times and the fact that he is 78 years old is just icing on the cake.
"You'd need no other reason than Plummer's virtuoso turn as Caesar and McAnuff's splendid production to head to Stratford immediately, but there are many other virtues in the cast.
"Nikki M. James as Cleopatra is far, far better here than she was in her opening week performance as Juliet.
"The cadences of Shaw's prose suit her better than Shakespeare's verse and she seems much more at home as this frightened kitten who turns into a sharp-clawed cat.
"One would expect Peter Donaldson to be brilliant as Rufio and indeed, he is.
"The straight-talking man whose supposed simplicity hides a world of complex emotions isn't an easy character to play, but Donaldson greets him like an old friend and brings him to vibrant life.
"Diane D'Aquila has a field day as the domineering nurse Ftatateeta, spitting out the correct pronunciation of her name to any who mangle it and flashing her eyes with distrust of the world in general. She's very, very amusing.
"Equally droll is Steven Sutcliffe as the uptight 'English' secretary Brittanus, playing him with just the right lightness of touch, not making him too campy or doltish.
"And then there's some added weight provided by the Pothinus of Timothy D. Stickney and the Achillas of Roy Lewis.
"At the other end, Paul Dunn is deliciously childish as the young prince Ptolemy, channelling all the worst qualities of Stewie from Family Guy.
"But although Caesar and Cleopatra is filled to the brim with enjoyable moments, it has more serious matters on its mind as well.
"When Plummer's Caesar bitterly comments on 'Rome, that has achieved greatness only to learn how greatness destroys nations of men who are not great,' you can almost see the spectre of the Bush cabinet that invaded Iraq hovering in the background.
"And by the time he tells us that 'to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honour and peace, until the gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand,' you will pause and think of how little the world has changed since those words were written 100 years ago.
"This is one you miss at your own peril."
"If you've been waiting for a perfect combination of high art and high entertainment this summer, then wait no longer.
"The production of Caesar and Cleopatra that opened at the Festival Theatre last night is a superb example of what our festivals can do at their best.
"It's a big, bold, beautiful, bounteous piece of crowd-pleasing theatre, filled with laughter and excitement, but also capable of provoking some serious thought as well.
"Shaw's wonderful story of how the aging Julius Caesar encountered the teenybopper Cleopatra when he invaded Egypt, and they wound up teaching each other a lot about the ways of the world, is given full measure here by director Des McAnuff.
"This may only be the third show he has ever directed on the festival stage, but he handles it like the most skilled of veterans, creating striking pictures that take your breath away, while keeping the space alive with the constant pulse of actors in motion.
"From the very first moment, when the statue of an Egyptian god proves to be something different that what we thought, McAnuff grabs our imagination and never lets go.
"Robert Brill's set is a series of boldly iconic Egyptian images that are capable of constantly fascinating reconfiguration. And Paul Tazewell's costumes splash the stage with welcome colour and help McAnuff create the stunning images he keeps dazzling us with.
"But although this Caesar and Cleopatra is visually splendid, it's so much more than that.
"I know you're supposed to save the best for last, but Christopher Plummer is such an essential part of this production's success that he must be mentioned first.
"In the hands of this master, Shaw suddenly seems like one of the wittiest playwrights alive and the theatre rocks with laughter as the Sahara-dry Plummer flicks line after line off with seeming aplomb, only to have them reap gigantic returns of hilarity.
"He's sweetly touching as the old man holding on to the shreds of his 'middle age,' cringing as Cleopatra mocks his baldness, then preening at every compliment she deigns to give him.
"But in an instant, he can turn into the imperious warrior, whose very glance could freeze the Nile as he shows his pupil Cleopatra that war is perhaps the most dangerous of all sports.
"Watch Plummer in the deep manly friendship he shares with his 'shield,' the gruff military man Rufio, or watch him as he plays a game of intellectual give-and-take with his trusted secretary Britannus.
"He knows that every character, every person needs or wants something different from Caesar and he's willing to provide it.
"This once-in-a-lifetime performance contains all these things and more. It's also mischievously insouciant, capriciously flamboyant and unexpectedly resonant.
"Death is in the wings for Caesar throughout this play and although he jokes about it with a steely bravura, you know that it chills him deep inside.
"This role is proof that Plummer remains the finest classical actor of our times and the fact that he is 78 years old is just icing on the cake.
"You'd need no other reason than Plummer's virtuoso turn as Caesar and McAnuff's splendid production to head to Stratford immediately, but there are many other virtues in the cast.
"Nikki M. James as Cleopatra is far, far better here than she was in her opening week performance as Juliet.
"The cadences of Shaw's prose suit her better than Shakespeare's verse and she seems much more at home as this frightened kitten who turns into a sharp-clawed cat.
"One would expect Peter Donaldson to be brilliant as Rufio and indeed, he is.
"The straight-talking man whose supposed simplicity hides a world of complex emotions isn't an easy character to play, but Donaldson greets him like an old friend and brings him to vibrant life.
"Diane D'Aquila has a field day as the domineering nurse Ftatateeta, spitting out the correct pronunciation of her name to any who mangle it and flashing her eyes with distrust of the world in general. She's very, very amusing.
"Equally droll is Steven Sutcliffe as the uptight 'English' secretary Brittanus, playing him with just the right lightness of touch, not making him too campy or doltish.
"And then there's some added weight provided by the Pothinus of Timothy D. Stickney and the Achillas of Roy Lewis.
"At the other end, Paul Dunn is deliciously childish as the young prince Ptolemy, channelling all the worst qualities of Stewie from Family Guy.
"But although Caesar and Cleopatra is filled to the brim with enjoyable moments, it has more serious matters on its mind as well.
"When Plummer's Caesar bitterly comments on 'Rome, that has achieved greatness only to learn how greatness destroys nations of men who are not great,' you can almost see the spectre of the Bush cabinet that invaded Iraq hovering in the background.
"And by the time he tells us that 'to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honour and peace, until the gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand,' you will pause and think of how little the world has changed since those words were written 100 years ago.
"This is one you miss at your own peril."
Excellent Actors in Palmer Park
Robert Crew (the Toronto Star) gives Palmer Park 3 out of 4 stars:
"If you find the highways and byways of American history of overwhelming interest, then Palmer Park could be your sort of play.
"There's a certain irony here. This somewhat parochial piece was written by an accomplished Canadian-born playwright, Joanna McClelland Glass, and is being staged here at our flagship theatre festival.
"Set in Detroit in the late 1960s, it looks at an area of the city that was, briefly, a Camelot of integration, with white and black families living side by side and happily raising funds for their local school, Hampton. (Glass lived in roughly this area from 1968 to 1974.)
"It's the tale of two upper-middle-class families. Martin Townsend, a professor of physics, and his wife Kate, a white couple, move into the area and are made welcome by their black neighbours, Fletcher, a pediatrician, and his wife Linda.
"With contemporary footage of the 1967 Detroit race riots, the 1968 World Series won by Detroit and more, it has the feel of a docudrama and Glass certainly doesn't stint on statistics. Houses in Palmer Park cost a mere $30,000 compared with $100,000 for houses just a few miles north. The ratio of whites to blacks in the area and Hampton was 65 per cent to 35 per cent; anything more equal and the whites got nervous.
"This urban paradise falls apart, however, when another, blue-collar school protests the ratio of students per teacher at Hampton (25 compared to 36 per class at the poorer school). The solution imposed by the board is to transfer 130 black kids out of the overcrowded school and over to Hampton.
"The situation quickly devolves into a nasty struggle of black against black, salaried employers versus wage earners. The character of Hampton changes and the black middle-class families start to move out, with the white not far behind.
"Glass calls the play a lament for the failure of integration in the United States, but it's hard to feel a heck of a lot of sympathy for the Palmer Parkers who bought their homes on the cheap and created a privileged, artificial world; real integration, after all, would be 50-50. For all their much-vaunted idealism, the situation was hardly ideal.
"That said, the acting almost persuades us otherwise, with Dan Chameroy and Kelli Fox excellent as the white couple and Nigel Shawn Williams and Yanna McIntosh both giving powerhouse performances as Fletch and Linda. The rest of the cast, led by Kevin Hanchard and Severn Thompson, also make strong contributions.
"Ron OJ Parson's direction is unexceptional and the set becomes somewhat uninteresting, but Dayna Tekatch chips in with some lively choreography.
"Paradise lost, perhaps, but the middle class moved on and created new, prosperous lives elsewhere. Unlike the kids of those blue-collar workers. "
"If you find the highways and byways of American history of overwhelming interest, then Palmer Park could be your sort of play.
"There's a certain irony here. This somewhat parochial piece was written by an accomplished Canadian-born playwright, Joanna McClelland Glass, and is being staged here at our flagship theatre festival.
"Set in Detroit in the late 1960s, it looks at an area of the city that was, briefly, a Camelot of integration, with white and black families living side by side and happily raising funds for their local school, Hampton. (Glass lived in roughly this area from 1968 to 1974.)
"It's the tale of two upper-middle-class families. Martin Townsend, a professor of physics, and his wife Kate, a white couple, move into the area and are made welcome by their black neighbours, Fletcher, a pediatrician, and his wife Linda.
"With contemporary footage of the 1967 Detroit race riots, the 1968 World Series won by Detroit and more, it has the feel of a docudrama and Glass certainly doesn't stint on statistics. Houses in Palmer Park cost a mere $30,000 compared with $100,000 for houses just a few miles north. The ratio of whites to blacks in the area and Hampton was 65 per cent to 35 per cent; anything more equal and the whites got nervous.
"This urban paradise falls apart, however, when another, blue-collar school protests the ratio of students per teacher at Hampton (25 compared to 36 per class at the poorer school). The solution imposed by the board is to transfer 130 black kids out of the overcrowded school and over to Hampton.
"The situation quickly devolves into a nasty struggle of black against black, salaried employers versus wage earners. The character of Hampton changes and the black middle-class families start to move out, with the white not far behind.
"Glass calls the play a lament for the failure of integration in the United States, but it's hard to feel a heck of a lot of sympathy for the Palmer Parkers who bought their homes on the cheap and created a privileged, artificial world; real integration, after all, would be 50-50. For all their much-vaunted idealism, the situation was hardly ideal.
"That said, the acting almost persuades us otherwise, with Dan Chameroy and Kelli Fox excellent as the white couple and Nigel Shawn Williams and Yanna McIntosh both giving powerhouse performances as Fletch and Linda. The rest of the cast, led by Kevin Hanchard and Severn Thompson, also make strong contributions.
"Ron OJ Parson's direction is unexceptional and the set becomes somewhat uninteresting, but Dayna Tekatch chips in with some lively choreography.
"Paradise lost, perhaps, but the middle class moved on and created new, prosperous lives elsewhere. Unlike the kids of those blue-collar workers. "
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Best Value and Best Swordfight in the Pavilion
A review of Shakespeare's Universe: Her Infinite Variety from Robyn Godfree at the Stratford Gazette:
"What a great way to spend an hour and a quarter: the warmth of the sun, a cool breeze bringing the scent of nearby roses, the chirrups of birds and squirrels in the rustling leaves overhead, relaxed laughter earned by good actors with a compelling story…
"What’s that? Leaves overhead? In a theatre?
"Oh yes. Perhaps you have not heard, or not been by Upper Queen’s Park lately, but there is now a fifth stage at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, an outdoor pavilion, nestled against a tree, surrounded by a screen designed to blend into the park. On the inside is an open stage, a second scrim with London’s image on it – a London that Shakespeare would have known – and in front of the stage, bleachers. And on the stage, one of the most fun, interesting pieces of live theatre on stage this season. It is Stratford’s version of Shakespeare in the Park, but better, because it has all the professional resources that are at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival to support it.
"Peter Hinton’s first foray into Shakespeare’s Universe gives us the history of women in Shakespeare’s time. According to the literature of the day (mostly written by men), women fell into four categories: the maid (an unmarried girl), a scold (a woman with a sharp tongue), the moll (any woman who worked for a living but often a prostitute), and the witch (any woman who was older, poor or deformed, usually a combination of the three). Mr. Hinton’s history lesson about how women lived and loved in Elizabethan England is more entertaining – and more memorable – than any history book, especially as delivered by the four actresses portraying these women.
"Dayna Tekatch plays the maid sweetly but without being too coy, and sings 'A Maid That’s Deep in Love' beautifully; Peggy Coffey is at her impish best as the scolding shrew – but is most moving when mourning for her loveless marriage. Laura Condlln is pitch-perfect as the cheeky moll Bess Bridges (she and Michael Spencer-Davis provide the best sword fight of the season) and Karen Robinson’s performance as the pitiable 'witch' is startling both in its compassion and sudden eerie turn (although her poise while portraying the writer Amelia Lanyer is a particularly strong moment). The men, Matthew MacFadzean and Mr. Spencer-Davis, provide the necessary balance in this mini battle-of-the-sexes as the Puritan and the Poet: the writers, politicians, lovers and opponents of these women. They also provide the necessary tenor for harmonious renditions of songs like 'Hedger and Ditcher' (a distinct crowd-pleaser). The music and songs that are worked seamlessly into the fabric of the storytelling adds the extra elements of mirth and wistfulness to a play about a brutal age – especially brutal for women – but throughout, Her Infinite Variety reminds us that Shakespeare, as evidenced by the way they are portrayed in his plays and sonnets, was ahead of the curve in understanding how women thought and what they felt. That ribbon of hope woven into the text is as bright as its music.
"Some have questioned the professionalism of the pavilion: Is an outdoor stage in keeping with the spirit of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival? I think Tyrone Guthrie, the founding artistic director who started it all under a tent, and who insisted upon the very best in every aspect of theatre – I think he’d be pretty damned proud. Shakespeare’s Universe: Her Infinite Variety is the best value going this season: with the calibre of acting, design, writing and direction, it is worth a lot more than the paltry $10 admission fee, even in its rained-out location of the Café Lobby (minus the swords). It continues until Sept. 28."
"What a great way to spend an hour and a quarter: the warmth of the sun, a cool breeze bringing the scent of nearby roses, the chirrups of birds and squirrels in the rustling leaves overhead, relaxed laughter earned by good actors with a compelling story…
"What’s that? Leaves overhead? In a theatre?
"Oh yes. Perhaps you have not heard, or not been by Upper Queen’s Park lately, but there is now a fifth stage at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, an outdoor pavilion, nestled against a tree, surrounded by a screen designed to blend into the park. On the inside is an open stage, a second scrim with London’s image on it – a London that Shakespeare would have known – and in front of the stage, bleachers. And on the stage, one of the most fun, interesting pieces of live theatre on stage this season. It is Stratford’s version of Shakespeare in the Park, but better, because it has all the professional resources that are at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival to support it.
"Peter Hinton’s first foray into Shakespeare’s Universe gives us the history of women in Shakespeare’s time. According to the literature of the day (mostly written by men), women fell into four categories: the maid (an unmarried girl), a scold (a woman with a sharp tongue), the moll (any woman who worked for a living but often a prostitute), and the witch (any woman who was older, poor or deformed, usually a combination of the three). Mr. Hinton’s history lesson about how women lived and loved in Elizabethan England is more entertaining – and more memorable – than any history book, especially as delivered by the four actresses portraying these women.
"Dayna Tekatch plays the maid sweetly but without being too coy, and sings 'A Maid That’s Deep in Love' beautifully; Peggy Coffey is at her impish best as the scolding shrew – but is most moving when mourning for her loveless marriage. Laura Condlln is pitch-perfect as the cheeky moll Bess Bridges (she and Michael Spencer-Davis provide the best sword fight of the season) and Karen Robinson’s performance as the pitiable 'witch' is startling both in its compassion and sudden eerie turn (although her poise while portraying the writer Amelia Lanyer is a particularly strong moment). The men, Matthew MacFadzean and Mr. Spencer-Davis, provide the necessary balance in this mini battle-of-the-sexes as the Puritan and the Poet: the writers, politicians, lovers and opponents of these women. They also provide the necessary tenor for harmonious renditions of songs like 'Hedger and Ditcher' (a distinct crowd-pleaser). The music and songs that are worked seamlessly into the fabric of the storytelling adds the extra elements of mirth and wistfulness to a play about a brutal age – especially brutal for women – but throughout, Her Infinite Variety reminds us that Shakespeare, as evidenced by the way they are portrayed in his plays and sonnets, was ahead of the curve in understanding how women thought and what they felt. That ribbon of hope woven into the text is as bright as its music.
"Some have questioned the professionalism of the pavilion: Is an outdoor stage in keeping with the spirit of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival? I think Tyrone Guthrie, the founding artistic director who started it all under a tent, and who insisted upon the very best in every aspect of theatre – I think he’d be pretty damned proud. Shakespeare’s Universe: Her Infinite Variety is the best value going this season: with the calibre of acting, design, writing and direction, it is worth a lot more than the paltry $10 admission fee, even in its rained-out location of the Café Lobby (minus the swords). It continues until Sept. 28."
Monday, August 4, 2008
Actors "Awe-Inspiring" in Pavilion Production
A review of Shakespeare's Universe: Her Infinite Variety from Richard Ouzounian at the Toronto Star:
"The Festival Pavilion is, in principle, one of the best new ideas to hit Stratford in years.
"A mere stone's throw from the Festival Theatre is an artful circular playing area under a leafy tree, with simple seating around it, open to the elements. Prices are low and the atmosphere is the most relaxed you'll find it here.
"Late in the pavilion's opening production, Shakespeare's Universe, when the company break into a lengthy chunk of Thomas Dekker's still-powerful 17th-century script, The Witch of Edmonton, you see what a gem this place could be.
"Here is where no-frills productions of all the hundreds of great obscure plays from the classical repertory could be presented. All you need are talented actors, which Stratford possesses in abundance.
"Despite my joy at the possibilities of this facility, I have to report that Shakespeare's Universe is a considerable disappointment.
"Author and director Peter Hinton seems to have used this show as a dumping ground for all the obscure data on the Elizabethan era's treatment of women that he didn't have time to cram into his overstuffed production of The Taming of the Shrew across the road.
"It leaves a sneaking feeling that Hinton may be working towards a doctoral thesis with Stratford paying the research bills.
"What we expect at Stratford is considerably more than the kind of show unimaginative youth theatre groups have been touring since Christ was a pup. You know the kind I mean: brightly smiling actors step in and out of character to pelt us with dates, facts and quotes before acting out small scenes to illustrate their points.
"As if all this wasn't already just a bit too Learning Channel for words, they accompany it with choreographed hand gestures that would have done The Supremes proud.
"If someone mentions a bug bite, the whole company scratch it; if one actor talks about being drunk, everyone weaves tipsily. And the amount of times they get up and fall to the ground to illustrate changes of fortune are so frequent that I prayed they were wearing football padding underneath their Elizabethan costumes.
"There are a couple of saving graces: we get to see genuine passages from nearly forgotten plays of the period, such as The Two Angry Women of Abingdon and The Fair Maid of the West, with the added virtue that a fine cast performs them.
"Each deserves a positive mention. Peggy Coffey is a sparkling minx who's also capable of poignant melancholy; Laura Condlin swaggers as a man with a rare sensual style; Matthew MacFadzean is typically excellent as everything from (literally) a mad dog to a snarling chauvinist; Dayna Tekatch sings sweetly and dances with style; and Michael Spencer-Davis brings a nice clarity and weight to all the work he does.
"Then there's the awe-inspiring Karen Robinson. She's a forceful presence throughout, with those hooded eyes, baleful voice and jack o' lantern smile. But when she breaks into her virtuoso turn as Widow Sawyer, the so-called Witch of Edmonton, she's heart-stopping. A performer of classic grandeur who acts without fear, she deserves a lot more to do at Stratford.
"As for Hinton, couldn't he just quietly go back to Ottawa and his job at the National Arts Centre? It's not just that his work is numbingly obvious, but it's always too long. His Swanne trilogy lasted nine hours, Shrew took three and even this simple piece is too long at 75 minutes.
"I have the distressing feeling that if Hinton had created the universe, it would have taken eight days."
"The Festival Pavilion is, in principle, one of the best new ideas to hit Stratford in years.
"A mere stone's throw from the Festival Theatre is an artful circular playing area under a leafy tree, with simple seating around it, open to the elements. Prices are low and the atmosphere is the most relaxed you'll find it here.
"Late in the pavilion's opening production, Shakespeare's Universe, when the company break into a lengthy chunk of Thomas Dekker's still-powerful 17th-century script, The Witch of Edmonton, you see what a gem this place could be.
"Here is where no-frills productions of all the hundreds of great obscure plays from the classical repertory could be presented. All you need are talented actors, which Stratford possesses in abundance.
"Despite my joy at the possibilities of this facility, I have to report that Shakespeare's Universe is a considerable disappointment.
"Author and director Peter Hinton seems to have used this show as a dumping ground for all the obscure data on the Elizabethan era's treatment of women that he didn't have time to cram into his overstuffed production of The Taming of the Shrew across the road.
"It leaves a sneaking feeling that Hinton may be working towards a doctoral thesis with Stratford paying the research bills.
"What we expect at Stratford is considerably more than the kind of show unimaginative youth theatre groups have been touring since Christ was a pup. You know the kind I mean: brightly smiling actors step in and out of character to pelt us with dates, facts and quotes before acting out small scenes to illustrate their points.
"As if all this wasn't already just a bit too Learning Channel for words, they accompany it with choreographed hand gestures that would have done The Supremes proud.
"If someone mentions a bug bite, the whole company scratch it; if one actor talks about being drunk, everyone weaves tipsily. And the amount of times they get up and fall to the ground to illustrate changes of fortune are so frequent that I prayed they were wearing football padding underneath their Elizabethan costumes.
"There are a couple of saving graces: we get to see genuine passages from nearly forgotten plays of the period, such as The Two Angry Women of Abingdon and The Fair Maid of the West, with the added virtue that a fine cast performs them.
"Each deserves a positive mention. Peggy Coffey is a sparkling minx who's also capable of poignant melancholy; Laura Condlin swaggers as a man with a rare sensual style; Matthew MacFadzean is typically excellent as everything from (literally) a mad dog to a snarling chauvinist; Dayna Tekatch sings sweetly and dances with style; and Michael Spencer-Davis brings a nice clarity and weight to all the work he does.
"Then there's the awe-inspiring Karen Robinson. She's a forceful presence throughout, with those hooded eyes, baleful voice and jack o' lantern smile. But when she breaks into her virtuoso turn as Widow Sawyer, the so-called Witch of Edmonton, she's heart-stopping. A performer of classic grandeur who acts without fear, she deserves a lot more to do at Stratford.
"As for Hinton, couldn't he just quietly go back to Ottawa and his job at the National Arts Centre? It's not just that his work is numbingly obvious, but it's always too long. His Swanne trilogy lasted nine hours, Shrew took three and even this simple piece is too long at 75 minutes.
"I have the distressing feeling that if Hinton had created the universe, it would have taken eight days."
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Lots of Reasons to See Universe
Globe and Mail theatre critic J. Kelly Nestruck gives Shakespeare's Universe 3 stars:
"There is much to like, but much more to admire, about director Peter Hinton's unwieldy The Taming of the Shrew currently playing at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. It drips with Hinton's research into the sexual politics of the Elizabethan era - some might say drowns in it.
"If you were a fan of all that contextualization, however, you'll love Shakespeare's Universe (Her Infinite Variety), a Shrew spin-off of sorts written and directed by Hinton. Presented on a circular outdoor stage a stone's throw from the Festival Theatre, this play/lecture presents the result of Hinton's gender study without any pesky plot or characters getting in the way.
"Using six actors - four women, two men - Hinton romps through various pamphlets, poems and plays written by the Bard and his contemporaries pondering the place of women in Elizabethan England. He is particularly fascinated by the paradoxes of the period: Good Queen Bess was ruler of the land, but her fellow women had no legal rights; Shakespeare was writing complex, humanist female characters, which were then played by boys.
"Shakespeare's Universe includes snippets of soliloquies from Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, The Merchant of Venice, Othello and Antony and Cleopatra. (The subtitle comes form the latter's description of the Queen of Egypt: 'Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.') Cast members conclude these moments by signing Shakespeare's name in the summer air, saying aloud as they write it: 'William Shakespeare.' Aside from being a very mockable gesture - on the car ride home, a friend and I punctuated our best bits of conversation by signing our names in the air - it seems a mistake to ascribe the opinions of Shakespeare's characters to Willy S. himself. Part of what makes him such a great playwright is that it is very difficult to pigeonhole his personal politics.
"It's the 'universe' part of this presentation that is much more interesting - extracts from rarely staged Elizabethan and Jacobean plays such as The Two Angry Women of Abingdon by Henry Porter and The Witch of Edmonton by Thomas Dekker, William Rowley and John Ford (in which Karen Robinson takes on the title role and Matthew MacFadzean has an excellent turn as a hellhound).
"We get a peek, as well, at John Fletcher's The Woman's Prize, or The Tamer Tamed. In this sequel to The Taming of the Shrew, Katherine has died and Petruchio remarries a woman named Maria. Perhaps inspired by Aristophanes's Lysistrata, Maria leads a group of women in abstaining from sex until their husbands are tamed. (How intriguing to see that Shakespeare's play was provoking feminist response even during his time.) The actors present a wry, 10-second summary of the two tamings: Kate places her hand under Petruchio's foot, then Petruchio places his hand under Maria's.
"Particularly well suited for a sunny, outdoor stage is Thomas Heywood's The Fair Maid of the West, in which Laura Condlin plays Bess Bridges - a proto-Buffy the Vampire Slayer whose name elicits cheers from other women in the cast. This swashbuckling sister disguises herself as a man to confront bullies who cause trouble at her tavern. (And later, in a part not staged here, leads a group of privateers in attacks on Turkish vessels.) Over all, the writings in Shakespeare's Universe - many of them by women, including poet Aemilia Lanyer, polemicist Moderata Fonte, and Elizabeth I herself - paint a complex portrait of Elizabethan women.
"Yet Hinton does not shy away from the more perverse and oppressive aspects of the age. He introduces a torture device called the brank, a monstrous metal mask with a spiked tongue immobilizer that a shrewish woman would wear as a punishment paraded. The full horror of this is chillingly evoked as the play's four female actors place upside-down chairs on top of their heads and describe the funnel that would be put down their throat and the unspeakable liquids that would be poured in.
"At just $10, Shakespeare's Universe is worth a peek between shows if it's a sunny afternoon. Whether this history lesson actually helps us better understand the Bard's female characters, however, is arguable. Certainly Hinton's production of The Taming of the Shrew demonstrates the pitfalls of getting too bogged down in period detail. It's the universality and timelessness of Shakespeare's women than make them of enduring interest, as we have seen in this year's Generation Y Juliet and Edwardian Ophelia."
"There is much to like, but much more to admire, about director Peter Hinton's unwieldy The Taming of the Shrew currently playing at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. It drips with Hinton's research into the sexual politics of the Elizabethan era - some might say drowns in it.
"If you were a fan of all that contextualization, however, you'll love Shakespeare's Universe (Her Infinite Variety), a Shrew spin-off of sorts written and directed by Hinton. Presented on a circular outdoor stage a stone's throw from the Festival Theatre, this play/lecture presents the result of Hinton's gender study without any pesky plot or characters getting in the way.
"Using six actors - four women, two men - Hinton romps through various pamphlets, poems and plays written by the Bard and his contemporaries pondering the place of women in Elizabethan England. He is particularly fascinated by the paradoxes of the period: Good Queen Bess was ruler of the land, but her fellow women had no legal rights; Shakespeare was writing complex, humanist female characters, which were then played by boys.
"Shakespeare's Universe includes snippets of soliloquies from Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, The Merchant of Venice, Othello and Antony and Cleopatra. (The subtitle comes form the latter's description of the Queen of Egypt: 'Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.') Cast members conclude these moments by signing Shakespeare's name in the summer air, saying aloud as they write it: 'William Shakespeare.' Aside from being a very mockable gesture - on the car ride home, a friend and I punctuated our best bits of conversation by signing our names in the air - it seems a mistake to ascribe the opinions of Shakespeare's characters to Willy S. himself. Part of what makes him such a great playwright is that it is very difficult to pigeonhole his personal politics.
"It's the 'universe' part of this presentation that is much more interesting - extracts from rarely staged Elizabethan and Jacobean plays such as The Two Angry Women of Abingdon by Henry Porter and The Witch of Edmonton by Thomas Dekker, William Rowley and John Ford (in which Karen Robinson takes on the title role and Matthew MacFadzean has an excellent turn as a hellhound).
"We get a peek, as well, at John Fletcher's The Woman's Prize, or The Tamer Tamed. In this sequel to The Taming of the Shrew, Katherine has died and Petruchio remarries a woman named Maria. Perhaps inspired by Aristophanes's Lysistrata, Maria leads a group of women in abstaining from sex until their husbands are tamed. (How intriguing to see that Shakespeare's play was provoking feminist response even during his time.) The actors present a wry, 10-second summary of the two tamings: Kate places her hand under Petruchio's foot, then Petruchio places his hand under Maria's.
"Particularly well suited for a sunny, outdoor stage is Thomas Heywood's The Fair Maid of the West, in which Laura Condlin plays Bess Bridges - a proto-Buffy the Vampire Slayer whose name elicits cheers from other women in the cast. This swashbuckling sister disguises herself as a man to confront bullies who cause trouble at her tavern. (And later, in a part not staged here, leads a group of privateers in attacks on Turkish vessels.) Over all, the writings in Shakespeare's Universe - many of them by women, including poet Aemilia Lanyer, polemicist Moderata Fonte, and Elizabeth I herself - paint a complex portrait of Elizabethan women.
"Yet Hinton does not shy away from the more perverse and oppressive aspects of the age. He introduces a torture device called the brank, a monstrous metal mask with a spiked tongue immobilizer that a shrewish woman would wear as a punishment paraded. The full horror of this is chillingly evoked as the play's four female actors place upside-down chairs on top of their heads and describe the funnel that would be put down their throat and the unspeakable liquids that would be poured in.
"At just $10, Shakespeare's Universe is worth a peek between shows if it's a sunny afternoon. Whether this history lesson actually helps us better understand the Bard's female characters, however, is arguable. Certainly Hinton's production of The Taming of the Shrew demonstrates the pitfalls of getting too bogged down in period detail. It's the universality and timelessness of Shakespeare's women than make them of enduring interest, as we have seen in this year's Generation Y Juliet and Edwardian Ophelia."
Monday, July 28, 2008
Reviewer: Maraden Should Return
A review of All's Well That Ends Well from Gary Smith at the Hamilton Spectator:
"Unfortunately all is not well in Marti Maraden's beautifully imagined, darkly comic production of All's Well That Ends Well.
"Maraden has orchestrated a mordant reading of the comedy. The play begins, in fact, in a period of mourning. Against a dark, autumnal scene by Watteau, characters move in black Victorian costumes, beautifully designed by Christina Poddubiuk.
"A graceful sense of lamentation is suggested by Keith Thomas's lyric score. Louise Guinand's evocative lighting sends patches of golden mystery across the Stratford Festival Theatre stage.
"Then, alas, Jeff Lillico's cold and petulant Bertram and Daniela Vlaskalic's dispassionate Helena spoil everything.
"Lillico, a fine and sensitive young actor, chooses to play Shakespeare's shallow young gentleman with too much puppylike whimper. And Vlaskalic doesn't summon up the fire and ice necessary to make Helena a figure of great strength and intelligence.
"When the central core of the play is capped at the knees, it's difficult for the rest of the folks onstage to make the thing dance and sing.
"Here, Juan Chioran as a moody, cowardly soldier and Tom Rooney as a saucy servant work hard to restore the play's sense of humour. So do Fiona Reid in the small role of Widow Capilet and Michelle Fisk in the even smaller one of Mariana, her friend. None of these fine performances, however, can wallop the play home, so we are stuck trying to imagine what Lillico and Vlaskalic think they are doing as those ultimately mismatched mates Bertram and Helena.
"Martha Henry does what she can as Countess of Rossillion, mother to the recalcitrant Bertram. She uses that marvellous Henry voice as a musical zither, riding up and down the scale with rhythmic invention, and she moves like a dream. No one can swish back a Victorian skirt better than Henry in full flight.
"Brian Dennehy does similar service in his role as the King of France. Though his bursts of vocal power tend to be trumpet calls of orchestral imagination -- rather than meaningful connections to his character's illness and ultimate restoration -- he still makes a compelling stage figure. His Shakespearean debut here augurs well for future performances, hopefully at Stratford.
"It's good to see Stephen Ouimette back onstage stealing every scene he can as Lafew, a man who comes to understand we're all imperfect in this out-of-whack world.
"What director Maraden creates best here is a world where imperfect people struggle to make sense of those around them -- as well as themselves. It's a much better play than sometimes critics suggest, and in this production, despite its central deficiencies and an underpowered performance by Leah Oster as quick-witted Diana, the total is better than the sum of the parts.
"What All's Well proves is the fact Maraden should be back directing at Stratford next season. Even with Lillico and Vlaskalic failing to strike sparks, she has managed to make a faux silk purse out of what might be considered a sow's ear of a play."
"Unfortunately all is not well in Marti Maraden's beautifully imagined, darkly comic production of All's Well That Ends Well.
"Maraden has orchestrated a mordant reading of the comedy. The play begins, in fact, in a period of mourning. Against a dark, autumnal scene by Watteau, characters move in black Victorian costumes, beautifully designed by Christina Poddubiuk.
"A graceful sense of lamentation is suggested by Keith Thomas's lyric score. Louise Guinand's evocative lighting sends patches of golden mystery across the Stratford Festival Theatre stage.
"Then, alas, Jeff Lillico's cold and petulant Bertram and Daniela Vlaskalic's dispassionate Helena spoil everything.
"Lillico, a fine and sensitive young actor, chooses to play Shakespeare's shallow young gentleman with too much puppylike whimper. And Vlaskalic doesn't summon up the fire and ice necessary to make Helena a figure of great strength and intelligence.
"When the central core of the play is capped at the knees, it's difficult for the rest of the folks onstage to make the thing dance and sing.
"Here, Juan Chioran as a moody, cowardly soldier and Tom Rooney as a saucy servant work hard to restore the play's sense of humour. So do Fiona Reid in the small role of Widow Capilet and Michelle Fisk in the even smaller one of Mariana, her friend. None of these fine performances, however, can wallop the play home, so we are stuck trying to imagine what Lillico and Vlaskalic think they are doing as those ultimately mismatched mates Bertram and Helena.
"Martha Henry does what she can as Countess of Rossillion, mother to the recalcitrant Bertram. She uses that marvellous Henry voice as a musical zither, riding up and down the scale with rhythmic invention, and she moves like a dream. No one can swish back a Victorian skirt better than Henry in full flight.
"Brian Dennehy does similar service in his role as the King of France. Though his bursts of vocal power tend to be trumpet calls of orchestral imagination -- rather than meaningful connections to his character's illness and ultimate restoration -- he still makes a compelling stage figure. His Shakespearean debut here augurs well for future performances, hopefully at Stratford.
"It's good to see Stephen Ouimette back onstage stealing every scene he can as Lafew, a man who comes to understand we're all imperfect in this out-of-whack world.
"What director Maraden creates best here is a world where imperfect people struggle to make sense of those around them -- as well as themselves. It's a much better play than sometimes critics suggest, and in this production, despite its central deficiencies and an underpowered performance by Leah Oster as quick-witted Diana, the total is better than the sum of the parts.
"What All's Well proves is the fact Maraden should be back directing at Stratford next season. Even with Lillico and Vlaskalic failing to strike sparks, she has managed to make a faux silk purse out of what might be considered a sow's ear of a play."
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Must See Love Before Time Runs Out
Review of There Reigns Love by Robyn Godfree for the Stratford Gazette:
"There are four love affairs present in Simon Callow’s one-man entertainment called There Reigns Love.
"The first love affair is that of a poet and a beautiful young man to whom he writes a great number of the poems about love and beauty. The second is that of the poet and his 'Dark Lady of the Sonnets'; the third is the affair that occurs between that same dark lady and the beautiful young man. Those affairs form the story possibly hidden in the background of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, revealed most clearly when they are reordered as proposed by a psychoanalyst by the name of John Padel.
"The fourth love affair present is that of Simon Callow’s evident love of Shakespeare’s poetry, and the idea that in this reordering – perhaps the order in which they were actually written – the sonnets appear to be autobiographical in nature, thus perhaps revealing an intimate bit of the enigmatic Bard’s life. It is an intriguing idea – tantalizing even – and although Mr. Callow cautions the audience to treat everything he says with the utmost suspicion, his enthusiasm is infectious, and his 'performance' of most (but not all) of the sonnets brings alive those with which we are all familiar, and more importantly, makes sense and illuminates those that are less known.
"Mr. Callow has invited patrons to sit on the stage during his performance, so do not be surprised to see audience members lounging comfortably on cushions downstage while Mr. Callow appears upstage. (The only quibble one may have with this production is that this obvious desire for intimacy with the audience may have been better suited for the cozy Studio Theatre; but then, Mr. Callow would not have had use of Tanya Moiseiwitch’s lovely balcony, incorporated as it is at the Tom Patterson Theatre into Charlotte Dean’s warm set.) Mr. Callow explains Mr. Padel’s theory and then begins to animate the sonnets: at first subtle movements and steady voice, growing more enlivened as the story heats up. All the while Mr. Callow’s beautiful, precise diction gives no doubt for his passion for speaking the sonnets; it shines through with each crisp word.
"While it may feel like more of a lecture than a performance in places, I’ll say this: if we had all had teachers like Simon Callow, not only would we have learned a hell of a lot more, but we would never dream of yawning at the Sonnets and poetry in general ever again. Grab your chance to see this once-in-a-lifetime production with one of the foremost Shakespearean actors in the English-speaking world before it ends on Aug. 3."
"There are four love affairs present in Simon Callow’s one-man entertainment called There Reigns Love.
"The first love affair is that of a poet and a beautiful young man to whom he writes a great number of the poems about love and beauty. The second is that of the poet and his 'Dark Lady of the Sonnets'; the third is the affair that occurs between that same dark lady and the beautiful young man. Those affairs form the story possibly hidden in the background of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, revealed most clearly when they are reordered as proposed by a psychoanalyst by the name of John Padel.
"The fourth love affair present is that of Simon Callow’s evident love of Shakespeare’s poetry, and the idea that in this reordering – perhaps the order in which they were actually written – the sonnets appear to be autobiographical in nature, thus perhaps revealing an intimate bit of the enigmatic Bard’s life. It is an intriguing idea – tantalizing even – and although Mr. Callow cautions the audience to treat everything he says with the utmost suspicion, his enthusiasm is infectious, and his 'performance' of most (but not all) of the sonnets brings alive those with which we are all familiar, and more importantly, makes sense and illuminates those that are less known.
"Mr. Callow has invited patrons to sit on the stage during his performance, so do not be surprised to see audience members lounging comfortably on cushions downstage while Mr. Callow appears upstage. (The only quibble one may have with this production is that this obvious desire for intimacy with the audience may have been better suited for the cozy Studio Theatre; but then, Mr. Callow would not have had use of Tanya Moiseiwitch’s lovely balcony, incorporated as it is at the Tom Patterson Theatre into Charlotte Dean’s warm set.) Mr. Callow explains Mr. Padel’s theory and then begins to animate the sonnets: at first subtle movements and steady voice, growing more enlivened as the story heats up. All the while Mr. Callow’s beautiful, precise diction gives no doubt for his passion for speaking the sonnets; it shines through with each crisp word.
"While it may feel like more of a lecture than a performance in places, I’ll say this: if we had all had teachers like Simon Callow, not only would we have learned a hell of a lot more, but we would never dream of yawning at the Sonnets and poetry in general ever again. Grab your chance to see this once-in-a-lifetime production with one of the foremost Shakespearean actors in the English-speaking world before it ends on Aug. 3."
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Four Reviews
Reviews of Cabaret, The Music Man, and Hughie and Krapp's Last Tape, by Michael Kuchwara for the Associated Press:
"There's a nice theatrical contrast - all-American wholesomeness versus determined Teutonic debauchery - on display at the 2008 Stratford Shakespeare Festival.
"It's the impossibly innocent, strawberry-phosphate, brass-band world of Meredith Willson's The Music Man up against the sexually aggressive, pills-and-liquor environment of Kander and Ebb's Cabaret. Give a slight edge to licentious behaviour at the Avon Theatre where both shows are running in repertory well into the fall.
"Director Amanda Dehnert is brimming with ideas for her production of Cabaret. Maybe too many. But better overstuffed than undernourished, and Dehnert makes the tale of a young American writer adrift in Berlin during the early 1930s emotionally involving as well as visually arresting. The woman uses film, puppets and even a bit of uncomfortable audience participation, among other things, to keep the action flowing.
"Dehnert - with the considerable help of choreographer Kelly Devine - is equally at home in the musical numbers at the Kit Kat Klub and the personal stories of the two couples whose relationships dominate the musical.
"Her production takes a cue from the 1987 Broadway revival, filling out the character of the writer, Cliff Bradshaw, ably played by the strong-voiced Sean Arbuckle. Cliff is more than a passive observer in this world of collapsing morality as the Nazis come to power and most people are just too preoccupied to care.
"The man is involved with a second-rate chanteuse named Sally Bowles, who makes up in intensity what she lacks in talent. Trish Lindstrom's Sally exudes a narcissistic desperation to have fun, no matter the cost. Don't look for vulnerability here.
"Their relationship is mirrored by the sweetly affecting - and equally doomed - partnership between Cliff's sympathetic Berlin landlady, a personable Nora McLellan, and a Jewish shopkeeper (Frank Moore).
"For the most part, this is an exceptionally well-sung Cabaret, showcasing what is the most satisfying score by John Kander (music) and Fred Ebb (lyrics). Take Bruce Dow, a deliciously different master of a ceremonies. He's more full-figured than the fellows created by either Joel Grey or Alan Cumming. Think the Pillsbury doughboy's naughty twin.
"Dehnert is at her most inventive with this character, seen as a kind of libidinous guardian angel who watches over just about everybody in the show.
"It's quite a distance from pre-Second World War Berlin to River City, Iowa, circa 1912, the territory ripe for the picking by Harold Hill, the memorable charlatan in The Music Man.
"Hill is sandblasted in everyone's memory - from either the original cast recording or the film - as the property of Robert Preston. Here, Jonathan Goad makes a game attempt at making the con man his own, but there's a slight unease to his duplicity as Hill attempts to sell the townsfolk band instruments and uniforms for their children while charming the town's prim librarian (a delightful Leah Oster).
"It's not easy to mess with The Music Man. The musical is one of those perfectly constructed shows that doesn't leave much room for radically different interpretation. Director Susan H. Schulman offers no surprises in her take on Willson's idealized version of his Iowa youth.
"Yet while his vision is nostalgic (captured in the lovely sets and costumes by Patrick Clark), it is never overly sentimental. Willson's memories are tinged with an exuberance that is impossible to resist. Not to mention a tuneful score that ranks as one of the best of Broadway's golden age.
"The supporting cast deserves the highest of praise, but let's give a special shout out to Sara Topham as the piano-playing Ethel Toffelmier. Topham is a giddy delight as the goofy Ethel, dancing her heart out in Shipoopi. Quite a change from her fine, furious emoting in Fuente Ovejuna, Lope de Vega's grim yet glorious revenge tragedy. It's positive proof that playing in rep enhances an actor's skills.
"A transformation of equally extraordinary stature is occurring at the small Studio Theatre, where Brian Dennehy is undergoing a radical makeover - all during one evening. The vehicle? A double bill of Eugene O'Neill's Hughie and Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape.
"In Hughie, Dennehy portrays Erie Smith, a down-on-his-luck gambler complaining about his losing streak to a passive night clerk (the eminently watchable Joe Grifasi) in a flea bag New York hotel.
"Erie's good fortune deserts him after the previous night clerk (the play's title character) dies. And now the man is looking to find his way back to Lady Luck. With his imposing physicality and wide grin, Dennehy excels at bravado, and Erie, decked out in a dapper cream-coloured suit, is a man of show - but not much tell.
"His inner anxiety seeps out during the rest of his garrulous, nearly one-sided conversation with the mournful little clerk. Director Robert Falls directs with the lightest of touches, allowing the expansive Dennehy to create a memorable portrait of man trying to find a reason to keep on living.
"Desperation of another sort is on display in Krapp's Last Tape, Beckett's bleak memory play in which an older man, at age 69, listens to his taped ruminations of three decades earlier. Dennehy undergoes a stunning physical transformation, trading the bonhomie of O'Neill's big-city gambler for the haunted, hunted, almost feral look of a man hearing his past come back with regret.
"Yet the play, directed with impeccable precision by Jennifer Tarver, is not without humour. Beckett was a big fan of those silent-film greats Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Put a banana peel on stage and you know Krapp will slip on it. Still, it's the pain of what once was that dominates the fierce, furious man in this memorable, unnerving work. "
"There's a nice theatrical contrast - all-American wholesomeness versus determined Teutonic debauchery - on display at the 2008 Stratford Shakespeare Festival.
"It's the impossibly innocent, strawberry-phosphate, brass-band world of Meredith Willson's The Music Man up against the sexually aggressive, pills-and-liquor environment of Kander and Ebb's Cabaret. Give a slight edge to licentious behaviour at the Avon Theatre where both shows are running in repertory well into the fall.
"Director Amanda Dehnert is brimming with ideas for her production of Cabaret. Maybe too many. But better overstuffed than undernourished, and Dehnert makes the tale of a young American writer adrift in Berlin during the early 1930s emotionally involving as well as visually arresting. The woman uses film, puppets and even a bit of uncomfortable audience participation, among other things, to keep the action flowing.
"Dehnert - with the considerable help of choreographer Kelly Devine - is equally at home in the musical numbers at the Kit Kat Klub and the personal stories of the two couples whose relationships dominate the musical.
"Her production takes a cue from the 1987 Broadway revival, filling out the character of the writer, Cliff Bradshaw, ably played by the strong-voiced Sean Arbuckle. Cliff is more than a passive observer in this world of collapsing morality as the Nazis come to power and most people are just too preoccupied to care.
"The man is involved with a second-rate chanteuse named Sally Bowles, who makes up in intensity what she lacks in talent. Trish Lindstrom's Sally exudes a narcissistic desperation to have fun, no matter the cost. Don't look for vulnerability here.
"Their relationship is mirrored by the sweetly affecting - and equally doomed - partnership between Cliff's sympathetic Berlin landlady, a personable Nora McLellan, and a Jewish shopkeeper (Frank Moore).
"For the most part, this is an exceptionally well-sung Cabaret, showcasing what is the most satisfying score by John Kander (music) and Fred Ebb (lyrics). Take Bruce Dow, a deliciously different master of a ceremonies. He's more full-figured than the fellows created by either Joel Grey or Alan Cumming. Think the Pillsbury doughboy's naughty twin.
"Dehnert is at her most inventive with this character, seen as a kind of libidinous guardian angel who watches over just about everybody in the show.
"It's quite a distance from pre-Second World War Berlin to River City, Iowa, circa 1912, the territory ripe for the picking by Harold Hill, the memorable charlatan in The Music Man.
"Hill is sandblasted in everyone's memory - from either the original cast recording or the film - as the property of Robert Preston. Here, Jonathan Goad makes a game attempt at making the con man his own, but there's a slight unease to his duplicity as Hill attempts to sell the townsfolk band instruments and uniforms for their children while charming the town's prim librarian (a delightful Leah Oster).
"It's not easy to mess with The Music Man. The musical is one of those perfectly constructed shows that doesn't leave much room for radically different interpretation. Director Susan H. Schulman offers no surprises in her take on Willson's idealized version of his Iowa youth.
"Yet while his vision is nostalgic (captured in the lovely sets and costumes by Patrick Clark), it is never overly sentimental. Willson's memories are tinged with an exuberance that is impossible to resist. Not to mention a tuneful score that ranks as one of the best of Broadway's golden age.
"The supporting cast deserves the highest of praise, but let's give a special shout out to Sara Topham as the piano-playing Ethel Toffelmier. Topham is a giddy delight as the goofy Ethel, dancing her heart out in Shipoopi. Quite a change from her fine, furious emoting in Fuente Ovejuna, Lope de Vega's grim yet glorious revenge tragedy. It's positive proof that playing in rep enhances an actor's skills.
"A transformation of equally extraordinary stature is occurring at the small Studio Theatre, where Brian Dennehy is undergoing a radical makeover - all during one evening. The vehicle? A double bill of Eugene O'Neill's Hughie and Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape.
"In Hughie, Dennehy portrays Erie Smith, a down-on-his-luck gambler complaining about his losing streak to a passive night clerk (the eminently watchable Joe Grifasi) in a flea bag New York hotel.
"Erie's good fortune deserts him after the previous night clerk (the play's title character) dies. And now the man is looking to find his way back to Lady Luck. With his imposing physicality and wide grin, Dennehy excels at bravado, and Erie, decked out in a dapper cream-coloured suit, is a man of show - but not much tell.
"His inner anxiety seeps out during the rest of his garrulous, nearly one-sided conversation with the mournful little clerk. Director Robert Falls directs with the lightest of touches, allowing the expansive Dennehy to create a memorable portrait of man trying to find a reason to keep on living.
"Desperation of another sort is on display in Krapp's Last Tape, Beckett's bleak memory play in which an older man, at age 69, listens to his taped ruminations of three decades earlier. Dennehy undergoes a stunning physical transformation, trading the bonhomie of O'Neill's big-city gambler for the haunted, hunted, almost feral look of a man hearing his past come back with regret.
"Yet the play, directed with impeccable precision by Jennifer Tarver, is not without humour. Beckett was a big fan of those silent-film greats Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Put a banana peel on stage and you know Krapp will slip on it. Still, it's the pain of what once was that dominates the fierce, furious man in this memorable, unnerving work. "
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
There Reigns Theatrical Study of Sonnets
John Colbourne (Sun Media) gives There Reigns Love 3.5 out of 5 stars:
"Defining Shakespeare as 'just a playwright' is a little like defining Michelangelo as 'just a sculptor.'
"For while the latter's legacy is certainly defined in large part by works like David and the Pieta and the former's by his roster of works for the stage, when it comes to Michelangelo's artistic contributions, if one overlooks the bit of painting he did in the Sistine Chapel, one gets no more a complete portrait of the artist than if one looks only at Shakespeare's plays and overlooks the sonnets that have captivated the world for centuries.
"And while the Stratford Festival has spent a fair bit of time exploring the depth and the breadth of Shakespeare's plays, his sonnets, in the main, have been left to languish here.
"All that changes with the arrival of There Reigns Love, a new work for the stage devised and performed by British artist Simon Callow (who one might label 'just an actor' if one had read neither his bio nor any of his books).
"Although it was commissioned by The Stratford Festival, where it made its premiere Sunday on the stage of the Tom Patterson, There Reigns Love is, in fact, part of an ongoing exploration in which Callow has been involved for some time.
"It all started when he became involved with psychoanalyst John Padel, who had re-ordered the 154 sonnets from their 1609 printing in such a way that they told a story of a three-sided love affair that involved not only Shakespeare, but a young British nobleman, his mother and Shakespeare's one-time mistress.
"The name of the mistress has sadly been lost to history, but the theory has long held that the young man in question -- the Mr. W.H. of the cryptic 1609 dedication -- is one Mr. William Herbert, who became the third Earl of Pembroke, son of Mary Herbert, who was apparently in her day a major force in the arts.
"According to Padel's theory -- a theory apparently thoroughly embraced by Callow, even though he cautions his audience that not a single word should be taken as gospel -- Shakespeare was initially hired by the mother to write a series of sonnets for the youth's 17th birthday, extolling the virtues of matrimony.
"Having been thus introduced, Shakespeare developed a passion for the young man, eventually hatching a plan to introduce the youth to the older man's mistress and thus to the mysteries of heterosexuality.
"Once introduced, however, the young man embraced them so enthusiastically that the playwright/poet lost his place in the young nobleman's heart.
"In Callow's hands, working under the direction of the venerable Michael Langham, it all makes for a pretty compelling argument, presented using about half of the sonnets as proof of the theory espoused.
"With a few members of the audience seated on pillows on the stage, Callow begins what initially feels like lectures most of us recall from high school days, save for the fact that this is a lecturer caught up in his subject and gifted in recitation.
"But as the work progresses, transformations from theory to poetry marked by the off-stage strumming of a lyre, it becomes more and more theatrical, with Callow roaming the recesses of Charlotte Dean's simple set and, through the power of his recitation, making us see the world through Shakespeare's great love and his great loss, using sonnets more at home on the page than the stage as building blocks.
"Even without the occasional glitches that marked the opening-night performance and almost brought it to an early end, it's a problematic work for the stage -- but under Langham's direction, Callow thinks his way through every single line, rather than merely reciting it, and 'as an imperfect actor on the stage,' makes it memorable nonetheless. "
"Defining Shakespeare as 'just a playwright' is a little like defining Michelangelo as 'just a sculptor.'
"For while the latter's legacy is certainly defined in large part by works like David and the Pieta and the former's by his roster of works for the stage, when it comes to Michelangelo's artistic contributions, if one overlooks the bit of painting he did in the Sistine Chapel, one gets no more a complete portrait of the artist than if one looks only at Shakespeare's plays and overlooks the sonnets that have captivated the world for centuries.
"And while the Stratford Festival has spent a fair bit of time exploring the depth and the breadth of Shakespeare's plays, his sonnets, in the main, have been left to languish here.
"All that changes with the arrival of There Reigns Love, a new work for the stage devised and performed by British artist Simon Callow (who one might label 'just an actor' if one had read neither his bio nor any of his books).
"Although it was commissioned by The Stratford Festival, where it made its premiere Sunday on the stage of the Tom Patterson, There Reigns Love is, in fact, part of an ongoing exploration in which Callow has been involved for some time.
"It all started when he became involved with psychoanalyst John Padel, who had re-ordered the 154 sonnets from their 1609 printing in such a way that they told a story of a three-sided love affair that involved not only Shakespeare, but a young British nobleman, his mother and Shakespeare's one-time mistress.
"The name of the mistress has sadly been lost to history, but the theory has long held that the young man in question -- the Mr. W.H. of the cryptic 1609 dedication -- is one Mr. William Herbert, who became the third Earl of Pembroke, son of Mary Herbert, who was apparently in her day a major force in the arts.
"According to Padel's theory -- a theory apparently thoroughly embraced by Callow, even though he cautions his audience that not a single word should be taken as gospel -- Shakespeare was initially hired by the mother to write a series of sonnets for the youth's 17th birthday, extolling the virtues of matrimony.
"Having been thus introduced, Shakespeare developed a passion for the young man, eventually hatching a plan to introduce the youth to the older man's mistress and thus to the mysteries of heterosexuality.
"Once introduced, however, the young man embraced them so enthusiastically that the playwright/poet lost his place in the young nobleman's heart.
"In Callow's hands, working under the direction of the venerable Michael Langham, it all makes for a pretty compelling argument, presented using about half of the sonnets as proof of the theory espoused.
"With a few members of the audience seated on pillows on the stage, Callow begins what initially feels like lectures most of us recall from high school days, save for the fact that this is a lecturer caught up in his subject and gifted in recitation.
"But as the work progresses, transformations from theory to poetry marked by the off-stage strumming of a lyre, it becomes more and more theatrical, with Callow roaming the recesses of Charlotte Dean's simple set and, through the power of his recitation, making us see the world through Shakespeare's great love and his great loss, using sonnets more at home on the page than the stage as building blocks.
"Even without the occasional glitches that marked the opening-night performance and almost brought it to an early end, it's a problematic work for the stage -- but under Langham's direction, Callow thinks his way through every single line, rather than merely reciting it, and 'as an imperfect actor on the stage,' makes it memorable nonetheless. "
Love Introduces Unknown Shakespeare
J. Kelly Nestruck (the Globe and Mail) gives 2.5 out of 4 stars to There Reigns Love:
"William Shakespeare may be the most famous writer in the history of the English language, but he is barely known to us. No tell-all autobiography exists, only a sketch of a life recorded in legal documents.
"For those who desire a deeper relationship with Shakespeare, the man, however, we do have the Sonnets. Written in the first person, these 154 poems full of love and lust are the closest we can come to knowing the Bard with no holds barred. 'With this key, Shakespeare opened his heart,' William Wordsworth wrote in 1827. ('With this key, Shakespeare let down his pants,' Aldous Huxley chuckled in reply, a century later.)
"The Sonnets, themselves seemingly a product of obsession, can inspire obsession in others. Simon Callow, the British stage actor and writer who is best known on this side of the Atlantic as Gareth in Four Weddings and a Funeral, is as dedicated to them as any. In 1979, he famously performed all 154 - more verse than the parts of Hamlet, Lear and Othello combined - in a marathon session at the National Theatre in London. The sold-out audience loved it; the critics called him vain. As Callow records in his book, Being an Actor, he was both exhilarated and unsatisfied: 'It was a heady moment but I knew that I'd failed.'
"If at first you don't succeed Callow has tried and tried again ever since, reading the Sonnets for fundraisers and one-off events, including one in Toronto in 1999. Now, in his new one-man show, There Reigns Love, directed by Michael Langham, he returns to 80 of them once more.
"As with his 1979 performance, There Reigns Love is based on the theories of John Padel, a psychoanalyst and classicist who shuffled the poems and read into their new order an elaborate love triangle between William Shakespeare, his 'dark' mistress and a beautiful male youth.
"According to Padel, Shakespeare was commissioned to write 17 sonnets on the virtues of marriage for the 17th birthday of William Herbert, son of the Countess of Pembroke.
"Once he met the young man, however, Shakespeare became infatuated with him in a way that mixed sexual desire with status anxiety and belated mourning for the death of his own son, Hamnet.
"Then, so the theory goes, Shakespeare introduced young Herbert to his mistress, the 'dark lady,' in order to initiate him sexually. But this bizarre relationship went awry. Syphilis and self-loathing followed.
"There's something absurd about mining the Sonnets for detailed autobiography like this. It involves code-breaking and conjecture of the Dan Brown variety, and it can actually warp the pathos and passion of the poems.
"As a framing narrative for a show, however, Padel's speculations will do. Callow leads us through the theory in an erudite, but accessible way, and is always careful to remind the audience that the story he is telling through the Sonnets is not to be taken as gospel. 'Is this his diary? Is this his e-mail? Is this is memo to himself?' Callow asks, pointing to his pocket copy. 'Perhaps. Maybe. Who knows?'
"Dressed in a black suit, Callow is like one of those cool and charismatic English professors beloved by students. At Stratford's Tom Patterson Theatre, you can sit on cushions on the stage in front of him for just $10; this is probably the ideal way to experience the show, gazing up at his Vandyke and basking in his gregarious glow.
"When he acts out some of the Sonnets while grappling with invisible characters, the exercise can become silly. But when he performs several that deal with the poet's desire to keep his loved one young and perfect by making him immortal through poetry, Callow turns in a tormented, desperate performance: 'His beauty shall in these black lines be seen/ And they shall live, and he in them still green.' This is impossible obsession, ugly and inspiring.
"Under-rehearsed, There Reigns Love was full of miscues on opening night. Lights illuminated parts of the stage where no one sat or left Callow delivering lines in the dark. Unnecessary harpsichord interrupted him mid-stanza, and Callow himself stumbled, searched and skipped. Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day was, to put it politely, abridged.
"But There Reigns Love, which has only a short run, is more of a 'special event' than a fully fleshed-out production. As an evening with Simon Callow and the Sonnets, it is quite enjoyable, and the bugs will be worked out. Ultimately, however, one is inclined to side with Northrop Frye, who wrote: 'About all that one can get out of the Sonnets, considered as transcripts of experience, is the reflection that pederastic infatuations with beautiful and stupid boys are probably very bad for practising dramatists.'"
"William Shakespeare may be the most famous writer in the history of the English language, but he is barely known to us. No tell-all autobiography exists, only a sketch of a life recorded in legal documents.
"For those who desire a deeper relationship with Shakespeare, the man, however, we do have the Sonnets. Written in the first person, these 154 poems full of love and lust are the closest we can come to knowing the Bard with no holds barred. 'With this key, Shakespeare opened his heart,' William Wordsworth wrote in 1827. ('With this key, Shakespeare let down his pants,' Aldous Huxley chuckled in reply, a century later.)
"The Sonnets, themselves seemingly a product of obsession, can inspire obsession in others. Simon Callow, the British stage actor and writer who is best known on this side of the Atlantic as Gareth in Four Weddings and a Funeral, is as dedicated to them as any. In 1979, he famously performed all 154 - more verse than the parts of Hamlet, Lear and Othello combined - in a marathon session at the National Theatre in London. The sold-out audience loved it; the critics called him vain. As Callow records in his book, Being an Actor, he was both exhilarated and unsatisfied: 'It was a heady moment but I knew that I'd failed.'
"If at first you don't succeed Callow has tried and tried again ever since, reading the Sonnets for fundraisers and one-off events, including one in Toronto in 1999. Now, in his new one-man show, There Reigns Love, directed by Michael Langham, he returns to 80 of them once more.
"As with his 1979 performance, There Reigns Love is based on the theories of John Padel, a psychoanalyst and classicist who shuffled the poems and read into their new order an elaborate love triangle between William Shakespeare, his 'dark' mistress and a beautiful male youth.
"According to Padel, Shakespeare was commissioned to write 17 sonnets on the virtues of marriage for the 17th birthday of William Herbert, son of the Countess of Pembroke.
"Once he met the young man, however, Shakespeare became infatuated with him in a way that mixed sexual desire with status anxiety and belated mourning for the death of his own son, Hamnet.
"Then, so the theory goes, Shakespeare introduced young Herbert to his mistress, the 'dark lady,' in order to initiate him sexually. But this bizarre relationship went awry. Syphilis and self-loathing followed.
"There's something absurd about mining the Sonnets for detailed autobiography like this. It involves code-breaking and conjecture of the Dan Brown variety, and it can actually warp the pathos and passion of the poems.
"As a framing narrative for a show, however, Padel's speculations will do. Callow leads us through the theory in an erudite, but accessible way, and is always careful to remind the audience that the story he is telling through the Sonnets is not to be taken as gospel. 'Is this his diary? Is this his e-mail? Is this is memo to himself?' Callow asks, pointing to his pocket copy. 'Perhaps. Maybe. Who knows?'
"Dressed in a black suit, Callow is like one of those cool and charismatic English professors beloved by students. At Stratford's Tom Patterson Theatre, you can sit on cushions on the stage in front of him for just $10; this is probably the ideal way to experience the show, gazing up at his Vandyke and basking in his gregarious glow.
"When he acts out some of the Sonnets while grappling with invisible characters, the exercise can become silly. But when he performs several that deal with the poet's desire to keep his loved one young and perfect by making him immortal through poetry, Callow turns in a tormented, desperate performance: 'His beauty shall in these black lines be seen/ And they shall live, and he in them still green.' This is impossible obsession, ugly and inspiring.
"Under-rehearsed, There Reigns Love was full of miscues on opening night. Lights illuminated parts of the stage where no one sat or left Callow delivering lines in the dark. Unnecessary harpsichord interrupted him mid-stanza, and Callow himself stumbled, searched and skipped. Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day was, to put it politely, abridged.
"But There Reigns Love, which has only a short run, is more of a 'special event' than a fully fleshed-out production. As an evening with Simon Callow and the Sonnets, it is quite enjoyable, and the bugs will be worked out. Ultimately, however, one is inclined to side with Northrop Frye, who wrote: 'About all that one can get out of the Sonnets, considered as transcripts of experience, is the reflection that pederastic infatuations with beautiful and stupid boys are probably very bad for practising dramatists.'"
There Reigns Love "Gold-Medal" Theatre
Richard Ouzounian (the Toronto Star) gives There Reigns Love 3.5 out of 4 stars:
"Forget about Beijing.
"The Olympics started here on Sunday night when Simon Callow gave a gold-medal display of acting skill in There Reigns Love, the theatre piece that he devised from the sonnets of William Shakespeare.
"This man has spent three decades of his life contemplating, inhabiting and performing Shakespeare's sonnets, but until now he has always done so behind the safety of a lectern with a copy of the text close at hand.
"On Sunday night, he tried something new and courageous.
"With the aid of director Michael Langham he offered us a full and complete theatrical production, aided by Michael J. Whitfield's subtle lighting, Charlotte Dean's simple yet elegant setting and Peter McBoyle's tastefully chosen pieces of musical punctuation.
"The work of psychoanalyst John Padel inspired the whole proceedings, with his bold theory that, if rearranged in the correct way, the sonnets tell the story of a terrible yet beautiful triangular relationship between Shakespeare, his mistress and the young man to whom the poems were dedicated.
"The one flaw in the whole enterprise is that Callow is so intent on our understanding everything that he spends far too much time filling in background and setting the scene while we are anxious for 'the thing itself': the poetry of Shakespeare and the genius of Callow.
"But once it starts rolling, there is no doubt of the validity of the enterprise or the gifts of the man presenting it.
"Sometimes four, or five or six sonnets follow each other uninterrupted and we ride with Callow on the wave of fierce emotion that ripped Shakespeare's life apart. At other moments, we share the deeply philosophical thoughts about love and mortality that these poems stirred up in the Bard of Avon.
"Except for one section in the second act when Callow seems to run too frantically up and down to the balcony while wooing his mistress, Langham has provided him just enough to lift this from a reading into a satisfying piece of theatre.
"I think the part I cherished the most deeply occurred early on, at the precise moment when Shakespeare allowed himself to become hopelessly smitten with the beautiful young William Herbert.
"Callow's enraptured performance doesn't suggest anything as trivial as sexual infatuation, but rather the total commitment of a man who has found someone he would gladly devote his life to.
"The tragedy of it all, alas, is that the pleasure of love lasts for one poem, while the agony of doubt and betrayal goes on for over a hundred more.
"Opening night was a touch ragged, the way an athlete striving for perfection can somehow get in his own way.
"He even stumbled over one of the most famous sonnets ('My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun') but instantly recovered with aplomb.
"Callow needs to learn how to make his own connecting narrative more engaging and less breathless, and how to pace some of the headier emotional sections with more variety, but all this will come in time. It's already worth your serious attention."
"Forget about Beijing.
"The Olympics started here on Sunday night when Simon Callow gave a gold-medal display of acting skill in There Reigns Love, the theatre piece that he devised from the sonnets of William Shakespeare.
"This man has spent three decades of his life contemplating, inhabiting and performing Shakespeare's sonnets, but until now he has always done so behind the safety of a lectern with a copy of the text close at hand.
"On Sunday night, he tried something new and courageous.
"With the aid of director Michael Langham he offered us a full and complete theatrical production, aided by Michael J. Whitfield's subtle lighting, Charlotte Dean's simple yet elegant setting and Peter McBoyle's tastefully chosen pieces of musical punctuation.
"The work of psychoanalyst John Padel inspired the whole proceedings, with his bold theory that, if rearranged in the correct way, the sonnets tell the story of a terrible yet beautiful triangular relationship between Shakespeare, his mistress and the young man to whom the poems were dedicated.
"The one flaw in the whole enterprise is that Callow is so intent on our understanding everything that he spends far too much time filling in background and setting the scene while we are anxious for 'the thing itself': the poetry of Shakespeare and the genius of Callow.
"But once it starts rolling, there is no doubt of the validity of the enterprise or the gifts of the man presenting it.
"Sometimes four, or five or six sonnets follow each other uninterrupted and we ride with Callow on the wave of fierce emotion that ripped Shakespeare's life apart. At other moments, we share the deeply philosophical thoughts about love and mortality that these poems stirred up in the Bard of Avon.
"Except for one section in the second act when Callow seems to run too frantically up and down to the balcony while wooing his mistress, Langham has provided him just enough to lift this from a reading into a satisfying piece of theatre.
"I think the part I cherished the most deeply occurred early on, at the precise moment when Shakespeare allowed himself to become hopelessly smitten with the beautiful young William Herbert.
"Callow's enraptured performance doesn't suggest anything as trivial as sexual infatuation, but rather the total commitment of a man who has found someone he would gladly devote his life to.
"The tragedy of it all, alas, is that the pleasure of love lasts for one poem, while the agony of doubt and betrayal goes on for over a hundred more.
"Opening night was a touch ragged, the way an athlete striving for perfection can somehow get in his own way.
"He even stumbled over one of the most famous sonnets ('My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun') but instantly recovered with aplomb.
"Callow needs to learn how to make his own connecting narrative more engaging and less breathless, and how to pace some of the headier emotional sections with more variety, but all this will come in time. It's already worth your serious attention."
Monday, July 14, 2008
Callow Wonderful Compliment to Stratford
Review and synopsis from Stratford Beacon Herald reporter Sharon Malvern.
"Simon Callow made his debut at Stratford with an extraordinary one-man performance of There Reigns Love, an original work inspired by Shakespeare’s sonnets. It is a unique theatrical experience.
"In character as Shakespeare, he performed 80 of the 154 sonnets Shakespeare wrote, with wonderful clarity of diction, expression, sensitivity and a wide range of emotions. By turns, he was passionate, angry, jealous, resigned, obsessive and ecstatic as he portrayed the poet’s erotic relationships with his mistress and a handsome young male aristocrat.
"Published in 1609, the sonnet sequence contains some of the greatest poetry in the English language. However, the sonnets have mystified readers and scholars for centuries with a number of ambiguities. Who commissioned them? Do they represent Shakespeare’s own experience? Who is the 'W.H.' to whom the work is dedicated?
"Commissioned by the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Mr. Callow’s play is based on the re-ordering of the sequence of Shakespeare’s sonnets by British psychoanalyst John Padel. His theory is that the sonnets are autobiographical, a record of Shakespeare’s personal experience. By re-arranging them, Mr. Padel provided a coherent narrative of Shakespeare’s intimate thoughts on love. Although Mr. Padel’s hypothesis is open to question, (it’s one of many interpretations) it does provide a thematic framework which Mr. Callow explained as he performed groups of the sonnets themselves.
"In his version, the first 17 poems were commissioned by Mary Herbert, mother of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke (W.H.) as a 17th birthday gift for him. The poems had a purpose: to urge the young man to marry and have children, as his father was very ill, and she wanted to avoid the appointment of a guardian should he die. But when Shakespeare went to Wilton House to present the poems, he was impressed by William’s beauty, and later developed intense feelings for him. They later met in London, and he wrote another set of sonnets for the young man’s 18th birthday, as well as introducing him to the world of the theatre. But Shakespeare also wrote a set of poems to his mistress (the mysterious Dark Lady) which he had William deliver personally. To his great pain, he discovered that William and his mistress made love. Later sonnets depict his reactions and the evolution of his feelings for both.
"Shakespeare skillfully weaves the themes of romantic infatuation, realism, maturity, forgiveness and the timelessness of love through the sonnets. Again and again he personifies Time, as in 'Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass come.'
"Another dominant theme is that art makes love immortal: 'Your monument shall be my gentle verse,' and 'So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, /So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.'
"And he was right. More than 400 years later, we are still reading and listening to the poetry in which he immortalized his friend.
"Mr. Callow’s performance was amazing. Reciting 80 sonnets is not the same thing as working with a plot and a cast of characters. However, he used the entire stage, with a few minimal props, and held the audience enthralled with his dramatic portrayal of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
"Director Michael Langham, one of Stratford’s former artistic directors, ably guided this production.
"Mr. Callow is well known as a stage, television and film actor, writer and director. Among his many credits are acclaimed biographies of Charles Laughton and Orson Welles, portrayals of the lives of Oscar Wilde and Charles Dickens on stage, and roles in Four Weddings and A Funeral, Amadeus, Shakespeare in Love, and A Room with a View.
"There Reigns Love will add yet another impressive credit to his reputation as actor and author.
"This performance not only marks the premiere of There Reigns Love, but also the first production of any work by Simon Callow at Stratford.
"And for theatregoers at Stratford, There Reigns Love is a fascinating complement to the Shakespeare we know through his plays. "
Join Simon Callow in a live webcast at 6:30 Wednesday!
"Simon Callow made his debut at Stratford with an extraordinary one-man performance of There Reigns Love, an original work inspired by Shakespeare’s sonnets. It is a unique theatrical experience.
"In character as Shakespeare, he performed 80 of the 154 sonnets Shakespeare wrote, with wonderful clarity of diction, expression, sensitivity and a wide range of emotions. By turns, he was passionate, angry, jealous, resigned, obsessive and ecstatic as he portrayed the poet’s erotic relationships with his mistress and a handsome young male aristocrat.
"Published in 1609, the sonnet sequence contains some of the greatest poetry in the English language. However, the sonnets have mystified readers and scholars for centuries with a number of ambiguities. Who commissioned them? Do they represent Shakespeare’s own experience? Who is the 'W.H.' to whom the work is dedicated?
"Commissioned by the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Mr. Callow’s play is based on the re-ordering of the sequence of Shakespeare’s sonnets by British psychoanalyst John Padel. His theory is that the sonnets are autobiographical, a record of Shakespeare’s personal experience. By re-arranging them, Mr. Padel provided a coherent narrative of Shakespeare’s intimate thoughts on love. Although Mr. Padel’s hypothesis is open to question, (it’s one of many interpretations) it does provide a thematic framework which Mr. Callow explained as he performed groups of the sonnets themselves.
"In his version, the first 17 poems were commissioned by Mary Herbert, mother of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke (W.H.) as a 17th birthday gift for him. The poems had a purpose: to urge the young man to marry and have children, as his father was very ill, and she wanted to avoid the appointment of a guardian should he die. But when Shakespeare went to Wilton House to present the poems, he was impressed by William’s beauty, and later developed intense feelings for him. They later met in London, and he wrote another set of sonnets for the young man’s 18th birthday, as well as introducing him to the world of the theatre. But Shakespeare also wrote a set of poems to his mistress (the mysterious Dark Lady) which he had William deliver personally. To his great pain, he discovered that William and his mistress made love. Later sonnets depict his reactions and the evolution of his feelings for both.
"Shakespeare skillfully weaves the themes of romantic infatuation, realism, maturity, forgiveness and the timelessness of love through the sonnets. Again and again he personifies Time, as in 'Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass come.'
"Another dominant theme is that art makes love immortal: 'Your monument shall be my gentle verse,' and 'So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, /So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.'
"And he was right. More than 400 years later, we are still reading and listening to the poetry in which he immortalized his friend.
"Mr. Callow’s performance was amazing. Reciting 80 sonnets is not the same thing as working with a plot and a cast of characters. However, he used the entire stage, with a few minimal props, and held the audience enthralled with his dramatic portrayal of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
"Director Michael Langham, one of Stratford’s former artistic directors, ably guided this production.
"Mr. Callow is well known as a stage, television and film actor, writer and director. Among his many credits are acclaimed biographies of Charles Laughton and Orson Welles, portrayals of the lives of Oscar Wilde and Charles Dickens on stage, and roles in Four Weddings and A Funeral, Amadeus, Shakespeare in Love, and A Room with a View.
"There Reigns Love will add yet another impressive credit to his reputation as actor and author.
"This performance not only marks the premiere of There Reigns Love, but also the first production of any work by Simon Callow at Stratford.
"And for theatregoers at Stratford, There Reigns Love is a fascinating complement to the Shakespeare we know through his plays. "
Join Simon Callow in a live webcast at 6:30 Wednesday!
Not Enough Praise for Krapp/Hughie
Another, if late, raving review of Krapp's Last Tape and Hughie, now on stage at the Studio Theatre.
From Gary Smith (the Hamilton Spectator):
"Sometimes lightning strikes twice. It did at Stratford last week.
"I expected Brian Dennehy to be great in Krapp's Last Tape and Hughie.
"But I wasn't prepared for the theatrical thunderbolt that shook the very foundations of the steel trap they call The Studio Theatre.
"Brilliant acting doesn't come along all that often. And when it does -- as it does here -- in a fantastic one-two punch, it's something to savour.
"Dennehy may have made his major reputation in Hollywood action flicks.
"But the thing is, he has always had an affinity for the stage.
"Starring opposite Vanessa Redgrave and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Long Day's Journey Into Night on Broadway, he created a theatrical meltdown Broadway won't ever forget.
"Then, in Chicago at the Goodman Theatre, there was Hughie, another Eugene O'Neill play that made you quiver.
"Well, that's one of the plays Dennehy has brought to Stratford in a new production by American director Robert Falls.
"It's thrilling theatre, polished like a diamond, pure as clean snow.
"Erie Smith is a small-time gambler, a worn man in rumpled white suit. Shambling into the lobby of a seedy West Side hotel, he's just off a bender.
"Part of a seedy world of con men and barflies, he spins elaborate pipe dreams. Wisps of blown smoke hang in the air like wasted hopes.
"Outside, the subway grinds by, a perpetual clash of steel, sending a death rattle into the night.
Inside, a dark cavern of shabby brown remains tomblike and silent. Only the whir of a ceiling fan disturbs the mordant silence.
"Propping up a solid wood counter, flanked by faded fronds of dirty palms, a desk clerk stands bleary eyed.
"As Erie tries to forge a connection, to make contact with something real in the middle of a lonely, bleak city, he talks about Hughie, the hotel's former desk clerk he dominates in a one-sided conversation. Hughie, the hotel's former night man. His conversation reveals as much about himself as it does poor Hughie.
"Dennehy is brilliant, suggesting a cast-iron receptacle for sadness and pain.
"Spinning tired tales, he weaves dreams into a sorry excuse for a wasted life.
"As the hours wind by, he threatens to climb the stairs to his fourth-floor room.
"That he doesn't speaks volumes about loneliness born in midnight hours.
"This is great O'Neill.
"It's also great Dennehy.
"If he isn't the greatest living exponent of this playwright's world of petty nere-do-wells and dreamers, I don't know who is.
"He's supported beautifully here by Joe Grifasi's worn-out desk clerk in a performance of stunning simplicity.
"And the production designed splendidly by Patrick Clark is illuminated with painterly lighting by Robert Thomson.
"Balanced against the cynicism of O'Neill's play comes the evenings coup de grace. A mordant death cry by Samuel Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape is haunting theatre.
"Like Waiting For Godot, it explores a world of loss and desolation.
"Krapp sits at his desk playing old tapes, his life unspooling from shiny metal reels.
"Existing only as hollow memory, these tapes hold clues to a life gone by.
"It's a play about giving up, about relinquishing the dream of love, about chasing earthly mortality.
"Ruthless in the way he forces the present to collide with the past, Beckett creates a dark world with little hope.
"Dennehy morphs into a hollow husk of regret and pain, creating a man who grunts at life and swallows lost hopes. It's a stunning performance , one that grips you by the throat and never lets go.
"Director Jennifer Tarver orchestrates brilliant waves of silence that punctuate sorrow like waves of tears.
"Hughie and Krapp's Last Tape aren't easy theatre to digest. They make you think, feel and regret. That said, they are some of the most thrilling moments on a Stratford stage in years.
"Don't miss this one. Dennehy is a force to be reckoned with."
From Gary Smith (the Hamilton Spectator):
"Sometimes lightning strikes twice. It did at Stratford last week.
"I expected Brian Dennehy to be great in Krapp's Last Tape and Hughie.
"But I wasn't prepared for the theatrical thunderbolt that shook the very foundations of the steel trap they call The Studio Theatre.
"Brilliant acting doesn't come along all that often. And when it does -- as it does here -- in a fantastic one-two punch, it's something to savour.
"Dennehy may have made his major reputation in Hollywood action flicks.
"But the thing is, he has always had an affinity for the stage.
"Starring opposite Vanessa Redgrave and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Long Day's Journey Into Night on Broadway, he created a theatrical meltdown Broadway won't ever forget.
"Then, in Chicago at the Goodman Theatre, there was Hughie, another Eugene O'Neill play that made you quiver.
"Well, that's one of the plays Dennehy has brought to Stratford in a new production by American director Robert Falls.
"It's thrilling theatre, polished like a diamond, pure as clean snow.
"Erie Smith is a small-time gambler, a worn man in rumpled white suit. Shambling into the lobby of a seedy West Side hotel, he's just off a bender.
"Part of a seedy world of con men and barflies, he spins elaborate pipe dreams. Wisps of blown smoke hang in the air like wasted hopes.
"Outside, the subway grinds by, a perpetual clash of steel, sending a death rattle into the night.
Inside, a dark cavern of shabby brown remains tomblike and silent. Only the whir of a ceiling fan disturbs the mordant silence.
"Propping up a solid wood counter, flanked by faded fronds of dirty palms, a desk clerk stands bleary eyed.
"As Erie tries to forge a connection, to make contact with something real in the middle of a lonely, bleak city, he talks about Hughie, the hotel's former desk clerk he dominates in a one-sided conversation. Hughie, the hotel's former night man. His conversation reveals as much about himself as it does poor Hughie.
"Dennehy is brilliant, suggesting a cast-iron receptacle for sadness and pain.
"Spinning tired tales, he weaves dreams into a sorry excuse for a wasted life.
"As the hours wind by, he threatens to climb the stairs to his fourth-floor room.
"That he doesn't speaks volumes about loneliness born in midnight hours.
"This is great O'Neill.
"It's also great Dennehy.
"If he isn't the greatest living exponent of this playwright's world of petty nere-do-wells and dreamers, I don't know who is.
"He's supported beautifully here by Joe Grifasi's worn-out desk clerk in a performance of stunning simplicity.
"And the production designed splendidly by Patrick Clark is illuminated with painterly lighting by Robert Thomson.
"Balanced against the cynicism of O'Neill's play comes the evenings coup de grace. A mordant death cry by Samuel Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape is haunting theatre.
"Like Waiting For Godot, it explores a world of loss and desolation.
"Krapp sits at his desk playing old tapes, his life unspooling from shiny metal reels.
"Existing only as hollow memory, these tapes hold clues to a life gone by.
"It's a play about giving up, about relinquishing the dream of love, about chasing earthly mortality.
"Ruthless in the way he forces the present to collide with the past, Beckett creates a dark world with little hope.
"Dennehy morphs into a hollow husk of regret and pain, creating a man who grunts at life and swallows lost hopes. It's a stunning performance , one that grips you by the throat and never lets go.
"Director Jennifer Tarver orchestrates brilliant waves of silence that punctuate sorrow like waves of tears.
"Hughie and Krapp's Last Tape aren't easy theatre to digest. They make you think, feel and regret. That said, they are some of the most thrilling moments on a Stratford stage in years.
"Don't miss this one. Dennehy is a force to be reckoned with."
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Brief Reviews from Chicago Critic
Reviews from Chris Jones at the Chicago Tribune:
Cabaret (2.5 stars)
"With faux-vintage film, audience interaction and darkly sexual theatrics aplenty, Amanda Dehnert's restless, ill-choreographed revival lacks focus but still manages to capture the dark fascination of John Kander and Fred Ebb's iconic musical. Bruce Dow's Emcee doesn't take full command of the stage, but he nails the haunting number 'I Don't Care Much'. But despite very moving performances from Nora McLellan as Fraulein Schneider and Frank Moore as Herr Schultz, the show ultimately is undermined by an energetic but strangely invulnerable performance from a miscast Trish Lindstrom in the lead role of Sally Bowles."
Fuente Ovejuna (4 stars)
"Laurence Boswell's revelatory and gripping production makes the case that Lope De Vega deserves his place in the classical repertory, just as long as you've got a fresh-eyed translation such as this one. De Vega had more of a populist eye than Shakespeare, and you'll be drawn deeply inside the travails of decent, regular folk caught in political turmoil (some things don't change) and forced to take matters into their own hands. Clearly pushed by a perfectionist director, the Stratford acting ensemble is at its best here, with Sara Topham, Scott Wentworth and James Blendick all offering powerful yet wonderfully human performances. Not to be missed."
Hughie/Krapp's Last Tape (3.5 stars)
"In this powerful double-bill showcasing the fine actor Brian Dennehy, you get a fresh sense of the thematic relationship between Eugene O'Neill and Samuel Beckett. Goodman Theatre audiences already saw Dennehy's poignant picture of Erie Smith, a Broadway bum with a big mouth. But when paired with the Beckett solo piece, they enhance each other. You come to see that Erie's chattering bravura is all that keeps him from Beckettian despair, and thus you blame him a little less. And when Dennehy turns to Beckett, he enhances Krapp's Irish-American humanity and humor, while replacing optimism with resignation. By the end of this moving, revealing show, you start to think the loudmouth drunks know something we don't."
The Music Man (3 stars)
"There is nothing whatsoever to surprise you in Susan H. Schulman's very solid and enjoyable revival of the Meredith Wilson classic bit of Americana, but who goes to Music Man for revelation? Leah Oster is a warm-throated, good-hearted Marian and Jonathan Goad a credibly charming and unusually deep Harold Hill. All goes quite well until the finale, when you find yourself hoping for more razzmatazz."
The Taming of the Shrew (1 star)
"Shrew has torpedoed many directors, and Peter Hinton goes down with the ship. This weird, highly conceptual production at least has the virtue of bold choices—Kate has a limp throughout, and Queen Elizabeth I is, believe it or not, a character in the show. And to his credit, Hinton includes the oft-cut prologue which sets the show's sexism in sharp relief. But while Evan Buliung's Petruchio has his charms, it's hard to tell that Irene Poole (as Katherina) is playing comedy. And when you take so much of this script so seriously, you're left with more discomfort than cohesion. "
Cabaret (2.5 stars)
"With faux-vintage film, audience interaction and darkly sexual theatrics aplenty, Amanda Dehnert's restless, ill-choreographed revival lacks focus but still manages to capture the dark fascination of John Kander and Fred Ebb's iconic musical. Bruce Dow's Emcee doesn't take full command of the stage, but he nails the haunting number 'I Don't Care Much'. But despite very moving performances from Nora McLellan as Fraulein Schneider and Frank Moore as Herr Schultz, the show ultimately is undermined by an energetic but strangely invulnerable performance from a miscast Trish Lindstrom in the lead role of Sally Bowles."
Fuente Ovejuna (4 stars)
"Laurence Boswell's revelatory and gripping production makes the case that Lope De Vega deserves his place in the classical repertory, just as long as you've got a fresh-eyed translation such as this one. De Vega had more of a populist eye than Shakespeare, and you'll be drawn deeply inside the travails of decent, regular folk caught in political turmoil (some things don't change) and forced to take matters into their own hands. Clearly pushed by a perfectionist director, the Stratford acting ensemble is at its best here, with Sara Topham, Scott Wentworth and James Blendick all offering powerful yet wonderfully human performances. Not to be missed."
Hughie/Krapp's Last Tape (3.5 stars)
"In this powerful double-bill showcasing the fine actor Brian Dennehy, you get a fresh sense of the thematic relationship between Eugene O'Neill and Samuel Beckett. Goodman Theatre audiences already saw Dennehy's poignant picture of Erie Smith, a Broadway bum with a big mouth. But when paired with the Beckett solo piece, they enhance each other. You come to see that Erie's chattering bravura is all that keeps him from Beckettian despair, and thus you blame him a little less. And when Dennehy turns to Beckett, he enhances Krapp's Irish-American humanity and humor, while replacing optimism with resignation. By the end of this moving, revealing show, you start to think the loudmouth drunks know something we don't."
The Music Man (3 stars)
"There is nothing whatsoever to surprise you in Susan H. Schulman's very solid and enjoyable revival of the Meredith Wilson classic bit of Americana, but who goes to Music Man for revelation? Leah Oster is a warm-throated, good-hearted Marian and Jonathan Goad a credibly charming and unusually deep Harold Hill. All goes quite well until the finale, when you find yourself hoping for more razzmatazz."
The Taming of the Shrew (1 star)
"Shrew has torpedoed many directors, and Peter Hinton goes down with the ship. This weird, highly conceptual production at least has the virtue of bold choices—Kate has a limp throughout, and Queen Elizabeth I is, believe it or not, a character in the show. And to his credit, Hinton includes the oft-cut prologue which sets the show's sexism in sharp relief. But while Evan Buliung's Petruchio has his charms, it's hard to tell that Irene Poole (as Katherina) is playing comedy. And when you take so much of this script so seriously, you're left with more discomfort than cohesion. "
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Krapp/Hughie is "Theatre for the Mind"
Together, Krapp's Last Tape and Hughie are worth five stars, according to critic John Coulbourn (Sun Media):
"Ask anyone who's ever fallen under the spell of fine theatre and they'll tell you some of the best theatre in the world takes place not on the stage, but rather in your mind.
"That's precisely the kind of theatre on offer in a double bill of one-act dramas that opened on the stage of the Stratford Festival's Studio Theatre this past weekend.
"The playwrights featured are titans of the 20th-century stage -- America's Eugene O'Neill (represented by Hughie, one of the last pieces authored in his remarkable career), paired with Britain's Samuel Beckett, (represented by Krapp's Last Tape, a one man tour de force that has been offered up several times on local stages by such acclaimed artists as Hume Cronyn and John Neville.)
"The two works are fused into a single entertainment in two powerful ways.
"First and foremost, they are both about characters whose best-before-date has left them far behind, leaving them to live on memories and dreams.
"In Hughie, that character is Erie, a down-at-the-heels gambler who returns to the Manhattan flea-bag he calls home after a long bender, inspired in no small part by the death of his longtime friend, the Hughie of title.
"The night clerk in the hotel where the action takes place, Hughie was, at least by Erie's lights, a bit of a mope, who found vicarious thrills in Erie's high-flying ways.
"But as the gambler mourns the passing of his friend, it becomes obvious that Erie needed Hughie far more than Hughie needed him, Hughie being finally the only person in Erie's ever-diminishing world who saw him as a winner.
"In Krapp's Last Tape, we meet the Krapp of title on his 69th birthday as he prepares, as he has every year for at least the past 30, to update his reel-to-reel audio diary.
"But finally, it isn't what's transpired in the past year that dominates his thoughts but rather the memory of a romance that ended on a watery note some 30 years previous.
"Joined as they are into a single evening, interrupted only by a brief intermission, they represent a perfect opportunity for a seasoned actor to strut his stuff -- and 'seasoning' is precisely what Brian Dennehy brings to these roles, immersing himself so completely in each of them that it is initially hard to believe it is the same actor in both performances, even though that single actor is essentially the glue that holds it all together.
"Teamed up with the wonderfully understated Joe Grifasi as the inscrutable replacement night clerk in Hughie and completely on his own in Krapp's Last Tape, Dennehy proves a master at invisible performance, so completely inhabiting the characters that he seems possessed of shape-shifting abilities that would give a magician pause.
"Patrick Clark's sets and Robert Thomson's lighting are both artfully and impeccably pressed into Dennehy's service, highlighting a matched pair of magnificent performances.
"And while one suspects that director Robert Falls has not left even trace elements of emotion behind in O'Neill's character study, Jennifer Tarver allows a few niggling oversights to undermine her otherwise strong direction of Krapp's Last Tape, not the least of which is the fact that Krapp at 39 on tape sounds a whole lot more American than Krapp sounds in life at age 69.
"But those are indeed niggling concerns in the face of such superb work -- rare work that invites the audience to use their own imaginations to see into the past and the future of the characters they are watching.
"And in the process, help in the making of great theatre for the mind. "
"Ask anyone who's ever fallen under the spell of fine theatre and they'll tell you some of the best theatre in the world takes place not on the stage, but rather in your mind.
"That's precisely the kind of theatre on offer in a double bill of one-act dramas that opened on the stage of the Stratford Festival's Studio Theatre this past weekend.
"The playwrights featured are titans of the 20th-century stage -- America's Eugene O'Neill (represented by Hughie, one of the last pieces authored in his remarkable career), paired with Britain's Samuel Beckett, (represented by Krapp's Last Tape, a one man tour de force that has been offered up several times on local stages by such acclaimed artists as Hume Cronyn and John Neville.)
"The two works are fused into a single entertainment in two powerful ways.
"First and foremost, they are both about characters whose best-before-date has left them far behind, leaving them to live on memories and dreams.
"In Hughie, that character is Erie, a down-at-the-heels gambler who returns to the Manhattan flea-bag he calls home after a long bender, inspired in no small part by the death of his longtime friend, the Hughie of title.
"The night clerk in the hotel where the action takes place, Hughie was, at least by Erie's lights, a bit of a mope, who found vicarious thrills in Erie's high-flying ways.
"But as the gambler mourns the passing of his friend, it becomes obvious that Erie needed Hughie far more than Hughie needed him, Hughie being finally the only person in Erie's ever-diminishing world who saw him as a winner.
"In Krapp's Last Tape, we meet the Krapp of title on his 69th birthday as he prepares, as he has every year for at least the past 30, to update his reel-to-reel audio diary.
"But finally, it isn't what's transpired in the past year that dominates his thoughts but rather the memory of a romance that ended on a watery note some 30 years previous.
"Joined as they are into a single evening, interrupted only by a brief intermission, they represent a perfect opportunity for a seasoned actor to strut his stuff -- and 'seasoning' is precisely what Brian Dennehy brings to these roles, immersing himself so completely in each of them that it is initially hard to believe it is the same actor in both performances, even though that single actor is essentially the glue that holds it all together.
"Teamed up with the wonderfully understated Joe Grifasi as the inscrutable replacement night clerk in Hughie and completely on his own in Krapp's Last Tape, Dennehy proves a master at invisible performance, so completely inhabiting the characters that he seems possessed of shape-shifting abilities that would give a magician pause.
"Patrick Clark's sets and Robert Thomson's lighting are both artfully and impeccably pressed into Dennehy's service, highlighting a matched pair of magnificent performances.
"And while one suspects that director Robert Falls has not left even trace elements of emotion behind in O'Neill's character study, Jennifer Tarver allows a few niggling oversights to undermine her otherwise strong direction of Krapp's Last Tape, not the least of which is the fact that Krapp at 39 on tape sounds a whole lot more American than Krapp sounds in life at age 69.
"But those are indeed niggling concerns in the face of such superb work -- rare work that invites the audience to use their own imaginations to see into the past and the future of the characters they are watching.
"And in the process, help in the making of great theatre for the mind. "
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