JUST FOR ONE DAY - REVIEW OF MUSICAL BASED ON 1985 LIVE AID CONCERTS AT THE CAA ED MIRVISH THEATRE

Reviewed by James Karas

On July 13, 1985, a charity concert to alleviate starvation in Ethiopia took place in London, Philadelphia and 150 countries around the world. The scale of the event was so massive  as to defy belief. It is estimated that 1.9 billion people watched broadcasts of the events or almost 40% of the world’s population. 

On the 40^th anniversary of the event Just for One Day, The Live Aid Musical was produced at the Old Vic Theatre in London and is now playing at The CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto. It is a robust, and thoroughly enjoyable show that highlights some of the incidents and especially the songs of the more than sixteen-hours of concerts.

The Live Aid Musical as presented in Just For One Day was the idea of two people: the passionate dreamer and not-above-telling a few fibs to get his way  Bob Geldorf (Craige Els) and the hard-nosed and honest Harvey Goldsmith (Tim Mahendran). The cast list names 21 people, mostly by first name only and they all seem to be very capable singers and mostly capable of comic acting. I admit I could not figure out the identities of most of them. Julie Atherton is listed as playing Margaret and that may be Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who has a brief meeting with Geldorf. He mentions the concert being on YouTube and he tells her what that means. She replies that for a moment she thought it would be about what she and her husband Dennis do. A good line but there is also humour that is not that good.

The artists that appeared in the concert in England and the United States and broadcast around the world make up a catalogue of the most important musicians of the period. There were notable exceptions but the claim that this was a great display of unity and a huge philanthropic contribution by musicians cannot be overstated. 

The North American premiere cast of Just for One Day – The Live Aid Musical. 
Photo Credit: Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade, 2025

The show starts with a display of the glittering light and sound systems of the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre. Loud and impressive, the music made my chest vibrate. We got a view of London’s Wembley Stadium with a sea of some 80,000 people crowded in it. An astounding sight.  The story line by John O’Farrell is developed with confrontations, plans that defy belief, humour and of course music by The Band, singing and dancing to the chorography of Ebony Molina.  Matthew Brind is the Musical Supervisor, Arranger and Orchestrator. Luke Sheppard directs this huge show with an expert hand.

What follows is a wide-ranging potpourri of rock music that is well-sung to a highly receptive audience.  From the rousing “Heroes” to vigorous numbers to the lovely “Let it be” to the wild “Anthem of the Lonely” there is much to enjoy and admire. 

The 1985 concert was a phenomenal and may be described as a miraculous event when one considers the number of artists involved, the organizational amplitude around the world and the millions of dollars raised. Just For One Day is a tribute to all involved forty years ago. The tragedy is that what it tried to solve – hunger in Ethiopia – has not changed at all and the situation around the world is much worse.

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Just For One Day: The Live Aid Musical  by John O’Farrell continues until March 15, 2025 at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre, 244 Victoria St. Toronto, Ontario. www.mirvish.com 

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 1936 – REVIEW OF ASTOUNDING PRODUCTION IN LONDON

Reviewed by James Karas

In October 1936, the British Union of Fascists (BUF) planned a march down Cable Street in East London, England. It was intended to be a massive show of the power of England’s home-grown fascists under the leadership of Sir Oswald Mosley and with the support of the police. A large number of people, estimated by some at 250,000, from all walks of life opposed the march and put a stop to it. The event has become known as the Battle of Cable Street.

That is the background and explanation of 1936 in the title of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice now playing at the Trafalgar Theatre in London. Shakespeare’s play is adapted by Brigid Larmour and Tracy-Ann Oberman. Oberman plays Shylock, a female money lender in London during the rise of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and its sickening appeal to antisemitism. It is a shattering production that blew my mind with its emotional power and stunning effectiveness.

Oberman as Shylock is an attractive businesswoman who has been abused by English people, especially the Nazis to an unbearable extent.  Calling her a dog, spitting on her and heaping other insults because she is Jewish are the normal way of addressing her. Oberman gives an exemplary performance as a strong, upstanding person who has come to hate her tormentors and wants revenge.

The leading abuser is the merchant Antonio (Joseph Millson) who is a Nazi sporting black clothes and the armband of the BUF. In the play you may have seen him as a benevolent friend of Bassanio (Gavin Fowler) to whom he lends money that he borrows from Shylock. Antonio is a creep who treats Shylock and no doubt all Jews as subhumans.

The Merchant of Venice has two worlds. The world of business where Shylock lends money to Antonio so he can help his friend Bassanio woo Portia (played by Georgie Fellows). Portia is supremely wealthy and belongs to the comic mythical part of the play where she chooses as a husband the suitor who picks the right casket. She is a statuesque blonde beauty wearing a gorgeous gown and holding a large cigarette holder. In short, she is a rich bitch.

Tracy-Ann Oberman as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice 1936

Photo: Marc Brenner

Portia, as we all know, puts on a suit and appears as a lawyer defending Antonio from Shylock’s demand for a pound of flesh because Antonio has not paid the bond. She intones the beautiful “quality of mercy” speech but without a grain of poetry in it. It is an ugly recitation appropriate for the fascists that she is defending. The production has removed all the poetry of the play. The scene between Lorenzo (Mikhail Sen) who is in love with Shylock’s daughter Jessica (Grainne Dromgoole) where they are reciting the stories of mythical lovers like Pyramus and Thisbe, Aeneas and Dido, come out ugly and the lovers go in different directions. It is a stunning transformation of the play.

Videos of Nazi signs and nazi parades appear throughout the play, a visual reminder of the appeal of Hitler. But the most touching and dramatic scene comes as an epilogue at the end of the play. Oberman steps up to the audience and describes the action taken by human beings from all walks of life in London to stop the BUF’s march on Cabell Street that fateful day in 1936. She tells us that her grandmother was one of the people that put a stop to the march. It left me stunned.

Shakespeare’s play is adapted brilliantly by Brigid Larmour who also directs the production and Tracy-Ann Oberman who is the associate director and plays Shylock. Their teamwork cannot be praised enough, and the result is unforgettable theatre of the highest order.
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The Merchant of Venice 1936 by William Shakespeare adapted as stated above played at the Trafalgar Theatre, 14 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2DY and continues on tour across the United Kingdom. www.trafalgartheatre.com/

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press

ELEKTRA – REVIEW OF 2025 PRODUCTION OF SOPHOCLES’ PLAY IN LONDON

Reviewed by James Karas

Sophocles wrote more than 120 plays in fifth century Athens of which only seven have survived. His Oedipus Rex is considered one of the greatest tragedies ever written and Antigone is produced frequently as the example par excellence of standing up to tyranny and dictators.

Elektra, his tragedy about the daughter of King Agamemnon is less frequently produced but it is an astonishing play about obsession, hatred, and overwhelming passion for revenge against her mother Clytemnestra. Agamemnon returned from the Trojan War a hero only to be famously killed in the bathtub by his wife and her lover Aegisthus. Elektra waits for the return of her brother Orestes to avenge her father’s death.  

Daniel Fish directs an idiosyncratic production of Elektra at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London that shows his fertile imagination without paying much attention to Sophocles or ancient Greek drama. He has Brie Larson, an Academy Award winning actor among a wheelbarrow of other prizes in the lead role and delivers his personal version of the tragedy.

This is a modern dress production with Elektra wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt with the words BIKINI KILL on it. The set by Jeremy Herbert consists of a revolving stage with microphone stands and large loudspeakers that make it look like a Hifi store. The Chorus of Mycenean women are arrayed at the back of the stage and produce some cacophonous chants.

Brie Larson and Chorus in Elektra. Photo Helen Murray

Larson with a cropped hairdo, microphone or two in hand, lets out screams, screeches and worse.  She scrapes the microphone on the face of the speakers to produce more unpleasant sounds and screeches, more than once. She uses a different microphone to imitate Clytemnestra’s screeches.   

Elektra is so obsessed with hatred for her arrogant and imperious mother (played by the talented Stockard Channing) and her lover Aegisthus (played by the marvelous Shakespearean actor Greg Hicks) and her lust for revenge that she is probably unhinged. Her brother Orestes (Patrick Vaill) was sent away, for his own safety and Elektra is pining for his return.

One of the defining features of every modern production of Greek tragedy is the treatment of the Chorus. We know relatively little about how exactly it was used in Ancient Greece, but scholars tell us that it sang, chanted, danced and interacted with the main characters. There is some of that, sort of, in this production but let’s just say it is unsatisfactory or maybe in line with the rest of the production. And what is all that clanging that sounds like gun shots in the background?

Fish is using Anne Carson’s 2001 translation of the play and no doubt that is a good choice. But he does not use the whole play. The role of Pedagogos, the Old Man, is cut out and some of the speeches and choral odes are shortened. This is a “version” of Carson’s translation but not by Carson. If it is by Fish or whoever we are entitled to know. The play is done in 75 minutes which indicates cuts.

Looking for a production the way the Athenians would have witnessed it twenty-five hundred years ago is untenable because we simply do not know what they would have seen. We must rely on a “version by” or an “adaptation by.” In any case, we need to grasp what the director is trying to convey to us. In this case, Fish seemed to be going all over the place and I could not grasp what he was getting at and I was annoyed when I should have been immersed in Sophocles’ play. Fish’s flights of fancy no doubt meant a lot to him but nothing to me.  
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Elektra by Sophocles in a translation by Anne Carson continues until April 12, 2025, at the Duke of York’s Theatre, 104 St. Martin’s Lane, London,  https://www.thedukeofyorks.com/

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press

The Norman Conquests (2013)
Photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

OEDIPUS – REVIEW OF 2025 OLD VIC PRODUCTION IN LONDON

Reviewed by James Karas 

Ancient Greek tragedy is universally admired but few directors are prepared to produce a version that is faithful to the original script. The poetry may be clear enough depending on the translation but how do you deal with the choral parts that are chanted or spoken with accompanying dances perhaps. We know almost nothing about how they were being done. The Stratford Festival of Canada staged Oedipus Rex in 1953 using masks and being otherwise faithful to the text with reasonable success but it has never tried to do that with the handful of plays from the Golden Age of Athens since then.

All productions are done using  adaptations and always with mixed results. Unfortunately, the old adage that the more beautiful the adaptation, the less faithful it probably is to the original frequently applies. The Old Vic production is co-directed by Hofesh Shechter and Matthew Warchus. He is one of the best English directors and she is a choreographer and musician of the highest order as well as the director of the Hofesh Shechter Company of dancers.

Sophocles’ play is adapted by Ella Hickson and her version takes so many liberties that the title has been changed from Oedipus Rex to Oedipus. Warchus and Shechter want to capture the spirit of the play and not the literal script that has survived.

Warchus takes care of the powerful acting given by the principal characters and the dramatic story that unfolds in ancient Thebes. The city is in a desperate state and the citizens want to know the reason. Has King Oedipus done something to bring the anger of of the gods on Thebes as divine punishment? 

Rami Malek as Oedipus and Indira Varma as Jocasta. 

Photograph: Manuel Harlan

The story is well known but we witness its slow revelation as in a good whodunnit. King Laius, the former king, was killed at a certain crossroads many years ago. Prince Oedipus of Corinth comes to Thebes, marries the widow of Laius and has two children by her, Antigone and Ismene.

He was tossed out by his mother because a prophecy had foretold that he would kill his father and marry his mother. It is too horrible to contemplate and his mother gives him to a shepherd with the certainty that the baby would die of exposure. The unfolding story reveals that Laius was his father and Queen Jocasta (Indira Varma) was his mother. Unknown to Oedipus, the prophecy was fulfilled.

The self-assured Oedipus (Rami Malek) fearlessly sends his brother-in-law Creon (Nicholas Khan) to Delphi to seek information about Laius’s killer and asks the seer Tiresias (Cecilia Noble) about it and the reason for the drought in Thebes. Eventually he learns the devastating truth and becomes aware of his hubris and blindness in not realizing it sooner. He gouges his eyes out as self-punishment for his prior blindness and is left with nothing except his young daughter Antigone to act as his eyes and wander around  Greece.

That dramatic story is the basis of Sophocles’ play that Ella has adapted into comprehensible and dramatic dialogue. Long speeches are cut short and confrontation among the characters are inserted. It is a superb job of handling a difficult play.

But what do we do with the Chorus of Thebans for whom the choral odes are written? Enter Hofesh Shechter who composes some dramatic music to reflect the moods of the play and choreographs dances to be performed by the Chorus. They have no lines to speak and there is no chanting. The dancers are athletic wild, dramatic and energetic. They illustrate the mood of each scene and are a major part of the production. The dancers and the actors collaborate superbly as directed by the two directors.

Warchus and Schecher have produced a play that is far from the words of Sophocles but faithful to the great  drama. It was a thrill to see a collaborative effort with outstanding actors and dancers that were able to take us spiritually from the stage of the Old Vic to the theatre of Dionysus in old Athens.         
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Oedipus, based on the play by Sophocles, adapted by Ella Hickson, in a production by the Old Vic in association with Hofesh Shechter Company continues until March 20, 2025, at the Old Vic Theatre, The Cut, London, England. http://www.oldvictheatre.com/

JAMES KARAS IS THE SENIOR EDITOR, CULTURE OF THE GREEK PRESS

LA REINE-GARÇON – REVIEW OF 2025 CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The Canadian Opera Company and Opéra de Montréal have very commendably commissioned an opera composed by Julien Bilodeau to a libretto by Michel Marc Bouchard. Both are Quebecois and the opera premiered in Montreal last year.

Opera companies commission work and that creates some excitement with the hope that a new opera will join the standard repertoire. Unfortunately, many of them are never seen again and a few may be produced again but nothing comes close to gaining a regular spot like the operas of Verdi and Puccini. One can only hope that La Reine-garçon will be seen many times in the future. 

La Reine-garçon has a delicious score that is melodic, finely-textured, diverse and simply gorgeous. The COC Orchestra under Johannes Debus gives a splendid accounting of the music.

The singing is first rate starting with Canadian soprano Kirsten MacKinnon as Christine. She has mastered the manly gait as we assume it was how the boy-queen walked and she sings with uncommon splendor. We feel her uncertainties about love and passion but we also see her succumb to lesbian attraction. MacKinnon handles Christine’s high notes with ease and the beauty of her voice is unfailing.

Canadian bass-baritone Philippe Sly is wise and solid as Count Karl Gustav as is bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch as Axel Oxenstierna. Tenor Isaiah Bell sings the clownish, narcissistic Johan Oxenstierna. Perhaps one too many Click, Clacks but a fine performance. Canadian Owen McCausland is the wise Descartes who delivers his wisdom in a beautiful tenor voice and gives an anatomy lesson on the brain.

Christine is pursued and propositioned by men but the only sexual contact (a passionate kiss) is with Countess Ebba Sparre (Queen Hezumuryango). And what are all those stags on stage? Do they represent Christine’s sexual dreams?

Kirsten MacKinnon as Christine in COC production.

Photo: Michael Cooper

There is an offstage singer listed in the program as Chant Kulning (Anne-Marie Beaudette) who emits a falsetto scream in the opening scene and afterwards. I could not figure what it was and guessed it might be a wolf’s cry because we were out in the snow. She returned for further screams and whatever she was supposed to be escaped me except that it was annoying.

La Reine-garçon or the boy-queen refers to Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689) and had she lived in the twenty-first century she would have qualified for one or more letters of LGBTQ+. Her father raised her as if she were a boy and her gait and mannerisms were male. But he died when she was age seven and she did not gain the throne until her teens. At age 24 she abdicated, converted to Catholicism and moved to Rome where she lived until 1689.

Her life has fired up the Western imagination and she has been portrayed in films, plays and fiction. Her sexual proclivities may have gone in several directions but the interest in her lies more in her artistic interests including her patronage of musicians, artists and opera.

If she ditched the throne in exercise of her free will as advised by Descartes, well and good. But if she converted to Catholicism, does it not mean she accepted the control of the church as in what to wear, eat and think? I suppose you can do that in exercise of free will.

There are things to quibble about with the libretto but the fact remains that this is an approachable and enjoyable opera at first hearing. The rich and varied sets by Anick La Bissonniere, the brilliant lighting design by Eric Champoux and the rich projections by Alexandre Desjardin add to a marvelous production.

And top marks to director Angela Konrad for putting the whole thing together from a theatrical point of view.    
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La Reine-garçon by Julien Bilodeau (music) and Michel Marc Bouchard (libretto) continues until February 15,  2025 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. West Toronto, Ont. www.coc.ca

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press

WHO’S’ AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOLF – REVIEW OF 2025 CANADIAN STAGE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas 

Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? received considerable publicity before it opened in the Canadian Stage production at  the Blima Appel Theatre in Toronto. I saw it late in its scheduled performances and hence my belated review. It is a noteworthy production of a great play.

Brandin Healy, the Artistic Director of Canadian Stage directs the production and it features Martha Burns as Martha, Paul Gross as George, Mac Fyfe as Nick and Hailey Gillis as Honey.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Is about two couples who get together after a faculty cocktail party in a northeastern American university. The host couple, Martha and George have  a complicated relationship and both are offensive, acerbic, vicious and cruel to each other and later to their guests. They have illusions and delusions, hatred, and bitterness in astounding degrees.

Honey and Nick, the hapless couple that were invited by George and Marth for a drink at two in the morning, have issues of their own like a phantom pregnancy, marriage of convenience for Nick and the slings and arrows of perhaps ill-matched people.

Albee divides his 3-act 1961-62 play into Fun and Games, Walpurgisnacht and The Exorcism to give us some idea of the range of the play and the relationship of the four characters. 

Martha Burns, Hailey Gillis, Rylan Wilkie, and Paul Gross. 

Photo by Dahlia Katz

Martha is the dean’s daughter and considers George, a professor of history, beneath her, a failure and a man deserving of contempt. She delivers all with power anger, hatred, and viciousness. She wants people to know that they have a son whose birthday is the next day and it is his 21^st. Everything about the son becomes nebulous and suspicious and the title of the play, sung with the words Virginia Woolf repeated like a refrain proves tantalizing. Martha Burns delivers a stunning performance.

George is a pathetic failure as a husband, an academic and human being but he knows more than he reveals. He tries to protect Martha while receiving insults about his academic failures and his human shortcomings. He strikes back at Martha and tries to protect himself from her viciousness and protect Martha who is not playing by the rules that apply to the couple’s relationship. With his mop of white hair, George is well past his prime and he plays defense only for so long and is forced to strike back.

Nick is a new faculty member and teaches biology. He represents the new world in contrast to George’s subject of looking at the past. He is athletic and no fool but he did marry Honey for her money or so it seems. He is driven to abstraction by the whole situation and takes the opportunity to strike back by having sex with Martha.

Honey is pathetic as the daughter of a wealthy man who marries the athletic Nick who is attracted more to her father’s wealth than to her. She gets drunk easily and hopes to have a child. She is sickly and pathetic but does the right thing by falling asleep so her husband can have sex with Martha.

Set Designer Julie Fox uses the large Bluma Appel Theatre stage for George and Martha’s apartment. It revolves so we can see the back and the front of the furniture and it does the job.

Brendon Healy keeps the emotional levels under tight control and we see every nuance as the couples tear each other apart as they get progressively more inebriated.
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Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf  by Edward Albee continues until February 18, 2025, at the Bluma Appel Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, 27 Front Street East, Toronto, Ontario. www.canadianstage.com

WINTER SOLSTICE – REVIEW OF 2025 NECESSARY ANGEL’S PRODUCTION AT BERKELEY ST. THEATRE

Reviewed by James Karas 

Winter Solstice is a captivating play by Germen playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig and is now playing at the Berkeley Street Theatre in Toronto. The play is fascinating on two levels. First is the structure of the play and second is its slowly unfolding theme. The program lists five characters but there are in fact six (perhaps seven, if we count the little girl). There is a narrator who stands on the side much of the time and describes the action for us and comments on it. He is played by Frank Cox-O’Connell who also plays the artist Konrad. The narrator tells us that we are in the booklined and well-appointed house of a wealthy couple in Europe. It is Christmas Eve.

We see none of that because the production is done on an empty stage and we will imagine seamlessly that we are in the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom and other places in the house. The narrator will continue with his commentary on what is being said and give us precise information about the music being played on the unseen piano. For example, Chopin’s Nocturn no. 2 in E minor and other pieces. He gives us the precise time of the action.

The couple are Albert (Cyrus Lane), a maker of avant-garde films and his wife Betina (Kira Guloien), a sharp-tongued writer that thinks that nobody watches her husband’s movies. Betina’s mother Corinna (Nancy Palk) has just arrived for a visit, and we learn that their relationship is strained. A stranger, Rudolph (Diego Matamoros), rings the doorbell and we learn that he met Corinna on the train, and she invited him over.

Rudolph is a gentleman of the old school, well-dressed, impeccably mannered and an accomplished pianist. He is from Paraguay but not Paraguayan and the catalyst that will reveal the slowly emerging but shocking plot of the play. He calls Corinna: Gudrun, a name from German mythology and evokes Richard Wagner. Albert realizes that there is something peculiar about Rudolph. The climax of the play is reached when Rudolph realizes what Albert is.  I will not disclose it. 

Kira Guloien, Frank-Cox-O'Connell and Nancy-Palk in Winter Solstice. 

Photo by Dahlia Katz, Necessary-Angel.

The fifth character is the artist Konrad and Cox-O’Connell morphs into that role seamlessly. We also hear from the couple’s daughter, but she does not appear.

I found the variation of the Brechtian epic theatre structure fascinating, and it worked well, both removing us from the action and involving us more intimately in it. We move from one scene to another quickly and sometimes repetitively as if we may have missed something or for reasons of style that were not always clear to me on a first viewing.

There are scenes that are simply described by the narrator instead of acted. Again, this is an attractive approach because we get more information about what is happening than if we had seen the action. We are better informed and forced to know more than if we had witnessed the action.

Albert has issues with alcohol and drugs, and he is planning a movie titled “Christmas at Auschwitz”. There are strong suggestions of sexual liaisons. Rudolph coming from Paraguay but emphasizing that he is not Paraguayan, and racial references alert us to the underlying theme of the play: neo-Nazism. It is a disease that is violently on the rise in Germany and the rest of Europe in different degrees. Schimmelpfennig wrote Winter Solstice in 2017 and must be credited with some prescience.

The highly experienced cast was expertly directed by Alan Dilworth and deliver strong performances in a fascinating play.
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Winter Solstice by Roland Schimmelpfennig, translated by David Tushingham, in a production by Necessary Angel Theatre Company in collaboration with Birdland Theatre and Canadian Stage, opened on January 19, 2025, and continues until February 2, 2025, at the Berkeley Street Theatre, Toronto, Ontario. https://www.necessaryangel.com/

This review appeared in The Greek Press and its late posting here is a matter of record.