RELATIVELY SPEAKING - THREE ONE ACT PLAYS TO SEND YOU ROLLING IN THE AISLE ON BROADWAY

Reviewed by James Karas

Manhattan is experiencing some of the coldest weather of the year (you thought Toronto is cold!) and you could suffer frostbite going from a Starbucks to the TKTS Discount Booth on Broadway. That could mean thirty feet of walking. The fastest way to defrost may be through laughter and one of the best providers of that is Relatively Speaking, three one-act plays now showing at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.

The three comedies combine wit, broad humour and some thought to give you a couple of hours of delight.

Talking Cure by Ethan Coen is about a psychiatrist talking with a convict in a mental institution. The doctor (Jason Kravits) thinks he can cure the criminal patient (Danny Hoch) who is a brilliant postman and can confuse anyone. The patient is smart enough to suggest that by the end of the session, the doctor may become the patient. Coen gives a bit of an “explanation” about the patient’s current condition by showing us his parents just before the patient was born. The parents (Allen Lewis Rickman and Katherine Borowitz) are arguing at the top of their lungs while waiting for guests to arrive for dinner. As the door bell rings, the mother goes into labour and the curtain comes down amid the laughter.

George is Dead by Elaine May is even funnier than the first play and develops a couple of characters. Doreen (Marlo Thomas), a rich, spoiled and useless woman, knocks on the door of Carlas’s (Lisa Emery) apartment and announces that her (Doreen’s) husband George just died on the ski slopes.

Doreen does not have a clue about what to do and she is so self-centered that she cannot feel or express any grief for her husband or any empathy for another human being. She is hilarious in her selfishness. Emery is also funny but she is humane, down to earth and reacts with superb sensitivity to Doreen’s foolishness. A marvelous performance by Emery. Husband Michael (Grant Shaud) makes a brief appearance where the couple argues and he leaves.

The third play, Honeymoon Motel by Woody Allen is the piece de resistance and it is simply hilarious.

Nina (Ari Graynor) wearing a bridal dress and Jerry (Steve Guttenberg), wearing a tux, arrive at an extremely tacky motel room directly from the wedding ceremony and are about to start their honeymoon. Eddie (Grant Shaud), a friend of the groom arrives and points out that the “groom” is not the groom, not even the best man, but the stepfather of the real groom. The stepfather and the bride eloped just before she could say “I do.”

Jerry’s wife, Judy (Caroline Aaron), andNina’s parents (played by Julie Kavner and Mark Linn-Baker) arrive as does the officiating Rabbi (Richard Libertini). The latter will progress from tipsy to drunk during the play.

This is classic Woody Allen and jokes about sex, politics, psychiatrists and you name it will abound. The zingers will keep you laughing.

The actors directed in all three plays by John Turturro maintain speed and timing and comic panache that keep the laughter coming.

Just don’t forget to put your hat on when you get out of the theatre. It is still cold outside no matter how warm you may feel after so much laugher.
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Relatively Speaking – 3 One Act Comedies opened on October 11, 2011 and continues until January 29, 2012 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 256 West 47th Street, New York. http://relativelyspeakingbroadway.com/about/faq/

ROAD TO MECCA INTERESTING PLAY BUT A SNOOZER

Reviewed by James Karas

Athol Fugard’s The Road to Mecca, now playing at the American Airlines Theater in New York, has a slow start that does not pick up much, if any, speed until the second act. By the end of the performance you do realize the complexity of the play, the number of issues it raises and the interesting bits that have been revealed. But by then is almost too late to enjoy the performance. True you can think about and appreciate the depth of a play and the marvels of the production well after you have seen it but it is difficult to give a performance much of a review if you were quite bored much of the time.
The play is set in a village in South Africa which one character describes as the earth without God. It comes from a quotation by Balzac who described the desert as God without mankind.

Miss Helen (Rosemary Harris) lives in that godless place. She is an old, eccentric sculptor living in a house full of ornaments with provocative examples of her creations in the front yard. She is visited by Elsa Barlow (Carla Gugino), a friend and a teacher who drives twelve hours to Helen’s village. There is a great difference in age and Elsa always refers to the other woman as Miss Helen.

The two women who have a sometimes rough relationship talk about what they are doing now and reminisce about the past. Some of what they say is of some interest but the pace is simply soporific and the audience finds itself fighting yawns.

The pace picks up in the second act when a self-righteous pastor named Marius Byleveld (Jim Dale) arrives and tries to convince Miss Helen to leave her house and go to an old age home. Miss Helen is indeed old and at times confused. The new curtains that were mentioned in the first act were replacements of the ones that were burned when Miss Helen left some candles burning and started a fire, the good pastor reminds Elsa.

The play does cover a wide range of themes from artistic expression in a closed-minded society that ends up acting rather viciously against Miss Helen, the loss of religious faith, the treatment of blacks in South Africa and the relationship among the three friends.

Mecca is the symbol of a city of light and splendor and it is that light that Miss Helen is seeking. In a fine bit of irony, it is also the symbol of the Muslim religion in a situation where her faith has lapsed and she cannot even remember when she had her confirmation as a Christian.

Harris is one of the major talents of the modern theatre and Gugino and Dale cannot be faulted for their performances. But director Gordon Edelstein has directed the play at a pace and in a way that whatever its virtues or shortcomings, the end result is the ultimate sin in the theatre: it is boring.

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The Road to Mecca by Athol Fugard opened on January 17, 2012 at the American Airlines Theatre, New York in a production by Roundabout Theatre Company. www.roundabouttheatre.org

TOSCA FROM THE MET HAS HIGH POINTS AND GAPS IN BONDY PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

In September 2009, New York’s Metropolitan Opera parked Franco Zeffirelli’s production of Tosca and replaced it with a new staging by Swiss director Luc Bondy. Zeffirelli’s interpretation of Puccini’s potboiler held the stage for 25 years at Lincoln Center and a new production was definitely in order. The reception, however, was less than enthusiastic and Bondy was roundly booed when he took his bow on opening night.

The Met has not been deterred by the controversy and it has mounted the production again with a different cast and I caught the performance of January 14, 2012. American soprano Patricia Racette sang the title role with considerable success. She managed to be convincingly jealous and dramatic and what she lacked in tonal beauty at times did not detract from making her performance enjoyable. Her “Vissi d’arte” was quite gorgeous.

Tenor Roberto Alagna as Cavaradossi hit his stride early with “Recondita armonia” and maintained a finely tuned performance. He hit his high notes with ease and unerring accuracy, interacted well with Racette and gave a superb performance.

Georgian baritone George Gagnidze was a disappointing Scarpia. In his open black shirt, he looked more like a minor Mafia thug than a Baron and the Chief of Police. When I saw the performance Live in HD from the Met he exuded evil and depravity that were simply not visible in the live performance. He did not express any authority and gave the impression of a dirty, old man (OK he is middle aged) who is simply nasty and ineffectual. The three hookers in his office seemed simply out of place and his performance was unsatisfactory.

Part of the blame goes directly to Bondy and his directing of Act II. The set with the large couches and tawdry appearance, Scarpia’s attempted seduction of Tosca and her murder of him was almost comical in its ineffectiveness. The second act takes place in Scarpia’s study in the Farnese Palace. It looks more like a warehouse with barren walls and the large couches, useful, no doubt, for the hookers who seem to share the baron’s study.

Cavaradossi is famously tortured in an adjoining cell during the second act and in most productions he screams in agony. Bondy saves us from the melodramatic screams but he does not let Tosca see her beloved being abused either. There is something missing here to convince us that she has overwhelming cause for her pretended agreement to surrender her virtue to the monstrous Scarpia.

Richard Peduzzi’s set for first act in the church is reasonably effective. The set is grandiose if unadorned. Angelotti (Richard Bernstein) comes down a rope through a window in his dramatic escape from the police.

The set for Act III, the execution scene, is barebones with a wall for the shooting and a parapet for Tosca to jump off. Cavaradossi is shown playing chess with a guard. Really? Tosca usually jumps to her defiant death off the wall and away from the audience. Bondy has the dramatic idea of having her leap towards the audience. The lights are dramatically turned off as she is about to jump to her death.

Peduzzi’s sets and the costumes designed by Milena Canonero range from the good to the indifferent. Do move away from Zeffirellian concepts but give us something that will grab us with its originality and brilliance and not just make us scratch our heads.

Finnish conductor Mikko Franck conducted the superb Mtertopliyan Opera Orchestra brilliantly. If you did not like what was on stage you could always rely on what was coming from the pit.

In the end this is a Tosca to remember as much for its faults as for its virtues while waiting for a more inspired conception.
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Tosca by Giacomo Puccini produced by the Metropolitan Opera continues at Lincoln Center, New York. www.metopera.org

DON GIOVANNI LIVE IN HD FROM THE METROPOLITAN OPERA IN FINE-TUNED THEATRICAL DETAIL

Reviewed by James Karas

For its new production of Don Giovanni, the Metropolitan Opera turned to British theatre director Michael Grandage. He has made his mark in the theatre especially as Artistic Director of London’s redoubtable Donmar Warehouse but he is a relative newcomer to opera. We have the right to expect a fine-tuned theatrical approach to the opera of operas and the result is not disappointing. Seeing the production on the movie screen, one gets the benefit of noticing details that are not easy to detect in the opera house but there is a “but” to that.

A stellar cast does not hurt the production and the result is an exceptional production if not an ideal one.

The first thing you notice when the curtain goes up is that the Commendatore whose daughter the lecherous Don Giovanni is seducing lives in a tenement house. It is a three-story building with shuttered windows and doors, peeling paint and the over-all look of almost a slum. This set will do for the rest of the production. The front part of the tenement will be moved to the side and some of the action will take place in the courtyard of the tenement.

The oft-produced opera has been set in as many locales as directors and designers could imagine from the traditional Zeffirellian grandiose palaces to a bare stage to a library so a tenement is just another twist.

Otherwise this a traditional production with 18th century costumes of no particular distinction although Donna Elvira is dressed quite gorgeously. The Set and Costume Designer is Christopher Oram.

Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecien tackles the role of Don Giovanni with enthusiasm and gusto. He is an agile actor and singer with a marvelous, light baritone voice who swashbuckles his way through the evening.

Don Giovanni’s sidekick Leporello is sung by Italian bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni. This Leporello is physically bigger than his employer and has a hefty but sonorous voice. He is weary of his boss’s shenanigans and immorality but he is not beyond imitating him. Kwiecien and Pisaroni interact well and provide superb performances.

Italian soprano Barbara Frittoli as Donna Elvira is a mature woman who is deeply hurt but still obsessed with Don Giovanni. She says that she wants revenge but you do not believe her because all she wants is for him to go back to her. Frittoli has a luscious luminescent voice and makes a dramatic Donna Elvira.

Latvian soprano Marina Rebeka is the eternally grieving Donna Anna. Dressed in black, she is angry and moving and when she tells her betrothed Don Ottavio that the wedding is off for another year, you simply believe her.

Ramon Vargas is physically suitable as the well-meaning but ineffectual Don Ottavio but I am not entirely fond of his vocal style. His aria “Il mio tesoro intanto” has some gorgeous long phrases that require a light tenor voice of exceptional expressiveness and mellifluousness. Vargas simply did not give that type of delivery and sounded more like a Verdian hero than a weakling Don Ottavio.

Vargas sings “Il mio tesoro intanto” to Donna Elvira and she in fact goes to Donna Anna on the second floor of the tenement and embraces her. Don Ottavio continues singing to the country girl Zerlina and Masetto and I am not sure if a nobleman would ask peasants to comfort his betrothed.

German soprano Mojca Erdmann and Austrian bass-baritone Joshua Bloom are a well-matched Zerlina and Masetto. She is pert and lively with a perfectly suitable lilt in her voice while he is a peasant without being a particularly stupid. They end up being the only happy couple in the opera. Enjoyable.

Live from the Met means lots of close-ups which, as I never tire of repeating, allow for absorption of details at the cost of enjoying the overall effect. In this broadcast we are allowed to look at a scene for whole seconds without changes in shots and the camera does pan the scene now and then. Otherwise it is the usual horror story of changing camera shots and angles.

Fabio Luisi conducts the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in a production that you can complain about only after you have thoroughly enjoyed it.
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Don Giovanni by W. A. Mozart was shown Live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera on October 29, 2011 and rebroadcast on January 9, 2012 at the Cineplex Town Centre, Toronto, Ont. and other cinemas. For more information: www.cineplex.com/events

THE GYPSY PRINCESS - PRINCE MEETS SHOWGIRL AND THE REST IS OPERETTA FROM TORONTO OPERETTA THEATRE

Lara Ciekiewicz and Keith Klassesn 

Reviewed by James Karas

Those gypsies are all over the operetta landscape. The Gypsy Baron, The Gypsy Glade, The Gypsy Virtuoso, The Gypsy Premier, not to mention Gypsy Love and Gypsy Dust, give these people a major niche in the genre. With that type of dominance how could Toronto Operetta Theatre not produce The Gypsy Princess by Imre Kalman again?
TOT gave The Gypsy Princess its Canadian premiere in 1988 (none too soon for a work that premiered in 1915) and the current production is full of vim, some wonderful singing and a good way to end the old year and greet the new one.

Plot? Well, Prince Edwin of Austria (Keith Klassen) is madly in love with Sylvia (Lara Ciekiewicz), a cabaret singer in Budapest. As you may have guessed, his parents back in Vienna do not approve and they are in fact planning for him to marry Countess Stasi (Elizabeth Beeler).

We will start backstage in the Orpheum Theatre, Budapest, where the Chorus and Dancers will whip up some energy and give us some delectable singing and Edwin will propose to Sylvia in order to prevent her from going abroad. But his friend Count Boni (Ian Simpson) will ruin all by disclosing the fact that Edwin is already engaged to Stasi.

Ciekiewicz has a luminous face and voice and she handled the main role with panache. She could reach her high notes with ease and was lyrical and splendid in her romantic duets.

Tenor Keith Klassen has the looks and bearing of prince in an operetta but he was not at his best on opening night. He sounded forced at times, almost harsh at other moments and he was overwhelmed by the small orchestra on other occasions. Not a good night for him.

Ian Simpson sang competently as Count Boni. He carried much of the comedy in the operetta and helped with the plot by marrying Stasi. You see Stasi is a nice blonde with a lovely voice courtesy of Beeler and she has to be taken care of for plot purposes.

Prince Leopold, Edwin’s father, was quite comical partly because of the ridiculous beard and wig parked on Joseph Angelo’s head. Mezzo soprano Eugenia Dermentzis as his wife Princess Anhilte flicked her head backward in aristocratic disdain at the lower orders.

The fifteen piece orchestra with a good contingent of strings was conducted by Derek Bate and sounded very good especially when it came to the wonderful waltzes..

The sets consisting of the backstage of the theatre and the ballroom of Prince Leopold’s palace in Vienna are presented quite effectively with a minimum of furnishings and effective lighting.

The directing is efficient and well done. This broad comedy is handled ably and there are a few references to current events that are funny without being glaringly inappropriate. Credit for stage directing, lighting design, set décor and dance sequences goes to TOT’s Founder and General Director Guillermo Silva-Marin, the company’s sine qua non. There is little enough operetta in Toronto but without Silva-Marin availability may be reduced to almost none.

The costumes were simply beautiful. There seems to be no room for a costume designer but whoever arranged for renting the gowns from Malabar had good taste.

Once again TOT has managed to do a superior job in producing an operetta against a background of reduced arts funding. The audience had a different message. On opening night the theatre was quite full.

TOT’s next production will be TAPTOO by John Beckwith and James Reany which will be receiving its professional premiere on February 22, 2012.
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The Gypsy Princess by Imre Kalman, music, and Leo Stein and Bela Jenbach, libretto, opened on December 28, 2011 and will be performed seven times until Januaryb8, 2012 at the Jane Mallett Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, 27 Front Street East, Toronto, Ontario. Tel: (416) 922-2912. www.torontooperetta.com

MARY POPPINS GOES DOWN LIKE A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR FOR A JOLLY HOLIDAY AT THE PRINCESS OF WALES

Nicolas Dromard as ‘Bert’ performs “Step In Time” with the National Tour Company of MARY POPPINS. ©Disney/CML. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Reviewed by James Karas

Walking up the wall and on the ceiling; flying across the stage, over the audience and landing back on the stage using an umbrella: these are some of the hijinks offered in Mary Poppins, the delightful musical now playing at the Princess of wales Theatre in Toronto.

The story of Mary Poppins, the nanny with magical powers, started as a series of children’s books by P. L. Travers and hit the big times and big screen in the 1964 Walt Disney movie of the same title. The movie had Julie Andrews as the marvelous nanny with Dick Van Dyke as Bert and major comic talents such as Ed Wynn and Arthur Treacher. The film garnered numerous awards and added the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious to the English language. The movie is exceptionally enjoyable.

Forty years after the movie opened Cameron Mackintosh brought out a stage version of the film with some changes. The 2004 London production made it to Broadway and road companies have taken it just about everywhere. It has now reached Toronto and one has to admit that Mary Poppins provides marvelous light entertainment on stage especially for the young who seemed to be enjoying it even more than the adults.

The musical contains most of the songs composed by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman for the movie as well as some new songs by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe. Richard Eyre, who directed the London production, directs this staging as well and he is as good as they come in the business.

What happens? Well, lots! George Banks (Laird Mackintosh) is a banker and the head of a British household in the early 1900’s. He is a strict disciplinarian while his wife Winifred (Rebecca Thornhill) is an indulgent but flustered mother. They have two ill-behaved children, Jane (Camden Angelis) and Michael (Reese Sebastian Diaz), a hilarious cook (Valerie Brill) and a servant (Dennis Moench).

The children are smart, rambunctious and cute. But they are badly behaved and the current nanny is storming out and everything is in an uproar at the Banks residence.

We have already met Bert (Nicolas Dromard), a jack-of-all trades who can sing dance and be funny – a Bert and Dromard that we can definitely take to. But we now need the big star. No sooner than the Banks children wish for a perfect nanny than Mary Poppins (Megan Osterhaus) descends.

She is pretty, with a lovely voice, has extraordinary powers and a bagful of tricks that can delight the most hard-to-please children and even adults. Osterhaus is splendid in the role.

Plot complications abound, of course, from banking and business issues to a visit with the Bird Woman (Janet McEwen) where you “Feed the Birds” and Mrs. Corry (Michelle E. White) who sells words like “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and even if the sound of it may be atrocious it makes for a very invigorating song.

You do not need “A Spoonful of Sugar” to make this musical with its delightful comic scenes and very vigorous dancing go down. You will “Step in Time” with Mary, Bert and the Chimney Sweeps, “Chim Chim Cher-ee” down Cherry Tree Lane, feel like you want to “Fly a Kite” and in the end have a “Jolly Holiday” and a damn good night at the theatre.
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Mary Poppins by Julian Fellowes (book), Richard M. Sherman and Robert E. Sherman (original music and lyrics) and George Stiles and Anthony Drewe (additional songs and lyrics) continues until January 8, 2012 at The Princess of Wales Theatre, 300 King St. West, Toronto, Ontario. www.mirvish.com.

CHRISTMAS CONCERT WITH ARIANA CHRIS, HANNAFORD STREET SILVER BAND AND CCOC CHORUSES

Reviewed by James Karas

Review a Christmas concert?

Children with shining faces and intense attention to the conductor singing “Silent Night”, a choir, joined by an enthusiastic if somewhat cacophonous audience, intoning the Hallelujah Chorus – that’s a Christmas Concert and you don’t review that. You just enjoy it.

The event at the Metropolitan United Church in Toronto was not called a Christmas Concert but a Yuletide Celebration and there was a wide variety of musical offerings from opera to Greek songs. That gives an opening for comment. The Hannaford Street Silver Band, mezzo-soprano Ariana Chris, The Canadian Children’s Opera Company Youth and Principal Choruses performed and with that kind of array you have carte blanche to praise and even criticize without being assigned to a particularly hot cauldron for your eternal residence.

With a group like The Hannaford Street Silver Band you are guaranteed some powerful accompaniment and solo pieces. The most interesting piece was a cornet solo by Marcus Venables which was played by his father Robert Venables. “Eternal Life” demands some intricate playing that was done well. David Briskin conducted with assurance and enthusiasm.

The Hannaford Band performed several pieces ranging from robust Fanfares to more lyrical pieces. It also accompanied most of the choral and solo singing.

The Principal and Youth Choruses under the firm hand of conductor Ann Cooper Gay sounded wonderful in the high vaulted church, the perfect setting for Christmas carols. There were times when I wished they were accompanied by an organ or simply sang a cappella rather than having the over-powering Band especially in carols that have Gregorian chant modulations.

We were treated to the Finale from Laura’s Cow: The Legend of Laura Secord, a new opera by Errol Gay, a work that is not scheduled to premiere until next June.

You probably can’t have opera arias and Greek songs and still qualify the evening as a Christmas Concert. This Yuletide celebration had four songs by Greek composers and “Una voce poco fa” from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. Ariana Chris’s rich and mellow had little problem dealing with the aria but the brass accompaniment gives one pause. You need to make some quick aural adjustments to listening to the very different accompaniment.

There was an issue of balancing the band, the singer and the acoustics and the powerful sound of the band provided strong competition for Ms Chris and she did not always win the contest.

Ms Chris sang four Greek songs accompanied by Leonidas Zafiris on bouzouki and Fotis Tubanos on guitar. Manos Hadzidakis’s “The North Star” gained a haunting quality in the large church but there were problems. The acoustics swallowed the music and prevented the crisp chords that we want to hear from the bouzouki and the guitar. Loizos’s “Lullaby” gained a dream-like quality from the acoustics. The audience responded enthusiastically to Ms Chris’s performance.

As is de rigueur in a Christmas concert, the audience joined in for a couple of the carols. A very civilized evening but let’s get to the real complaint. With all those cornets present and the chorus where in the world was the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Messiah? Even a Yuletide Celebration should have it. And as for “Silent Night,” it was only added as an encore. You can see the problem!!

Needless to say, my complaints are registered as a possible point-getter from the Keeper of the Pearly Gates just in case I am brought to task for complaining about something that I thoroughly enjoyed.