MADAMA BUTTERFLY – OPERA FOR EVERYONE FROM THE COC

The Canadian Opera Company is in its 60th year of existence and in its fourth season at The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. The new venue may not have put Toronto on top of the operatic world but it can probably stand its ground against most opera houses. The new opera house is almost completely sold out for most performances and it is a world away from the old, unlamented O’Keefe/Hummingbird/Sony Centre.

The seven operas offered for the 2009-10 season are nicely spread out over the year instead of the old method of feast or famine. Full houses have resulted in additional performances and the present looks bright.

The COC offers Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Igor Stravinsky’s The Nightingale for the fall season which runs from September 26 to November 5, 2009. The next two operas, Carmen and Otello will be shown from late January to the end of February, 2010.

Madama Butterfly is a familiar favourite whereas The Nightingale is a new creation by Robert Lepage. It premieres on October 17 and with Lepage as the force behind it, the tickets for the eight performances are all but completely sold out.

Butterfly is an approachable work and can be enjoyed by the neophyte as well as the opera aficionado. In fact there was a little girl sitting on a seat booster across the aisle from me. The COC’s revival of its 2003 production makes it an even greater pleasure to see and hear the opera. Director Brian Macdonald has opted for a simple and very attractive production. He eschews any attempts at making it ‘different’ and the result is a terrific night at the opera.

The COC has two casts for the main characters. The night I saw it the role of Cio-Cio San (Butterfly) was sung by Romanian soprano Adina Nitescu in her COC debut. What one notices again is that Butterfly is an opera for a soprano with a bunch of visitors thrown in. Pinkerton, Sharpless, Suzki and Goro come and go – Cio-Cio San is on stage most of the time and she has a job to do. Nitescu has the vocal and acting equipment with which to do it. From “Un bel di” to her dramatic farewell to her son and suicide she delivered a moving and beautifully sung performance. She is physically suitable for the role. She does not exactly look like a 15-year old Japanese girl but if she did she would probably not be able to sing or act.

Newfoundlander tenor David Pomeroy was the swaggering Lieut. Pinkerton who is a heartless naval officer in the first act and a remorse-ridden man in the final act when he finds out that he fathered a child with the child geisha. Puccini does not overwork the tenor in this opera but Pomeroy gave a fine account of himself from the Act I aria and duet to the final trio. No doubt we will see more of him.

Baritone James Westman was a very sympathetic and well-done Consul Sharpless. He sang well and interacted very effectively with Butterfly. The pain and sympathy he felt for her was palpable and that is high praise for a singer who may be more interested in the notes than in the acting.

Puccini’s plush music was brought out by the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra conducted by Carlo Montanaro.

THEATER OF ANCIENT MESSENE TO REOPEN

Nikos Dionysios Planning Production in 2010

Plans are afoot to reopen the Theater of Ancient Messene.

Nikos Dionysios, director, actor and choreographer, has organized the Dionysios Theater Company with a view to producing ancient drama at the site as early as next summer. In fact he wants to stage Euripides’s The Bacchae and hopes to take the production on tour.

Dionysios, with his deep roots in Messinia, wants nothing less than a cultural revival of the south-western corner of Peloponnesus. He envisions not just theatrical productions but exchanges with other companies, workshops and conferences on the theater.

Your knowledge of the prefecture Messinia may go no further than eating Kalamata olives and you may not have heard of Ancient Messene and its theater at all. You are not alone. Systematic excavations of the site did not begin until 1986 and there is still much work to be done.

Ancient Messenia did not have particularly cordial relations with its neighbors, the Spartans, and its citizens ended up as helots of the latter. In 369 BC, they achieved independence and the Theban General Epaminondas built the city of Messene as the new capital.

Ancient Messene is the best-preserved city of southern Greece. It is located in the Municipality of Ithomi about 20 kilometers from Kalamata, and was probably the most-ignored site in Greece. Ancient Messene has a stadium, an assembly hall (Vouleftirio) and a theater. The stadium is useable as a theater and can hold up to 7000 people according to Dionysios. The assembly hall can accommodate about 700. The theater should be ready for use in two years and will hold about 4000 spectators.

“I want to capture the poetry of Ancient Greek tragedy” said Dionysios in a recent interview at a café overlooking Ancient Messene. “Greek tragedy is poetry, music and movement” he added “and we need to reach back to those elements even in translation”

“Take the Chorus, for example” he continued. “They spoke in unison, they chanted and they danced. You rarely if ever see Greek Tragedy performed that way these days.”

Dionysios trained and worked under the legendary director Karolos Koun. He has performed in theatres ranging from the Odeon of Herodes Atticus and Epidaurus in Greece to venues in Europe, Hong Kong and North America. Ephemera, his first work as writer and director was distinguished as the Best Production of the Year.

He has also created Masks, a production based on ancient poetry, and Bolero, a play based on the life of Isadora Duncan, among others.

In 2003 he directed Aristophanes’ The Birds at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada. That was the first time that the Festival had staged Aristophanes in its fifty years of existence.

In 2007, he directed and choreographed Aeschylus’s Seven Against Thebes with the Corfu Regional Repertory Company. In 2008 he directed, choreographed and acted the role of Dionysus in The Bacchae with the same company. The production was seen and well received in Albania and in southern Italy.

Kostas Georgakopoulos, the mayor of the Municipality of Ithomi, sees a great opportunity for the cultural and commercial development of the area. “It will be easier to go from Athens to Ancient Messene than from Athens to Epidaurus when the new highway is completed” he pointed out as he looked at the ancient site and on the spectacular vista of hills beyond.

“We want to enhance and promote the cultural life of the area” added the mayor. “We want to put Ithomi on the cultural map of Europe.”

Christos Athanasopoulos, the President of the Council of Ancient Messene nodded in agreement.

Excavation of the theater at Ancient Messene revealed the startling fact that it had a moveable and removable stage. The stage was mounted on large wheels and it could be moved forward towards the audience. The stage was as much as five meters (15 feet) off the ground. The reason for the construction of a moveable stage is not certain according to Petros Themelis, the archeologist who has spent more than 20 years excavating the site.

It was thought that the moveable stage was a Roman invention that the Greeks had copied after the conquest of Greece by the Romans. This appears not to be so and in fact the theater at Ancient Messene proves the reverse: the Romans copied the idea of a moveable stage from the Greeks. The stage was also completely removable. It was put away in storage at the end of the performance.

“I don’t expect to have a moveable stage” commented Dionysius “but I do want to see prominent theatrical companies from Europe to stage high-quality productions in Ancient Messene. It would be marvelous for people to see how other directors and actors treat Greek tragedy” he said.

Asked about how he plans to finance his vision, Dionysios commented that productions in ancient Athens used to be paid for by wealthy Athenians called “chorigoi”. “In fact there was a very rich and powerful family here called Saethidas during Roman times. They spent a lot of money to preserve the theater. I am checking out if there are any of them still around to repeat what their ancestors did two thousand years ago” he said. “If not we will have to rely on modern day Saethidases and local support.”

“Look what Herodes Atticus did. He built a theatre to commemorate his wife and two thousand years later his name is still a household word for theatre lovers in Greece. Not a bad monument!” he continued.

“Culture is good for business and business is good for culture” he added. Just imagine what even a few thousand visitors to an area can do for its economy. You can look at any number of examples from Canada to Europe where cultural events give a tremendous boom to a community” he concluded.

Mount Ithomi had a sanctuary in honour of Zeus Ithomatas. In the 16th century the Monastery of Voulkano was built over Zeus’s sanctuary. There was also in all likelihood a sanctuary dedicated to Dionysus, the god of the theater.

“We have pagan and Christian representatives close at hand” commented Dionysios with a smile. “With local help and maybe a modern Saethidas or Herodes Atticus, the theater of Ancient Messene may be up and running again after a couple thousand years of darkness.”

STRATFORD SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL

HITS AND MISSES OR THE 57th SEASON IN REVIEW


In its 57th season the Stratford Shakespeare Festival is well into middle age and we have every right to expect a varied programme of old and new plays done to very high standards. We don’t have to like everything that they do but there must be production standards and values, and a selection of works that can compare favourably with any theatrical company in the world.

After some rough patches following the retirement of Richard Monette who was Artistic Director from 1994 to 2007, management of the Festival is now in the hands of Antoni Cimolino as General Manager and Des McAnuff as Artistic Director. Cimolino was second in command under Monette and McAnuff comes with considerable theatrical experience most notably in the production of musicals. The photograph in the programmes shows Cimolino cracking a smile with his arm resting on McAnuff’s shoulder. McAnuff sports a broad smile with his arms firmly crossed. Is there a message in the body language?

The Festival offered a total of fourteen productions this year in four theatres. I saw thirteen productions (Ever Yours, Oscar, a one-man show by Brian Bedford about Oscar Wilde being the exception) and now that the season is entering its final weeks it may be a good time to give it a brief look-over.

FESTIVAL THEATRE

There were four productions at the flagship Festival Theatre: two plays by Shakespeare, (Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream), West Side Story and Cyrano de Bergerac. If the Festival were to be judged solely by the quality of these productions it would not fare very well.

Macbeth had the acting and star power of Colm Feore in the lead role and the boss himself, Des McAnuff directing the season opener. It was clearly intended to be a showpiece production. Unfortunately despite some good moments the production fell flat on its face.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the comic Shakespeare directed by David Grindley fared little better in what appeared as an all-out attempt to kill Shakespeare. Grindley gave a punk production with some laughter evoked by the artisans but precious little else. The mixture of punk rock, gratuitous violence and 1950’s overtones resulted into a pretty bad night at the theatre.

With Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac we moved to 19th century French drama with the super-nosed poet and swashbuckler played by Colm Feore and directed by his wife Donna Feore.

The result is a passionless production of a play that is full of passion and passionate longing. Donna Lisman is colourless and unconvincing as Roxane in the great balcony scene. The final scene where Roxane realizes that Cyrano is her true lover evoked laugher instead of pathos. That’s as bad as you want to get.

With West Side Story the Festival hits a bull’s eye. We are treated to a muscular, energetic and simply spectacular production directed by Gary Griffin. Paul Nolan as Tony and Chilina Kennedy as Maria perform the main roles exceptionally well with Jennifer Rias doing an outstanding job as Anita. Brandon Espinoza is the athletic and agile Riff, leader of the Jets and Andrew Cao is Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks.

West Side Story is as much a ballet as a musical. There are visceral instrumental pieces that require a highly capable corps of dancers to perform them. The production has an excellent group of dancers and singers to do the job.

AVON THEATRE

There are three productions at the Avon Theatre and the odds of seeing a superb one here are two out of three. The Importance of Being Earnest is the best comedy of the season and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a rollickingly well done musical. The bad news is that Julius Caesar is really bad.

Forum has witty dialogue, melodious songs and a fast-moving and utterly entertaining plot. Director Des McAnuff invents much comic business and he has a tendency to go over the top. He could have gotten more with less but nothing can take way from this thoroughly enjoyable production.

Stratford is lucky in having Brian Bedford to direct and play Lady Bracknell in the almost perfect comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest. Bedford’s directing is impeccable and the performances by the main players almost flawless if one ignores the issue of imperfect English accents. Productions of Earnest are fairly frequent; outstanding ones like this one are a rarity
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Now for the bad news. Julius Caesar directed by James MacDonald and designed by David Boechler can best be described by borrowing a few of the author’s words from Hamlet as “weary, stale flat and unprofitable.” No one can accuse the cast of taking any pleasure in Shakespeare’s words or of bothering much to share that pleasure.

TOM PATTERSON THEATRE

The choice of plays for the Tom Patterson Theatre is more adventurous and the productions far more successful. The adventurous part is the offering of Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair and Jean Racine’s Phèdre, both for the first time. What took them so long? Chekhov’s Three Sisters may not be adventurous but it is a good choice.

If Earnest is confined to the elegant drawing rooms of Victorian England, Bartholomew Fair encompasses life in London in the 17th century in all its variety, humour and exuberance as seen at a raucous fair.

The plot includes a pickpocket, a horse dealer, a whore, a pimp, a wrestler, a pig-woman, an urchin, a stilt-walker and others. The play presents an atmosphere and a world of its own and this is what Jonson created and director Antoni Cimolino captures so successfully.

Last year Stratford presented Euripides’ Trojan Women. It was a good start that should have been continued. It was not and we are given the next best thing with Phèdre. I found Seana McKenna’s performance outstanding and the production excellent although I took issue with the choice of translation which struck me as prosaic.

Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters directed by Martha Henry was the other high drama at the Patterson. The finely nuanced production showed what a first-rate director can do with an excellent cast.

STUDIO THEATRE

The results at the Studio Theatre were not as edifying as the productions at the Tom Patterson. Morris Panych’s new play, The Trespassers, directed by the author highlighted his virtues and his failings. He can write fine dialogue and develop characters but he has difficulty with structuring a credible plot. The play would have benefitted from the hand of a strict dramaturge.

Rice Boy by Sunil Kuruvilla struck me as a shapeless and boring play even though on paper it looks like a great choice for Stratford. It is a play with Canadian content and encompasses India and Canada. Geographical and national aptness were not enough to save the day.

Zastrozzi by George F. Walker is the third Canadian play offered by the Festival. It is one of Walker’s early plays and was first produced at the Toronto Free Theatre in 1977.

It is a strange, indeed bizarre play. Its full title is Zastrozzi: The Master of Discipline and it is supposed to take place in “Europe, probably Italy” sometime in the 1890s. There is nothing in the production to indicate the date or place of the play and it could be located anywhere.

Zastrozzi (Rick Roberts), the main character, is a German master criminal. His friend Bernardo tells us that the play is not about passion or obsession or ideas or emotions. It is much worse than that: it is about revenge. Zastrozzi informs us that he is a man who has no weaknesses and is simply extraordinary.

Zastrozzi’s archenemy is the Italian artist and dreamer Verezzi (Andrew Shaver) and he wants to get rid of him in order to avenge what he, Verezzi, has done to his mother and to wipe off his smile.

We will see nudity, sex, swordfights, killings, and a lot of insane behaviour. The play is called a comedy of revenge and I cannot even give a decent plot summary. The characters are certainly cartoonish, perhaps even escapees from a sci-fi novel. They can almost be found in some episodes of Star Trek but without a visit from Captains Kirk or Picard. They are sometimes funny but by no means funny in any conventional sense. Are they ridiculous? In a way, yes but also macabre and no doubt out of this world.

The “feel” that director Jennifer Tarver gives us encompasses all of the above characteristics and I must admit that it left me simply cold. Walker has created an insane and unique world and characters that I could not relate to and I could not figure out what the initial appeal of the play was or the reason for reviving it. Surely there are better Canadian plays by Walker and others that are more worthy of production or revival than this one.

With a looming deficit, the impulse may be to produce safe plays. It would be wrong. The Festival should show gumption in producing less known works from the classical repertoire. If they do them well, the world will notice and people will fill the theatre. The Festival should create and nurture an audience as much as entertain the existing theatre goers.

And so, until next year.

(Photo is of Stratford's "Three Sisters")

THE DEVIL’S DISCIPLE AND ALBERTINE IN FIVE TIMES AT SHAW FESTIVAL

The playwright who lends his name to the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake gets only two of his plays produced there this year. That’s not quite 20% of the eleven productions. The two Bernard Shaw plays are The Devil’s Disciple at the Festival Theatre and In Good King Charles Golden Days at the Royal George Theatre.

Shaw described The Devil’s Disciple as a melodrama in three acts. There are melodramatic elements in the play but one should never take Shaw at his word and expect a conventional potboiler.

The play takes place in 1777 in New Hampshire during the American Revolution. Dick Dudgeon (Evan Buliung), an unorthodox character and the devil’s disciple, finds himself in the house of The Reverend Anthony Anderson (Peter Krantz) when British soldiers come to arrest the latter. Dudgeon pretends to be Anderson and he kisses the latter’s pretty wife Judith (Fiona Byrne) as he is led away to be hanged by the British. Dudgeon is tried by General Burgoyne (Jim Mezon) and Major Swindon (Peter Millard) and he escapes hanging.

The first two acts are incredibly ineffectual. The play and the production seem to creak and it is hard to say where the fault lies. Is the play that bad or is director Tadeusz Bradecki not able to bring out its strengths? Bradecki opens the play with the supposedly startling image of a man being hanged, something that Shaw did not think of. Even that does not work.

The final act is the trial of Dudgeon by Major Swindon and General Burgoyne. Jim Mezon does a very good job as Burgoyne as does Millard as Swindon. Shaw has fun taking swipes at British aristocracy, arrogance and incompetence and the audience joins in. There is Shavian wit and wisdom and the pace picks up.

Bradecki takes some liberties with the text going so far as to add a few lines about Butlersburg becoming Niagara-on-the-Lake, something not mentioned by Shaw. This does produce a laugh but surely it is an unnecessary interpolation but some people may consider it a clever way of reaching out to the audience and making the play relate to them. After all, 300,000 loyalists did come to Canada after the American Revolution and they were the ones who started Niagara-on-the-Lake.

The relatively minor role of a British Sergeant is given to Richard Stewart who seems to belong to another play. A British Sergeant should sound somewhat, even slightly like a British Sergeant. Jonathan Widdifield, on the other hand, is good as Christy, Dick’s doltish brother.

A production that can be summed up as one third good and two-thirds so-so is not what one expects from the Shaw Festival.

The Canadian content of the Festival is Michel Tremblay’s Albertine in Five Times at the Court House Theatre.

When the lights go on we see five women. The oldest will sit centre-stage and the other four will sit around her. The five actors represent one woman, Albertine, at the age of 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70. Her sister Madeline will also appear and will talk with her sister. The five actors will talk with each other but we know of course that they represent one person and whatever each actor says represents the memories or experiences of Albertine.

It is a brilliant device. Representing a single working-class woman over five decades of her life simultaneously is an inspired idea. I don’t think the execution is as successful as the inspiration but it is a play that makes you stop and take notice.

Albertine at 70 (Patricia Hamilton) has just returned home from the hospital and she muses that she will be better off there. She appears calm, at peace with herself in old age.

We learn that Albertine, the waitress and mother from the working class district of Duhamel had two children, Therese and Marcel. Therese misbehaved and at age 11 was allowed a paedophile to molest her. Albertine at 30 beat Therese to a pulp and apparently did not shed a tear about it. Regret and guilt if not tears come later and she has to live with the memory of her action. At different stages of her life she tries to forget, resign herself to her fate or take drugs. It amounts to a tragic life over five decades that are spread out before us.

Madeleine (Nicola Correia-Damude) provides a counterbalance to Albertine. Not all men are monsters, she says, and she is able to find love or is at least able to cope better than her sister.

Unfortunately the play is not always clear or easy to follow. Albertine at 70 can look back on her life, remember her past and have a dialogue with herself at different stages of her life. Albertine at 30 can have little to say to Albertine at 60, though she can correct lapses of memory, I suppose. Madeline died before Albertine reached 70 and yet she is on the stage talking with her. This is not a play that one can digest on one viewing.

Albertine at 30 is played by Marla McLean, at 40 by Jenny L. Wright, at 50 by Mary Haney and at 60 by Wendy Thatcher, doing good work in rather static roles. The play is directed by Micheline Chevrier.

In the end you end up being fascinated by the idea of the play and your attention is riveted but the fascination falls short of making this an enjoyable production. The play and the production fail to cross the thin line of “that was interesting” to that was a great evening at the theatre.

PHÈDRE - SEANA MCKENNA GIVES SUPERB PERFORMANCES IN RACINE PLAY AT STRATFORD

Last year, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival made one of its infrequent forays into Ancient Greek drama with a highly successful production of Euripides’s The Trojan Women. It would have been nice if that were the beginning of a trend but it did not happen. The closest we get to Greek drama this year is the production of Phèdre, a neo-classical tragedy by Jean Racine.

The production is billed as a World Premiere and they do not mean the 1677 play itself but a new translation of the work by playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker. Racine expressed the intense passion of Phaedra and the high drama of the story in tightly-knit rhyming couplets. Stratford however has chosen a prosaic translation for this production.

That is clearly not the mode of expression chosen by Racine and Wertenbaker’s translation, while it is clear it a ling way from Racine’s elevated language. Director Carey Perloff has the actors speak in a heroic style otherwise there are sections of the play that would sound more melodramatic than tragic, more akin to daytime television than poetic drama.

The language or mode of expression is even more important than the plot and one cannot get away from the fact that there is a huge difference between poetry and prose. Just imagine “To be or not to be” being rendered as “I just can’t make up my mind whether I should live or commit suicide.”

Phèdre tells the story of the love of Phaedra for her stepson Hippolytus. She is the wife of Theseus and is fully aware that her passion is completely improper. The problem is that her knowledge of the impropriety is not sufficient to control her passion. The tragic result is inevitable.

Phèdre has as its backdrop a complex political situation. Theseus is away from his kingdom and Hippolytus has fallen in love with Aricia, an Athenian princess and the last in line of the royal family that Theseus displaced as rulers of Athens. Hippolytus himself is the son of an Amazon, a foreigner, and there may be issues about his right of succession. Phaedra has children with Theseus and they may have a superior claim to the throne.

The real thrust of the play however remains the overwhelming power of love over rational thinking. Stratford is lucky in having Seana McKenna in the name role. She has extensive experience in Greek tragedy including a signature performance as Medea. She walks on the stage slightly crouched over with one hand on her stomach and the other stretched out for support. She is in the throes of all-consuming love that cannot be admitted and she gives a superb performance as the tortured queen. Jonathan Goad as Hippolytus looks young and innocent and contrasts perfectly with the much-older and disheveled Phaedra.

Tom McCamus gives a very dramatic and polished performance as Theseus, the blind father who curses his son. In one of the most dramatic deaths in mythology, Hippolytus is killed by a bull that rises from the sea. This a reference back to the bull that Phaedra’s mother had sex with and gave birth to the Minotaur, Phaedra’s half-brother. Theseus killed that bull with the help of Ariadne, Phaedra’s sister whom he married and later abandoned. Things do not get more dramatic than that.

Phèdre requires some heavy-duty supporting cast and the production is exceptionally well-served by Roberta Maxwell as Phaedra’s nurse Oenone, Sean Arbuckle as Théramène and Claire Lautier as Aricie. Wertenbaker seems a bit schizophrenic in her use of French names for most of the characters rather than relying on English equivalents such as Aricia, Theramenes.

The costumes suggest the confined atmosphere of the 17th century theatre rather than the town of Troezen by the sea where the play is set. There is a suggestion of rocks on one side of the stage but aside for some water in a well there is no other scenery. The sea is a major element in the play and there should have been some suggestion of its presence on the set.

According to Perloff “this is a version for North American actors” which sounds like this is “Racine for Dummies”. Wertenbaker’s translation is described as an unrhymed 10-syllable line but it sounds like prose. McKenna and the other actors are more than capable of handling complex poetry and people who go to Stratford for Shakespeare and Ben Jonson should not be patronized with “North American” versions. To paraphrase the comment made about Alexander Pope’s treatment of the Homeric texts, this is a decent rendition of the play but we must not call it Racine.

WEST SIDE STORY and A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM - REVIEW OF STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTIONS

Reviewed by James Karas

If you have to produce musicals at a Festival that aspired to being Shakespearean then choose from the best and do a great job. That is what the Stratford Shakespeare Festival has done this year. The musicals of choice are West Side Story and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

If you had to list the best Broadway musicals on the fingers of one hand, West Side Story should be one of them. It has an incredible provenance being the product of some of the finest creative talents of Broadway in the 1950’s. The idea for the musical belonged to the great Jerome Robbins. He choreographed the original production making the musical into a virtual ballet.

The book was written by Arthur Laurents who of course based it on Verona’s star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet. The feuding Montagues and the Capulets become youth gangs of New York. They are the “American” Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks who have territorial wars on the crowded streets and alleys of the west side of Manhattan.

The lyrics were written by a young man named Stephen Sondheim and the music by the prodigiously talented Leonard Bernstein. West Side Story opened on Broadway in 1957 and it, as they say, has never looked back.

The Stratford production directed by Gary Griffin is muscular, energetic and simply spectacular. Paul Nolan as Tony and Chilina Kennedy as Maria are strong leads with vocal and kinetic power. Jennifer Rias is outstanding as Anita. Brandon Espinoza is the athletic and agile Riff, leader of the Jets and Andrew Cao is Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks.

West Side Story is as much a ballet as a musical. There are visceral instrumental pieces that require a highly capable corps of dancers to perform them. The production has an excellent group of dancers and singers to do the job.

The under-used Stephen Russell plays the humane druggist and Bruce Dow is the blustering Officer Krupke. Don Chameroy plays Schrank and Mike Nadajawsky is Glad Hand.

The brilliant choreography is by Sergio Trujillo with Joshua Bergasse as co-choreographer. Rick Fox is the musical director and he brings out all the muscle and lyricism of Bernstein’s music.

A Funny Thing Happened has roots that go much further back than Romeo and Juliet. It is based on the comedies of Plautus (about 254–184 BC) from which Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove took characters and materials to shape a wonderful plot about a wily slave named Pseudolus (Bruce Dow) who will do anything to gain his freedom. With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, the musical was a great hit in 1962 and it is still thoroughly entertaining.

The plot is hilarious. Hero (Mike Nadajewski, is in love with the lovely virgin Philia (Chilina Kennedy), the girl next door, who has been sold to the braggart soldier Miles Gloriosus (Dan Chameroy). “Next door” is the house of Marcus Lycus, (Cliff Saunders), who is a seller of courtesans. And you should see some of his samples!

Pseudolos and chief slave and collector of pornographic pottery Hysterium (Stephen Ouimette) must find a way of breaking the agreement of purchase and sale with Miles. He will not be dissuaded and arranging for the feigned death of Philia seems like the only solution. But where do you get a body for the ruse especially now that the usual body-snatcher just died and his body was snatched?

And then there is the subplot of Philia mistaking Hero’s horny father Senex (Randy Hughson) for Miles and being ready to surrender herself to him. A cup of mare’s sweat comes in handy in derailing his plan.

Dow is a natural comic and makes the role of Pseudolus all his own. Ouimette is perfect as the dour-looking and “puritanical” Hysterium and Randy Hughson is hilarious as Senex. Chameroy is not pompous enough as Miles but that’s because he goes for cheap laughs.

The dialogue is witty, the songs melodious and the whole thing fast-moving and utterly entertaining. Director Des McAnuff invents much comic business and he has a tendency to go over the top. Hero and Philia can be played straight and there is no need to invent comic stunts for them. Why dress the all-purpose Proteans with modern sailors’ hats? He could have gotten more with less but nothing can take way from this rollicking and thoroughly enjoyable production.

FYROM v. GREECE - FROM THE STREETS TO THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE

HOW TO HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO


In September 1991, the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, one of the constituent parts of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, held a referendum and subsequently declared itself an independent and sovereign nation under the name Republic of Macedonia. It quickly sought international recognition. Greece objected to the recognition of the new nation under the name Republic of Macedonia claiming that it implied territorial claims against the northern Greek province of Macedonia. The new Republic claimed that it had no territorial claims against Greece while at the same time adopting Greek symbols. Even a picture of the White Tower, the symbol of Thessaloniki, appeared on some souvenir currency printed by fervent nationalists. In FYROM the line between state affairs and private enterprise can be pretty blurry.

Feelings and tempers rose on both sides of the border and even more so in the Diaspora. A temporary solution was found in April 1993 when the United Nations granted membership the new country on condition that it will be “provisionally referred to for all purposes within the United Nations as ‘the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’ pending settlement of the difference that has arisen over the name of the State”. (UN Security Council Resolution 817 (1993).

FYROM and Greece signed an Interim Accord on September 13, 1995. The Accord opens with some grandiose and fulsome statements about refraining from the use of force, being guided by the spirit and principles of democracy and the desire to establish peaceful relations and promote future cooperation.

The first section of the Accord is entitled “FRIENDLY RELATIONS AND CONFIDENCE-BUILDING MEASURES”. Considering what happened after the Accord was signed this is ironic to the point of being comical. So much for wishful thinking.

The bizarre part is that the Accord does not mention the name that is acceptable to Greece for “the Party of the Second Part.” Article 1 states that Greece will recognize “the Party of the Second Part as an independent sovereign state, under the provisional designation set forth in a letter of the Party of the First Part of the date of this Interim Accord.”
Annexed to the Accord is a very short letter from the then Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs Karolos Papoulias which states that “Greece recognizes the party of the second part within its internationally recognized borders, with the provisional name of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, pending settlement of the difference that has arisen over the name of the State.”

Astounding as it may appear, the most crucial part of the Accord and the issue that will dominate relations between the two nations was incorporated by reference to a sloppily drafted letter that solved almost nothing.
Rather than posing positive obligations on FYROM (“You will do or you will not do …”), the woefully worded Accord imposes an obligation on Greece not to object to FYROM’s application to join international organizations of which Greece is a member. If Greece is a member then FYROM can only be called FYROM. The clear implication is that if Greece is not a member of that organization, then FYROM can join as the Republic of Macedonia.

Even worse, the Accord says nothing about FYROM asking nations around the world to recognize it as the Republic of Macedonia and putting itself out as the Republic of Macedonia. In fact, the use of the name FYROM, except at some international affairs, has almost disappeared. In Greece, itself FYROM is almost invariably referred to as Skopje.

We should be clear about one thing: when FYROM signed the Interim Accord, its constitutional name was Republic of Macedonia. By signing the Accord the “Republic of Macedonia” was clearly admitting that there was a problem with that name and that some modification will have to be made down the line. To date FYROM has refused to budge and insists on the name Republic of Macedonia. In other words, it wants to have its cake and eat too. Agree to negotiate the name and then refuse to negotiate the name.

Greece kept its part of the Accord by not objecting to FYROM joining a number of international organizations including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and others.

Negotiations and meetings followed in an attempt to resolve the name issue but no solution could be found.

In the meantime, FYROM mounted a three-pronged attack on the problem: on the diplomatic front, the international front and the home front.

On the diplomatic front, it approached nations with a request for recognition as the Republic of Macedonia. Whatever the letter and spirit of United Nations Resolution 817, FYROM asked for and was granted recognition as the Republic of Macedonian by dozens of nations and by now that number has risen to well over one hundred.

On the international front it has launched an all-out campaign to convince the world community that it should be recognized as the Republic of Macedonia. It showed complete intransigence to any names proposed by Matthew Nimitz, the UN appointed mediator and continued and continues pushing for nothing less than complete recognition as the Republic of Macedonia while paying lip-service to the Interim Accord.

On the home front it has mobilized its educational system from kindergarten to university in the teaching about “unlibertaed brothers in Greece” and in painting Greece as its heinous enemy. This reached a pinnacle when in April 2008 photographs of Greece’s Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis in a Nazi uniform were distributed widely.

FYROM’s internal and external policies were examined in detail in Macedonianism: FYROM’S Expansionist designs Against Greece after the Interim Accord, (1995). Iakovos D. Michailidis, Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki shows FYROM trying to do nothing less than to re-write history to suit current political needs, to promote territorial claims against Greece and to create a national mythology based on Greece’s cultural legacy. So much for the provision of the Accord that “Each Party undertakes to respect the sovereignty, the territorial integrity and the political independence of the other.”

The argument came down to the use of the word Macedonia. FYROM wants nothing less than recognition as the Republic of Macedonia. The Greeks refused to allow the use of the word Macedonia in FYROM’s name. Greece eventually backed off its original position and agreed to a qualified use of the word – call it New Macedonia or Northern Macedonia or something like that to differentiate it from the Greek province. All Greek political parties except for the extreme right wing LAOS agreed to the compromise. FYROM refused to budge.

The issue came to a head in April 2008 when FYROM attempted to join NATO. They had a powerful advocate and supporter in President George W. Bush and the FYROM delegation went to the Bucharest Summit assured of success. Greece had made it perfectly clear that it intended to veto FYROM’s application. Many thought that American and some European pressure would prove too much for Greece. It did not and FYROM was not invited to join NATO. The fury of the FYROM and American delegations was palpable.

While continuing its efforts on the diplomatic, international and home front (including ads in major newspapers and CNN) FYROM has decided to take another approach: an Application to the International Court of Justice for an order forcing Greece to withdraw its objection to NATO’s invitation to FYROM.

FYROM’s argument is based on the wording of the Interim Accord, which states that Greece will not object to FYROM applying to join international organizations. Greece in fact only “reserves the right to abject to any membership.” As mentioned above, Greece has not objected to FYROM joining a large number of such organizations until the NATO issue came up. Greece’s position seems to be that “enough is enough” If the name issue is not resolved FYROM can stay out of NATO and out of the European Union.

The Application to the International Court of Justice was filed on November 13, 2008 by the Republic of Macedonia. The opening sentence of the Application reads “The Republic of Macedonian (being provisionally referred to for all purposes within the United Nations as ‘the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’ in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 817 of 1993) brings this application…..” The International Court of Justice is a body of the United Nations. Yet even there FYROM pays only lip service to its provisional name. The Application is signed by Antonio Miloshoski, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Macedonia and the seal of the Republic of Macedonia is affixed. So much for the former Yugoslav Republic being known as such even at the UN.

Greece has not filed a reply to the Application. The Court ordered FYROM to file its legal memorandum by July 20, 2009 and it has done so. Unfortunately I have not received a copy of it for review. Greece has until January 20, 2010 to file its reply.

In the meantime, the war of words continues and FYROM continues to identify itself as the Republic of Macedonia except when forced to do the opposite. At the opening of the Olympic Games, for example, its athletes enter the stadium under the letter “f”. Despite thumbing its nose at Greece and the UN, FYROM wants to appear as the aggrieved party and is going to the ICC asking the Court to make Greece behave. Once again, it wants to have its cake and eat it too.