SHAW FESTIVAL - WOMEN WANT TO BE RECOGNIZED AS PERSONS IN THE AGE OF AROUSAL

Age of Arousal, the title of Linda Griffiths’ play, contains the mildly titillating indication that humanity has reached a new level of civilization. After the Age of Faith and the Age of Reason, we have progressed to the age when we can finally get sexually excited. The sexual liberation of women was an important part in the struggle for the emancipation of women in the 19th and 20th centuries but that was not the central concern.

Women were not fighting merely for legal, social political, and yes, sexual, rights: they were fighting for recognition as people. In 1876 a British court had ruled that "Women are persons in matters of pains and penalties, but are not persons in matters of rights and privileges." As late as 1928, the Supreme Court of Canada, when asked if women are persons, had resoundingly answered “no.”

Linda Griffiths’ play was, in her words, “wildly inspired by The Odd Women, a novel by George Gissing.” It deals with women trying to assert the fact that they are persons. Mary Barfoot (Donna Belleville) is a 60 year old woman and she has set up a business teaching woman to type. This is a great leap forward because it means that women can work and be paid instead of being indentured to the wealthy or to their husbands.

One of the interesting facts that Griffiths brings out is that in the late 19th century there were 500,000 fewer men than women in England. That meant that half a million women could not find a husband. It was perhaps one of the factors that pushed women to demand rights and privileges to go along with their pains and penalties

Mary Barfoot has a partner in the commercial and personal sense of the word in Rhoda Nunn (Jenny Young) and they go so far as to kiss, a mild, split–second peck but a huge step for humanity, one might say.

They are joined by the Madden sisters, working class women in pretty desperate conditions, who find liberation and self-assertion. The pretty Monica finds sexual freedom while one of the others is free to wear a man’s suit.

The problem I have with the play is its structure. Griffiths is far too enamored of asides or expressions of thoughts during a dialogue. For example when Rhoda is telling Mary’s young cousin, Everard (Gray Powell), that she and Mary had a row and that they may have to separate, he tells us that he is aroused and that he noticed the swell of her breasts. They are talking about business and she informs us that she sees the bulge in his trousers. Commercial discussion on the surface and sexual arousal underneath are interesting but there are more subtle ways of indicating the latter. In the end each character becomes her own Chorus and it is simply overdone.

Acting honours go to Jenny Young. She has a wonderful ringing voice and the bearing and expression of a woman who could bring about change. Donna Belleville’s Mary was strong but her best days may have been in the past when she was a suffragette and paid dearly for her protests. Zarrin Darnell-Martin is a pretty and smart Monica who is learning the ropes of freedom and manipulation of men.

Kelli Fox and Sharry Flett are seasoned actors who bring fine performances to the roles of the Virginia and Alice Madden respectively. Gray Powell as Everard, the only man in the play, is the suave upper-crust gentleman looking for a woman for the usual entertainment.

Jackie Maxwell directed the play very capably and we do get a fine statement of a grand theme despite some structural infelicities in the play.


Age of Arousal by Linda Griffiths will run until October 9, 2010 at the Court House Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com 1 800-511-SHAW

FOR THE PLEASURE OF SEEING HER AGAIN AT STRATFORD FESTIVAL

Lucy Peacock as Nana and Tom Rooney as the Narrator. Photo by: David Hou

Reviewed by James Karas

Michel Tremblay’s For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again is one of those deceptively simple but theatrically marvelous plays, that, done by the right actor, is a sheer delight and a memorable experience. Stratford has struck gold in this pitch-perfect production at the Tom Patterson Theatre with Lucy Peacock and Tom Rooney.

The 1998 play is a celebration of the wild imagination, of sheer theatricality and histrionic humour of a woman called Nana. And that’s just the beginning. It is also the homage paid by the playwright to his mother, a working class woman who becomes Everywoman.

We see Nana during five stages in her life, all of them involving her son who is also the Narrator of the play. We see Nana and her son when he is ten years old and go through the stages of his growth until age 20. By that time Nana has grown old and ill and she is about to die.

The role of the Narrator and the son at different stages of his growth is not a bad one and Rooney does excellent work with it. But he is completely overshadowed by the exuberant and melodramatic Nana. Tremblay wanted a play about his mother, I suppose, and he put himself in it to showcase her and not himself.

Nana is a role to be craved for by an actor who can be funny, outrageous, moving and loving. Lucy Peacock has all those qualities and her Nana is such a bravura performance that a standing ovation seems like meager praise.

Who is Nana? When her 10-year old son throws a chunk of ice under the rear wheels of a car, the driver stops fearing he has hit a child. The policeman knocks on the door and she learns of what has happened. Nana’s imagination and tongue go into over-drive as she blasts her son for what he had done. But what she imagines could have happened is not remotely connected to reality or the laws of probability. Her outbursts are simply hilarious.

Nana is an avid reader of fiction and so is her son. The two engage in discussions of romantic fiction that is both astute and simple. It is also funny. The discussions and arguments are, of course, food for the developing imagination and talents of her impressionable son who we know will become a writer.

Nana brings much more than her family on the stage. She deals with Canada and Europe in the bargain. The origins of nobility and royalty, their “blue blood” and the peccadilloes of her family are all fodder for her tongue and imagination. But they are more than that; for Nana humour and melodrama are tools for survival and she knows it. When she makes a comic narrative of her sister-in-law’s death she knows that she is doing it in order to escape reality.

Unfortunately reality pursues Nana with its usual cruelty and she becomes fatally ill. In one of the most moving descriptions of approaching death, Nana describes the pain from the cancer in her stomach and likens it to the pain of pregnancy and giving birth. It is an extraordinary juxtaposition.

In the end the theatrical Nana is given a thoroughly theatrical exit by the son that she nurtured. He writes an exit for her on angels’ wings. Nana’s death, like the rest of the play, is an amazing coup de theatre that provides a great night at the theatre.

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For the Pleasure of Seeing her Again by Michel Tremblay continues until September 26, 2010 at the Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca 1-800-567-1600

SHAW FESTIVAL - A FINE PRODUCTION OF JOHN BULL’S OTHER ISLAND - IRISH QUESTION AND ALL

Reviewed by James Karas

The first English invasion of Ireland took place in 1169 when King Henry II sent an army over with the permission of the Pope or so he claimed. The English stayed there despite numerous reminders by the Irish that their presence was unwelcome. The Irish views were ignored, one might say, to such an extent that the English began to regard Ireland as simply John Bull’s other island.

The relationship between the two islands was examined by Bernard Shaw, an Irishman living in London, in his play John Bull’s Other Island. It is the second play of the two and only two plays by Shaw out of the ten productions offered by the Festival that is named after him. The other one is The Doctor’s Dilemma.

We get a solid, well-acted and well-directed production. The interest in Anglo-Irish relations at the beginning of the twentieth century (the play premiered in 1904) is not as keen as it used to be. The plot (what plot?) is intended to facilitate discussion of the subject rather than the characters and the incidents facilitate examination of the political and social issues of Ireland.

The plot or incidents that provoke the discussion, if you will, concerns two civil engineers, one English, one Irish, who go to an Irish village from London in order to foreclose on a mortgage and develop the land they will acquire. They meet the colourful “locals” and that keeps the humour and brilliant discussion moving.

There is also a mildly romantic subplot. When Larry Doyle (Graeme Somerville), the Irish engineer, left the village eighteen years ago, he had a romantic attachment to Nora Reilly (Severn Thompson), a local girl. Instead of the flame between the two being re-ignited, Tom Broadbent (Benedict Campbell), the Englishman, falls in love with the girl.

That is the dramatic terrain that director Christopher Newton has to tread and he does so with a sure-footing that provides us with a well-paced and entertaining production despite the usual Shavian verbosity.

Campbell’s Broadbent is ambitious, unscrupulous and displays the assurance and arrogance of a nation used to ruling people as if by divine approval. The initial thought that Henry II conquered Ireland with the permission of the Pope has not diminished. He is enthusiastic and patronizing but he does it with panache. He sees no irony in wanting to become the Member of Parliament for the region – after all, who better than an Englishman to represent the Irish and speak about Home Rule (under English guidance) on their behalf? Benedict Campbell handles the role with assurance and aplomb.

The Irish engineer is a tall, redheaded young man who is equally adept at analyzing Ireland’s problems. He does not appear to mind that his old love is taken by his friend and partner and he is rejected even by his townspeople as their candidate for Parliament. Splendid work by Somerville.

Jim Mezon deserves special mention as the defrocked priest Peter Keegan. Keegan is an eccentric, a philosopher, a keen observer and a loner. Mezon has the accent and the bearing to bring out the fascinating and almost mythical character that Shaw no doubt intended.

The townspeople provide the broad humour and colour of the play. Notable performances are turned in by veteran actor Guy Bannerman as Cornelius Doyle, Thom Marriott as Father Dempsey, Jonathan Widdifield as Patsy Farrell, Mary Haney as Aunt Judy and Patrick McManus as Barney Doyle. Ric Reid doubles as Timothy and Matthew Haffigan with very funny results.

Severn Thompson was unfortunately not a particularly convincing Nora. She needs to be more attractive and alluring. No wonder Larry Doyle left her eighteen years ago and paid scant attention to her when he finally returned. She is an attractive woman and Newton and designer William Schmuck should have paid more attention to her.

A production well worth seeing.



John Bull’s Other Island by Bernard Shaw continues until October 9, 2010 at the Court House Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com 1 800-511-SHAW

STRATFORD SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL - DANGEROUS LIAISONS – EXCEPTIONALLY WELL DONE COMEDY OF CRUELTY

Seana McKenna as La Marquise de Merteuil and Tom McCamus as Le Vicomte de Valmont. Photo by: David Hou


Reviewed by James Karas


Dangerous Liaisons is this season’s fourth production at the Festival Theatre. With two plays by Shakespeare and an American musical, this comedy adds a British and a French connection. The play by Christopher Hampton is based on the novel by Pierre-Ambroise-Francois Choderlos de Laclos. The novel and the play used the French title, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, but Stratford has decided to give us the title in English.

What is a dangerous liaison, you ask. In the hands of Hampton and Laclos, “dangerous” is a gross understatement. “Liaison” means getting entangled with two French aristocrats, namely Le Vicomte de Valmont (Tom McCamus) and La Marquise de Merteuil (Seana McKenna). You may not remember their names but once you have met them, you will not forget their characters.

Do not imagine cruelty or torture á la Marquis de Sade or Robespierre and the Terror. The Vicomte and the Marquise are far too civilized, polished and well-behaved for such conduct. The cruelty and inhumanity that the two display are done with style, delicacy and panache.

While performing their tasks, they speak in balanced sentences, with wit, fine manners, deferential curtsies and the polish that comes with high birth.

More details? The Vicomte and the Marquise were former lovers. The latter was dumped by another lover and she wants revenge. She wants Valmont to seduce Cecile (Bethany Jillard), her former lover’s fiancée. What exquisite pleasure it would bring to the Marquise to know that when her former lover exercises the priapic jus of his prima nocta he will discover that his bride’s hymeneal path had been cleared by someone else. We must use polite language lest we be accused of speaking of country matters, as Hamlet would say.

Valmont considers the job beneath his talents. Seducing a girl fresh out of a convent school is far too easy. He wants to lay siege on the beautiful, religious, virtuous and faithful wife, La Presidente de Tourvel (Sara Topham).

The apparatuses are assembled. His valet Azolan (Paul Dunn) seduces Tourvel’s servant in order to gain access to her letters. Valmont saves a poor family from bankruptcy so he can be painted as a man of virtue. He declares his love to Tourvel! She resists; he insists, she fights, he persists. He conquers.

Valmont wants more than mere sexual conquest. He wants Mme de Tourvel to destroy her moral universe for him. She falls in love with him and does destroy her world. At this stage, Valmont, in an act of sadistic cruelty, abandons her.

There are other Machiavellian machinations in the play and director Ethan McSweeny does a marvelous job of bringing out the comedy and cruelty of the piece.

McKenna and McCamus are superbly matched as the scheming couple and turn in exquisite performances. Sara Topham is beautiful and statuesque as Mme de Tourvel until she breaks down under Valmont’s assault.

Bethany Jillard is excellent as the nubile target of Valmont’s lust and Michael Therriault is good as the doltish Danceny.

Martha Henry is wasted in the minor role of the old aunt, Mme de Rosemonde but Dunn does a fine job even in the minor role of Valmont’s valet.

The set by Santo Loquesto struck me as 18th century high tech, meaning that it was neither. There were spot lights on the stage that were occasionally aimed at the audience. There was also some discordant modern music that can most charitably be described as annoying. All of these minor flaws are easily ignored. Like Mme Tourvel’s virtue, all complaints vanish in the face of a wonderful play done exceptionally well.

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Dangerous Liaisons by Christopher Hampton opened on August 12 and will run until October 30, 2010 at the Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca 1-800-567-1600

SOUTH PACIFIC AT THE FOUR SEASONS – SOME ENCHANTED AND GREAT MUSICAL!

Carmen Cusack and the Nurses of South Pacific. photo: Peter Coombs

Aubrey Dan has three things going for him: ambition, vision and money.

His vision and ambition are to bring Broadway to Toronto. He has even registered “Rewarding Broadway Experience” as a trademark. Now many people can do all of the latter but few mortals have the financial wherewithal to even imagine bringing a Broadway musical to Toronto. Aubrey Dan has no such limitations and he wants Broadway in the heart of the city.

Unfortunately Mirvish Productions had first dibs on the theatres that it did not already own and despite some brave legal scuffles, Mr. Dan was left with the suburbs. The suburbs that is until he realized that the Four Seasons Centre, Toronto’s opera house, is available during the summer. Now Mr. Dan could bring Broadway to downtown Toronto and he did.

The choice of musical and the production could hardly be better. The musical is Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific and the production is the extraordinarily successful revival at New York’s Lincoln Center, directed by Bartlett Sher.

True what you get at the Four Seasons is a road-show company (even Aubrey Dan cannot bring the Broadway cast). But, aside from some minor glitches and one substantial complaint, this is an outstanding production of a great musical.

South Pacific is set during World War II and involves two unorthodox love stories. The main love story is between Ensign Nellie Forbush (Carmen Cusack), a nurse from Little Rock and an older French planter named Emile de Becque (Jason Howard).

Cusack and Howard get some of the best and most famous songs in Broadway history. He sings “Some Enchanted Evening” and “This Nearly Was Mine” with sustained sonority and vocal splendour. Cusack sings “A Cockeyed Optimist”, “I’m Gonna Wash that Man Right Outa Ma Hair” and “Honey Bun” with verve and vocal beauty. She has a luminous voice that is a delight to listen to.

The other love story is between the Princeton-educated Lt. Cable and a Polynesian girl named Liat. The idea of a hick from Arkansas marrying an older Frenchman who has two children by a Polynesian woman was pushed through in 1949, the year South Pacific premiered. The thought of an American officer marrying a Polynesian girl must have seemed too much and Cable was killed. It should be noted however that Rodgers and Hammerstein faced American prejudice head on and their position on bigotry is clearly stated in the title of one of the songs: “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” hatred and prejudice.

The ensemble pieces such as “Bloody Mary” and “There is nothing like a dame” are done superbly.

The minor vocal hitch is provided by Anderson Davis as Lt. Joseph Cable. He does not quite manage to convey his passion for Liat (Sumie Maeda), the Polynesian girl that he has fallen in love with.

The more substantial complaint is the use of microphones. The Four Seasons Centre has excellent acoustics and we are entitled to hear the actors deliver their lines from their mouths and not through loudspeakers. With the use of microphones, the lines spoken come through the loud speakers no matter where the actors stand. The musical pieces sounded fine and the microphones may well have enhanced the singing. Dialogue through loudspeakers is unacceptable.

Subject to that, one must give Aubrey Dan and Dancap Productions full credit for keeping their word and indeed bringing first-rate Broadway to Toronto.

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South Pacific by Rodgers & Hammerstein opened on August 15 and will run until September 5, 2010 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. West, Toronto, Ontario. www.dancaptickets.com 416 644-3665 or 1-866-950-7469

UN RETOUR - EL REGRASO - NEW OPERA, BY OSCAR STRASNIOY NEAR AIX-EN-PROVENCE

Reviewed by James Karas

Un retour – El regreso is a new chamber opera by Oscar Strasnoy with a libretto by Alberto Manguel. It is one of the five operas offered by the Aix-en-Provence Festival, this one being performed in an outdoor theatre in the countryside near a village called Puyricard. But the opera is only a part of the programme. On the lush-green fields of an old chateau, you are treated to a dance performance, a poetry recital or some madrigals by Monteverdi and Barbara Strozzi.

When these are finished, there is a dinner break on the grounds of the chateau. By then it is dark and the opera can begin.

Finding the Grand Saint-Jean, the old chateau where the performances take place, should also be included in the programme because it does provide a tour of the countryside outside Aix. After Google maps and GPS fail to disclose the location of the chateau, you depend on asking the locals for directions. The directions that went beyond the shrug of the shoulders no doubt were meant to be helpful and may even have been accurate but the chateau appeared to be a moving target. Given enough time, you will find the chateau.

Michele Noiret performs a dance on a circular wooden floor surrounded by benches. The dance is called “La primultine rencontre,” something like the prenultimate meeting. It refers to something that happens at the beginning or at the end; it is first and it is last but happens only one time. Noiret performs simple steps with almost no musical accompaniment.

You walk across a grassy field to a similar circle sans the wooden floor. A young man sits on a tree stump and reads some poetry including a long passage from Virgil’s Aeneid. The passage describes Aeneas’s visit to the underworld where he again meets Dido, the Queen of Carthage. He stopped at Carthage on his voyage from Troy to Latium and fell in love with her. He had to leave her behind, however, because fate had decreed more important duties for him, namely the founding of Rome. The choice of poetry is not accidental.

I did not attend the concert of madrigals as it ran simultaneously with the dance and poetry recital

Manguel’s libretto for Un Retour – El Regreso is based on his own novella about Nestor Fabris (Job Tomé), a former activist, retuning to Argentina after thirty years of absence. He is returning purportedly to attend the wedding of his godson but the story is more of a parable about going into the underworld where he meets Marta, the woman he loved, and the friends that he left behind so long ago.

The libretto is in French, Spanish and Latin (now you get the connection with the reading from the Aeneid). Fabris is another Aeneas and Marta (Amaya Dominguez) is the Dido that he left behind.

The music is scored for piano, percussion, trombone and trumpet. There is plenty of dissonance and generous use of percussion as Fabris goes through the airport, finds his friends and meets Professor Grossman, a man he admired thirty years ago. Grossman takes him to a place called DIS. The letters stand for Disgrace, Infamy and Somber and the structure is bathed in red light and it is, of course, hell.

The opera moves quickly from scene to scene. It is a political as well as an esthetic work as the composer and librettist, both Argentineans, look back at the recent history of their country. The dissonant music is apropos the situation and the opera together with the dancing and poetry recitals add up to a fascinating evening under the stars.
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Un retour – El regreso by Oscar Strasnoy and Albert Manguel opened on July 4 and ran until July 17, 2010 at Grand Saint-Jean, Puyricard, France.

LE ROSSIGNOL ET AUTRES FABLES – LEPAGE PRODUCTION GOES FROM TORONTO TO AIX-EN-PROVENCE

When opera was “invented” in early 17th century Florence and quickly spread around Italy, producers found out what “sells”. What sold then with the people and still does is spectacle. By the eighteenth century, all types of stage machinery had been invented to produce more and more visual effects at the expense of the music, libretto and singing that were supposed to be the main features of opera.

Opera was reformed and although sets and costumes retained their importance, the musical and vocal aspects regained their importance. The advent of digital technology has begun to be used in some productions but the most and hopefully best is yet to come.

That is a long way around the block to stating what the Aix-en-Provence Festival, the Canadian Opera Company, the Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam and the Opéra national de Lyon have done with their production of Igor Stravinsky’s The Nightingale and other fables. They clearly wanted to push the spectacular elements of opera further and provide a production that gives visual as well as musical and vocal splendour.

The man chosen for the job was Canadian director Robert Lepage. He conceived the work and it had its premiere in Toronto last October. It is one of the five operas offered by the Aix-en-Provence Festival and it opened at the Grand Théâtre de Provence as Le Rossignol et autres fables.

The production opens with some short compositions namely “Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet” (Jean-Michel Bertelli), “Pribouatki” and “The Cat’s Lullaby” sung by Svetlana Shilova, “Two Poems by Konstantin Balmont” sung by Elena Semenova and “Four Russian Peasant Songs” sung by the Women’s Chorus of the Opéra national de Lyon.

These are short, beautiful pieces but the main part of the first half of the production is “The Fox”, a composition based on a Russian fable that premiered at the Paris Opera in 1922. The story of the wily fox that tries to devour the dumb rooster in the farmyard is sung by two tenors (Merat Gali and Edgaras Montvidas) and two baritones (Nabil Suliman and Ilya Bannik).

While the orchestra and the singers “tell” the story, Lepage has provided amazing hand-shadow theatre and some amazing acrobatic displays to illustrate the fable. The hand shadows in the form of animals are projected on a screen above and behind the orchestra. The acrobats/dancers perform behind the screen and all we see are their shadows. Lepage is not trying to fool us that they are shadows because their feet are clearly visible below the screen.

Le Rossignol forms the second half of the show. As in the first half, the orchestra is on stage. Lepage has a better use for the pit than hiding the musicians. He creates a pool and that is where the action of the piece, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s Nightingale”, takes place. The libretto is by Stravinsky and Stepan Mittussow.

A Fisherman (Edgaras Montvidas) presents the Emperor of China (Ilya Bannik) with a nightingale that sings, well, like a nightingale. In this case it is using the gorgeous voice of soprano Olga Peretyatko and for my money she is better than the bird.

The Bonze of Japan (Yuri Vorobiev) brings a mechanical bird and the nightingale flies away. When Death (Svetlana Shilova) comes to claim the Emperor, He is so moved by the Nightingale’s beautiful singing that he allows the Emperor to live. Happy ending.

The achievement here is not the story or the beautiful singing but Lepage’s method of telling it. Almost all the action takes place in a pool where the characters manipulate puppets of themselves or puppeteers manipulate other puppets. The latter, frequently submerged, are dressed all in black and produce some amazing effects. Their manipulation of Death consisting of a huge skull and skeleton is breathtaking.

The orchestra of the Opéra national de Lyon was conducted by Kazushi Ono. The singers that deserve and got loud applause are Peretyatko, of course, but also Montvidas for his well done Fisherman, Bannik as the Emperor and the puppeteers.

This is a production that pushes the visual boundaries of opera without sacrificing the music or the singing. The question is how many opera companies can afford the services of a Robert Lepage not to mention the construction of a swimming pool and the work of a half a dozen puppeteers.

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Le Rossignol et autres fables by Igor Stravinsky opened on July 3 and was performed six times until July 10, 2010 at the Grand Théâtre de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, France. www.festival-aix.com