Reviewed by James
Karas
The Shaw Festival’s production of The Philanderer has a climactic
beginning, a rousing end and, unfortunately, a not a very exciting middle.
Shaw tells us that when the play opens “a
lady and a gentleman are making love to one another in the drawing room of a
flat.” Put the brakes on your hormones if you are envisioning something wild.
This is circa 1893 and the gentleman, the philandering Leonard Charteris, is
“dressed in a velvet jacket and cashmere trousers;” the lady, Grace Transfield,
is in evening dress and the two are “seated affectionately side by side in one
another’s arms” on a sofa. Those are Shaw’s instructions.
Director Lisa Peterson will have none of
that. As the lights are about to go on in the Festival Theatre, we hear the lady
and the gentlemen moaning passionately with pleasure and probably in the throes
of orgasms. The two are wearing very few clothes, they are on the floor and
Grace asks Charteris, “are you happy” and he replies “in heaven.” Indeed.
Fast forward to the final scene. Shaw wrote two
endings to the play. In the original ending, the marriage of Julia and Dr.
Paramore is on the skids after four years and they will seek a divorce in South
Dakota. Divorce is not available in England, you see.
He wrote an alternate and more conventional
ending where Julia accepts Paramore’s marriage proposal and Grace regrets not
being brave enough to kill Charteris.
There is no South Dakota and no divorce.
The latter ending has been used in the
published editions of the play and in most productions. Peterson has chosen the
original conclusion of the play where Julia and Charteris will not marry but
they end up in each other’s arms. In this production, they do so with
considerable enthusiasm and begin the journey toward where we started with them
in the opening scene.
And that is s long way around to stating my
reaction to the rest of the play which is largely negative. Much of it is the
fault of the play but Peterson failed to find the formula for action and
interaction to give life to Shaw’s lines. We got mostly “the seated
affectionately side by side on the sofa” level of performance instead of
imaginative, lively, dynamic and funny exchanges.
Gord Rand as Charteris, Marla McLean as Grace
and Moya O’Connell as Julia can do a much better job than they in fact perform.
For example, when Julia crashes into the flat where Grace and Charteris are
having their ardent tête-à-tête, there should be howls of laughter. It barely
works.
Michael Ball as Joseph Cuthbertson and Ric
Reid as Colonel Craven are standard fatherly figures from comedy, sensible,
nonsensical and necessary for the plot. Jeff Meadows as Dr. Paramore helps with
the sub-plot about a new disease which in the end does not exist.
The sets by Sue LePage are quite unrealistic
and impressive. The first scene is set
in the flat that looks classy without being Victorian. The library of the Ibsen
Club for the second scene has glass walls and is splendid.
The third act in Paramore’s dining room looks
like it has the remains of Greek temples but it is impressive none the less.
The Philanderer has many references to Henrik Ibsen not the least
of which is the fictitious Ibsen Club where the second act takes place. So far
so good but when you list The Spirit of Ibsen in the cast (played by Guy
Bannerman) and you have the great playwright sing a song you have lost me.
______
The Philanderer by Bernard Shaw continues in repertory until October 12, 2014 at the Festival Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake,
Ontario. www.shawfest.com.
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