PIYA BEHRUPIYA – TWELFTH NIGHT – REVIEW OF COMPANY THEATRE OF INDIA PRODUCTION

James Karas

Do you want to see a Bollywood musical, live on stage, in Hindi and done by an Indian theatre company?

Go and see Piya Behrupiya which is playing now at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in a production by The Company Theatre of India.

If you check the title of the play in the brackets under Piya Behrupiya, it says Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare translated by Amitosh Nagpal. If you are looking for Shakespeare’s play Bollywoodized you are still in luck. Otherwise stay home and watch CNN.

 

 Ensemble. Photo by The Company Theatre

This version of Twelfth Night was commissioned by Shakespeare’s Globe and has been brought to Toronto by Why Not Theatre in association with Soulpepper. The names of the characters of Shakespeare’s play have been kept and there are a number of recognizable plot incidents. Aside from that, you are seeing a Bollywood musical.

That means you will get a very energetic production with lots of singing, dancing and comic routines. As for understanding the actors, unless you are versed in Hindi, you will have to read to the projected translation on each side of the stage. Almost none of Shakespeare’s language is preserved in the translation. In fact what you will read sounds like Shakespeare translated into Hindi and then translated back into English. The projected translation is difficult to keep up with because much of the text is spoken at a brisk pace. By the time you turn your head to read the translation, the joke is gone.

 

Mansi Multani, Geetanjali Kulkarni. Photo by The Company Theatre

The actors interact with each other sporadically. They prefer to speak directly to the audience and they are quite funny when you can put what they say and the translation together.

I do not wish to take anything away from the spirited performance of this Bollywood play. The nine actors under the direction of Atul Kumar show genuine talent in acting in this type of production. Take Mantra who plays the minor role Sebastian, Viola’s twin. He complains that Shakespeare was asleep when he wrote that character and he engages the audience in some very funny comic business.

Neha Saraf as the clown Feste is downright athletic in her dancing, singing and clowning. The melancholy Orsino of Shakespeare becomes a song-and-dance man in Bollywood. Trupti Khamkar as Maria, Aaadar Malik as Andrew Agucheek and Gagan Riar as Uncle Toby are appropriately clownish but they are not much different from Geetanjali Kulkarni as Viola/Cesario or Saurabh Nayyar as the dour Malvolio. In other words, they have all been Bollywoodized. The lovely Mansi Multani as Olivia may be related to Shakespeare’s character.

The music is provided by Arnod Bhatt on a harmonium and Niketa Saraf and Rahul Sharma on percussion. They are seated on the stage and the cast sits behind them when not involved in the scene directly and participates in the action.

In the end it is all a matter of taste. The Indian musical with its dancing, singing and clowning is staple entertainment for hundreds of millions. There is nothing unusual in parodying or travestying Shakespeare. But the approach of The Company Theatre of India did very little for me.

         ______

Piya Behrupiya (Twelfth Night) by William Shakespeare translated into Hindi by Amitosh Nagpal plays from October 27 to 29, 2016 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Tank House Lane, Toronto, Ontario. http://www.theatrewhynot.org/project/piya-behrupiya-twelfth-night/

DIDO AND AENEAS - REVIEW OF 2016 OPERA ATELIER PRODUCTION

Reviewed James Karas

Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas has the dubious distinction of being first performed by the girls at a boarding school in Chelsea run by a dancer and choreographer. The date is uncertain and the closest scholars get is to state that it was before December 1689. The opera is frequently described as a masterpiece or the best opera in English which may explain why it was not produced in England for almost 200 years (1704 – 1895). Even then it was not until the latter part of the twentieth century that it started being produced regularly.

The opera is an ideal vehicle for Opera Atelier. It has some beautiful music, of course, but it provides plenty of opportunities for the Artists of Atelier Ballet and the Opera Atelier Chorus. Most of the pieces are quite short, perhaps to accommodate the abilities of the young girls who first performed it, and its vocal requirements are below the stratosphere.

 

Wallis Giunta and Christopher Enns. Photo Bruce Zinger 

Bring on Director Marshall Pynkoski, Choreographer Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, Set Designer Gerard Gauci and Costume Designer Michael Legouffe, experts in the production of Baroque opera, and watch the results.

The first thing Pynkoski does is add a prologue that puts the plot of the opera in context. Not all of us remember the story of Dido Queen of Carthage as related by Virgil in The Aeneid. Actor Irene Poole, in a delightful and sprightly performance, brings us up to snuff by reading parts of The Aeneid in the voices of Virgil, Juno, Neptune and Aeolus. 

There are a number of dances indicated in the badly preserved score but Zingg adds a few more using Purcell’s music.

Pynkoski and Zingg are thus able to produce an integrated opera-ballet that flows naturally from the plot and the music. The production combines the artifice, gestures and poses of baroque dance and the splendid music and singing of the period. There is great emphasis placed on colour and spectacle but the latter is not exaggerated. We see elegance, beauty and grace.

Mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta sings the role of the unhappy Dido, a widow who has fallen in love with the Trojan Aeneas who will eventually abandon her. We know that because he has to found Rome, you see, and it is a job ordered by the gods. In her first aria “Ah, Belinda” Dido sings of her turmoil expressed in librettist Nahum Tate’s terse couplets. Giunta does superb work in the role especially in the signature aria of the opera, the moving lament “When I am laid in earth.”     

Soprano Meghan Lindsay is Dido’s faithful confidante Belinda. Lindsay is a highly accomplished singer of Baroque roles and her supple and velvety voice was on fine display in this opera.

Well-tuned and well-toned tenor Christopher Enns is our hero Aeneas who must love and leave because he is to other business bound. A fine performance by Enns.

Mezzo-soprano Laura Pudwell, and sopranos Ellen McAteer and Karine White get the fun roles of the Sorceress and the First and Second Witches respectively. They are the baddies who want to destroy Dido but provide good entertainment while at it.

The Toronto Children’s Chorus Choral Scholars harping back to the school girls who sang in the first production of Dido no doubt, joins members of the Tafelmusik Chamber Choir and the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra conducted by David Fallis and they do superior work.

Dido is a relatively short opera and can be performed in less than an hour. With the addition of a Prologue and some dances, it lasts for an hour and a half and I found myself hoping for more. The music, singing and dancing with the colourful sets and costumes create a mesmerizing effect and an enchanting night at the opera.

_____

Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell runs from October 20 to 29, 2016 at the Elgin Theatre, 189 Yonge St. Toronto, Ontario, M5B 1M4. www.operaatelier.com

ARIODANTE - REVIEW OF 2016 CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY PRODUCTION

**** (out of 5)

By James Karas

Georg Frideric Handel’s 1735 masterpiece Ariodante gets a great deal of praise but relatively few productions. The Canadian Opera Company remedies the latter situation for Torontonians by producing a highly imaginative and sound production by director Richard Jones.

When the overture begins and the stage lights go on, we see a large, ordinary table and chairs in an ordinary room.  A cleric is admitted into the room where people are sitting around the table. He begins to conduct what looks like a Bible class silently. He gesticulates a great deal and points towards heaven like a zealous televangelist. The people are dressed in modern clothes of no particular distinction but one man is wearing a kilt.

 

A scene from the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Ariodante, 2016, photo: Michael Cooper

The latter scene is not in Handel’s opera but is an invention of Jones who gives Ariodante a fascinating and highly original interpretation.

We will soon discover that the cleric is Polinesso, the Duke of Albany and the man in the kilt is the King of Scotland. In the opera Polinesso is the bad guy but in Jones’s production he is a creep. As a cleric he is a Tartuffian fraud and as a human being he has Trumpesque proclivities towards groping which progress into serious sexual assault and perhaps rape. Nice guy.

The plot begins to unfold. Ariodante is a prince in love with Ginevra the daughter of the King. Polinesso professes love for Ginevra (she tells him to go to Hades) while Dalinda, her servant, is madly in love with him. In order to achieve his objectives of (a) getting rid of Ariodante, (b) marrying Ginevra and (c) grabbing the throne of Scotland, Polinesso arranges for Dalinda to dress like Ginevra and have Ariodante see them in Ginevra’s bedroom in a compromising position and hello objectives. Almost.

Polinesso gives Ginevra a potion that knocks her out (Jones’ invention). Ariodante does see “Ginevra” being unfaithful and is so distraught he is ready to commit suicide (and is reported dead), the King disowns Ginevra, she is beside herself with grief …and if this sounds like something out of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, yes, it is. But stay tuned for the happy resolution to all of these entanglements and be prepared for a surprise that, like the scene with Polinesso as an evangelist, is the invention of Jones.

 

Jane Archibald as Ginevra (on bed) with Alice Coote as Ariodante and Johannes Weisser 

as the King of Scotland (in front row). Photo: Michael Cooper

Handel provides an outpouring of recitatives, arias and duets that go through a gamut of emotions. From the expressions of blissful love and happiness of Ginevra and Ariodante, to scenes of grief, treachery, despair, disgusting behaviour, this opera has vocal and musical demands that demand extraordinary talents. The COC has them.

Red-haired soprano Jane Archibald leads the cast as Ginevra. She begins by making herself beautiful and declaring her love for Ariodante but changes her tune to rebuffing Polinesso if gruff terms. After some blissful moments with Ariodante she is crushed, disowned and goes mad. That is a great deal of vocal and emotional ground to cover and Archibald is simply splendid at it.

Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote sings Ariodante, a role initially assigned to a castrato. Ariodante wears baggy pants and of course is anything but a feudal knight. Coote makes us feel his happiness and his pain and we get over the incongruities of feudal references in a modern setting.           

Mezzo-soprano Varduhi Abrahamyan excels vocally as the louse Polinesso and convinces us to dislike him intensely. Soprano Ambur Braid displayed impressive tone and range as the foolish Dalinda.  

The opera calls for a number of ballet sequences but the dancing in this production is mercifully cut to a minimum. Jones does add some puppet sequences which, if I understood them correctly, show Ariodante and Ginevra consummating their marriage and having children. It’s done very tastefully but struck me as quite incongruous especially considering the end of the opera as interpreted by Jones.

The set by Designer Ultz is quite brilliant. The whole production is done on a single set that shows a small entrance on the right leading to the large room with the table. Ginevra’s bedroom on the right is separated by an imaginary door and it all works superbly.

Johannes Debus, the COC’s Music Director, conducts the COC Orchestra to the high standard that we have come to expect.

At four hours Ariodante approaches Wagnerian length and there were people in the audience who would not have objected if some of the arias with the numerous repetitions were made a bit shorter.

Near the end of the performance when we expect the inevitable reconciliation and celebration of the nuptials of our hero and heroine, Jones has something else up his sleeve.

A large banner is brought on the stage with the Biblical quotation: “And the Lord God said: It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him.”

Dalinda steps outside and is no longer part of the festivities.

Ginevra takes a suitcase and goes out on the road trying to thumb a ride.

In a single stroke the entire tenor of the opera is changed. Ginevra and Dalinda rebel against the conventions stipulated by the libretto. They become free woman.

Brilliant.

____________

Ariodante by Georg Frideric Handel is being performed seven times between October 16 and November 4, 2016 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario. Tel:  416-363-6671. www.coc.ca

TRISTAN UND ISOLDE – REVIEW OF LIVE FROM THE MET PRODUCTION

**** (out of five)

Reviewed by James Karas

 Any opera company that dares to produce Tristan und Isolde had better be armed with heavy vocal, orchestral and artistic artillery to match operatically what the Prussian army could do militarily. Not to mention a bank account that may surpass the budget of some small countries. Companies like that can be numbered on one hand with New York’s Metropolitan Opera being at the front of the line.

The new production of Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle and directed by Mariusz Treliński, is bold, innovative and brilliant. The three critical components of the opera are delivered by the top tier talents in the industry. Sir Simon Rattle, the out-going conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic and the Met orchestra gave a stellar performance of Wagner’s complex and lengthy score.  

 Stuart Skelton as Tristan in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. Photo by Ken Howard/ Metropolitan Opera.

Soprano Nina Stemme is at the top of the rarified field of Wagnerian singers. As Isolde she displayed vocal power, immense stamina and variation of tone for the gamut of emotions that the captured Irish princess expresses as she is being transported by Tristan, the man who killed her betrothed and whose life she saved. Wagner piles up vocal and emotional demands that only the best singers can tackle and Stemme is clearly one of the best.

Tenor Stuart Skelton is relatively new to the role of Tristan but he has the full vocal prowess and control that it demands. His Tristan is a modern naval officer who falls in love with Isolde, the woman that he is bringing to marry King Marke, the man who has appointed him as his heir. The troubled Tristan has another side, at least in this production: he kills Isolde’s betrothed Morold with his pistol at point blank range while the victim is blind-folded and tied up. That qualifies as a war crime.  A great performance by Skelton.

Mezzo soprano Ekaterina Gubanova sings Brangäne, Isolde’s faithful and sympathetic servant. Gubanova holds her own and gives a first-rate performance in the role. Bass René Pape sings the role of the troubled and betrayed King Marke, the man who gave everything to Tristan but was betrayed by him. Pape has a resonant bass voice that emanates his decency pain and generosity as Marke.    

What gives the production perhaps an even greater “wow” review is the production values brought by Treliński with Set Designer Boris Kudlička, Lighting Designer Marc Heinz and Projection Designer Bartek Macias. 

Nina Stemme as Isolde in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. Photo by Ken Howard/ Metropolitan Opera.

What we see first is a radar screen and then a modern battleship navigating a raging ocean (and a perfect image of the raging emotional turmoil of the main characters). Images of the radar screen, the violent waves and the battleship will recur regularly throughout the five-hour performance. The dominant colour is gray.

The characters wear modern clothes. Tristan and Marke are in naval officers’ uniforms. The sailors with the black berets could pass for commandos. They engage in pretty egregious sexual harassment of Brangäne and it may be a directorial whim that we could have done without. Brangäne is dressed tastefully and attractively, whereas Isolde in black slacks and a coat looks like a suburban mother who threw something on so she can take the children to school on time. Both Tristan and Isolde smoke making them, I suppose, just ordinary mortals who will eventually shed their normality and mortality in love/death.    

  

The stage is divided into a number of sections for the scenes on board the ship. We see Isolde in her suite on the ship which alternates with the iron stairs leading to different decks as well as the helm.

The second act takes place in the hull of the ship where barrels full of explosives are stored. The final scene in Tristan’s castle looks like a hospital room where the hero recalls his past as he dreams or imagines Isolde arriving. In his coma, he sees much more that adds to the brilliant interpretation by Treliński.

The lovers beat death with death. All was caused by the love potion. In death there is reconciliation, redemption and apotheosis through the power of love and Wagner’s music.

Where did the five hours go?

____

Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner was transmitted Live in HD form the Metropolitan Opera on October 8, 2016 at the Cineplex VIP Cinema, Don Mills Shops, Toronto and other theatres across Canada.  It will be shown again in select theatres on November 12, 14 and 16, 2016. For more information: www.cineplex.com/events         

NORMA – REVIEW OF 2016 COC PRODUCTION

James Karas

Familiarity in opera breeds enthusiasm, strong opinions and a full house. That is the expected reaction to the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Bellini’s Norma as the centerpiece of this fall’s two productions.

Producing Norma without a star soprano versed in the bel canto repertoire will not bring the end of the world but it may have deleterious effects on the opera company and its artistic director. Alexander Neef, the COC’s General Director, need not worry about his job and Torontonians can hold their head high about the quality of opera in their congested city.

 

 (in foreground) Russell Thomas as Pollione and Sondra Radvanovsky as Norma. 

Photo: Michael Cooper

Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky has the vocal range, tonal beauty and acting ability to deliver an extraordinary Norma and she does not disappoint. There are many ways of playing Norma, the Druid priestess who betrays everything by falling in love with a Roman proconsul, the enemy of occupied Gaul. As if that were not bad enough, she has two children by him and he has tired of her and fallen in love with a young novice priestess named Adalgisa. Try counting the emotional turmoil that Norma must express – the betrayed lover, the illicit mother who thinks of murdering her children, the deceived friend and the treacherous priestess who has betrayed her people.

There is wide latitude for a soprano to deliver a melodramatic, almost histrionic Norma or a deadly one of the singer lacks the vocal and acting prowess that the role demands. Radvanovsky maintains a mostly regal composure that is both noble and emotionally searing. From finding out that her friend Adalgisa is in love with Pollione to confessing to her followers that she has betrayed them and stepping into the pyre, this Norma does it all with poise and emotional grandeur.

Tenor Russell Thomas is terrifically fine foil for this Norma. He has a splendid voice and his Pollione grows from the deceiving lover into a noble man who joins Norma in love and death in the ultimate moments of the opera.

Mezzo soprano Isabel Leonard’s Adalgisa is a decent woman who has betrayed her faith and her friend but she finds nobility as well. Vocally Leonard does superbly and she is a pleasure to hear especially in her duets with Norma where the two voices provide both contrast and similarity in tone.

Baritone Dimitry Ivashchenko is a commanding Oroveso, the High Priest and father of Norma, with impressive resonance and presence.

 Sondra Radvanovsky as Norma. Photo: Michael Cooper

Director Kevin Newbury and Set Designer David Korins have a particular approach to the opera. The set consists of four massive pillars with heads of bulls on top of two of them. The forest of the Druids consists of bare trees and the mistletoe that Norma cuts is white. The dominant colour is almost entirely gray with flashes of red and blue at the back of the stage. The gates that close off the back of the stage when we are not in the forest make the place look like a large storage garage.

In the second act the head of a huge bull appears on the left side of the stage. It looks like a Trojan Horse or perhaps a Trojan Bull. It has only one horn that points menacingly downwards. I did not get the symbolism of the bull whose base in the end served as the pyre on which Norma and Pollione meet their fate. There was a cart with a raised platform as well and it served as a sort of pulpit for Norma and Oroveso. I am not sure that it was necessary or if it added anything to the production. Newbury seems to think that snowflakes are a good idea but, again, I am not convinced that they did anything.

The orchestra and chorus under the baton of Stephen Lord did a great deal with Bellini’s melodic and often lush music.

Radvanovsky gives a defining performance as Norma with superb singing from the rest of the cast. You may forget some of the sets but you will not soon forget Radvanovsky’s performance. 

        _________

Norma by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani opened on October 6 and will be performed eight times until November 5, 2016 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario. Tel:  416-363-6671. www.coc.ca

HOSANNA – REVIEW OF SOULPEPPER PRODUCTION OF TREMBLAY’S PLAY

James Karas

Michel Tremblay’s Hosanna was first produced more than forty years ago and has become a Canadian classic. In Canada that could mean it collects higher quality dust on the shelf but in Hosanna’s case the dust seems to be blown off fairly frequently. Soulpepper quite rightly reminds us of this masterpiece of Canadian theatre.

Hosanna is about the pursuit of a dream. Like most such pursuits, it is doomed to disappointment and crushing failure but the purser does not know that until after the fact. The current production captures the pursuit, the failure and the glimmer of hope in the lives of the two characters of the play.

 

 Damien Atkins & Jason Cadieux. Photo by Bronwen Sharp

Claude (Damien Atkins) comes from small town in Quebec and realizes at an early age that he is gay. His life becomes a nightmare and at age 16 he moves to Montreal, the big city. He becomes a hairdresser and a transvestite and takes up with Raymond (Jason Cadieux) a tattooed, macho biker. They occupy a run-down bachelor dump and live in the social underbelly of society.

Claude becomes Hosanna in that world watches Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra and dreams of emulating her. He gets a chance to do that and make a big splash in the transvestite community when he and Raymond (who has become Cuirette) are invited to a costume Halloween party.

Atkins gives a remarkable performance as Hosanna. He sports a slight French accent (as does Cadieux) to indicate that he is French Canadian. He is sharp-tongued, aggrieved, and ambitious. Gay, transvestite, abused and abusive, he is a man trying to come to terms with himself. Atkins reveals the amazing inner world of Hosanna.

Cadieux as Cuirette emotionally is equally at sea. His machismo, leather jacket and bike do not hide the fact that he depends on Hosanna for his livelihood and age is catching up with him as much as it is with Hosanna. He is a pathetic being trying to pretend that he is a tough guy.

 Damien Atkins & Jason Cadieux.  Photo by Bronwen Sharp

Tremblay takes us through the conflicts between Hosanna and Cuirette as he paints a horrifying picture of the world of gays and transvestites in the lower depths of Montreal. By the end of the play, they reach a resolution or at least gain some insight into their lives.

Director Gregory Prest brought out the dramatic part of Hosanna well. But there is considerable humour in the play and the production missed just about all of it.        

The set by Yannik Larivée, with the flashing neon sign outside, the ugly convertible couch and cheap furnishings of the apartment struck the appropriate note for the atmosphere of the play.

Hosanna is a moving and powerful play that has lost none of its punch over the decades. That is a good definition of a classic and a good description of the Soulpepper production.

 __________

Hosanna by Michel Tremblay translated by John Van Burek and Bill Glassco continues until October 15, 2016 in the Michael Young Theatre at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Tank House Lane, Toronto, Ontario. www.soulpepper.ca  

THE WATERSHED – REVIEW OF SOUTAR’S DOCUMENTARY AT TARRAGON THEATRE

By James Karas

Annabel Soutar’s The Watershed is a full-fledged documentary about fresh water research in Canada and more particularly the research at a project called the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA). It is based, according to the author, on “verbatim testimony from interviews conducted by the playwright, as well as speech transcripts, House of Commons debate transcripts, film transcripts, press releases, and media articles collected between 2013 and 2015.” 

The script that resulted from all of the above-noted sources is acted by eight actors who represent some fifty characters (I did not count them). This is a documentary that we usually see on television or at the movie theatre but not, as far as I known, in this format in the live theatre.

 

Bruce Dinsmore, Amelia Sargisson, Ngozi Paul, Tanja Jacobs. Photo by Guntar Kravis

Soutar (played with great vigour and passion by Kristen Thomson) sets out with her husband Alex (Alex Ivanovici) and their daughters Ella (Amelia Sargisson) and Beatrice (Ngozi Paul) and their friend Hazel (Tanja Jacobs) in a Winnebago on a mission: to find out why ELA is being defunded and more importantly to save Canada’s fresh water supply.

Like all good missionaries, Soutar is a driven woman. She wants to interview ministers, MPs, activists, scientists, professors, entertainers and others, and get support and publicity from radio and television programs. It is a Marathon that would exhaust a Kenyan let alone a woman with a husband and three children in a gas-guzzling Winnebago on a trip that goes from Montreal to the tar sands (oops, oil sands) of Alberta and that lasts over a month.

If this were done by the CBC, there would be film clips of the people interviewed with a narrator putting the story in perspective. It is difficult to have some fifty people represented by eight actors presented to us without our interest flagging.

Soutar is well aware of that and she has taken steps to reduce that possibility. Humour is one method that she uses. The children come up with some funny scenes. There are some film projections that would have looked even better if they were not shown on a brick wall but it does help.

 Eric Peterson, Alex Ivanovici, Ngozi Paul, Bruce Dinsmore, Amelia Sargisson, Tanja Jacobs. 

Photo by Guntar Kravis

The other tool used is noise. Loud music, children screaming, engines revving, an airplane taking off and sundry others are provided. I did not find any of that in the least bit diverting and could have done without all of it.

Without the diversionary tactics, we are left with a display of well-meaning, intelligent, dedicated people trying to do a worthwhile job. They run into roadblocks put up by venality, greed, stupidity and politicians who have all of the aforementioned traits. It is a depressing picture.

The eight actors have their work cut out for them as does director Chris Abraham who has to marshal the large number of characters and numerous scene changes. Some of the characters are presented as caricatures but most are treated with respect. In that respect, it is an amazing show. The talented troupe is made up of Laura Condlin, Bruce Dinsmore, Alex Ivanovici, Tanja Jacobs, Ngozi Paul, Eric Peterson, Amelia Sargisson and Kristen Thomson.

The play was commissioned for the arts festival of last year’s Pan Am Games as a co-production by Soutar’s Porte Parole Productions and Toronto’s Crow’s Theatre. Chris Abraham, Crow’s Artistic Director played a part in the negotiations and run-around with the powers-that-be leading to the granting of the commission. Abraham appears as a character in the play as does his daughter Hazel. Has a director ever directed someone to play him in a documentary?

Soutar and Abraham are grafting a complex documentary onto a live theatre production. The demands of live theatre are different from the type of story they are trying to expose and they are forced to use many means to keep the work theatrical. Some things work; some don’t.

Go see how you like the result.

                                          ______

The Watershed by Annabel Soutar continues until October 30, 2016 at the Tarragon Theatre Mainspace, 30 Bridgman Ave. Toronto, Ontario.  www.tarragontheatre.com

NOISES OFF – REVIEW OF SOULPEPPER PRODUCTION OF FRAYN’S FARCE

James Karas

**** (out of 5)

There are many very good farces but few can be rated as great examples of the genre. Michael Frayn’s 1982 Noises Off should make the top 10 in any listing of farces. It is a finely structured and intelligent play that starts funny and builds to absolute hilarity, if there is such an apogee of laughter.

That is all well between the covers of a book but it puts extraordinary and frequently unachievable demands on any theatre company that dares produce it. Soulpepper has not shied away from tackling the play which, according to a note in the programme, has never been produced by a professional Toronto company. The Stratford Festival did produce it in 2004 but that was a long time ago.

 

Brenda Robins, Matthew Edison, Raquel Duffy, Christopher Morris. Photo: Bronwen Sharp 

Noises Off is a multi-layered play that requires physical and mental agility at break-neck speed. The plot? Well, a second-rate theatre company is putting on a play called Nothing On in a provincial town in England. The play is about a tax-evading English couple, Philip and Flavia Brent who live in Spain but return surreptitiously to their country home in England and must not be detected by the taxman.

They have a classic maid called Mrs. Clackett. A real estate agent named Roger brings a nubile woman named Vicki to the house for a tryst. But the Brents, Mrs. Clackett and a Burglar soon join them to create pandemonium.

That is the plot of Nothing On, the play within the play which is directed by Lloyd Dallas with backstage help from Poppy and Tim.

In Nothing On, Mrs. Clackett is played by Dotty Otley and In Noises Off  Dotty (and Mrs. Clackett, of course) is played by Brenda Robins. The characters in Nothing On are played by actors of the company producing that play who in turn are played by actors in Noises Off. Got that?

The first act takes place on the set of Nothing On during the dress rehearsal. The actors are simply, hopelessly incompetent, drunk, missing, not-quite-there mentally and the result is laughter. The latter characteristics of the “actors” in Noises On are in reverse proportion to the talents of the actors of Soulpepper who play the actors who play the actors in the play and the play within-the-play, Confusing? Don’t worry about. It is quite clear in the theatre.

 Matthew Edison, Myrthyn Stagg. Photo by Bronwen Sharp

The second act takes place backstage during a performance of Nothing On and the problems of the actors’ incompetence is intensified by “real-life” jealousies and personal rivalries and differences. The laughter intensifies in direct proportion to the increased complications of the plot.

In the third act we are watching a performance of Nothing On some weeks later and everything goes to hell in a hand basket as the play moves to yet another level of confusion. The actors’ rivalries come out in the open as they sabotage each other’s lines, entrances are screwed up and if the words havoc and pandemonium have any meaning, it is illustrated on stage at fever pitch.

Ted Dykstra was quite brave to accept directorial responsibility for the production. Frayn makes sure that you will get lots of laughs; the Soulpepper cast will do at the very least a fine job for you. But will they be able to reach that theatrical pinnacle of ensemble acting that produces the magical connection between stage and audience to have us rolling in the aisles with laughter? Almost.

Brenda Robins as Dotty the awful actress who plays Mrs. Clackett the mouthy maid carries the roles with aplomb. Matthew Edison as the Roger who plays the real estate agent and would-be-seducer of the luscious blonde Brooke has a great deal of running to do and some serious pratfalls to perform and does a fine job at it.

Myrthin Stagg as Vicki as Brooke Ashton, the actor who plays Vicki is the classic sexy, dim babe of farce wearing only undergarments who in real life would have married Donald Trump.

Oliver Dennis plays the Burglar who does not have much to do in that part but as the drunk actor who plays the Burglar he muffs his lines and his entrances and goes AWOL at the most inopportune times and he is simply hilarious.

Raquel Duffy is exceptional as the actress Belinda who plays Mrs. Brent. She is noticeable for her superb acting as a fine actress and decent human being who holds or tries to hold the inept clowns of Nothing On together. A delight to watch.

There is only praise for the performances of David Storch as the Director whose nerves are not so much frayed as microwaved and gone over with a lawnmower or the almost equally put upon Tim of Anand Rajaram and Oyin Oladejo as Poppy. Christopher Morris plays Frederick Fellowes (who plays Philip Brent) a man who is near the end of his rope and who gets a bleeding nose when under pressure.

Total result: laughter.         

______

Noises off by Michael Frayn runs until October 22, 2016 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Tank House Lane, Toronto, Ontario. www.soulpepper.ca