Last year the Shaw Festival introduced its
audience to C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of
Narnia with its production of The
Magician’s Nephew in an adaptation for the stage by Michael O’Brien.
This season it takes us back to Narnia with a beautiful production of The Horse and His Boy as adapted
for the stage by Anna Chatterton.
Director Christine Brubaker with the artistic
team treat the fantasy with a light touch, full of humour, humanity and
adventure. The people and the horses go through difficulties and battles, they
learn some lessons and in the end decency triumphs and they find happiness. The
result for the audience is simply delightful.
Jay Turvey as Bree, Matt Nethersole as Shasta, Madelyn Kriese as Aravis
and Kristi Frank
as Hwin with the cast. Photo by Emily Cooper.
A large, helpful map is projected to inform
us of the whereabouts of the mythical land of Narnia and its neighbours. We
will travel a long way and we need to know where we are.
A lively boy called Shasta (Matt Nethersole)
is about to be sold into to slavery. He meets an enslaved talking horse called
Bree (Jay Turvey) and they decide to escape from neighboring bad Calormen to
good Narnia. They meet the lovely Aravis (Madelyn Kriese) who is being forced
to marry a jerk. She has a talking mare called Hwin (Kristi Frank) and the four
decide to take the great but dangerous trek across the desert.
Turvey and Frank as Bree and Hwin, wear
horses’ heads over their own in a fine example of simple but effective
costuming. They have saddles on wheels and tails when necessary with an actor
helping with the movement of both. Well done. And these are no ordinary talking
horses. They are intelligent, have different personalities and are highly
entertaining. They are convincing as horses and people.
The escapees travel though the enemy
territory of Calormen and they hear of a plot to invade Narnia. You see bad
prince Rabadash of Calormen (George Krissa) wants to marry good Queen Susan of
Narnia (Jacqueline Thair) without the usual precursor to the event such as
asking her.
The adventures continue as the escapees cross
the desert and meet the lion Aslan (Jenny L. Wright, who also plays the Hermit)
who scares the daylights out of them. But they do reach their destination on
time and the good guys win and Rabadash is turned into a donkey.
The production has the necessary pacing of a
fairy tale, the adventures and the humour to keep the young and the
not-so-young entertained. Lewis invests his stories with deeper meanings and
they are elevated from being simple tales for children.
Matt Nethersole as Shasta with the cast of The Horse and His Boy.
Photo
by David Cooper.
Jennifer Goodman provides colourful designs
with projections by Cameron Davis. Siobhan Sleath is responsible for the
lighting design of the changing worlds of The
Horse and his Boy.
The audience is always an important component
of watching a play. I saw the performance in the morning of May 9, 2019 and the
audience consisted largely of primary and high school students. Many of them
had attended a workshop about the play that morning and were knowledgeable and
primed up for the show. They yelled out “may he live forever” at the mention of
Tisroc, the dictatorial monarch, and displayed a wonderful liveliness and
participation in the performance.
All the above elements combine for a
marvelous children’s story, an excellent show for adults and a superb morning (or evening) at
the theatre.
____________
The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis adapted for the stage by Anna
Chatterton and directed and dramaturged by Christine Brubaker will run in repertory
until July 21, 2019 at the Festival
Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com.
James Karas is the Senior Editor – Culture of The Greek Press.
www.greekpress.ca
No comments:
Post a Comment