ON THE RAZZLE – REVIEW OF 2023 SHAW FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

On The Razzle is a classic farce that has a big edge over many such examples in the genre. It is written by Tom Stoppard. It does not have all the verbal pyrotechnics, philosophical arguments and brilliance of many of his other plays but it is still an exquisite piece of theatre. It is an adaption of a farce by Johann Nestroy but Stoppard uses only the plot outline. The language is all his own.

Artistic Director Tim Carroll’s choice is sound but the production itself, whatever its virtues, has one fundamental flaw: it is not funny enough. The plot has the usual complications of a farce and of course it requires speed in speech, high mobility and endless shenanigans to keep the audience amused and preferably roaring with laughter.

The day I saw the production there were several cast changes and for some reason the show did not get fired up to its potential, especially in the first half. It picked up some speed after the intermission and produced some laughter and at least acknowledgement of the verbal humour from the audience.

The plot borrowed from Nestroy should be familiar to most. It was adopted by Thornton Wilder as The Merchant of Yonkers and later as The Matchmaker which became Broadway’s Hello, Dolly!

Zangler (Ric Reid) is the owner of an upscale store in a village near Vienna and he wants to stop the progress of youthful love between his niece Marie (Lindsay Wu) and the penniless Sonders (Drew Plummer). He sends her to his sister-in-law Fraulein Blumenblatt (Tara Rosling) in Vienna to prevent anything untoward happening between those two lovebirds. 

Ric Reid as Zangler, Kristi Frank as Christopher and Mike 

Nadajewski as Weinberl in On the Razzle. Photo by Emily Cooper.

Accompanied by his new fast-talking servant Melchior (Jonathan Tan) Zangler is going to Vienna to marry Madame Knorr (Claire Julien) who owns a fancy-dress shop. There is more: Zangler assigns management of his business to his bright-eyed clerk Weinberl (Mike Nadajewski) and the not-too-swift Christopher (Kristi Frank). The two decide to seek adventure in Vienna and guess who will run into whom. The farcical elements are all in place.

Puns, double-entendres, mangled words are abundant. Weinberl and Christopher end up in Madame Knorr’s shop and he picks up a Scottish cape marked for Mrs. Fischer. He pretends to be the newly married husband of Mrs. Fischer (Elodie Gillett). The store clerk Philippine (Alexandra Gratton) goes to fetch Madame Knorr, the dressmaker, and Christopher comments that she is probably hemming and hawing. Mrs. Fischer and Weinberl pretend to have been married for three days while Madame Knorr keeps gushing and the audience is treated to double-entendres. Weinberl says he may have been a little forward in marrying her and Mrs. Fischer replies that he is in danger of meeting himself coming back. Weinberl expresses reluctance about buying the Scottish cape because the tartan fad is played out. “Plaid out – such a sense of humour” replies Mrs. Fischer.

The play is set in Zangler’s shop, in Madame Knorr’s fancy dress shop, The Imperial Gardens Café, Miss Blumenblatt’s home and other scenes. There are working class costumes and high-end Viennese society attires, especially dresses. Christina Poddubiuk does splendid work in making the wonderful sets that can be changed work smoothly.

The plot with all its complications is pure 19^th century farce elevated by Stoppard’s colourful language but neither aspect seems to work to produce gales of laughter. I can’t blame the cast. Frank and Nadajewski do a good job as slapstick comics and Ric Reid as Zangler is straight out of operetta. Elodie Gillet as Mrs. Fischer and Claire Julien as Madame Knorr are high society ladies who provide comic business. 

The minor characters such as the Tailor and the German Man (Jason Cadieux), the Coachman and the Scotsman (Patrick Galligan), Lisette, Scotswoman and Ragamuffin (Alexandra Gratton) the Belgian and the Constable (Graeme Kitagawa) are good for some laughs. But these parts do not add up to a satisfactory whole. Despite some funny moments, director Craig Hall seems to have been unable to orchestrate a coherent, funny production.

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On The Razzle by Tom Stoppard continues on selected dates until October 8, 2023, at the Royal George Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.ca

 James Karas is the Senior Editor Culture of The Greek Press

RICHARD II – REVIEW OF 2023 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The current production of Richard II at the Stratford Festival is bound to evoke extreme reactions. No doubt there will be fans who find the staging brilliantly imagined and executed. Some will be less enthusiastic. Some will go to the Tom Patterson Theatre to see Shakespeare’s play but a look at the program should dispel that notion. Brad Fraser and Jillian Keily get equal billing in the byline, the first as adapter and the second as conceiver. Keily is also the director. My lack of enthusiasm for the result will become obvious.   

A glance at the cast list reveals a surprising entry. This production has an Army of Angels, fifteen in all, who appear right after the lights go down and almost never leave. Some of them wear angel’s wings, others are dressed like punk rockers with scant clothing and leather outfits. I never figured out on whose side the Angels were or what they were doing in the play in the first place. Yes, I realize that Richard believed that God sent angels to protect him.

Richard II is about the deposing of God’s appointed king to the throne of England and his replacement by a usurper. On the surface this is a serious crime not just against the deposed king and his subjects but against God.

In the opening scene we see the Angels and the King do a wild dance. There is more dancing and musical interludes to come. King Richard, as played by Stephen Jackman-Torkoff wears an over-sized crown suitable for a farce or an operetta and is dressed in see-through and frilly white clothes as in, well, a farce. He is immature, petulant, nasty, arrogant, irrational, childish, clownish, and generally disgusting. At one point we find him in a large hot tub, surrounded by angels where he engages in serious homosexual acts with his cousin Lord Aumerle (Emilio Vieira). The hot tub is brilliantly designed where people can go under a stretched sheet and appear as if they are underwater.

Stephen Jackman-Torkoff as King Richard II with members
 of the company in Richard II. Stratford Festival 2023.
Photo: David Hou

The public display of sexual affection and activity between Richard and Aumerle will be generously displayed. There are moments in Shakespeare’s play where Richard considers the meaning of kingship (the hollow crown) and approaching death. We are almost sympathetic to him when he expresses his conviction that he is God’s anointed king. Nothing like that happens in this production.

The two enemies, Bolingbroke and Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk, whose feud and subsequent banishment by Richard precipitates the crisis are supposed to settle it by personal combat. Richard in his irrational and idiotic behaviour cancels the bout before it begins and banishes the two aristocrats. In this production Fraser and Keiley have them engage in a boxing match.

Parts of Shakespeare’s play do emerge from the phantasmagoria and even with serious cuts to the text we hear some of Shakespeare’s lines but forget “this royal throne of kings.” Jordin Hall turns in an exemplary performance as Henry Bolingbroke, the eventual usurper who becomes King Henry IV. Richard treats him abominably and he rebels so he can get his titles and wealth back. He turns usurper when that becomes impossible. Hall is an outstanding, serious man to be reckoned with. His conscience bothers him to the end, and he wants to go on a pilgrimage to the Hoy Land to expiate his sins.

The role of the Duke of Northumberland in Shakespeare is played by a woman, Sarah Orenstein as an impressive Countess of Northumberland, forthright and fearless. Her son Hotspur is done well by Thomas Duplessie.

The light and special effects by Leigh Ann Vardy are out of this world befitting the production and a rock concert.

The costumes by Bretta Gerecke, once you get past Richard and the angels, are modern suits for some of the men and gowns for the women.

The noise from the stage and the opening night audience who started screaming as soon as the lights went just about drowned out some of the lines. What was left was good, but we will almost certainly forget. But we will never forget the work of Brad Fraser and Jillian Keiley. It surpassed our fantasies or was it nightmares.  Please don’t come back.

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Richard II by William Shakespeare, adapted and conceived by Brad Fraser and Jillian Keiley continues until September 29, 2023, at the Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

James Karas id the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING – REVIEW OF 2023 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas 

Go to Stratford and see Much Ado About Nothing. It is the funniest production of the play you are likely to find with a director and a cast that are simply outstanding.

You remember Much Ado. It is the one about Beatrice and Benedick, whose verbal sparring and vehement denials of any attraction to each other, and their friends’ attempts to bring them together and lead them to the altar - and leave the audience with their heads laughed off. It is also about Hero and Claudio, the young lovers whose marriage is interrupted at the altar by evil lies. And yes, this is the play with one of Shakespeare’s funniest characters and the tormentor of the English language, Constable Dogberry.

There is no doubt that the greatest credit for this production goes to director Chris Abraham. This is vibrant, inventive, imaginative, fast moving, and hilarious theatre. Abraham can evoke laughter and merriment out of almost anything. Abraham makes shameless use of the audience to generate laughs. For example, Benedick can’t take his boot off. He steps up to an audience member who helps him. He wants to read the lyrics of his song but needs help. He gives a piece of paper to an audience member who holds it up. Benedick starts to read but the paper is upside down. He turns it over and gets roars of laughter.

Maev Beaty (left) as Beatrice and Graham Abbey as 

Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. Photo by David Hou. 

After their friends’ underhanded and funny attempts to convince the two that the other loves him/her, Beatrice goes to invite Benedick in for dinner. He thinks she really loves him; she does not yet. He displays peacock-like male bravado including stripping his shirt off to show his muscles. She approaches him and plucks a hair from his chest. Hilarious.

Abbey and Beaty give masterly comic performances as they act and react to each other. Both have vocal and physical agility as anti-lovers, reluctant lovers and of course as wooers, subliminal or otherwise. Beaty flails her arms and uses her body in a stunning performance that, along with others in the cast, puts the audience in the palms of her hands.

We all wait for the appearance of constable Dogberry (Josue Laboucane) with a troupe of village idiots. Laboucane’s Dogberry is flamboyant, fearless, self-assured, not-too-bright and, of course, a master of malapropisms non-pareil. He is accompanied by a full complement of misfits who are hilarious. All the characters in the production speak in an Ontario accent and thus we do not get the difference in social class between Dogberry’s crowd and the aristocrats.

Austin Eckert (centre left) as Claudio and Allison Edwards-Crewe
 (centre right) as Hero with members of the company. Photo by David Hou.

The subplot of Much Ado involves the wooing and marriage of Claudio (Austin Eckert) and Hero (Allison Edwards-Crewe). They are text-book lovers and about to be joined in forever-blissful matrimony. But the evil Prince Don John (Michael Blake) and his confederates allege that Hero was unfaithful the night before her wedding and Claudio dumps her on the altar. She drops “dead”. There are not too many laughs in that except for the investigation and superb police work by Dogberry and Co. but Abraham squeezes some, nonetheless.

The straight characters and backdrop for the action, the host Leonato (Patrick McManus), and the visiting Prince Don Pedro (Andre Sills) are played with exemplary professionalism by the actors.

Abraham strikes a boisterous and joyous atmosphere from the start of the main plot. There is music, singing, and dancing. There are 3 musicians on stage, George Meanwell playing violin, guitar and accordion, Jonathan Rowsell playing tuba and recorder, and Stephan Szczesniak on percussion and jaw harp and they provided a significand addition to the great joyfulness of the production. Thomas Ryder Payne composed the music.

In addition to involving the audience for the sake of laughter, Abraham did not hesitate to interject phrases. “This is opening night: says Abbey/Benedick” for example. But there is a more serious interpolation. The program announces that there is “additional text by Erin Shields.”  

What?

Erin Shields is given about a quarter of the page that has Shakespeare’s biographical blurb in the program. We applaud her accomplishments. She tells us that she consulted about half a dozen Shakespearean experts and received “invaluable feedback during the development of this new text.” She clearly took her assignment seriously.

Her “new text” is intended, I presume, to give Much Ado a feminist point of view. Shakespeare wrote in the sixteenth century and reflected the moral world of his times. The views of marriage, chastity and social classes reflect that world. This is shown in the first limes of the play when the messenger reporting on the war that just finished is asked “how many gentlemen have you lost.” Not people, not common soldiers, but “gentlemen.” The comforting reply is few and no one of the higher classes. What matters is class and not human beings.  

I can’t pinpoint chapter and verse the additions to Shakespeare’s text made by Shields. As we are shuffling to get comfortable in our seats for the play to begin, Maev Beaty recites some lines about “Why does a woman stare into a glass” as we see a woman standing on the balcony looking into a mirror.

Near the end of the play when Claudio and Hero are reconciled and about to get married, Hero has a few things to say. What if she had met Mr. Right before she knew Claudio? What if she had, take a deep breath, sex with him? Was her chastity and chastity itself the prime possession of a woman? We are talking about another world with different views from ours.

The word “Nothing” in the title is clearly a pun. The meaning of the word “nothing” or noting as it was pronounced in Elizabethan England has attracted considerable commentary. “Noting” could also mean female genitalia. Is Shakespeare being ironic about the obsession with chastity in his time? That is an interesting subject for scholars to examine not something that should come as “additional text” in a production. 

In any event, it made a small difference for most people and it did not detract from this fabulous production.

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Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare continues until October 27, 2023 at the Festival Theatre of the Stratford Festival, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press

GYPSY – REVIEW OF 2023 SHAW FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas 

Gypsy is a full-blooded and wonderful musical with an outstanding pedigree. With book by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, it could hardly go wrong and it did not in 1959 when it opened on Broadway or today as one of the main productions at the Shaw Festival. Directed by Jay Turvey, the performers hit all the right notes and the thought that went through my mind while watching was that they don’t make them like they used to.

Gypsy is the story of Rose Hovick  (Kate Hennig), the almost mythical stage mother who has or had dreams of showbusiness success of her own but eventually concentrated on promoting her daughters Louise (Hanna Otta as Baby Louise and Julie Lumsden as an adult) and June (Ariana Abudaqa as Baby June Madelyn Kriese as an adult) in the rough-and-tumble world of vaudeville in the 1920s and 1930s). Louise eventually became the famous Gypsy Rose Lee.

The show opens and ends (except for “Rose’s Turn” sung by Rose) with “Let me entertain you,” sung haltingly by Baby June and Baby Louise after the gorgeous Overture and in full throat by Louise and the Show Girls as a finale. But the show ends with Rose Hovick’s coda, “Rose’s Turn” where she admits that she had a dream that did not come true. Louise comforts her with the thought that Rose did not have a mother to push her. Rose Hovick muses that she was born at the wrong time and went into vaudeville, an art form that was dying. A beautiful and in-your-face self-assessment. And it is a great follow-up to her “Some People” sung at the beginning where she defiantly sings that some people can get a thrill knitting sweaters and living in a living room “but some people ain’t me!”

Julie Lumsden as Louise with Showgirls Caitlyn MacInnis

and Tama Martin in Gypsy (Shaw Festival, 2023). Photo by David Cooper.

Kate Hennig is a bigger-than-life mother Rose. She is fearless, aggressive, loud, unstoppable and meets every failure with forceful ambition to succeed the next time. Her dream of show business success for her daughters has no bounds. She convinces Herbie (Jason Cadieux), a former booking agent who went into the candy business to become the manager of her children’s act. He accepts. Cadieux turns in an excellent performance as a decent man caught in the whirlwind of Rose’s daunting character and overwhelming ambition and dream for her daughters. Hennig dominates the production and our (and her) realization that she did not do it all for her daughter. She succeeded only vicariously but the initial and fundamental drive was for herself.  That is the supreme and moving part of the musical and of Rose’s life.

We watch the character of Louise develop from a child performer (Hannah Otta) pushed by her mother to keep going even when she was no longer a child to the reluctant, frightened adult Louise (Julie Lumsden) who painfully emerges as the independent, superb vaudeville performer Gypsy Rose Lee. I do not hesitate to assign kudos to Otta and Abudaqa (baby June) but the highest marks for a stunning performance go to Lumsden.

Gypsy demands a large production. There are numerous scene changes from hotels to backstage to vaudeville houses. The sets and beautiful costumes are designed expertly by Cory Sincennes who deserves high marks for his work. Genny Sermonia provides superb choreography for a show that places high demands on dancing. Jay Turvey deserves a standing ovation  for his directing a big and complex production.

The final irony is that the success of Louise as Gypsy Rose Lee came about because of performances in a burlesque dive as a striptease artist. She had to perform there because she and her mother had to pay for necessities. Louise as Gypsy Rose Lee  (1911 – 1970) achieved success as an actor, author, playwright and, of course, dancer. In 1957 she wrote Gypsy: A Memoir on which the musical Gypsy is loosely based. In the end her mother Rose Hovick achieved the fame and success that she craved, albeit posthumously.

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Gypsy by Arthur Laurents (book), Jule Styne (music) and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) continues until October 7, 2023, at the Festival Theatre of the Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com.

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press

ARMADILLOS – REVIEW OF FACTORY THEATRE PRODUCTION

 Reviewed James Karas 

Armadillos is a new play by Colleen Wagner that is now playing at Factory Theatre in Toronto. Wagner is a prolific writer and her biographical blurb in the program informs us that “she was a professor at York University and has taught numerous courses on playwriting and screenwriting at various institutions across Canada.” Armadillos may not rank as one of her finest plays.

The play deals with the treatment of women and illustrates its message through Greek mythology and a current narrative. The four characters of the mythical part are Zeus, Hera, Thetis and Peleus. In a play-within-a-play, they are performing a representation of Zeus (Ryan Hollyman) in primordial time who is trying to solidify his power on Mount Olympus as the chief honcho. He sees possible opposition from the goddess Thetis who is  supported by the mother goddess Gaia. The solution is to get rid of Thetis by any means. Hera retains the services of the mortal heroic warrior Peleus as the hit man of the operation.

Hollyman’s Zeus is loud, dictatorial and concerned about his hold on power. He is also a brute who satisfies his lecherous appetite frequently through rape and incest (Hera is his wife and sister). Mirabella Sundar Singh is a feisty Thetis who wants to secure a good position for herself in the celestial government. Zeus is a liar and tries to pretend he is giving her a contract with a good position and possibilities for advancement. Zorana Sadiq is the faithful wife/sister who must satisfy her brother/husband’s lust and find a way to get rid of Thetis.

The cast of Armadillos. Photo by Jeremy Mimnagh

Paolo Santalucia as Peleus looks heroic and as a mortal displays great respect for the divinities. Those who recall the opening line of The Iliad know that Peleus is described as the father of Achilles, the greatest hero of the Greeks. Thetis is his mother and she held him by his Achilles heel when she dipped him in the River Styx to give him supernatural power. Forget that myth. The alternative story tells of Thetis being raped by Peleus, another image of male domination and abominable treatment of women.

In the second act, we see the actors who played in the Greek myth socializing after a performance. Jay who played Zeus is a maladjusted man awkwardly reaching out to Sofia (Hera) who is uncertain about men. They seem to be making progress until Jay dumps her in a bar when he gets a text message with an offer of sex. Dyrk (Peleus) drinks too much, takes drugs and tries to seduce or actually seduces Karmyne (Thetis) and ends up sleeping in the park. 

Gods and men may be pigs but the play does not get us anywhere. The acting  is reasonably good but the art of enunciation is not practiced by all the actors. Do they not teach enunciation, even elocution in acting schools?

Trevor Schwellnus’s set consists of three arched doors and a few props like seats and a table. With accept that the lighting represents Mount Olympus and as the back of the stage where the actors in the mythical play meet.

Director Jani Lauzon gets us through the text but that is not enough to make it a night at the theatre.     

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Armadillos by Colleen Wagner, directed by Jani Lauzon, opened on June 8 and will run until June 24, 2023 at the Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario. www.factorytheatre.ca/

SIZWE BANZI IS DEAD – REVIEW OF SOULPEPPER PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Sizwe Banzi is Dead is an extraordinary play by Athol Fugard in collaboration with  John Kani and Winston Ntshona, two actors who appeared in the play in Cape Town and in London. The play premiered in 1972 when apartheid was a vile fact of life in South Africa.

In Soulpepper’s production Tawiah M’Carthy plays Sizwe Banzi and Amaka Umeh plays Styles and Buntu, directed by Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu.  

We first meet Umeh in the role of Styles, in his tiny photography studio in Port Elizabeth. Sporting a white shirt and a bowtie, Styles is an appealing and colourful character. He is a natural storyteller and for about three quarters of an hour he will be alone on stage informing and entertaining us. He rarely stops moving as he relates stories about life including his stint working for the Ford motor company when the big boss came to visit. Amaka Umeh is a woman but she handles the role with such aplomb that one hardly notices her gender.

Styles is affable and no doubt wants to be likeable to draw in business. We know that he is working under the oppressive regime of apartheid where the white ruling class does not consider him human. Umeh switches from Styles to Buntu, Sizwe’s friend with whom he discovers the body of a dead man in an alley near a bar.

Styles played by Amaka Umeh and Sizwe Banzi played by 

Tawiah M'Carthy. Photo credit: Dahlia Katz

Sizwe Banzi has come to Port Elizabeth looking for work and goes to Styles Photography to have his picture taken so he can send it to his wife and children in another town. His identity presents a problem. He is caught without a work permit and is given three days to find a job or clear out of town. He cannot find a job and he is a dead man.

The inventive Buntu recommends to Sizwe to take the dead man’s identity book and take his name, Robert Zwelinzima. after switching the photograph. In other words, Sizwe Banzi must “die” and come to life as the dead man who happens to have a pass for working.

Sizwe resists changing his identity for practical (what am I going to tell my wife and children?) and far more fundamental reasons. In desperation, he asks if he is a man or not and takes off his clothes to show us that he is indeed a man. But not in the South Africa of his day. 

Taking away one’s identity is like removing one’s soul and Fugard and his co-writers make that point poignantly clear and without being preachy. Styles’ description of what happened at the Ford Motor Company is satirical rather than critical and the play makes its point in a frequently light mood on a topic that does not bear lightness.

In the end Sizwe and Styles return to the photo studio and Sizwe poses for his picture, perhaps as Robert Zwelinzima. Has he reverted to Sizwe or is he dead and has taken on another identity. If so, the triumph of the apartheid regime is complete. They have reduced people to passbooks.

Otu does a superb job of directing the play which has many complexities despite the surface appearance of simplicity. The performance seemed to lag somewhat in the second half and I could not decide if it was intentional or not. Overall, this is a superb production  of  an outstanding play.  

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Sizwe Banzi is Dead by Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona continues until June 17, 2023, at Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Tank House Lane, Toronto, Ontario. www.soulpepper.ca.

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press

PRINCE CASPIAN – REVIEW OF 2023 SHAW FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The Shaw Festival is back with a third production of a play based on C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. They give us a vibrant and entertaining production of an adaptation of Prince Caspian, the fourth novel in the Narnia series.

The stage adaptation by Damien Atkins of the children’s story has a colorful story of good versus evil, with lots of colourful characters, swashbuckling scenes, talking beasts, walking trees and spectacles to thrill youngsters and entertain adults.

We meet four children, Peter, Susan, Edmond and Lucy (first seen in the earlier Chronicle,  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) who are magically transported to Narnia. They were there a year ago but nothing is the same this time. Narnia is in ruins. The measurement of time in Narnia may be very different from that on our earth. One year here could be one hundred years there. They became kings and queens in Narnia and ruled for many years but when they returned to England, they were away for no time.

Narnia is now ruled by the evil King Miraz, a usurper of the throne that rightfully belongs to Prince Caspian (Michael Man). He wants to rebel of course. The four children become kings and queens with Peter becoming the High King. Accompanied by Trumpkin they traverse Narnia and meet with adventures and misadventures. Peter challenges Miraz to single combat and they display superb swordsmanship. The battle scenes between the two armies are brilliantly staged and exciting. Kudos to John Stead for his fight direction. Alessandro Juliani’s original music is dramatic and the sound designs are splendid.

Marla McLean, Andrew Lawrie, Kiana Woo, Kyle Blair,
and Shane Carty. Phot: David Cooper

I need hardly tell you that the four children return to England where we left them. They were at the station wating to board trains to go to their boarding schools. The adventures in Narnia took a long time, it seems, but they began and finished in a moment when the children returned to reality.

The beautiful fairy tale is acted by a wonderful cast. The four children are represented by Kyle Blair (Peter), Andre Lawrie (Edmund), Marla McLean (Susan) and Kiana Woo (Lucy).with their friend Trumpkin (Shane Carty). They have fine English accents and we accept them all as youngsters. Michael Man as Caspian is suitably heroic and nice unlike his usurper uncle Miraz in the hands of Sanjay Talwar (who also plays Nikabrik) who looked imperious and disgusting.

A dozen actors took on nineteen roles with Qasim Khan acting Glenstorm, Bulgy Bear 1, and of course Aslan, Pattie Jamieson handling Trufflelhunter, Sopespian and Prunaprismia, Fiona Byrne as Doctor and Patterwig and Jade Repeta acting as Reepicheep, Glozelle, and Bulgy Bear 2. Well done with a salute to Voice and Dialect Coach Jeffrey Simlett for getting credible English accents.

Director Molly Atkinson gets outstanding marks for the intelligent and inventive directing of the work. She kept it going at a brisk pace and never lagged.

The sets and costumes designed by Cory Sincennes are right out of medieval swashbuckling and fairy tales that every child may relate to. The huge tree, the ruined palace and the marvelous costumes are a treat to the eye. The characters from Aslan the Lion with its huge head, the centaurs, half man, half horse and able to kick with their hind legs, the walking trees, the soldiers in their black helmets and black armour and the other animals provide an array of sights that fascinate and are a joy to watch.  

Prince Caspian is the product of the fertile and vivid imagination of C. S. Lewis and one of the seven books of The Chronicles of Narnia. The book dates from 1951 and it is written in an English milieu with colloquial English expressions of the time. How many children express surprise by saying “By Jove”? Productions of parts of The Chronicles seem to represent the tastes of the English Tim Carroll, the Artistic Director of The Shaw Festival. So far so good but may we now move to Canadian fairy tales?

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Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis adapted for the stage by Damien Atkins 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

 

GRAND MAGIC – REVIEW OF 2023 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The difference between illusion (and sometimes delusion) and reality is a frequent subject of drama. The magician who can produce a rabbit out of a hat or cut a woman in a box in half is a comic trick  that we enjoy and simply ask “how did he do it.” we are rarely fooled into believing it but we still want to see it.

Italian playwright Eduardo De Filippo’s play Grand Magic deals with the work of a magician and takes a serious look at illusion and a man who is driven to distraction by one of the magician’s tricks. Antoni Cimolino, the Stratford Festival’s Artistic Director, has chosen this fascinating play to direct at the Tom Patterson Theatre.

Grand Magic starts with all the hallmarks of comedy. Marta di Spelta (Beck Lloyd) is a beautiful and desirable woman. She is married to the arrogant, pathologically jealous  and obnoxious Calogero di Spelta (Gordon S. Miller) and as nature would have it sometimes, she has found a lover named Mariano (Jordan Hall).

We are in a fancy Italian resort. Enter Professor Otto Marvuglia, (Geraint Wyn Davies), by reputation one of the great magicians of the world who can turn a man into a parrot among other accomplishments. Unfortunately, he is married to the bitchy Zaira (Sarah Orenstein) and they are flat broke. Among other complications, the secret love of Marta and Mariano develops with the help of Otto. Marta goes into a sarcophagus (one of those fancy Egyptian caskets), it is locked and she disappears – with her lover Mariano, but no one needs to know about that.    

The plot thickens and the work of the magician becomes murky when husband Calogero demands the return of his wife. Otto tells him his wife was never there and if she disappeared it was Calogero’s fault. The magician gives Calogero a small box and tells him that his wife is in that box and he is not to open it until he is convinced that she is in there. If he opens it without that conviction, he will never see his wife again. If he sincerely believes she is in the box she will appear again. 

Beck Lloyd (centre) as Marta Di Spelta with members of the 

company in Grand Magic. Stratford Festival 2023. Photo by David Hou.

We learn that Otto is an out and out charlatan but that does not matter to many people who are convinced that some of the egregious con artists are truthful and legitimate. Donald Trump is the perfect example.

The rest of the play deals with Calogero’s demands for the return of his wife, his deterioration and the developing belief that it is his perhaps his fault that she disappeared and the magician’s trick had nothing to do with it. The play turns the mirror on us who are or can be deluded into believing things that have little to do with reality. The plot becomes complex as illusion, delusion and reality confront each other. This is no charlatan pretending to make a woman disappear from a sarcophagus. This is us in our real world believing that it can be true. I will not disclose anything further.

Geraint Wyn Davies leads a fine, large cast as the would-be genius magician who is in fact a charlatan able to convince many people of his almost superhuman abilities. We see him in his pretended glory, in his cheap trickery and in his defence of his art and acuity.  Marvelous performance.

Miller’s Calogero starts as self-assured and contemptuous of others and is reduced to a pathetic human being ready to believe anything. Beck Lloyd’s Marta is statuesque and beautiful who refuses to go on with the charade asked of her.

The theatre-in-the round Tom Patterson makes designing a set difficult and we have to accept the limitations within which Set and Lighting Designer Lorenzo Savoini has to work with. Francesca Callow’s costumes for the upper crust Italian women in a fancy resort are beautiful.

Cimolino handles the large cast of secondary roles and the principals with expertise and gives us a stunning production.

The current production is based on a new version of Grand Magic by John Murrell and Donato Santeramo.

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Grand Magic by Eduardo De Filippo in a new version by John Murrell and Donato Santeramo opened on June 3 and will run until September 29, 2023, at the Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press.

RENT – REVIEW 2023 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

First, let me recognize the achievements of the late Jonathan Larson, the composer of Rent which is now playing at the Stratford Festival. He won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Richard Rodgers Award, all of them for Rent. And that’s just a short list of the recognitions that he received prior to his untimely death at age 35.

The opening night audience of Rent at the Stratford Festival received the production with enthusiasm demonstrated sounds of approval that reverberated throughout the evening. Opening night audiences are not always a reliable measurement of a show’s appeal but I could not doubt the passion and thrill that they greeted every song, every movement and everything imaginable in a performance. They sounded like a theater full of young people that were thoroughly familiar with the work and pumped up and ready to applaud, yell, and make every noise to indicate approval and, I say it again, enthusiasm.

I step into the confessional and admit my maxima culpa and seek absolution for my unfavorable reaction to the rock musical. The problem is with the chromocomposition of my deoxyribonucleic acid, an unchangeable and incurable part of me that prevents me from enjoying most rock music. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Members of the company in Rent. Stratford Festival 2023.

Photo by David Hou. 

Rent bears some relationship to Puccini’s La Bohème, familiar territory that I hoped would let me enjoy Larson’s work. Starving artists in a cold attic in Manhattan is just like the opening events in La Bohème. Larson’s people are far more colourful than anything Puccini included but we accept the modern  premise. We can follow Mimi (a spitfire Andrea Macasaet) going into Roger’s (Kolton Stewart) apartment, her candle being blown out and she and Roger falling in love. Well, Larson’s Mimi drops her stash of dope and Roger tries to steal it, but let’s not get worked up about details.

Director Thom Allison tells us what type of people we have in Rent and I quote him. “The characters in this show are artists, exotic dancers, independent filmmakers, rock singers, anarchist professors, drug addicts, gay people, people of colour, the unhoused, drag queens.” And he adds that several of the characters have HIV/AIDS. That is a frightful array of people who, according to Allison, “were not welcomed into polite society.” I think some of them were treated almost like lepers.

The cast list names twenty performers including three swings and they made it seem like many times more. But who was what according to Allison’s list, with some exceptions, is beyond me.   We move a long way from Puccini but we maintain our composure as we listen to some, well, a lot of ensemble singing. The problem is we cannot make out the lyrics. Some sing at the top of their lungs and we wonder what if any voice they will have left at the end of the evening let alone the run. Maybe it’s the heavy-duty mikes that make them sound louder than  they really are, but the nagging thought remains.

The real issue is not the fate of the voices but the fact that we do not understand what in the world they are saying/singing or where the plot is exactly going. Yes, some points are clear and the end is like the closing scene of La Bohème but that is not enough.

I realize that the performers and artistic crew deserve attention and credit but my overall reaction makes it clear that they would not want to hear from me. Fair enough.

I may have been the only one in the theatre that did not understand everything that was said, sung or hinted and did not react with excitement. The audience knew every word and every nuance of what was happening and they responded with utter elation before it even happened. The Stratford Festival found all the aficionados of Rent and did not need to be concerned about an ignoramus with inbred defects like moi.

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Rent by Jonathan Larson opened on June 2 and continues until October 28, 2023, at the Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario www.stratfordfestival.ca

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Clture of The Greek Press. This review appears in the newspaper

CASEY AND DIANA – REVIEW OF 2023 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

In 1991 Princess Diana visited Casey House, Ontario’s first free-standing hospice for people living with HIV/AIDS. The hospice was established in 1988, at the height of the AIDS epidemic and was a revolutionary step in looking after sufferers of AIDS who had been treated almost as if they were lepers.

Playwright Nick Green has fashioned an imaginary but beautiful and emotionally wrenching play surrounding the visit of the Princess of Wales.

Almost the entire play takes place in a well-appointed room of the hospice where two men are waiting die. Thomas (Sean Arbuckle), a gruff and troubled man, is a fan of the Princess and spent hours watching her wedding to Prince Charles. He is preparing for her visit, imagining it, rehearsing his meeting with her and is determined to live until she arrives.

The other patient is Andre (Davinder Malhi), a young man who has been abandoned by his family and has no one who is interested in him. His mother has changed her phone number to avoid being contacted by him. Both men are seriously ill and are waiting to die. That’s what people do in a hospice.

Vera (Sophia Walker) is the efficient nurse looking after the two men. She is not unsympathetic, but she is professional. Marjorie (Linda Kash) is a volunteer who befriends Andre and goes to great lengths to help him in the last days of his life. She is accused of going overboard, “against policy” and disciplined for it.

From left: Laura Condlln as Pauline, Linda Kash as Marjorie, 

Davinder Malhi as Andre, Sean Arbuckle as Thomas, Sophia Walker

 as Vera and Krystin Pellerin as Diana. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Pauline (Laura Condlin) is Thomas’s foul-mouthed, angry sister who abandoned her brother. They appear to hate each other and there is a huge chasm to be crossed to achieve reconciliation.

Krystin Pellerin bears a remarkable resemblance to Princess Diana. She appears numerous times, most of them in the imagination of Thomas, says very little but has a remarkable effect on Thomas’s life.

The play deals with death but Green invests it with humour, a difficult thing to do but essential to avoid maudlin sentimentality. We cry for the two men who are dying and have a very sympathetic volunteer in Marjorie and nurse Vera. Pauline and Thomas try to resolve their differences but the crux of the play is the dream or chimera of seeing Princess Diana, saying something to her and asking her what she will be on Halloween, which is a week after her visit.

Arbuckle, his head shaved, marks of AIDS on his face, gives a bravura and unforgettable performance as he grasps for survival, prepares for a meeting of a lifetime and lives every moment of it in his imagination. 

Malhi is just a kid who relies on his new and only friend Marjorie to bring him some items from his apartment. He is dying but somehow some things still mean a great deal to him. We cry for him as we cry for Thomas. A wonderful performance. Kash is excellent as an exemplar of decency. Nurse Vera keeps asking her why she is volunteering. Walker is good as the nurse who must enforce the rules. Condlin’s Pauline is more complex in her approach until we finally see her in a positive vein.

The set by Joshua Quinlan consists of a large room with two beds in it. It is a beautiful hospice despite being a place where people are sent to die. The added element in this case is that the hospice was built for people who were ignored by society because of their illness.

Director Andrew Kushnir does superb work in bringing out the humour, the emotional tensions, the beautiful dream of meeting a princess and the end of the play that did not leave a dry eye in the house.

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Casey and Diana by Nick Green opened on June 1 and will run until June 17, 2023, at the Studio Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

MONTY PYTHON’S SPAMALOT- REVIEW OF 2023 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

                    UPRORIOUS FUN IN SATIRE OF EVERYTHING 

Reviewed by James Karas

The second opening at this season’s Stratford Festival is the irrepressible Monty Python’s Spamalot. The show has been around for almost twenty years and has been performed around the world. Its reception at the Avon Theatre in Stratford was so uproarious and enthusiastic, it seemed as if everyone in the audience knew and loved the show by heart.

Spamalot does not fit into any one category. It is a spoof or parody of Arthurian England and the search for the Holy Grail but that is only the beginning. It has some intricate and demanding dance routines, and it takes on religion, Broadway, gay and straight marriages, and a host of other subjects with speed, wit and always with music.

It has such a forward impetus that I found it hard to follow at times, but it has one of those almost legendary grips on its audience that people roar, scream and are bound to every move on the stage. A miraculous flow of energy from the stage to the audience and back.

Members of the company in Monty Python's Spamalot, 2023. 
Photo by David Hou.

Forget Lerner and Lowe’s Camelot. Spamalot’s King Arthur (Jonathan Goad), accompanied by his servant Patsy (Eddy Glen), travels on horseback looking for knights for the Round Table.  But horses on the stage present insurmountable problems so Patsy bangs two coconuts representing horses’ hooves at various speeds. 

The absurdist, hilarious spoofs continue coming. We meet Sir Robin (Trevor Patt) who is hauling victims of the plague on a cart. Lancelot (Aaron Krohn) wants to load the sick Not Dead Yet (McKinley Knuckle) on the cart. The latter yells that he is not dead yet. The hilarious argument ensues until Lancelot bangs Not Dead Yet on the head with a shovel making sure that he is dead.

King Arthur insists that he is the King of the Britons by virtue of the Lady of the Lake giving him the sword Excalibur as the most worthy man to rule Britain. Dennis Galahad (Liam Tobin) and his mother Mrs. Galahad (Aidan deSalaiz) dispute that claim on modern socialist and democratic and constitutional principles. Hilarious.

Arthur manages to round up five knights for his Round Table and, as commanded by God, they are all set out in search of the Holy Grail. They encounter the nasty French and decide to counterattack using the ancient Greek ruse of the Trojan Horse. They use a Wooden Rabbit with one small error – no one is in the rabbit when the French discover it.

Spamalot is no respecter of anyone. The Knights (never mind who they are), want the show to go to Broadway – the one in England, not New York. But please no Andrew Lloyd Webber. For Broadway we need Jews and a something like Fiddler on the Roof. Let’s hear some sample numbers from it.

This short description of some of the sketches does not do justice to the speed, acrobatics, the humour and the singing and dancing by the talented cast. They create energy and carry the audience with them on a joyful trip. The songs are vigorous, enthusiastic, varied, and delightful. The characters are pretty dim which makes for easy humour in a show that mercilessly satirized everything past, present and future, say one thousand years in the future. Most of the actors play multiple roles with ease.

This unabashed entertainment is directed by Lezlie Wade and Choreographed by Jesse Robb. More credits below.

In the end, the satire, the parodies, the spoofs, the songs, the dances, and the acrobatics provide pure fun.

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Monty Python’s Spamalot, book and lyrics by Eric Idle, music by John Du Prez and Eric Idle, ripped off from the movie MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, from the  original screenplay by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin opened on May 31 and will continue until October 28, 2023 at the Avon Theatre, Stratford,  Ontario. www.stratfordfestval.ca

 James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press. This review appears in the newspaper

 

KING LEAR – REVIEW OF 2023 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

With pomp and circumstance (bagpipes, trumpets, a red carpet and a fashion show by elite and VIPs), the Stratford Festival launched its 2023 season with a production of King Lear. It is a great play by any measuring stick, and it received the attention it deserves.

Every director is expected to put his/her imprimatur on every production and Kimberley Rampersad has done the same for this staging. The production has many virtues and some aspects that may be considered idiosyncratic, perhaps eccentric and at times even quirky. This is an understated King Lear with some flashes. It is also the funniest King Lear that I have ever seen. Lear himself displays a sense of humour and it works.

Many of the aspects of a King Lear production that, for better or for worse, we are accustomed to seeing are missing. That is not necessarily a flaw as we do not want or expect productions to reproduce one another.  The emotional wavelength that Rampersad imposes is relatively even. Lear’s curses are unforgettable at any wavelength but Rampersad has them delivered in a non-fulminating tone of voice. The despicable conduct of Goneril and Regan does not display the depth of evil and hatred that is possible in a different approach to the play.

The storm scene is low-key and when Lear cries “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks. Rage! Blow you cataracts and hurricanes; spout till you have drenched our steeples and drowned their weathercocks” Paul Gross’s intonation does not do justice to the words.

Members of the company in King Lear. Stratford Festival 2023. 

Photo by David Hou. 

When Lear enters carrying Ophelia and screeches 'Howl, howl, howl, howl! O you are men of stones,/ Had I your tongues, and eyes, I'd use them so,/ That Heav'ns vault should crack” he is intoning words of immeasurable power. He would open heaven at the injustice he is witnessing. Rampersad has Gross say the lines with relatively little impact. 

One of the keys to any production of Lear is the actor who will play the King and in this case the role is taken over by Paul Gross. He has white hair and a white beard, and an athletic body. In the beginning he gives no hint of a man who needs to shake all cares from his age and crawl towards death. He is in command of his senses and of the situation and shows his sense of humour. That will change quickly when he demands ritual expression of love from his daughters and lacks the judgment to discern the difference between the mendacity and hypocrisy of Goneril and Regan and misconstrues disastrously his Cordelia’s honesty and true love. 

Gordon Patrick White (front, left) as Fool and Paul Gross as King Lear 

with members of the company in King Lear. Stratford Festival 2023. Photo by David Hou. 

Gross is effective within the parameters set by the director, and we see his humanity and stupidity, his rage and cruelty until he goes mad and subsequently repents. It is a nuanced performance on its own but confined to understating the enormity of his fate as illustrated by his fulminations and the drama of the scene on the heath.

The same may be said of the performances of Shannon Taylor as Goneril and Dejah Dixon-Green as Regan. They are the epitome of filial ingratitude, ambition and evil. Regan is in fact downright gleefully sadistic, but Rampersad’s understated approach does not quite convince us of their depravity. Tara Sky as Cordelia is milquetoast. 

Edmund, the bastard son of the Earl of Gloucester is the most villainous character in the play and Michael Blake is superb in the role. Edmund knows that he is putting on a performance as a villain and a suitor to the two evil sisters and he is enjoying it. In this case understatement is the right approach and it works.

Andre Sill gives an equally commendable performance as Edgar, the good son of Gloucester, who pretends to be a beggar in order to help Lear and his blinded father. When he first enters the stage during Edmund’s soliloquy, he admits that he is violent and lecherous. Edgar come in on cue, and Edmund uses a theatrical metaphor that “he comes like the catastrophe of the old comedy.” Catastrophe means conclusion and was a way of wrapping up a play. But Rampersad has Edgar enter wearing a velvet cape and accompanied by two lovely young women. The implication for me was that Edgar is a playboy for which there is no hint in the play. Why does Rampersad create even momentarily an impression that is not sustainable or sustained in the play?

It is worth remarking that the fight between Edmund and Edgar is extremely effective. It starts out surprisingly with one of the combatants brandishing a sword and the other wielding an axe and a shield. Fight Director Geoff Scovell does superlative work.  

Anthony Santiago is excellent as the decent Earl of Gloucester whose eyes are gouged out by the Duke of Cornwall and Regan. The horrible event is done expeditiously, and we should be grateful for that. But what are those things that fly out and the pieces that land on the stage?

Gordon Patrick White, dressed in almost conventional clothes, plays an understated Fool. He is humorous and effective as Lear’s alter ego or perhaps the common sense that Lear so woefully lacks.

The costumes by Michelle Bohn indicate another era, maybe a long time ago (no guns) maybe not that far in the past if we go by the attire of the women. Goneril wears slacks, Regan wears a hideous yellow dress and brown tights. Some of the men’s costumes could be Victorian or choose-your-era.

These are the virtues and idiosyncrasies or quirks if you prefer, of the current production. Form your own opinion but it is unquestionably worth seeing.

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King Lear by William Shakespeare opened on May 30, 2023, and will continue until October 29, 2023, at the Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario www.stratfordfestival.ca

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press. This review appeared in the newspaper.