DON PASQUALE WITH ANNA NETREBKO LIVE FROM THE MET

Anna Netrebko and John Del Carlo in "Don Pasquale." Photo: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera

A rich old bachelor wants to marry a beautiful young woman. She is in love with a handsome young man and the two must outwit the old fool. There is a clever go-between who will devise a plot to get rid of the old codger and unite the young lovers.

Sounds familiar and in fact could be Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. Close enough but in this case we are talking about Gaetano Donizetti’s comic masterpiece Don Pasquale. The opera premiered in Paris in 1843 and was one of the last bel canto operas to be composed. It is also one of the best.

The Metropolitan Opera has an all-star cast for its production at Lincoln Center and, for us less lucky mortals, in movie theaters around the world Live in HD. The production is lively, brisk, funny, well sung and provides several hours of supreme entertainment. One does miss the ambiance of Lincoln Center and New York but you can’t have everything.

Don Pasquale wants to punish his nephew Ernesto for not marrying the woman he has chosen for him. He decides to marry the beautiful widow Norina. But she is in love with Ernesto and we have Dr. Malatesta, the plot mover, who will disguise Norina as a virtuous convent-trained girl and marry her off to Don Pasquale. She will turn into a bitchy spending machine and drive Don Pasquale crazy. He will get rid of her and she will marry Ernesto and we or maybe just they will live happily ever after.

The opera is a storehouse of marvelous melodies, gorgeous arias, duets and trios and some of the fastest patter songs you ever heard. One of them (the duet with Don Pasquale and Malatesta near the end of Act III) is such a perfect example of machine-gun speed parlando delivery, that the singers stop and provide an encore on the spot. Not an everyday occurrence but it was certainly a crowd pleaser.

The star of the show is clearly soprano Anna Netrebko as the widow Norina. There are no qualms about heaping praise on Netrebko's lustrous voice but there was a question mark about her doing this role. Opera buffa is not her natural territory but she showed that she has considerable comic flair and she handled the role with gusto. Her Barbie-doll pretty face is not capable of great expressiveness but she is still a pleasure to watch and a sheer delight to hear.

Bass John Del Carlo sang the name role. He is a Falstaffian comic actor and singer who seems to have been born for the role. He has an expressive face and a voice that is suited to the foolish old man who convinces himself that he can marry a feisty widow.

Tenor Matthew Polenzani is the perfect Ernesto, the young lover who would rather be disinherited by his uncle than marry a woman he does not love. He is earnest, passionate and sings with a lover’s conviction.

The conniving Dr. Malatesta is sung by baritone Mariusz Kwiecien. He is vocally excellent but appears a bit young for the role. I think of him as a Figaro figure but he lacks the barber’s wiles and humour. For some reason he wore sunglasses and I can only assume it was because the lights bothered his eyes and not because the director or designer decided the character needs them.

The main setting for Don Pasquale is a room in his house. Designer Rolf Langenfass’s set gives the impression that Don Pasquale’s house is full of dilapidated furniture occupied by a slob. He should hire a cleaning lady, you say, but he has all those servants. What are they doing? Why the mess? Whatever the answer, the messy set adds nothing to the production.

Director Otto Schenk sticks to a traditional production that lets you enjoy the myriad of melodies and comic business from one of the best examples of the genre.

Gary Halvorson’s handling of the camera angles and close ups was sensible and you could enjoy an outstanding production and start saving for a trip to New York to see the real thing.

The production will be shown in movie theatres again on December 4, 2010 and on January 17, 2011. Go to www.Metopera.org/HDLive or www.cineplex.com/events for more information.

LENIN’S EMBALMERS – DEADLY BLACK COMEDY FROM HAROLD GREEN JEWISH THEATRE

From L to R: James Durham (Apparatchik 1), Hardee T. Lineham (Vladimir Vorobiov), Janine Theriault (Nadia) & Arne MacPherson (Apparatchik 2).

** (out of five)

Reviewed by James Karas


Playwright Vern Thiessen had a brilliant idea: write a play about the heroic embalming of the great leader of the people, Lenin. The outline of the story already existed in a book by Ilya Zbarsky and Samuel Hutchinson called Lenin’s Embalmers and all he had to do was shape it into a play with black humour and a satirical look at Russia in 1924. He did that but unfortunately the result was not as happy as the original idea.

Thiessen’s play, Lenin’s Embalmers, opened in New York last March and the Harold Green Jewish Theatre has brought it to Toronto at the Al Green Theatre on Spadina Avenue. The limited virtues of the play are made worse by a creaky production directed by Geoffrey Brumlik.

After Lenin died in 1924, Stalin decided to preserve the body of the great leader forever and put it on display in Red Square, in the heart of Moscow. He rightly guessed that people would line up for hours to see the embalmed remains of the great man. The irony of making an almost holy relic of a dead Communist is simply astounding.

The problem was that no one knew how to preserve a corpse forever and the job was given to Boris Zbarsky and Vladimir Vorobiev, two Jewish scientists. The advantage of giving the job to Jews, aside from the ability to do it, was that they are twice as easy to kill. There was no need to kill them right away, because in the hands of the two scientists the impossible became reality and they became national heroes for their achievement. Their success and influence, like that of many Russians of the day, was short-lived. Stalin shipped them off to a prison camp and they disappeared.

The play is or is intended to be fast-paced with people walking on and off the stage in a quick succession of scenes. The main plot of the embalming is supplemented with a subplot about Stalin’s relations with Trotsky who, as we know, went into exile and was murdered with an ice pick in Mexico.

The problem with the play and the production is that just about nothing works. Thiessen inserts a fair number of jokes in the play, probably a good sign that he had difficulty coming up with decent lines arising from the situation. Examples: What is the difference between capitalism and socialism? In capitalism, man exploits man. In socialism, it is the other way around. Lenin collects jokes that people tell about him; Stalin collects people who tell jokes about him. These may authentic examples of Russian humour of the time but like all jokes they need to be delivered properly. The delivery that Brumlik evinces simply kills the humour.

Near the end of the first act, we see the two scientists embalming the body of Lenin. They put gauzes on his face, pour liquids in a bathtub, put the body in the tub, and presumably spend days or weeks in the process. They do not say a word during the scene which seems to last as long as the actual embalming. The audience waits for something, anything, to happen but nothing does. Surely some dialogue laced with black humour would be á propos.

The scientists and some of the other characters are somewhat buffoonish, indeed budding comedians. Martin Julien as Zbarsky is almost a figure from a farce and Hardee Linehan plays the alcoholic Vorobiov without humour or drama. David Fox struts around as Stalin with little notion of the evil depravity of the man. Arne MacPherson’s Trotsky is not much better while Steve Ratzlaff plays the bureaucrat Krasin and has to deliver some awful dialogue. Harry Nelken is Lenin alive and dead. In the end the characters look as if they came out of a meat grinder. Janine Theriault, the only woman, plays several Nadias but the humour of her metamorphoses gets lost in the dross of the rest of the play and the production

The Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company is in its fourth year and has had a mixed bag of productions all dealing with the Jewish story. Lenin’s Embalmers will not be counted as one of its successes. Unfortunately, neither the play nor the production merits much praise.

The company’s next production will be Zero Hour, a play about Zero Mostel and it will open on March 26, 2011. It will be followed by To Life, a musical revue, next May.
______

Lenin’s Embalmers by Vern Thiessen runs from October 30 to November 21, 2010 at the Al Green Theatre, 750 Spadina Ave. Toronto, Ontario. www.hgjewishtheatre.com/

DEATH OF A SALESMAN – OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION OF A MASTERPIECE FROM SOULPEPPER

Tim Campbell, Ari Cohen, Joseph Ziegler, Nancy Palk. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann

***** (out of 5)

Reviewed by James Karas

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman premiered 61 years ago which makes the play a couple of years younger than Willy Loman, the salesman of the title. It is one of the masterpieces of the American theatre and Soulpepper’s production at the Young Centre, Toronto, is an extraordinary staging that does justice to the play.

Director Albert Schultz elicits stellar performances from an outstanding cast and the result is, to coin a phrase, a must see production for anyone who cares about the theatre.

Willy Loman is an ordinary man in the extreme. He drives all over New England carrying samples for a New York store and selling whatever he can. He has a wife and two sons and lives in a small house that was once surrounded by greenery but is now hemmed in by high-rise buildings. He has a mortgage and bills to pay and all the ills of a middle class American. But Willy has dreams, ambitions and desires on a grand scale. He does not see himself as an ordinary salesman but as a salesman who is well-liked; he does not have to wait to see the buyer; the cops do not give him tickets; he beats sales records; he is a somebody.

It is this simplicity and complexity, this pathos, exuberance, pathetic ambition and lack of ability in Loman that Joseph Ziegler captures in his defining performance.

Loman conveys some of these qualities to his two sons and they grow up with the faith that they are better than everyone and that they will succeed on character and desire instead of ability and effort. Biff (Ari Cohen) and Happy (Tim Campbell) grow up not just as shallow human beings but as liars and, in the case of Biff, as a thief and a criminal. Campbell plays Happy as the classic narcissistic womanizer who denies his own father to gain favour with a woman. Biff uses the discovery of his father’s infidelity as a crutch to cover his own nothingness.

The Lomans are surrounded by success. Willy’s brother Ben (William Webster) went into the jungle and came out wealthy. What is his secret, asks Willy. His neighbour Charley (Michael Hanrahan) owns a business and his son Bernard (Gregory Prest) becomes a lawyer who is about to argue a case before the Supreme Court and will stay with friends who have their own tennis court. Everybody around him is living Willy’s dream and he cannot pay his bills. He is reduced to begging foe a job from his employer Howard (Brendan Wall), another successful man, who summarily fires him.

Nancy Palk, speaking in her lower register, gives an outstanding performance as Willy’s wife Linda. Linda understands everything, says little and supports her husband to the end.

Set Designer Lorenzo Savoini opts for a small, claustrophobic set. The kitchen and sons’ bedroom in the Loman house are small and there is a panel on one side of the stage to indicate the changes in scenery. The panel shows greenery when Willy remembers the past but displays a forbidding tenement building in the present. The scene in Howard’s office and the restaurant are indicated with a view from a skyscraper and neon lights respectively. Very effective.

Near the end of the play, the travelling salesman imagines his own funeral. He sees people with cars with strange license plates from all over New England coming to pay their last respect to the well-liked Willy Loman. By that time Willy’s dreams and ambitions have all crumbled and the only think left for him is inglorious death and hopefully a funeral becoming someone of his ambitions if not his success. In the end, almost no one attends even his funeral

The final scene of the play is a Requiem for Willy on his grave site. Only his family and neighbours Charley and Bernard are there Biff has reached a cathartic realization that he is a nobody. The play ends with everyone leaving the cemetery. Schultz however wants us to know that Willy has an heir for his vacuous dreams and ambitions: his son Happy stays on the grave site after everyone leaves.

But if Willy was a failure right up to his funeral, he manages to achieve some posthumous success. By committing suicide, he leaves a substantial amount of insurance money for his wife – from a life insurance policy by money he “borrowed” from Charley.

A great night at the theatre.
_________

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller opened on October 21 and will continue until November 13, 2010 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Mill Street, Toronto, Ontario. www.soulpepper.ca 416 866-8666.

ACIS AND GALATEA IN GORGEOUS PRODUCTION FROM OPERA ATELIER

Mireille Asselin & Thomas Macleay in Handel's Acis and Galatea. Photo: Bruce Zinger

Reviewed by James Karas

****1/2 (out of five)

For its 25th season, Opera Atelier offers two 18th century works, namely Handel’s Acis and Galatea and Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito. The first is playing now at the Elgin Theatre; for the second you will have to wait until April 2011.

For the 1732 production of the pastoral opera Acis and Galatea, the advertisement read that “there will be no Action on the Stage, but the scene will represent in a Picturesque Manner, a rural Prospect, with Rocks, Grottos, Fountains and Groves.”

The current production of the work by Opera Atelier pays no heed to the early advertisement and co-artistic directors Marshal Pynkoski an Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg have produced a delightful version of the work. There is considerable humour and action on the stage in the form of dances choreographed by Ms Zingg but unfortunately very little evidence of groves and fountains. More about that later.

Acis and Galatea was first performed in 1718 and it was George Frideric Handel’s first dramatic work in English. His librettist John Gay based the wok on Ovid’s Metamorphoses and tells of the love triangle of Acis, Galatea and Polyphemus. Galatea is a Nereid, a sea nymph, one of the 50 daughters of Nereus, the god of the sea.

Somehow she finds herself in Arcadia or Sicily and the semi-divine Galatea has fallen in love with a mortal named Acis. The one-eyed, man-eating Cyclops Polyphemus is also in the same neighborhood and he has fallen in love or more accurately in lust with Galatea. (this is before he took up sheep rearing full time on the island of the Cyclops and dined on some of Odysseus’s men). Polyphemus’s father is the god Poseidon and you know things will not turn out well for the mere mortal Acis.

Acis and Galatea has been variously described as a masque, a serenata, a pastoral and a pastoral opera. It has a number of melodic arias, duets and choruses that tell the story of the love of Acis and Galatea and the fate of the mortal lover in the hands of Polyphemus. There is a fourth character named Damon who is sometimes described as a Shepherd but Pynkoski has wisely chosen to have him played as spirit. He comments on the action and is a connecting link in the plot.

The delight of the evening is soprano Mireille Asselin’s Galatea. Ms Asselin has a lovely voice, rich in tone and colour and she was a pleasure to watch and hear. She was well-matched by tenor Thomas Macleay as Acis. Handel does not require lung-stretching vocal histrionics but he does demand beauty of tone and Macleay delivers some marvelous singing.

Pynkoski has chosen to present the Cyclops Polyphemus as a comic character rather than as a straight villain. Polyphemus is larger than life and he must be either a terrifying monster or a comic burlesque of a monster. Bass Joao Fernandes struts on the stage and overacts as becomes a clownish monster and produces some laugher but he is not larger than life. His singing was good but the character needed to take a more extreme shape to be satisfactory. Tenor Lawrence Wiliford was sprightly physically and vocally as the spirit Damon and a good example of a properly conceived character.

The Tafelmusik Chamber Choir gets some of the best parts of the opera and from the opening chorus of “Oh, the pleasure of the plains” to the final “Galatea, dry thy tears” is simply superb. The Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra under the baton of David Fallis is matchless in this repertoire.

The opera has a large number of solo airs and if the singers were allowed to simply sing their numbers there will indeed be no Action on the Stage. Leave it to Choreographer Zingg to devise dances for the Atelier Ballet to accompany the singing. The production becomes a ballet as well as a pastoral opera.

The single backdrop that serves as a set for the entire production looks more like a decaying gothic castle on “a dark and stormy night” rather than anything that remotely resembles any notion one might have of Arcadia. When the choir sings of the pleasures of the plains, there are none to be seen. The center looks like the opening to a cave with overhanging rocks. The sky is dark and menacing and there is no hint of groves. Even the animals that are come bouncing across the stage seem to be running away from an approaching storm rather than happily romping through the dales of Arcady.

Aside from those two complaints, this is a superb production in period style that is worth seeing more than once. By happenstance, I saw it twice and enjoyed it even more the second time.
_____

Acis and Galatea by George Frideric Handel, presented by Opera Atelier, opened on October 30 and will be performed seven times until November 7, 2010 at the Elgin Theatre, 189 Yonge Street, Toronto. www.operaatelier.com

DELIGHTFUL MARRIAGE OF FIGARO FROM OPERA HAMILTON

Ariana Chris as Cherubino, Nathalie Paulin as Susanna and Brett Polegato as Count Almaviva. Photo: Peter Oleskevich
Looking for opera in Southern Ontario is not exactly like looking for oases in the Kalahari Desert but neither are productions so plentiful that you feel you cannot see everything. The Canadian Opera Company offers seven productions, Opera Atelier provides only two and if you want to see more you will have to settle for some concert versions or see opera on the movie screen Live from the Met.

But there is another oasis, a scrapper known as Opera Hamilton that refuses to be deterred by budget deficits and offers two full productions and a concert version of opera favourites each year.

For 2010-2011, the operas are The Marriage of Figaro (October 21 and 23 2010) and a double bill of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci (April 21 and 23, 2011). In between, they offer POPERA Plus! which they subtitle a “gala super concert” (January 27 and 29, 2011) of familiar and less frequently heard arias and ensembles.

The production of The Marriage of Figaro was a delight. Not that there were no shortcomings and much of the credit belongs to Mozart. But director Brent Krysa invested the production with many nice comic touches (like Marcellina holding Figaro on her lap like a baby after she discovers he is her son) and maintained a good pace that in the end left you patting yourself on the back for being wise enough to see it.

Let’s start with the strengths of the production. Canadian bass-baritone Stephen Hegedus made a fine Figaro. He sang and acted well and handled the comic business with panache. His counterpart is Count Almaviva, sung by Canadian baritone Brett Polegato. Where Figaro is the clever and funny servant, Almaviva is the serious and dramatic aristocrat. Polegato was just that, thundering his notes with musical authority.

Susanna (soprano Nathalie Paulin) is the other quick-witted servant who can match and even surpass Figaro in cleverness. Paulin has a lovely voice but it took her a while to warm up. Initially I thought her voice may be too small for a large auditorium. But she settled in and did a fine job.

Canadian soprano Katherine Whyte’s Countess presented several problems. The Countess, in contrast with her servant Susanna, should be regal, even majestic. Her marriage to the count has gone stale and she is pensive and perhaps depressed because she feels that he no longer loves her. In fact the Count wants to seduce Susanna. In her beautiful first aria, “Porgi amor,” the Countess laments the loss of her beloved husband’s love and expresses her deep sorrow. The long phrases of the aria should be delivered with a majestic beauty that Whyte does not quite achieve. The same can be said of her singing of “Dove sono” where she asks where the lovely moments of sweetness and pleasure have gone.

The other issue with Whyte was simply sloppy directing on the part of Krysa. The Countess’s movements and manner should be in sharp contrast to that of her maid. Begowned and bejeweled, she should move with the gait of a princess not the quick steps of a servant. She does not.

Mezzo soprano Ariana Chris did a superb job in the pants role of Cherubino. He is hormonally overcharged and can usually be found where he shouldn’t be. Aside from some wonderful comic business he/she gets two marvelous arias, “Non so piu cosa son, cosa faccio” (I don't know any more what I am, what I'm doing) and “Voi, che sapete che cosa è amor” (You ladies, who know what love is) where poor Cherubino simply quivers with sexual excitement. Chris acted convincingly boyish and, as they say, delivered the vocal goods.

Canadian bass-baritone Daniel Lichti delivered Bartolo’s “La vendetta” aria with sonority and he and mezzo-soprano Lynne McMurtry’s Marcellina made a nice comic team of the would-be spoilers of Figaro’s wedding plans. Gerald Isaac sang the roles of Basilio and Don Curzio with a comic twang that was quite appropriate.

The set, designed by Susan Benson was functional. It was not big enough to fill the stage and when Cherubino jumped out the window we saw him scamper off to the wings. Once you get used to it you forget the stage and listen to the music and the singing.

The Opera Hamilton Chorus sounded thin at times and the Hamilton Philharmonic under the baton of Gordon Gerrard went through some uneven patches but gave an overall god accounting of the score.

In the end, it was a very enjoyable evening at the opera.
_____

The Marriage of Figaro by W.A. Mozart was performed on October 21 and 23, 2010 at The Great Hall, Hamilton Place, Hamilton, Ontario. www.operahamilton.ca Tel. 905 527-7627

DAS RHEINGOLD AT THE MET: VOCALLY AND VISUALLY STUNNING PRODUCTION – IF ONLY WE COULD SEE IT

Franz-Josef Selig as Fasolt, Bryn Terfel as Wotan, Hans-Peter Konig as Fafner, Stephanie Blythe as Fricka and Wendy Bryn Harmer as Freia. Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Reviewed by James Karas


In the spring of 2009, New York’s Metropolitan Opera staged Otto Schenk’s production of Der Ring des Nibelungen for the last time. The production had been around for some twenty years and who would have thought that its final staging would become a cultural “event”. Yet, it was.

No sooner was Schenk’s staging retired than a new production was announced for the fall of 2010, this time directed by Robert Lepage. Lepage is an extraordinary director who pushes the visual boundaries of opera beyond what we are accustomed to. His production of The Nightingale and Other Short Fables by Igor Stravinsky for the Canadian Opera Company last year gave Torontonians a good taste of his tremendous imagination.

With that type of background, expectations for his production of Wagner’s massive cycle are running high and the first installment, Das Rheingold, is already in. Mortals who are favored by the gods saw the production at Lincoln Centre. The less fortunate got to see it on a large screen in a movie theatre. We all expected a high tech approach with visual effects that should be at the very least surprising and perhaps stunning.

Needless to say, Lepage steers away from Schenk’s grandiose and traditional sets. The set that he provides, (designed by Carl Fillion) consists of a series of platforms that can be moved laterally, vertically and in every other way, it seems. With the help of appropriate lighting the result is usually amazing. The opening scene of Das Rheingold, in the depths of the river is stunning. The Rhinemaidens flap their fins and glide down a sloped platform and the impression that they are indeed underwater is marvelous.

In the scenes that follow from the top of the mountain where Wotan negotiates with the giants Fasolt and Fafner over the bill for the construction of Valhalla to the underground home of the Nibelungs, the judicious and imaginative use of lighting and moving platforms create a credible and at times exciting production visually.

The costumes, designed by Francois St-Aubin, from Wotan’s plastic breastplate, to the long gowns for the goddesses, are appropriate. The giants Fasolt and Fafner are given masses of hair and puffed up sleeves. I thought they looked more like overfed hillbillies than giants but let that be.

Unfortunately in a Live from the Met telecast in a movie theatre, you are subject to the capricious and often ridiculous choices of Gary Halvorson. He is the telecast director and he chooses the shots from close-ups to full stage views, to the angles from which we poor mortals are allowed to see the production.

His work ranges from the barely acceptable to the utterly deplorable. At the beginning there were enough long shots for us to get a sense of the staging and get the benefit of close-ups of the Rhinemaidens and the slimy Alberich. After that full views or even shots of most of the stage became rarer. There were times when we could see the character and a view of the boards and some shade of the set. The impression was that the gods were having a get-together on a shady deck in suburbia.

Let’s get to the real pleasure of the production. A frail James Levine in his 40th year at the Met conducted the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra to produce sonic splendour on, how else can one put it, Wagnerian scale. The lead singers were outstanding. Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel is a magnificent Wotan. A patch of hair over one eye, a plastic breastplate and a couple of weeks of beard add up to an impressive appearance to supplement his vocal prowess.

American mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe was Fricka. She is supersized vocally and physically and if one characteristic may be more attractive than the other we have to accept Wotan’s choice for a spouse and just listen.

German basses Franz-Josef Selig (Fasolt) and Hans-Peter Kőnig (Fafner) are the lumbering giants who sound Wagnerian (thank god) even if they look Tennessean. America bass-baritone Eric Owens’ Alberich is slimy and scary. His acting and singing are superb and this is an Alberich to remember.

Irish mezzo-soprano Patricia Bardon sings beautifully as the earth goddess Erda who warns Wotan and Wendy Bryn Harmer is suitably attractive as Freia, the goddess of beauty.

The visual effects that Lepage provides do not always satisfy. When the gods finally enter Valhalla – just a minute, where is Valhalla? As ordered by Wagner, the colours of the rainbow appear, the music soars but there is no visual representation of the grand palace of the gods. I expected something visually stunning that surpasses anything that a realistic representation could provide. It was not there. The only solution here is to one-up Lepage. Close your eyes and imagine a Valhalla more grandiose than any director can imagine or set designer devise. All you really need is the music and Levine delivers that gloriously.

What Halvorson allows you to see of Das Rheingold will be shown again in movie theatres on November 20 and 29, 2010.

FERNANDO KRAPP WROTE ME THIS LETTER: CANADIAN STAGE COMPANY OPENS ADVENTUROUS SEASON

Ngozi Paul as Julia and Ashley Wright as Fernando. Photo by Bruce Zinger

Summer is over and the theatre season has opened in earnest. The professional and amateur theatre compnies have opened their intitial productions and the eternally optimistic audience has begun looking for that great production of a great play. Let’s start with a list of plays that you will be able to see in he coming months: Fernando Krapp Wrote me this Letter, The Anderson Project, Studies in Motion, Saint Carmen of the Main, The Cosmonaut’s Last Message to the Woman he Once Loved in the Former Soviet Union and Untitled.

How many of those plays do you recognize? Where are they playing?
The answer to the first question may be “none” and the guess to the second question may well be that the plays are being produced by some experimental company in a theatre that you need your GPS to find.

Would you believe, as Maxwell Smart used to say, that they make up the Canadian Stage Company’s new season at the Bluma Appel Theatre?

Canadian Stage has a new Artistic and General Director in Matthew Jocelyn. He replaced Martin Bragg who served in the post for 17 years. A Torontonian, Jocelyn has spent most of his artistic life in Europe. Words used to describe his approach are bold, innovative, trans-disciplinary and redefining. The titles of the plays alone tell us that Canadian Stage Company and the Bluma Appel Theatre may never be the same.

For his first production Jocelyn has chosen German playwright Tankred Dorst’s Fernando Krapp Wrote me this Letter: An Attempt at the Truth which he translated and of course directed. On the surface it is a simple, almost mythical story. But it is the type of play where most of the action takes place beneath the surface and in the end you are left scratching your head. This is not intended to be a light evening out for the tired businessperson.

When the play begins, Julia (Ngazi Paul) tells us that Fernando Krapp “wrote me a letter”. Julia is a poor woman who lives with her father in a city. Fernando is very wealthy and he gave some money to Julia’s father (Walter Borden) and consequently she accuses her father of selling her to Fernando. She is adamant that she wants nothing to do with Fernando.

Fernando (Ashley Wright) appears and he is not a sleazy or tough Donald Trump-type tycoon. He is a rather jolly, overweight man wearing a beige-coloured three piece suit. He is arrogant, to be sure and wants his way but he does not seem nasty at all. He marries Julia and they seem to be quite happy.

The Count (Ryan Hollyman) visits Julia and they get along quite nicely. Is Fernando jealous? No. Are Julia and the Count having an affair? No. Let’s go over the last propositions again. In a bizarre way, we will find Julia and the two men in her life in a mental hospital. She is mentally ill and Fernando and the Count are psychiatrists. Julia is cured and at home and we see the two men with her again.

The plot moves seamlessly and without any connecting logic from one point to the next. This is theatre of the absurd that make sense and no sense. As the subtitle of the play states, Fernando’s letter and the play itself may be an “attempt at the truth” but you are never sure what the truth is or for that matter what is the question. In other words, you cannot find the truth if you do not know what you are looking for and Dorst does not give you too many clues to assist you in your search.

This is theatre of questions and not answers; of “what was that all about” head scratching and a desire to see the play again or find out more about it. Perhaps that is the highest compliment one can pay to both director and author.

The real question however is if this production and the other plays on this season’s roster will bring people to the Bluma Appel Theatre. Let’s hope that it does.
______

Fernando Krapp Wrote me this Letter: An Attempt at the Truth by Tankred Dorst opened on September 28 and will run until October 16, 2010 at the Bluma Appel Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, 27 Front Street East, Toronto, Ontario. www.canstage.com