MARIA SEVERA – NEW MUSICAL AT SHAW FESTIVAL TAKES YOU TO STRANGE PLACES

Reviewed by James Karas

A musical set in mid-nineteenth century Lisbon and based loosely on the life of someone called Maria Severa? And providing a current work inspired by fado music? In baseball, my score would be one for three. Yes, I have heard of Lisbon but the other two facts (I blush) drew a blank until I saw Maria Severa, the new musical by Jay Turvey and Paul Sportelli now playing at the Court House Theatre during the Shaw Festival’s 50th anniversary.

Fado (fate in Portuguese) is described as urban folk music or Portuguese blues and a woman called Maria Severa is credited with introducing it in the 19th century. Little is known about her life and many legends have sprung about her. Sportelli and Turvey have taken their own route and developed a script about a mythical Maria Severa who was a prostitute in Mouraria, a working class district of Lisbon.

She works the district with a Brazilian girl named Jasmine (Saccha Dennis) and they meet two prospective customers, Fernando (Jonathan Gould) and Armando (Mark Uhre). They are aristocratic brothers and live in an estate situated above Mouraria.

Armando’s family is in financial trouble and he is a bullfighter by day. His mother Costanca (Sharry Flett) is planning to marry him off to the wealthy Clara (Jacqueline Thair) for financial reasons. Armando falls in love with Maria.

Maria is also a singer and a composer and she performs at a club in Mouraria. There is a guitarist named Carlos (Jeff Irving) who works there and he is in love with her. There is also her mother (Jenny L. Wright) who will provide some of the broad humour of the musical.

It is not hard to guess that Armando’s mother will object to her son’s choice of woman and will of course try hard to dissuade him from having anything to do with Maria. A priest (played by Neil Barclay) comes in to convince Armando of the error of his ways.

The classic situation has been developed and if all goes well Armando will solve his financial woes and marry Maria. But this is a work composed in 2011 and not a 1931 Broadway musical.

The musical numbers range from accompanied recitatives to some beautifully melodic songs. They cover a broad range from the romantic “Wandering Moon” and “Starlight” to the gritty “Bread and Butter,” the latter referring to prostitution.

Julie Martell is not convincing as a prostitute but she makes a beautiful musician and sings splendidly in the title role.

Mark Uhre is a fine figure of a man, as they say, with a voice to match. He is a matador, a singer, a lover, a man. His one shortcoming is his atrocious table manners and I somehow doubt that his high-breeding would allow him to shovel food down his gullet the way he does here. The fine-toned and sharp-nosed Countess played by Sharry Flatt would have driven those table manners out of him three days after his birth!

Jenny L. Wright is allowed to have a field day in overacting and hamming it up as Mama and is enjoyable. Saccha Dennis is given some license too and provides some contrast to Maria. She is excellent vocally as well.

Jeff Irving as Carlos is a clever, undernourished musician in love with Maria, a woman who is clearly more talented musically than he is.

Jackie Maxwell directs and dramaturges this work. The latter must mean that she helped shape up the plot. In any event, it is a highly enjoyable musical and very educational. Fado, Mouraria and Maria Severa will become almost household terms from now on. No?
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Maria Severa by Jay Turvey and Paul Sportelli opened on July 19 and will run until October 2, 2011 at the Court House Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com.

THE PRESIDENT EXHAUSTS AUDIENCE WITH LAUGHTER AT SHAW FESTIVAL

Reviewed by James Karas

“I am exhausted.”

That was the comment of a gentleman as he was walking out of the Royal George Theatre in Niagara-on-the-Lake. No, he was not a stagehand or other worker who had just finished an arduous shift of work. He had just finished watching The President, a one-act play by Ferenc Molnar, adapted by Morwyn Brebner, which lasts for one hour. It is the lunchtime offering of the Shaw Festival and it is performed at such speed that the audience needs a rest at the end.

The President is a farce on a caffeine overdose but it is also an interesting play about transformation. There is no time to notice the latter because you are running as fast as you can to keep up with the farce and are probably laughing too hard.

The plot? Norrison (Lorne Kennedy), a wily, Napoleonic and fast talking corporate executive is looking after Lydia (Julie Martell), the daughter of a very important client. She is supposed to be studying but instead she has taken up with a rather unwashed cabby and become pregnant. Her parents are arriving in one hour and Norrison must turn the Communist taxi driver into a titled, well-groomed corporate executive suitable to Lydia’s moralistic and conservative parents.

Start your engines. Norrison marshals his staff with military precision and machine-gun speed into transforming the cabby Tony Foot (Jeff Meadows) into the sleek Count von Schottenberg Jr. in one hour.

An incomplete list of the items required to achieve the transformation involves precise order of clothes, adoption papers to raise Tony’s social status, the paraphernalia that go with the life of a corporate executive, a shave and a haircut, membership in the right clubs and the proper attitude.

Verbal and physical speed are of course essential to farce but you have never heard anyone talk as quickly as Lorne Kennedy as he orders clothes, food, hotel accommodation and promotions and demotions with mind-boggling speed, detail and precision.

Julie Martell is the very horny Lydia (Tony gets to paw her body a dozen times and you can see what they have in common and why she is pregnant and why Tony is willing to do whatever he is told).

All the other characters are cogs or satellites to the transformation machine that Norrison sets in motion. There are twenty-two characters and they are played by fifteen actors. Peter Millard is a butler-type assistant to Norrison and Michael Ball is a drunken Count who is willing to adopt Tony for the right price and provided he is not older than him like the last one.

Blair Williams directs the verbal and physical breakneck speeding and the result is uproarious laughter and, after one hour, some fatigue.

Molnar’s play was first performed in Budapest in 1929 and has been produced and adapted numerous times ever since. In 1961 Billy Wilder made a movie based on the play, One, Two, Three, starring James Cagney. The current adaptation by Morwyn Brebner was first seen at the Shaw Festival in 2008 and is being revived after allowing sufficient time for people to catch their breath.
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The President by Ferenc Molnar, adapted by Morwyn Brebner continues until October 9, 2011at the Royal George Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com.

WHITE BITING DOG – INTERESTING REVIVAL OF THOMPSON’S PLAY

Fiona Reid and Mike Ross

Reviewed by James Karas

Judith Thompson’s White Biting Dog opens with an arresting image. A man is standing on a bridge ready to jump to his death. He is stopped by a talking dog and returns to his home to look after his ill father. He will also try to reconcile his father with his estranged mother.

We have the brutal reality of a man ready to commit suicide and the fairy tale intervention by an animal to change the course of his life. This sets the tone for this absurdist drama that was first produced in 1984, won a Governor-General’s Award and is now playing at the Young Centre in a production by Soulpepper.

The man who is saved by the white dog is Cape (Mike Ross), a divorced lawyer who had or faked a nervous breakdown and was fired by his law firm. He never smiles, he tells us, and is perhaps a sociopath.

He is living with his father Glidden (Joseph Ziegler) who is suffering from dementia and other ailments and was given one week to live three months ago. He sprinkles peat moss over himself and acts bizarrely like the rest of the characters. (who the father or Cape?)

Cape meets Pony (Michaela Washburn), a young woman who owns the white dog that saved his life. He considers her an angel and she goes into trances and acts pretty weirdly.

Cape’s mother Lomia (Fiona Reid), shows up with Pascal (Gregory Prest), a young stud. They are living together and their apartment just burned down. Lomia is dressed in a nightgown and she is described by her husband as a slut.

The play examines the relationships of the characters and almost never moves on a realistic level. There are numerous striking images like Cape drinking his nosebleed and the fridge being full of bottles of blood. There is a suggestion of an incestuous encounter between Cape and Lomia and a homosexual contact between Cape and Pascal.

Cape falls in love with Pony and the issue of whether Lomia will dump Pascal and return to Glidden moves the plot forward. But, again, nothing in the play is linear or moves in a rational order.

The set consists of some steel columns suggesting the bridge with a cloudy sky in the background. The foreground consists of a couch and table with a raised platform. The set and costumes are designed by Christina Poddubiuk.

The unreality of the play and the dreamlike quality of some of the scenes made me think that Cape did jump off the bridge and the images and events of the play represent his thoughts in the few seconds before his death. His relationship with his parents, his ill and dying father, his whorish mother, his relationship with his wife and his dream for a saviour like Pony and her dog, all come rushing through his mind as he meets his end. Is Judith Thompson imagining that such thoughts may occur to one committing suicide and she has expanded them into a play?

Nancy Palk directs this interesting play with some of Soulpepper’s stalwart actors. Ziegler is excellent as the now potty, now rational Glidden and Reid is equally adept as Lomia. Washburn looks and acts the perhaps angelic and decidedly otherworldly Pony. Prest and Ross both look like sociopaths in their own right.

If you are looking for a play with a linear plot, a beginning, a middle and an end, this is not it. It is an absurd play where images and scenes follow fluidly as in a dream or perhaps a nightmare. I cannot say that I absorbed it all or terribly enjoyed it but it is interesting theatre nevertheless.
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White Biting Dog by Judith Thompson opened on August 18 and will run until October 1, 2011 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Mill Street, Toronto, Ontario. www.soulpepper.ca 416 866-8666

EXIT THE KING – RUMINATION ABOUT DYING FROM SOULPEPPER

Oliver Dennis and Karen Rae. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann

 Reviewed by James Karas
 
In 1960 Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros opened to great acclaim in London. Theatre critic Martin Esslin attended a party to celebrate the great success and remarked to Ionesco’s wife that the playwright must be very happy. She replied that he in fact is sad. The reason: “He is afraid of death” she said.

In his journal, Ionesco noted how much he dreaded death “from my day of my birth” and it is a subject that permeates much of his work.

Ionesco’s wild imagination turned this fear of death into a cosmic parable and a comic absurdity about dying. Exit the King which was first performed in 1962 is essentially a rumination about realizing that the knowledge and fear of death are about to meet. It is now playing at the Young Centre in a fine production by Soulpepper Theatre Company.

The central character of Exit is King Berenger (Oliver Dennis) who is dying. He is surrounded by his two wives, his Doctor, a guard and a servant. The King orders the sun to come out but it seems to disobey him. He dodders onto his throne and he is unceremoniously informed that he is dying. The King is prepared to die in a few decades or centuries but not now. He is told that he has a couple of hours to live, i.e. until the end of the play.

The play is made up of the juxtaposition of extreme unrealities; Berenger’s kingdom was endless; now it is reduced to a few yards. Berenger was the creator and inventor of everything from the Homeric epics to the airplane; now he is a fool. He has won hundreds of military victories; now he cannot walk up several steps. All of the past and the present belong to the imagination of Berenger and have no relation to reality.

Oliver Dennis is perfect for the role. His Berenger is a lost, frightened and comical soul who staggers around the stage, falls frequently and is incapable of performing the most rudimentary physical or mental activity while maintaining grandiose ideas about the past and planning for an even more grandiose posthumous existence. He wants everything to be made into a memorial for him. He wants to be almost deified and he plans to come back perhaps. Dennis presets the King as a fool, a madman, a dreamer and a frightened person with marvelous ability.

Marguerite (Brenda Robins) is Berenger’s first wife. The husky-voiced Robins plays the Queen as a no-nonsense woman who can be imperious and sarcastic. She is not sentimental and perhaps understands the King better than anyone.

In contrast to her, there is the king’s second wife, Queen Marie played by Karen Rae. Dressed in a beautiful, long gown displaying delightful cleavage, Queen Marie is the opposite of Queen Marguerite. She is sentimental, consoling to the king and tries to be protective of him. A good job done by Rae.

During the second half of the play, the King turns to domestic issues as he approaches death. That reality is brought to him through the servant Juliette (Trish Lindstrom). Lindstrom runs around crouched and has the manner and voice of a servant who is used to taking orders and abuse without differentiating between the two.

William Webster plays the Doctor, Bacteriologist, Executioner and Astrologist. Like Queen Marguerite, he is a no-nonsense person who delivers his lines in a business-like manner. Derek Boyes as the Guard gets to make lots of announcements.

The King is living in a ramshackle palace with a big crack on the wall. The throne room is tilted as if it were sinking, the furniture looks moth-eaten and the throne is a simple chair on a platform. Set and Costume designer Lorenzo Savoini has captured the essence of the play in his designs.

Much credit to Albert Schultz for his directing. The pacing is impeccable and he pays attention to every detail from the staggering of the king to the postures of the maid. He gets superb performances from all the actors.

In 1960 when Mrs. Ionesco told Martin Esslin that her husband was afraid of death, the playwright was 51 years old. He had another 34 years of that dread in front of him. He died in Paris in 1994.
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Exit the King by Eugene Ionesco, translated by Neil Armfield and Geoffrey Rush, opened on August 16 and will run until September 9, 2011 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Mill Street, Toronto, Ontario. www.soulpepper.ca 416 866-8666.

THE MISANTHROPE DONE TO PERFECTION AT STRATFORD SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL

Sara Tophm as Célimène and Ben Carlson as Alceste. Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Reviewed by James Karas

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival has mounted a production of Moliere’s The Misanthrope that is done to perfection. Yes, that is a grandiose statement that begs all kinds of replies, some none too pleasant. But I sat through the performance on opening night at the Festival Theatre and was simply enthralled. It was as if I were seeing the play for the first time and Richard Wilbur’s rhyming couplets came pouring out of the actors’ mouths sounding fresh, colloquial and simply wonderful.

The Misanthrope premiered in 1666 to mediocre reviews. Since then it has joined the rarefied company of great comedies that stretches from Aristophanes to Shaw. It was written in rhyming couplets and there have been a number of translations into English, bath in prose and poetry, but none as successful as Richard Wilbur’s rhyming couplets which first appeared in 1955.

Director David Grindley, Set designer John Lee Beatty and Costume Designer Robin Fraser Paye have opted for the high elegance and sophistication of the 18th century. The elegant set with its chandeliers, fancy doors and soft curtains evokes refined tastes and manners in an aristocratic milieu.

The cast deliver the mellifluous and colloquial lines in a perfect pitch meaning they are aware that they are speaking in rhyming couplets but without sounding stilted. The translation is so fluid that they are able to do that.

Ben Carlson plays Alceste, the Parisian who despises hypocrisy, dishonesty, cant and bad writing. He would rather lose everything than stoop to flattery and false friendship. Carlson is simply marvelous.

His opposite is Célimène, a coquettish young woman who practices exactly what Alceste fulminates against. She has many admirers and lovers and the last thing she says to any of them is the truth. The problem is that Alceste is in love with her and when it comes to love, all principles go to hell. Sara Topham is a beautiful Célimène who can manipulate men, stand up to the nosey Arsinoé and deliver a smashing performance.

The other side of the Célimène coin is the officious and puritanical Arsinoé who attempts to castigate Célimène for her immorality. In one of those scenes that are a sheer joy to watch, Célimène gives Arsinoé her comeuppance. It is here that the repartee between the two woman reaches extraordinary heights because of the poetry. It would be fun in prose but it is much better in verse.

Juan Chioran plays Philinte, Alceste’s friend who has a more rational and compromising view of the world. He attempts to be the voice of reason and Chioran is exceptional in the role. His companion in that regard in Eliante played well by Martha Farrell.

The two foppish marquesses, Clitandre and Acaste, played by Steve Ross and Trent Purdy respectively are stock fools who chase the beautiful Célimène and they are good for a few laughs. Peter Hutt is very good as the would-be poet Oronte.

Director Grindley has hit the perfect pace and created the proper atmosphere for the play. If the rhyming couplets were spoken a bit faster, they would have been difficult to follow at times; more slowly and they would have bored us. Grindley finds just the right speed. He never lets the verse become stilted or in the way of the comedy or drama of the play. This is intelligent, perceptive and superb directing.

It is sometimes easier to criticize than to praise but I have no criticism to offer, only praise. As such it is best to shut up and recommend that you not miss this production of this great play.
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The Misanthrope by Moliere, translated by Richard Wilbur opened on August 12 and will run until October 29, 2011 at the Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

THE HOMECOMING HAS HUMOUR AND LURKING VIOLENCE AT STRATFORD

From left: Brian Denney a Max, Ian Lake as Joey, Cara Ricketts as Ruth, Stephen Ouimette as Sam and Aaron Krohn as Lenny. Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann

Reviewed by by James Karas


Watching Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming is like walking on a frozen lake. The surface appears flat and solid but the ice creaks with every step that you take. There are pools of water here and there and there are some visible cracks. Danger lurks every time you apply pressure to the surface and you may be swallowed at any moment. Nothing is what it seems but you have no idea what “is”.

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival has assigned the task of capturing the spirit of the play to director Jennifer Tarver and at least one “star” actor in Brian Dennehy and some outstanding local talent.

The plot of The Homecoming is, on the surface, quite ordinary. Teddy (Mike Shara), a professor of philosophy in America, is returning to his home in London. He is accompanied by his wife Ruth (Cara Rickets). He left some years ago and his father Max (Brian Dennehy) and two brothers, Lenny (Aaron Krohn) and Joey (Ian Lake) know nothing about his marriage or children.

Max’s brother Sam (Stephen Ouimette) shares the house with Max and the two young men.

We are taken back into family history with all the men telling stories from the past. They are all telling the truth but you cannot believe anything that they are saying. Perhaps it is all true or all lies. Max had a great friend called McGregor. Was he sleeping with Max’s wife? Did he “have her” in the back seat of the cab that Sam was driving?

The boys tell stories of brutalizing woman in a matter-of-fact fashion as if they are simply describing having a beer with a friend. Are the men fantasizing the past or are they factual?

Brian Dennehy plays the brutal but ineffectual paterfamilias and it is indeed a powerful performance. He always carries a stick and you never know when he will use it.

Stephen Ouimette’s Sam is the opposite of Max. Sam is a prissy chauffeur who prides himself on his fine manners and consideration for his customers. People always ask for him, he tells us. Max’s comment is that they can have him for a pittance on Blackfriar’s Bridge. Ouimette captures the nuances of Sam’s character in a fine performance.

Joey (Ian Lake) is training to be a boxer and is physically dangerous but when he tries to have sex with Ruth he is unsuccessful. Lenny pretends to be cerebral and tries to engage Teddy in philosophical arguments but there is unspeakable violence lurking under the pseudo-intellectual façade. Lake and Krohn are well-suited for their roles and do good work subject to my comments below.

The men in The Homecoming speak a lower class London accent and this poses a serious problem for North American actors it seems. Dennehy has a powerful voice and his extraordinary acting manages to camouflage his limited ability with an accent.

Lenny speaks in a high-pitched voice that accentuates his evil side and he does well with the accent. Unfortunately he forgets to maintain the high pitch and lowers his voice about an octave in the second half of the play.

Stephen Ouimette slips in and out of the accent but like Dennehy he camouflages the fault with his fine acting.

Mike Shara’s accent is hopeless and he is miscast as the philosopher who can watch his wife on the couch with his brother. There are other roles he can do; keep him away from anything that requires an English accent.

Car Rickets is excellent as Ruth. She is cool and in the end the tart, as Max calls her, becomes a goddess as she takes over control of the men. Try to figure that one out. That’s what opaque means.

Pinter is famous for his pauses and Tarver wants us to know that they are there but some of them seemed more like coffee breaks.

The Homecoming is an extraordinary play and one cans see it repeatedly and discover new depths and angles every time. This production emphasized the dark humour of the play and the overall impression is favorable. If this were a school project, I would give it a B+ based on the several superb performances but still feel tightness in my stomach every time I hear some of those accents.
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The Homecoming by Harold Pinter opened on August 11 and will run until October 30, 2011 at the Avon Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca 1-800-567-1600

HOSANNA IN OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION AT STRATFORD SHAKESEPARE FESTIVAL

Gareth Potter as Hosanna in Hosanna. Photograph by Cylla von Tiedemann.


Reviewed by James Karas

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival has staged an exceptional production of an outstanding and memorable Canadian play. I speak of Michel Tremblay’s Hosanna.

There are productions that I see and forget about them almost completely within a few weeks. There are others that are permanently etched in my memory. Hosanna is one of the latter. I saw the original English-language production at the Tarragon Theatre back in 1974 and still remember it clearly. Richard Monette and Richard Donat were directed by Bill Glassco in those golden days of the flowering of Canadian drama.

Hosanna has only two characters and for a considerable stretch, only one of them is on stage.

The two characters are gay men living in a dumpy one-room apartment in Montreal.

Claude is a farm boy who early in life realized that he is gay. He moved to Montreal’s seedy side and became a drag queen by night and a hairdresser by day. He dresses and makes love like a woman. He has adopted the name Hosanna and his dream is to appear in drag looking like Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra.

Raymond, his lover, is the epitome of the tough, macho man, a biker, in fact. He wears a leather jacket, leather pants and boots but age is creeping up on him. He is developing a paunch and he is balding. He has adopted the name Cuirette.

The roles of “man” and “woman” taken by the two men are deceiving. Hosanna is in fact the breadwinner; they live in his apartment and he calls the shots. The unemployed Cuirette does all the housework and is in effect Hosanna’s maid.

At one point Cuirette asks Hosanna “what are you?” and the play tries to answer that question about both men. It is the crux of the play and the plot develops towards an answer to that question.

Gareth Potter and Oliver Becker deliver outstanding performances as the warring couple. The play uses strong, corrosive, blunt language and the two actors deliver it with brute force but also a certain rough lyricism and at times even musicality. Potter as Hosanna has a slight French accent that adds to the effectiveness and splendour of his delivery.

Hosanna has acquired many enemies in the gay community especially at the bar where he/she spends her evenings. The offended drag queens plot to humiliate her. At the opening of the play, he/she is returning from the bar dressed like Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra and he/she is crushed and humiliated.

The play moves backward from then on as we uncover the backgrounds of the two men, their relationship and the details of Hosanna’s comeuppance.

Director Weyni Mengesha does a superb job in guiding these extraordinary performances that display all the ugliness of the subculture of drag queens but also the tortured lives and humanity of the two men.

Set Designer Michael Gianfranceso’s bachelor apartment is all that one can imagine in a disgusting place like the one occupied by Hosanna.

The programme contains an Audience Alert: “This production includes mature content, nudity, strong language, haze effects, herbal cigarettes, smoke and the use of strong fragrance.” The Alert should contain the message of “This is a pitch-perfect production of an outstanding Canadian play and everyone should see it.”
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Hosanna by Michel Tremblay opened on August 10 and will play until September 21, 2011 at the Studio Theatre. Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca