THE DANCE OF DEATH – REVIEW OF 2016 SHAW FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

**** (out of five)

Reviewed by James Karas

The Dance of Death is a series of variations on the theme of spousal hatred. August Strindberg was no stranger to marital acrimony and he did not have to go too far from his home when he wrote the play that premiered in 1900. Martha Henry directs the play for the Shaw Festival with powerful performances by Jim Mezon, Fiona Reid and Patrick Galligan.

Edgar (Jim Mezon) is an army captain in charge of a fortress on an island near a port in Sweden. His wife Alice (Fiona Reid) is a former actress and the two are about to “celebrate” their silver wedding anniversary. Perched above the sea, the fortress is in fact a former prison but it is the perfect living quarters metaphorically and realistically for the warring couple which are isolated from the rest of the community and are left with only a Sentry (Landon Doak) walking silently back and forth outside their residence.

Jim Mezon as Edgar, Patrick Galligan as Kurt and Fiona Reid as Alice. Photo by David Cooper.

Mezon with his shaven pate, generous size and thundering voice gives us a powerful Edgar. The power may be more apparent than real because Edgar has some health issues including poor eyesight, excessive use of alcohol and collapsing fits. He admits to nothing and his booming voice brooks no argument.

Fiona Reid’s Alice is no pushover. Her hatred of Edgar is a powerful as his for her and she wants revenge and elimination of him. She engineers his arrest and incarceration but is unsuccessful He attempted to kill her but failed. He chases her around with a sword, makes a shambles of their apartment and as if by divine contempt, they cannot get rid of each other. Fiona Reid excels in comic roles with splendid intonations, physical moves and hilarious pauses. Here we see her in a dramatic role that she handles superbly.

The catalyst for some of the more egregious explosions of marital loathing is the arrival of Alice’s cousin Kurt (Patrick Galligan). He is a quarantine master sent to open a quarantine station on the island. Edgar hates him and wants to destroy him directly and indirectly by affecting his son’s future. Kurt has some experience in spousal combat. A court ordered him to have no communication with his some fifteen years ago.

Galligan’s Kurt can stand his ground against Edgar and he goes many steps further with his attraction to Alice. The two express great passion for each other and plan to get rid of Edgar. This is not a comedy and as you may suspect they do not succeed.

The only other character in the play is the silent Sentry who walks back and forth in the first half without any sign of weariness but who limps during the second half.

The play profits from playwright Conor McPherson’s translation and syncopation. He gets rid of the minor characters of the maid Jenny and the Old Man and provides a colloquial language that is not stilted or awkward. The natural flow of the dialogue works exceptionally well in moving along the plot of a play that has very little plot. 

Jim Mezon as Edgar, Fiona Reid as Alice and Patrick Galligan as Kurt in The Dance of Death. Photo by David Cooper

The set by William Schmuck gives the impression of an apartment above the harbor that still seems claustrophobic and indeed prison-like. Going down to the harbor requires descending numerous steps and Martha Henry makes sure we hear the loud footsteps when the characters go down or come up the stairs.

The dance of Death is not always easy to bring off but Martha Henry with an excellent cast and a superb version of the play by Conor McPherson succeeds in bringing the Strindbergian war into a fine evening at the theatre.

______

The Dance of Death by August Strindberg in a version by Conor McPherson runs until September 10, 2016 at the Studio Theater, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, www.shawfest.com/

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE – REVIEW OF 2016 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

**** (out of 5)

Reviewed by James Karas

You look at the 2016 list of productions at the Stratford Festival and see Shakespeare (4), musicals (2), classical (3), modern (3) and a World Premiere (1). You applaud enthusiastically. Then you see Shakespeare in Love in a North American Premiere. Is that the 1998 movie with Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes adapted for the stage in a moment of desperation and utter failure of original creativity?

Please, gimme a break.

Well, eat your words and your ham sandwich and treat yourself to a literate, hilarious and thoroughly enjoyable romp in Elizabethan England. Yes, Lee Hall has adapted Marc Norman’s and Tom Stoppard’s screenplay but he has done an expert job of contraction and conversion without taking anything away from the original and indeed adding something to it.

 

Members of the company in Shakespeare in Love. Photography by David Hou

The main plotline involves the beautiful Viola (Shannon Taylor), the daughter of Sir Robert de Lesseps (Michael Spencer-Davis) who has money but no social status. He wants her to marry the boorish, titled but broke Lord Wessex (Rylan Wilkie). She loves poetry, the theatre and acting which lead her to the theatre and into the arms of the upstart playwright from Stratford-upon-Avon.

The play moves quickly through the theatrical world of 1590’s London where we meet familiar names like Marlowe, Alleyn, John Webster, Henslowe, Burbage and a number of fictional characters. Backstage rivalries, auditions, theft of scripts, financial skullduggery and performance terror all combine to produce laughter and simple joy, all associated with the love of theatre and poetry.

Luke Humphrey as Shakespeare has a writer’s block can’t write a single line of a sonnet or come up with a scene for his new play Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter which he has sold to two producers. Enter Thomas Kent who turns out to be the lovely Viola who can read poetry. Humphrey gives us all the energy, guile and even deviousness that Shakespeare needs to survive in the rough and tumble world of the theatre.

Shannon Taylor reminds us (not that we need it) why we are in love with Shakespeare’s poetry as we admire her pluck and intelligence as a true lover of theatre and language. No wonder Shakespeare falls in love with her.

There is no shortage of characters and superb actors who portray them that make us laugh. Stephen Ouimette is hilarious as the producer Henslowe who has to pay up for money that he borrowed to avoid further methods of persuasion (a.k.a. torture) by his lender Fennyman. Poor Henslowe gives a role to his tailor who has a serious speech impediment and cannot utter a line. Reason: he owes him money.

Fennyman the money lender (played superbly by Tom McCamus) may be a thug but he is a funny one especially when he is given a part in a play.

 Shannon Taylor as Viola de Lesseps in Shakespeare in Love. Photography by David Hou.

Shakespeare’s rival and at the time superior playwright, Christopher Marlowe (Saamer Usmani) is a sneaky presence who nevertheless helps the bard. In the end in a “Salieri killed Mozart” scenario, Shakespeare feels that he caused Marlowe’s death.

The egotistical actors Alleyn (Brad Hodder) and Burbage (Steve Ross) are there as is the creepy and bloodthirsty John Webster (Tal Shulman). There is an assortment of characters that are on stage creating the excitement and energy we imagine happening backstage when everything goes wrong with a performance. It is splendid ensemble acting.

Paddy Cunneen adds some lovely songs based on verses from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets and Jane Gibson provides the choreography.

Shakespeare in Love opened in London in 2014 directed by Declan Donnellan and that production has been imported for the play’s North American premiere at Stratford. Designer Nick Ormerod provides a wood-paneled backdrop with a balcony and moveable panels for the change of scenes such as the introduction of the bed, the entry of the Queen and the indication of action behind the curtain. It is excellent for quick scene changes in a play that is fast paced.

What can one say about a play that covers Shakespeare, love, laughter, theatre, and a “familiar” setting no matter how fictional?

How about: “Thanks for the break…the laughter…the ”visit”…the wonderful production.

      ______

Shakespeare in Love based on the screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, adapted for the stage be Lee Hall continues in repertory until October 26, 2016 at the Avon Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

ALL MY SONS - REVIEW OF 2016 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

James Karas

Joe Keller Kate Keller Chris Keller Ann Deever George Deever Dr. Jim Bayliss Sue Bayliss Frank Lubey Lydia Lubey

Joseph Ziegler Lucy Peacock Tim Campbell  Sarah Afful                              Michael Blake   E.B. Smith        Lanise Antoine Shelley              Rodrigo Beilfuss Jessica B. Hill

Director Martha Henry, Set Designer Douglas Paraschuk, Costumes Designer Dana Osborne, Lighting Designer Louise Guinard, Sound Designer Todd Charlton, Fight Director John Stead

Continues at the Garrick Theatre, Charing Cross Road, London, England.   

*** (out of five)

The timing for the Stratford Festival’s production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons could not be more apposite even if it was unintentional. In the midst of an ugly presidential race, a large number of Americans are supporting Donal Trump because he is a businessman as if that were a virtue far above anything that experienced politicians can offer. Anyone that has amassed a personal fortune worth billions of dollars and promises to make America great again must be good for the country.

All My Sons looks at business, profits, wealth, morality and corruption in 1946 America and, ironically, in Ohio where the celebration of Trump’s success in business was rewarded with his nomination for the presidency of the United States a couple of weeks ago.

 

Joseph Ziegler as Joe Keller in All My Sons. Photography by David Hou.

Joe Keller is an American success story. He owns a factory that manufactures airplane parts for the American Air Force during World War II. His factory ships some defective cylinders that cause the death of 21 pilots. Joe’s partner is convicted and jailed. Joe gets off scot-free because he was not at work on the day the cylinders were made and shipped. That is the basic plot on which this morality tale is built.

Martha Henry directs a fine production of this American classic with a few problems in the process. Ziegler’s Joe Keller is successful but he clearly has something weighing on him. We see that weight get heavier as the truth creeps out and his love of family, excuses and bombast can no longer sustain him. We see his tragedy evolve slowly and inexorably in a superb performance by Ziegler.

Joe’s wife Kate is the most interesting, complex and sympathetic character in the play. Her son Larry was reported missing in the war and she cannot accept that fact. She even asks her neighbour Frank, an amateur astrologer, to check her son’s stars to see if the day of his death was a lucky day for him. Kate knows a great deal more than she reveals and we know that she knows as well. She has built a wall made of lies, self-delusion and wishful thinking that holds the audience riveted to her emotional state and her fate. Lucy Peacock has a very distinctive voice that has a singular tinge and I find it highly effective in most of her roles but it struck me as ineffective at certain moments. I cannot explain why. 

 

Lucy Peacock as Kate Keller in All My Sons. Photography by David Hou.

Their son Chris is in love with his late brother’s girlfriend and he has invited her over to the Keller house in order to ask her to marry him. She is in love with him as well. Chris is a sensitive young man with a sense of morality and responsibility. He will be brought to face his father’s true character. Tim Campbell is miscast for the role. He looks like a football player and has a voice that promises a touchdown in the next quarter. He does get quite dramatic when he confronts his father and his own morality but overall he is in the wrong role.

Sarah Afful as Ann, the daughter of Joe’s partner who went to jail for the defective cylinders, is a woman in love who does not want to see or confront the truth about her father’s fate. Michael Blake as her brother George is full of fire and anger as he returns to his old neighbourhood where he knew happiness. He also knows the truth.

Miller provides neighbours in Dr Bayliss and his wife Sue as well as Frank and Lydia who recall the wonderful community of the past before the war, greed and criminality ruined it.

The play is performed in the Tom Patterson Theatre which is turned literally into a theatre-in-the-round with seats on all sides. The stage resembles the backyard of a well-to-do man.

Henry adds a scene at the beginning where a sleepless Kate is in the yard and witnesses the storm and lightning that fells the tree that was planted in memory of her dead son.

The play builds to the dramatic and tragic climax reasonably well but one wishes there was more utter shock than drama.     

  ________

 All My Sons by Arthur Miller continues in repertory at the Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

A DOLL’S HOUSE – REVIEW OF SOULPEPPER PRODUCTION OF IBSEN’S PLAY

James Karas

Director                      Daniel Brooks

Set Designer               Lorenzo Savoini

Costumes Designer    Victoria Wallace

Lighting                      Kevin Lamotte

Composer

And Sound Designer  Richard Feren

Nora                           Katherine Gauthier

Torvald                       Christopher Morris

Kristine Linde             Oyin Oladejo

Dr. Rank                     Diego Matamoros

Nils Krogstad             Damien Atkins

Runs until August 27, 2016 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Tank House Lane, Toronto, Ontario. www.soulpepper.ca

***** (out of 5)

Here is your chance to see Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House for the first time. You may have seen many other productions but you have never seen anything quite like the one directed by Daniel Brooks for Soulpepper. It is original, riveting and brilliant.

We all know that Nora Helmer, her husband Torvald’s doll, leaves him and her children in a revolutionary gesture of liberation that shocked many people to their roots in 1879. A woman leaving her husband is unlikely to register at all today let alone provoke shock and revulsion.

 

Christopher Morris, Katherine Gauthier. Photo Cylla von Tiedemann

As adapted by Frank McGuinness, Brooks sets the play in a modern house with contemporary white furniture and a blank wall at the back. It is realistic and unrealistic at the same time. Nora is a modern woman, lively, sexy, loving, perhaps a bit too materialistic and eager to move up the social ladder, but overall a marvelous wife and mother. Make no mistake about Katherine Gauthier’s portrayal. She displays all the latter qualities and shows us her deeper anguish with unerring precision. An astounding performance.

Torvald is a very good husband. He loves his wife, tolerates her spending habits and does everything to maintain a happy house. Nora and Torvald are, sexually, socially, financially, happy, happy, happy. Well, something will come up to shatter all and Christopher Morris will show us another side of Torvald that explains much about the final scene of the play. Kudos to Morris.

We soon realize that most of the characters of A Doll’s House live behind a mask, have a deep secret and are forced to hide behind a hypocritical façade. Nora borrowed forty-eight thousand from Nils Krogstad by forging her father’s signature. Krogstad has an unsavory past. Atkins plays the greasy-haired Krogstad superbly bringing out his anguish, desperation and decency.

Dr. Rank, the ill family friend, has his own secret, which he reveals basically on his way to his deathbed. Nora’s friend Kristine Linde is in the same league. Well done performances by Matamoros and Oladejo. 

Diego Matamoros, Christopher Morris, Katherine Gauthier, Oyin Oladejo. Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann

Brooks has given the production a sense of unreality by having the characters enter the stage at times in slow motion as if sleepwalking. The happy façade of Nora and Torvald’s life is palpable and there is nothing to indicate that Nora will or needs to make such a dramatic exit in the end.   

The enormous success of the director, the creative team and the actors is to “fool” us into sitting on the edge of our seats about the outcome of those horrible secrets and to have no real appreciation of what is so clearly happening before us. When the masks come off and the hypocrisy is blown away like morning fog we are stunned.

Much credit needs to be given to Frank McGuinness for a fluid adaptation that adds to the acceptance of Nora and Torvald being a modern couple even though there are some obvious elements that are unlikely to be present. Soulpepper tells that this is a translation by McGuiness set in 1996 England. Neither is strictly true. McGuinness took liberties with the text and truly modernized the milieu. The Nora and Torvald of 1879 would never have been shown as being sexually on fire the way they are in this production.  And there is really nothing to indicate England.

A maid and a nanny (maybe), a mailbox where people drop off letters and calling cards are not likely to be found even in an upper middle class house.

But no matter. This is why you go to the theatre.

THE PERSIANS - REVIEW OF THEATRE OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES PRODUCTION IN ATHENS

James Karas

Author                         Aeschylus

Director & Translator   Vasilis Economou

Set Design                  Despina Flessa 

Costumes                    Sofia Stavrakaki 

Sign Language            Theodora Tsapoiti

Musical Direction         Alexandros Kapsokavadis 

Atossa                         Christina Toumba and Christina Tsavli

Darius                          Panos Zournatzidis

Messenger                  Mihalis Tamboukas

Xerxes                         Vasilis Economou

Chorus                        Yiota Vei (Leader), Aimiliani Avraam, Mihalis Grammatas,

                                    Yorgos Iliakis, Maria Mourelatou, Marina Stamati,

Mary Stamatoula, Efi Toumba

Percussion Players     Makis Souleles, Alexandros Chantzaras

Played on July 13 and 14, 2016 at the Nea Skini of the National Theatre of Greece. Athens. www.distheater.gr

**** (out of five)

Choice 1: Mykonos, Santorini, Rhodes and dozens of other sun-drenched islands.

Choice 2: Plays by Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides, Sophocles, Becket and dozens of other authors in all major cultural fields available in Athens, Epidaurus and other venues around Greece. What you can you get Ancient Greek drama, classical and modern music, international theatre, dance, Broadway musicals, opera and films. And that is just a short list.

You need to choose. Is it Choice 1 or 2? Now don’t be hasty.

Don’t be hasty. Think where you want to spend your vacation. I said think!      

The Persians of Aeschylus has the distinction of being the earliest surviving play of the Western canon. It also has the unique distinction of being produced by Theatre of People with a Disability at National Theatre of Greece in Athens. I am translating the name of the troupe from the Greek Theatro Atomon me Anapiria literally. All of the actors may have challenges but their performances are stellar.

The production is performed in the small New Stage on the second floor of the splendid building of the National Theatre of Greece in Athens.  Vasilis Economic directs his translation of the play taking some liberties with the text and adding some songs

The performance is done in the generous space of the New Stage with no stage props. The black stage and black background with good use of lighting, drums and some other percussion instruments is all that is needed to dramatize the state of the defeated Persians after the Battle of Salamis.

Economic opens the play with drum beats as the Chorus of men and women, some on wheelchairs, appear. A woman with her whole body covered by a veil appears and sings a cappella a moving dirge. She is Yiota Vei, the Chorus Leader who will sing several other chants that are not in Aeschylus’s play as far as I can tell. Her voice is strong and moving initially but it does begin to crack by the end.

The Chorus of Persian Elders begins chanting the names of the leaders of the Persian expedition (again not in the text). At the end of this chant we hear the words of Aeschylus’s text spoken by the Chorus.

Economic makes intelligent use of the Chorus. Some of them are in wheelchairs and some have other disabilities but they can all move and do so. There is a choreographed segment where the one half of the Chorus lunges towards the other half as if they are at war. The choral sections are spoken or recited by different members and they wail some lamentations at the fate of their countrymen who were decimated by the Greeks.

Atossa, the Queen of Xerxes, plays a central role in the play. Economou has two actors play the part. One is the regal and statuesque Queen who is silent and the other is Atossa in a bright red dress, in a wheelchair, who speaks the lines. The roles are played by Christina Toumba and Christina Tsavli.  The speaking Atossa has a minor speech impediment but she spoke and enunciated her lines movingly.

The Messenger (Mihalis Tamboukas) has the task of describing in some detail the events in Greece that resulted in the annihilation of the Persian forces. In this role you need forceful and measured delivery with sufficient modulation to keep the news coming. He does.

The Ghost of Darius is played by Panos Zournatzidis and here we have smoke and flames rising from the rear of the stage. Darius is coming from Hades and he wisely judges that his son committed acts of sacrilege against the gods. He instructs Atossa to give Xerxes new armour to change into from the torn one and to comfort him in his distress.    

Finally the beaten and war-torn and defeated Xerxes (Economou) appears. He has lost his companions and must report their deaths to the Chorus. A moving scene. 

Alexandros Kapsokavadis directs the percussion players who produced a lot with very little. The performance was signed for the hearing challenged.

This is a taut, spare and highly effective production. It is astonishing how much one can do with an Ancient Greek tragedy with a fine troupe intelligently directed.

Let’s get back to your vacation. You go to a Greek island and are enthralled by its beauty. That lasts for a good two hours. Now what? You park your torso on the sand, end up sunburned and bored out of your mind. If you were in Athens you could go to the theatre, visit museums, eat well and never be bored. Don’t miss that boat back to civilization.  

ANTIGONE - REVIEW OF 2016 EPIDAURUS PRODUCTION

James Karas

Author                         Sophocles

Translator                    Dimitris Maronitis

Director                       Stathis Livathinos

Sets and costumes     Eleni Manolopoulou

Music                           Charalambos Gogios

Antigone                     Anastasia-Rafaela Konidi

Ismene                        Dimitra Vlagopoulou               

Sentry                         Antonis Katsaris  

Haemon                      Vasilis Magouliots

Tiresias                       Betty Arvaniti

Euridice                       Stela Fyrogeni

First Messenger          Giannis Harisis

Second Messenger     Asteris Peltekis

Chorus: Kostas Kastanas, Nikos Bousdoukos, Maria Skountzou,

Asteris Peltekis, Giannis Harisis.

           

Performed at the Ancient Theater of Epidaurus on July 15 & 16, 2016 and then on tour around Greece and Cyprus until September 30, 2016. www.n-t.gr .

*** (out of five)

The National Theatre of Greece has mounted a major production of Sophocles’ Antigone at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus. Stathis Livathinos, the Artistic Director of the National directs the production with some mixed results.

Livathinos makes the strong-willed Antigone a high school student who is impetuous, passionate and self-righteous. Anastasia-Rafaela Konidi gives a performance that fits that description. Initially she wears a black dress with a white collar, the traditional uniform of high school girls in Greece. In the end she puts on a bridal veil as she approaches her death.  This Antigone starts as a young girl and dies as a tower of strength and resistance. A stellar performance by Konidi.

Dimitris Lignadis is a powerful, dictatorial, blustering Creon. Like all dictators, he is convinced that he knows best and that he is right about everything. That is the Creon that Lignadis delivers.  He wears a crown and a cape as he struts around the spacious playing area of the theatre.

Dimitra Vlagopoulou as Ismene displays what some may call cowardice, others common sense, but she does almost rise to her sister’s status by pretending that she took part in her brother’s burial when in fact she did not. Good work by Vlagopulou.

The Sentry played by Antonis Katsaris in a ragged officer’s uniform is a scared man who must deliver bad news. He is entertaining as he struts around uneasily trying to save his skin and describe what he saw.

Creon’s son Haemon (Vassilis Magouliotis) rises from obedient son to thinking citizen (and gets a round of applause from an audience sensitive to dictatorial rule).    

The role of Tiresias, who is both a man and a woman, is played by Betty Arvaniti, as both a man and a woman. Stela Fyrogeni is moving as Creon’s bitter wife.

A key question in every production of Ancient Greek Tragedy is the use of the Chorus. We don’t know much about what they did in Ancient Greece but there is general agreement that they spoke, chanted or sang some of the verses written for them and probably danced. What does Livathinos do? He just about gets rid of the Chorus.

He reduces the Chorus of Theban Elders to five people, 4 men and 1 woman, and adds 4 Theban Girls, who are high school students. We know that because one of the Chorus Leaders “teaches” the girls the events leading up to the play. We will see the girls a number of times and they will do some more singing but the question of “what the hell are they doing on stage?” never quite left me.

The adult Chorus usually speak their lines as if they are all just characters in the play. In other words, the most unsatisfactory treatment of the Chorus. 

Charalambos Gogios composed music for a small brass band and I am not sure what effect it was intended to produce. The players, members of the Ventus Ensemble looked like something from a Viennese operetta. They sat on the side of the stage except for one time when they went to the centre of the stage.

The Ancient Theatre with its legendary acoustics provided surtitles in English for tourists. The theatre which holds about 14,000 (estimates vary) was almost full with a very receptive audience. From the passing visitor to the aficionado, they all want to see “authentic” Greek drama. The National Theatre of Greece gave them a good taste of it for the most part. Livathinos tried to give us his own perspective of the Chorus and that is quite proper. Unfortunately, it did not work.   

WEST SIDE STORY - REVIEW OF PRODUCTION AT ATHENS CONCERT HALL

James Karas

**** (out of five)

Among the numerous shows offered by the 2016 Athens and Epidaurus Festival, West Side Story may be one of the most desirable especially for aficionados of Broadway musicals. But you have to be in Athens on the right three days. The lucky ones got to see a robust, indeed quite thrilling production of the classic American musical at the gorgeous Athens Concert Hall.

The ads for the production headline the Camerata Orchestra of the Friends of Music and indeed the group and its conductor Yorgos Petrou deserve a large portion of the credit for the success of the production. In addition to conducting, Petrou is credited with translating the dialogue and shares credit with John Todd for directing.

Let’s begin with a salute to Petrou and the Camerata. He conducted with vigour and the orchestra delivered a full-blooded performance of Leonard Bernstein’s varied and stimulating score. The score has some beautiful melodies but much of the music is visceral and simply astounding. If there is one complaint it is that when the orchestra played fortissimo, they almost drowned out the singers. There was a minor issue, in other words, of the balance between pit and stage.      

West Side Story has a rich variety of solo and ensemble singing, dancing and even a ballet sequence. They would tax the resources of the finest theatrical company let alone a largely ad hoc group of performers for only three performances. There may have been some rough edges in the coordination of the dances but overall the Jets and the Sharks, the warring New York gangs of “Americans” and Puerto Ricans, were athletic, realistic and quite good. The ballet sequence was equally well done and enjoyable.

West Side Story is, of course, an American version of Romeo and Juliet in which Tony (Yiannis Kolyvas) falls in love with the lovely Puerto Rican girl Maria (Marina Satti). He is a former Jet and her brother Bernardo (Andreas Voulgaris) is the leader of the Sharks.

Kolyvas represents love, passion and decency. He sings “Maria,” the most beautiful name he ever heard with glee and wonderful emotion. It is not an easy songs but Kolyvas does a fine job with it. His and Satti’s rendition of “Tonight” is equally splendid. When Maria sings “I feel pretty” we agree with her and in the end when tragedy strikes we cry with her.

Marina Satti plays an effective and lovely Maria. When she sings “I feel pretty” no one disagrees with her and when she expresses her love for Tony she has the audience rooting for her. A Maria to love and to cry for.

Eleni Stamidou gets the juicy role of Anita, the Puerto Rican girl who cannot be put down. She defends America with its faults and is a pleasure to watch. Anita is also the woman who is ritually raped by the Jets in the basement of Doc’s drugstore. Her departure is highly dramatic but I wish she had spat on the creeps as she left.

Kostas Koronaios played the sympathetic Doc who watches disgusting behaviour and can do nothing about it. Christos Simardanis was a tough no-nonsense Lt. Schrank and Thodoris Skyftoulis played the ineffectual Officer Krupke.    

Paris Mexis relied on brightly painted panels for his stage design. Part of the stage of the Concert Hall can be moved up and down to create a playing area above for the balcony scene. The New York skyline is shown at times and with Yorgos Tellas’s judicious lighting the effect was colourful and appropriately unrealistic.

Having the cast miked has become almost de rigueur in musicals and sometimes even in straight plays and there is probably nothing we can do about it. The Concert Hall is large and it may be essential to have mikes to go past the pit. But the mikes in this production were taped on the side of the faces of the actors and they looked like unhealthy tumours. Inevitably what we heard was what the loud speakers delivered. There are modern miking systems which have not reached Athens.

Petrou chose quite sensibly to translate the dialogue but let the songs be sung in English. The production generated energy, beautiful singing, fine dancing and had the audience in its metaphorical hands. A thoroughly enjoyable evening at the theatre.

_______

West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein (music) Arthur Laurents (book) and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) played on July 16, 17 and 18, 2016 in the Alexandra Trianti Hall of the Athens Concert Hall, Vasilissis Sofias Street, Athens, Greece