SAINT JOAN – REVIEW OF 2017 SHAW FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

James Karas

The Shaw Festival has a new season, a new Artistic Director and a new production of Saint Joan. The first is the result of the orbits of the planets and a habit that sprang in Niagara-on-the-Lake in 1962.  The second is as a result of the appointment amid some controversy of Tim Carroll as Artistic Director. The new production of Saint Joan is the choice of Carroll to direct the play.

I will refrain from commenting on the movements of the planets or on the appointment but will say a few things about his first directorial foray at the Festival. Carroll’s approach to the play and the superb performances are outstanding.

 Andrew Lawrie as Brother Martin Ladvenu, Sara Topham as Joan and Jim Mezon as the Inquisitor 

in Saint Joan. Photo by David Cooper.

Let’s start with something that may appear inconsequential: laughter. I don’t expect to get too many laughs from Saint Joan but Carroll has found a significant number. Take the opening scene where Robert de Baudricourt (Allan Louis) is bullying his Steward (Andrew Lawrie) about the lack of eggs. His blustering is toothless and when Joan appears she has no difficulty cutting him down to size and getting her way.

Joan as played by Sara Topham is a vivacious, pleasant girl with a smile on her face who expresses her convictions without being sanctimonious or overbearing. She conquers de Baudricourt and we are treated to several good laughs in the process. A very good beginning.

 The cast of Saint Joan. Photo by David Cooper.

Let’s jump to the end. Posthumously, Joan meets her tormentors and Carroll again manages to evoke some laughter. The Soldier’s (Allan Louis) description of hell and the fate of all the self-important people, the kings, captains and lawyers, who are all “down there.” We laugh at the reaction by the latter personages at the thought that Joan may return to earth. A brilliantly done scene.

Joan is caught up in a war between France and England and between the overpowering force of the Church Militant and political necessity. The most important forces are those of hypocrisy, arrogance, self-righteousness and expedience. She maintains her equilibrium almost throughout and when she breaks down she is dramatic without being sanctimonious except perhaps in her last sentence.

The wily and cynical Earl of Warwick (played with suave brutality by Tom McCamus) expresses political expediency and polite ruthlessness. Benedict Campbell is the arrogant and authoritarian Archbishop of Rheims. Jim Mezon expresses the ultimate and merciless authority of the Church in a lengthy speech at the trial. He faces the audience and speaks directly to us in a vision of the Church that should frighten even the most devout.

The production is acted on a raised platform on the stage. All wear modern costumes and the emphasis is on black. there is one scene that is mercilessly ironic where the men wear white jackets and black bow ties as if attending a high class reception.There is a plexiglass glass that is lit inside and lights stream on the stage from above. Highly effective work by Designer Judith Bowden and Lighting Designer Kevin Lamotte.  

In the end, we get a brilliant production that gives us the drama, the intellectual content and the humour of the play.

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Saint Joan by Bernard Shaw opened on May 25 and will run in repertory until October 15, 2017 at the Festival Theatre, 10 Queen’s Parade, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com   

ROMEO AND JULIET – REVIEW OF 2017 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Scott Wentworth directs a bold and imaginative production of Romeo and Juliet for the Stratford Festival that scores some successes, some questionable choices and some disagreeable picks.

The most notable feature of this production is Wentworth’s funereal approach. While the Chorus (Sarah Dodd) is reciting the prologue, there are four women dressed in black on the stage holding candles. They are Widows, roles that have been added by the director. There is a wooden box on the stage that looks like a coffin. We will see the box/coffin, the Widows and candles a number of times during the performance.

 

Antoine Yared as Romeo and Sara Farb as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann. 

The costumes by Designer Christina Poddubiuk are aggressively black enforcing the funereal atmosphere.

Antoine Yared and Sara Farb take the title roles and subject to some comments they do fine work. Farb’s Juliet is a self-assured and spunky girl who screams when startled and demands it when she wants something. When she meets Romeo for the first time and he asks to kiss her, she grants his request not by not moving as the text states. This Juliet “moves.” A well done and refreshingly vibrant Juliet from Farb.

Yared is a fine-looking Romeo and he carries the role mostly well. But there are times when he rushes through his lines. The first exchange with Juliet is a beautiful sonnet and it deserves to be recited as such. Yared does not. When he finds Juliet “dead” in the crypt, in his deep grief he asks if Death has kept her beautiful because he wants her for his paramour. He should be looking intensely at Juliet and saying those lines with passionate grief. In emotionally charged scenes he needed to enunciate, modulate his voice and slow down a bit.

Seana McKenna plays the garrulous Nurse who has many lines and some raunchy humour. McKenna got the best of the character through judicious modulation of her voice and plain fine acting even in some of her long speeches that are frequently shortened but were not in this production.

 

Members of the company in Romeo and Juliet. Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann.

The rest of the cast was generally very good. Noteworthy are Evan Buliung as Mercutio, Zlatomir Moldovanski as Tybalt and Randy Hughson as Capulet.

Some of Wentworth’s approaches to scenes are worthy of comment. Romeo and Juliet spend a night together and he must leave in the morning but they have a lovers’ talk as to the time of day. Wentworth has them spend the night on the open stage with almost no suggestion that they consummated their marriage and then some. That robs the play of much substance for people who had to guess as to what happened.

When we first meet Friar Laurence in his cell he has a soliloquy before Romeo enters and he is alone in the text. Wentworth has the widows holding candles on the stage. Interesting but I am not sure if this added anything to the production. When Friar Laurence expresses his shock at Romeo’s request that he marry him and Juliet that day by invoking “Holy Francis” he gets a well-deserved laugh for the way he delivers the words.

 

From left: Marion Adler as Lady Capulet, Sara Farb as Juliet and Seana McKenna as Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Before Juliet takes the potion that the Friar gave her, she is walked to her bed by the Widows. When Romeo is in the Capulets’ vault, the dead Tybalt walks to the casket and lies on it with a swath of blood visible on his stomach. Very dramatic.

The casket, the walking dead, the Widows, the dark funeral atmosphere are all interesting directorial additions but I found some of them only partially successful. There are a number of deaths in Romeo and Juliet but that is not the focus of the play. The play is about the star-crossed lovers but bringing the long-term deadly effects of the feud between the two families and the consequent creation of widows may be defensible. Subject to these points, it is an impressive production even if you disagree with its point of view.

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Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare opened on June 1 and will run until October 21, 2017 at the Festival Theatre, 55 Queen Street, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

HMS PINAFORE – REVIEW OF 2017 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

HMS Pinafore is the Stratford Festival’s second musical offering this year and this one is done in the more intimate Avon Theatre.  Savoyards will tell you that there are few more delicious evenings at the theatre than a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. From the first line of the Chorus who “sail the ocean blue,” to the love madrigals, to Sir Joseph’s patter song “I am the monarch of the sea” to the joy and rapture and orb of love that bring serenity at the end, this is a work to be relished. The production is quite successful subject to some questionable choices by the director.

Sir Joseph, the First Lord of the Admiralty who never went to sea as played by Laurie Murdoch steals the show. He gets some of the most memorable tunes and comedy and Murdoch is splendid in the role.

 

 Members of the company in HMS Pinafore. Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann. 

Steve Ross is funny as Captain Corcoran, the commander of HMS Pinafore. He is Middle Crust and wants his pretty daughter Josephine (Jennifer Rider-Shaw) to marry the Upper Crust Sir Joseph. She is in love with the Lower Crust sailor Ralph (Mark Uhre) and you got the whole plot. But do pay attention to Little Buttercup because Lisa Horner is very entertaining as a bumboat woman and she (the character not Lisa) may provide a solution to the class issue.     

Rider-Shaw has a beautiful voice that she uses to fine effect. She can rev her vocal chords to high gear with ease while maintaining control of the melody. Uhre’s Ralph sings movingly and forlornly as a stage lover and deserves to get Josephine no matter what his social niche.

 

Members of the company in HMS Pinafore. Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann. 

There is a chorus of sailors and Sir Joseph’s sisters, cousins and aunts who sing the ensemble songs. The sailors can mop a deck and dance and sing something fierce.

Lezlie Wade takes care of the directorial details and Patrick Clark designed the costumes. Easy for the sailors and very beautiful for the ladies.      

Wade and Set Designer Douglas Paraschuk have the operetta open with a picture of the exterior of the stately Portsmouth Manor and give some frantic activity in the interior of the grand house. Parts of the set is removed and we see the quarter-deck of the ship. Quite impressive but the programme tells us that the manor-home is a naval hospital.

A naval hospital in World War I? What is the point of setting a silly love story with wonderful music and humour in a hospital during a war? I have no idea except to toss the notion of directorial attempt to give a personal twist to the production. It does not work but lucky for us HMS Pinafore is unsinkable.

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 HMS Pinafore by Gilbert and Sullivan opened on May 31 and will run until October 21, 2017 at the Avon Theatre, 99 Downie St, Stratford, ON N5A 1X2. www.stratfordfestival.ca

GUYS AND DOLLS - REVIEW OF 2017 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Energetic, precise, enjoyable, athletic, marvelous – these are the words that kept swirling in my head as I watched the Stratford Festival’s production of Guys and Dolls. Much of the credit goes to Donna Feore who directs and choreographs the production. It is this season’s big musical offering and it is done superbly.

The musical which opened in 1950 has won so many awards over the years that if it were a general and the awards were medals, his chest would have to be expanded several times over to make room for all of them.

 

 Members of the company in Guys and Dolls. Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann.

The New York underworld of floating crap games, tough guys, crooks, a dizzy blonde, a beautiful and upstanding Salvation Army sergeant set in the streets of Manhattan, night clubs, gambling joints, a mission and Havana provide great latitude for humour, song and dance.

You know that Sky Masterson (Evan Buliung) bets that he can take Sergeant Sarah Brown of the Salvation Army to Cuba for dinner. And that Nathan Detroit (Sean Arbuckle) has been engaged to Miss Adelaide (Blythe Wilson) for 14 years. Her mother thinks that they have been married for years and have a bunch of children.

 

Members of the company in Guys and Dolls. Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann.

The two men have their problems with their women and we must work through them. There are other colourful characters like Big Julie (Beau Dixon) the nasty gambler from Chicago and Angie the Ox (Sayer Roberts), Nicely-Nicely Johnson (Steve Ross), Harry the Horse (Brad Rudy), Benny Southstreet (Mark Uhre) and Lt. Brannigan (John Kirkpatrick). You are better off imagining them than requiring further description.

The backbone of the musical and this production is the ensemble of gamblers and Hot Box dancers.

 

 Blythe Wilson (centre) as Miss Adelaide with members of the company in Guys and Dolls. 

Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

The singing by Buliung, Arbuckle, Wilson, Gordon and the others is good and we laugh at the jokes. But the energy and joy are produced by the ensemble performance. From Michael Gianfrancesco’s sets of the streets of New York to the opulent burlesque scenes to the extravagant costumes by Dana Osborne and the superb kaleidoscope of lighting by Michael Walton, we are treated to extraordinary production values.

Add Feore’s amazing choreography and the ensemble performances of the men and women and you get a built-up of energy that electrifies the audience. The miraculous relationship between stage and audience occurs that is so essential to a live performance and so thrilling when it happens.

What a show.      

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 Guys and Dolls  by Frank Loesser (music and lyrics), Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows (book) based on a story and characters by Damon Runyon, opened on May 30 and will continue in repertory until October 29, 2017 at the Festival Theatre, 55 Queen Street, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

TWELFTH NIGHT - REVIEW OF 2017 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The 2017 Stratford Festival opened with the usual fanfare and a production of Twelfth Night directed by Martha Henry with Graham Abbey Associate Director.

The production must be judged a mixed success. There were sparks of humour, some fine performances and a number of imaginative touches by Henry. There were also flat performances, tone-deaf delivery of iambic pentameters and understated performances where exuberance was more appropriate.

Let’s start with the positives. Geraint Wyn Evans and Tom Rooney got the juicy roles of Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek and they made use of all the comic latitude that Shakespeare gives them. Belch is always drunk, boisterous and funny. Rooney’s Aguecheek with the flaxen hair, his attempts at dancing and wooing is the perfect foolish knight. The duel between Aguecheek and Viola, engineered by Belch and Fabian is hilariously choreographed.

Members of the company in Twelfth Night. Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Lucy Peacock with that unmistakable twang in her voice makes an amusing and effective Maria. Brent Carver is a funny Feste the fool when he is not rushing through his lines.

Sarah Afful plays Viola who dresses up as Cesario who falls in love with Orsino and Olivia falls in love with her because she thinks she is a he. Her voice and her intonation must be full of feeling. When she addresses Olivia, she should be shy, effusive and display such emotion that Olivia falls head over heels in love with her. She does not show much of that until the latter part of the play.

The beautiful Olivia of Shannon Taylor is more convincing in her emotional rush towards Cesario but she is a bit understated in my view. She comes fully alive in the later scenes. Michael Blake does a good job as Sebastian.

E. B. Smith’s Duke Orsino looks like a law-and-order ruler rather than lovesick man who cannot take no for an answer from Olivia even after being repeatedly rebuffed. Shakespeare makes it clear that Orsino is besotted with Olivia but Martha Henry has downgraded his ardor considerably.

The most problematic and interesting role in Twelfth Night is that of Malvolio, the steward in Olivia’s household. He is censorious, full of self-love, domineering, ambitious and foolish. He is a perfect target for ridicule and revenge by his underlings or those he wants to consider as his inferiors. The vengeance taken on him by Belch, Aguecheek and Feste goes beyond ridicule into serious mistreatment and hence the problem with the character of Malvolio.

From left: Brent Carver as Feste, Tom Rooney as Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Geraint Wyn Davies as Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night. Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Henry has Rod Beattie play the role flat. He should be imperious and condescending when he belittles or rebukes members of the household. Instead, he is almost business-like. When he reads Maria’s letter and convinces himself that Olivia wants to marry him, his performance should be modulated so that we can laugh at him for his foolishness. He reads the letter almost matter-of-factly. Even when he is locked up in the dungeon, he displays very little emotion or distress when he asks (it should be begs) Feste for ink and paper. Feste shows us how Malvolio spoke to him in the final scene of the play when he reads Malvolio’s letter like a madman. We know that Beattie can do much better and this performance was a waste of his talent.

Henry made some minor changes to the text allowing for some entrances and exits that gave us some context. For example, we see Olivia crying on the balcony as Belch and Aguecheek make their first entrance.

The costumes by Designer John Pennoyer are from sometime in the past with Orsino’s servants wearing black wigs and black clothes. No issue with the costumes.

When you read the cast list, you will notice half a dozen named attendants who wait on Orsino and Olivia. Try figuring out who is who. In the text they are listed as “Attendants” but Henry seems to have decided to give them names even though we have no idea who they are.

We end where we began. Some sparks, some imaginative touches, some genuine laughter and some flat patches.

  ______

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare opened on May 29 and will continue in repertory until October 21, 2017 at the Festival Theatre, 55 Queen Street, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

STRATFORD FESTIVAL STAGES THE BACCHAE OF EURIPIDES

James Karas

The Stratford Festival has had a spotty history in its production of Ancient Greek drama but it steps up to the plate this year with a production Euripides’ The Bacchae. Classicists and admirers of great drama rejoice.  

They are using the translation, indeed version, by Anne Carson, a brilliant poet and translator and a major scholar of Euripidean drama.

She and the Stratford Festival prefer the less familiar name of Bakkhai but that is unimportant.

Just note that previous have started and the official opening will be on June 16, 2017. The production runs until September 23, 2017 at the Tom Patterson Theatre.

I shamelessly copy a part of Stratford’s press release if only to encourage people to demand that the Stratford Festival get over its association with Lethe when it comes to programming Greek drama and acquire a meaningful relationship with Mnemosyne.  

  

Lucy Peacock and Mac Fyfe. Photo: Lynda Churilla 

Bakkhai begins previews

May 27, 2017… Director Jillian Keiley’s intoxicating production of Euripides’ Bakkhai, in a new version by Canadian poet Anne Carson, starts previews today at the Tom Patterson Theatre.

When the play begins, the demi-god Dionysos has arrived in Thebes in human form with vengeance in his heart. Derided as an imposter by the city’s ruler, King Pentheus, this charismatic stranger has induced madness in the Theban women, who have run off to join his cult of female followers, the Bakkhai. News of their frenzied rioting prompts Pentheus to declare war on the Bakkhai – who include his own mother, Agave – only to be lured by Dionysos toward a fate of the starkest horror.

“These Bakkhic worshippers have burst their way out of a brutal patriarchy to discover sexual liberation and freedom for the first time,” says Ms Keiley. “Their sexual awakening is not bound by fear and shame. It is in service to achieving a higher spiritual, tantric worship of the god of ecstasy. The king is punished for denying the existence of the god Dionysos, not allowing the women worshippers the freedom to practise their sensuous rites – and worse, making sure he steals his own pleasure from the women’s bodies first.”

“This story, as old as western civilization, addresses perhaps the most fundamental division within each and every one of us: the division between the rational and the irrational,” says Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino. “And it reminds us not to underestimate the latter. Since the Enlightenment of the 18^th century, we’ve been trying to persuade ourselves of the superior power of reason. But one of the lessons we’re learning right now, as our world starts surprising and dismaying us at every turn, is that we’ve underestimated our own unpredictability.”

The cast features Mac Fyfe as Dionysos and Lucy Peacock as Agave, with Graham Abbey as Tieresias and Gordon S. Miller as Pentheus.

The creative team includes Designer Shawn Kerwin, Lighting Designer Cimmeron Meyer, Composer Veda Hille, Sound Designer Don Ellis, Music Director Shelley Hanson, Fight Director John Stead and Intimacy Choreographer Tonia Sina.

Bakkhai officially opens on Friday, June 16, and runs until September 23.

Cast (in alphabetical order)

Tieresias............................................................. Graham Abbey

Member of the Bakkhai..................................... Sarah Afful

Kadmos............................................................. Nigel Bennett

Member of the Bakkhai..................................... Jasmine Chen

Member of the Bakkhai..................................... Laura Condlln

Member of the Bakkhai..................................... Rosemary Dunsmore

Dionysos............................................................ Mac Fyfe

Guard................................................................ Brad Hodder

Pentheus............................................................ Gordon S. Miller

Servant.............................................................. André Morin

Agave................................................................ Lucy Peacock

Herdsman.......................................................... E.B. Smith

Member of the Bakkhai..................................... Quelemia Sparrow

Member of the Bakkhai..................................... Diana Tso

Member of the Bakkhai..................................... Bahia Watson

Artistic Credits

Director............................................................. Jillian Keiley

Designer............................................................ Shawn Kerwin

Lighting Designer.............................................. Cimmeron Meyer

Composer.......................................................... Veda Hille

Sound Designer................................................. Don Ellis

Music Director................................................... Shelley Hanson

Fight Director.................................................... John Stead

Intimacy Choreographer.................................... Tonia Sina

Producer............................................................ David Auster

Casting Director................................................ Beth Russell

Creative Planning Director................................ Jason Miller

Associate Director............................................. Charlotte Gowdy

Assistant Designer............................................. Patricia Reilly

Assistant Lighting Designer.............................. Hilary Pitman

Stage Manager................................................... Bona Duncan

Assistant Stage Managers................................. Kimberly Brown, Ann Stuart

Apprentice Stage Manager................................ Alice Ferreyra

Production Assistant......................................... Fran Barker

Production Stage Manager................................ Janine Ralph

Technical Director............................................. Sean Hirtle

THE PLAY ABOUT THE BABY – REVIEW OF SEVEN SIBLINGS THEATRE’S PRODUCTION

James Karas

Edward Albee’s The Play About the Baby is marvelously absurdist, funny, dramatic and a piece that is out of the natural and logical world. Erika Downie directs a superb production for Seven Siblings Theatre that revels in the theatricality, mystery and enigmatic variations of the play.

The opening scene of the pay cannot be simpler. A pretty and very pregnant woman and a handsome young man in a very pleasant –looking room. “I am going to have the baby now” says the woman and the lights go down as they exit the stage. That may qualify as one of the shortest scenes in drama but after a short break of the “usual” sounds of giving birth, the couple returns.

Nora Smith and Will King in The Play About the Baby

The dialogue begins about the pain of giving birth but soon trails off into non-sequitors about a broken arm, pain and armpits until they go off stage to make love. The young man is referred to simply as Boy (Will King) and the young woman as Girl (Nora Smith).  

A Man (Scott McCulloch) enters and he makes a long speech as our perceptions and our conduct in certain social situations. He smells the chairs and tells us that they have a young smell. He addresses the audience throughout his speech and what he says makes sense but it is also non-sense.

As he leaves the stage a Woman (Judith Cockman) appears. None of the characters has a name. Boy meets Woman and he does not know who she is. They engage in conversation with sexual innuendos and the Boy goes away with the Girl to continue with their love-making.

The Woman engages in a long speech of sense and nonsense that is entertaining and confusing. Who are these people? Where are we and what do they want? They could be gypsies who want to steal the baby. To sell it? To eat it? They don’t look like gypsies. And the baby? The title tells us that this is a play about the baby, the baby that Boy and Girl had in the opening scene and where is that baby?

McCulloch as the strange Man and Cockman as the equally strange Woman give performances so full of energy and sheer theatricality that the battery-advertising bunny should hang up its ears and retire. They appear ordinary, occasionally sensible and totally confusing. But they carry the audience with them at every step.

Scott McCulloch and Judith Cockman in The Play About the Baby

Boy and Girl are their victims or their prey or perhaps a mirror image of Man and Woman in their youth or are they the same people in youth and middle age. The possibilities are endless. King and Smith give outstanding performances as they try to cope with the strange visitors. Just watch their faces as they express surprise, shock, fear and confusion. Sensitive, nuanced performances in difficult roles.

Kudos for the performances belong to director Downie who controls every nuance and grimace of the players and maintains the pace to keep the play going as the audiences tries to keep up with the twists of Albee’s absurdist logic.

A word about the theatre. The second floor of The Rhino at 1249 Queen Street West is rectangular room with about 40 chairs lined up in front of a playing area. The actors are five to twenty feet from the audience and the space between players and watchers almost disappears. The actors can look people in the eye and interact with them. This is theatre in your face and it is simply amazing .

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The Play About the Baby by Edward Albee in a production by Seven Siblings Theatre, played from May 12 to May 21, 2017 at The Rhino, 1249 Queen St W, 2nd Floor, Toronto, Ontario. http://www.sevensiblingstheatre.ca/the-play-about-the-baby/