CAKEWALK – REVIEW OF 2019 BLYTH FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

James Karas

On the cover of its programme the Blyth Festival lets you know exactly what it offers: Live, Original, Canadian, Theatre. That is admirable truth in advertising. The Blyth Festival is in its 45^th season and that alone is an admirable achievement.

This year the Festival offers seven productions, two of them world premieres. Colleen Curran’s Cakewalk is listed as an encore but the play had its premiere at the Festival in 1984 so it is very much a Blyth play.

   

Director Kelli Fox describes it as a “deliciously silly comedy” and she is spot on. The play takes place in a small town where the residents are having a festival to celebrate Canada Day. One of the events is a cake contest and the first prize is a trip to Paris. The play is set in the community hall where a few of the cake-making contestants are gathered. We hear the music, announcements and commotion of the festive activities outside.

       The cast of Cakewalk. Photo: Terry Manzo. 

The comedy is built around five contestants and the daughter of one of them who are interesting and just plain funny. Leigh (Rachel Jones) is an attractive and decent teacher who has a distinctive position in society that proves to be problematic – she is a nun. She will face conflicting situations that are awkward and amusing.

The snooty Augusta (Caroline Gillis) is the mother of the about-to-be-married Tiffany (Lucy Hill) and is putting the wedding cake in the contest. Tiffany is a tennis-playing spoiled bimbo who is getting married next day and she does not want her wedding cake in the contest. Lock up the cake, lock up Tiffany, lock up one of the other contestants in the handy closet.      

Martha (Rebecca Auerbach) plays baseball and she comes to the fair in her team uniform because the game was delayed. She gets barbs about her attire but she gives back as much as she takes. We also have the self-righteous, bitchy and nasty Girl Scout den mother Ruby (Catherine Fitch. She is scheming and dishonest, and will do anything to win.

On the nice side of the spectrum we have Taylor (Nathan Howe), an archeologist, a decent guy and a klutz. He is the only male contestant and he is entering the Tut Coconut Cake but he has other issues to contend with. He has a serious reaction to Leigh. He can’t make it up a few steps without stumbling or falling and he wants to tell Leigh how he feels about her but she does not want to hear it because she is already spoken for – to the convent.

 Rebecca Auerbach and Rachel Jones in Cakewalk.  Photo credit: Terry Manzo.

Howe is a master of physical comedy and he and Jones produce some wonderful comedy as we watch their romance blossom.

There are enough complications to keep the plot going in high and the higher gear as we wonder what will happen next and laughing heartily much of the time. Kelli Fox of Shaw and Stratford Festivals fame has changed gears herself and gone into directing and does a superb job of handling the cast and comedy with a light touch. The cast is wonderfully responsive to the comedy and the audience responded with appreciation.

The action takes place on a single set - a room in the community centre with several doors, a stairwell and a closet. Set Designer Laura Gardner gives us the flavour of every community center we have ever seen.

Oh, yes. The cake contest. Every contestant has a cogent reason and desire for wanting to win. In the end the contest is resolved quite satisfactorily. Tiffany probably marries what’s-his-name and we have no doubts about the future happiness of Leigh and Taylor.

The winning cake was made by …..go see the play.         

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Cakewalk by Collen Curran continues until August 10, 2019 at the Blyth Memorial Hall, Blyth, Ontario, blythfestival.com

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

MEASURE FOR MEASURE - REVIEW OF CANADIAN STAGE PRODUCTION IN HIGH PARK

Reviewed by James Karas

There is a grove in Toronto’s High Park, surrounded by trees and bounded by greenery where you can find a theatre. The semi-circles of concrete steps that you will sit on may remind you of an ancient Greek or Roman theatre that has seen better days. It may not be Epidaurus but it is Canadian and Canadian Stage has been producing Shakespeare there for decades.

This summer’s offerings are Measure for Measure and Much Ado About Nothing. Measure has been redacted so that it can be performed in ninety minutes with no intermission. You get the core of the play without many details that will require twice as long to perform. Sitting on a thin cushion on a hard surface, it may be as long as you can endure. 

Can Konlekisz, Nora McLellan, Heath V. Salazar and Allan Louis. Photo: Dahlia Katz

Measure for Measure, directed by Severn Thompson, is amazingly well done. It is a fast-paced and well-acted production that makes for perfect theatre under the stars. Severn has little respect for the gender of some characters and has cast women in men’s roles for no apparent reason. It has become almost de rigueur to have transgender casting and I hope the fashion will soon disappear. Doing the play with about a dozen actors required some doubling up so the gender-blind casting may be simply for economic reasons.

The production opens with the cast coming down the aisle chanting a faltering “Kyrie eleison” and when they reach the stage we hear Angelo (Christopher Morris) orating about morality in words not written by Shakespeare. Why? Shakespeare’s play begins where the moral but ineffective Duke (Allan Louis) delegates his powers to tough Angelo who can be trusted to enforce the strict morality laws of Vienna.

The main serious plotline is the attempt by Isabella (Natasha Mumba) to persuade Angelo not to execute her brother Claudio (Richard Lam). He has been condemned to death for sleeping with his fiancée Juliet (Emma Ferreira). The stern and moral Angelo is intent on enforcing the law but he is sexually attracted to the novice nun Isabella and wants to bed her. Thompson has Isabella place her hand over Angelo’s heart during her pleas for clemency and one can see him getting aroused. A well done scene.

Measure for Measure has a large cast of colourful and comic characters from the debauched side of Vienna. They are pimps, prostitutes and brothel keepers, delightful low-lives who are worried about their professional turf. The brothel keeper Mistress Overdone (Nora McLellan), her pimp Pompey (Heath V. Salazar) the extravagant Lucio (Emilio Vieira) who has contacted syphilitic diseases galore, the convict Bernadine (McLellan) who is too drunk to be executed, make up the collection. And there is constable Elbow (Jamie Robinson), not too swift and able to butcher the English language uproariously. 

Christopher Morris and Natasha Mumba. Photo: Dahlia Katz 

The cast does superb work with this motley collection of characters. We are no doubt concerned with Isabella’s virtue, Claudio’s and Juliet’s fate and the course of justice in Vienna but the world of pimps and prostitutes is a lot more fun.

The single two-story set by Joanna Yu with an iron door and graffiti suggests the seedy side of Vienna and is quite appropriate.

Measure for Measure has been classified as a “problem comedy” and the final scene is a problem for me to watch. The Duke comes in and out of his disguise; Angelo is ordered to marry Mariana (his former fiancée who became the last minute switch for Isabella in his bed:  Lucio is ordered to marry a prostitute and the Duke asks Isabella to marry him. Yikes.

You may not want to worry about all those details and simply enjoy the production and the pizza or other food that you brought to the theatre.

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Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare, in a Canadian Stage production in collaboration with the Department of Theatre, School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design at York University, continues in repertory until September 1, 2019 in the High Park Amphitheatre, High Park, 1873 Bloor St W. Toronto, Ont. www.canadianstage.com

FOOL FOR LOVE – REVIEW OF SOULPEPPER PRODUCTION OF SHEPARD’S PLAY

Reviewed by James Karas

Sam Shepard’s 1983 play, Fool for Love, gets a full-throated production by Soulpepper directed by Frank Cox-O’Connell. The play is bursting with vocal, physical and emotional ferocity and has a cast that handle all.

The play is set in a motel room in the Mohave Desert where we meet May (Cara Gee) and Eddie (Eion Bailey). Within a couple of minutes loud and emotionally charged exchanges, Eddie reaches to May and kisses her. She appears to respond but quickly gives him a knee to his crotch and knocks him to the floor writhing in pain. That sets the emotional standard for much of the rest of the exchanges in the play.

Eddie and May have had a stormy on and off relationship for 15 years. He has travelled more than two thousand miles and is trying to reconcile with her. As the trajectory of her knee indicates, she is bitter, and angry and in no mood to reconcile.

 Cara Gee and Stuart Hughes. Photo: Dahlia Katz.

Eddie has done this a number of times. He is jealous, possessive and claims to be in love with May despite his frequent infidelities. In fact there is a countess driving a Mercedes outside the motel room who has pursued him all the way there.

May is understandably furious but she is so overwhelmingly in love with him that she knows that she cannot live without him even though rationally she does not want to be with him.

A third character named Martin (Alex McCooeye) arrives to take May out on a date and he acts as a catalyst for the expression of raging emotions between the couple.

Clearly there is more than meets the eye in the relations between Eddie and May. It unfolds slowly. There is a mysterious Old Man (Stuart Hughes) seated outside the motel room in some sand suggesting he is not real but what is he? He communicates with May and Eddie and speaks to audience and some awful details emerge. I will not disclose them all for those who have not seen or read the play.

He is related to both of them and wheat comes out in the background will throw your mind back to the Royal House of Thebes.

Bailey and Gee have to reach stratospheric emotional ranges and physical actions quickly and reduce the tension just as fast. Both of them perform with amazing agility. Bailey is quite athletic also and can easily stand on his head.

 Alex McCooeye and Eion Bailey. Photo: Dahlia Katz.

McCooeye’s Martin is an innocent man caught in a duel that he can hardly understand. The role can be quite funny and there are a few laughs bur Cox-O’Connell has chosen not to emphasize the comic possibilities of a man caught in the crossfire of raging emotions.

Stuart Hughes has relatively smaller involvement in the warfare but his past actions play a pivotal role in the unfolding of the drama. Hughes drinks whiskey in his rocking chair and does a fine job as the Old Man.

Lorenzo Savoini’s set consists of a bed and a chair in the motel room with a window showing the desert on one side and the motel parking lot on the other side. The Old Man, as I said, is seated just past the edge of the motel room, being a distant and indirect part of the action.

Fool for Love lasts just over an hour with no intermission. It contains a great deal of information about the current relationship of May and Eddie and, more importantly, about their background and the tragedies that precede the encounter in the motel room. That information, presented almost completely calmly in the denouement of the play is the crux of the drama.

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Fool for Love by Sam Shepard continues until August 11, 2019 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Tank House Lane, Toronto, Ontario. www.soulpepper.ca 

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture for The Greek Press. www.greekpress.ca

WAITRESS – REVIEW OF BROADWAY MUSICAL AT THE ED MIRVISH THEATRE

Reviewed by James Karas

A waitress is not exactly on the upper rungs of the labour ladder. But Jenna Hunterson has it way worse than that. She is a waitress in a diner, married to an obnoxious and abusive husband and pregnant without wanting to be.

On the plus side, she has a talent to make pies that are “biblically good” and has some gumption. In other words, there is enough in her situation for a movie and then perhaps a musical. With music by Sara Bareilles and book by Jessie Nelson, welcome Waitress to Broadway and around the world.

Pretty, sympathetic and pregnant, Jenna (played by Christine Dwyer in Toronto) has some good company in Joe’s Diner where she works. There is her blustering, oversized boss Cal (Ryan G. Dunkin), her dippy co-worker Dawn (Ephie Aardema) and the lively Becky (Melody A. Betts). Also present is the crotchety owner Joe (Richard Kline) who does have a nice side.  

Ephie Aardema, Christine Dwyer and Melody A Betts in the National Touring

Production of WAITRESS - Photo Credit Daniel Lippitt

We need complications. Jenna’s husband Earl (Jeremy Woodard) is a violent and disgusting jerk who wants his wife to promise not to love their child more than she loves him. He is just a gem. A tip of the hat to Woodard but no more need be said about Earl.

Her obstetrician, Dr. Pomatter (Steven Good), is handsome, neurotic and displays all the symptoms of television sitcom laughter generator. But he is attracted to the pretty Jenna and they have an affair even though it is “A Bad Idea”. Before you call the Discipline Committee of the Medical Association, take notice that the affair is Jenna’s idea first, that the good doctor is a reluctant participant and it is resolved satisfactorily. But for a while they could sing “You Matter to Me.”  

There is also a pie-making contest with a first prize of $20,000 that Jenna is encouraged to enter. Can she win the contest or marry Dr Pomatter or win a lottery to find happiness? Is there another path? I am not telling.

Dwyer performs very well in all aspects of her character from singer, to abused wife to a friend and a woman with aspirations caught in an awful situation.

Becky is unhappily married (she has to change hubby’s diapers three times a day) and she finds happiness with Cal. His wife is a lesbian. You see, we maintain high moral standards. Aardema gives a high-spirited performance and Dunkin as Cal proves that he is a decent human being even if he huffs and puffs as a boss.    

Steven Good and Christine Dwyer in the National Touring Production of WAITRESS -

Photo Credit Philicia Endelman

Dawn the misfit lands a bigger misfit in Ogie (Jeremy Morse) via internet dating and the two become the comic hub of the evening. They express their love in “I Love You Like a Table”. Marvelous performances by Betts and Morse.

Some of the songs reflect the guiding background product of the musical, the scrumptious pies and we hear “What Baking Can Do”, “It Only Takes a Taste.” But what is most important for the waitresses is sung in “A Soft Place to Land.”

The sets by Scott Pask from the diner, to the doctor’s office to Jenna’s home are good and the change of scene is done briskly to maintain a fine pace for the musical. Diane Paulus directs well.

The music and the dialogue were unacceptably loud during the first act but the volume was reduced to acceptable levels during the second act.

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Waitress by Jessie Nelson (book) and Sara Bareilles (music and lyrics) continues until August 18, 2019 at the Ed Mirvish Theatre, 244 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ont.  M5B 1V8. 416.872.1212 or 1.800.461.3333. www.mirvish.com

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

THE LADY KILLERS – REVIEW OF 2019 SHAW FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

James Karas

The Lady Killers as a stage play has an impeccable pedigree and is presumably able to attract audiences to the theatre. And yet it has not been produced in North America. Tim Carroll, the Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival, has put an end to that omission by bringing the play to Niagara-on-the-Lake.

The Lady Killers started in 1955 as a movie from the famed Ealing Studios with Alec Guinness and has gained the status of a beloved classic. It was remade in 2004 into an American version with Tom Hanks and in 2011 William Rose’s original screenplay was adapted for the stage by Graham Linehan and it was a hit in London’s West End.

We have five loony misfits and petty criminals who want to achieve a major heist. They are led by the genius Professor Marcus (Damien Atkins) who wants to stage the robbery from the sinking house of an old lady, Mrs. Wilberforce (Chick Reid). The colourful five will pretend to be a string quintet. The other members of the quintet One-Round (Martin Happer) a doltish boxer who used to knock out opponents in the first round but switched to being knocked out himself as quickly and for more money. He plays the cello which he thinks should go under his chin like a violin.         

The cast of The Lady Killers. Photo by David Cooper.

Major Courtney (Ric Reid) is nothing of the kind but he does have a peculiar attraction to dresses and a propensity to gaseous emissions. Louis (Steven Sutcliffe) is the quintet’s hit man and sadist but even he has his limits. Harry (Andrew Laurie) snorts drugs and pops pills not quite for headaches and has a great passion for cleanliness.

With the perfect alibi as musicians, the brilliant, fail-proof plan of “the professor” and a talented crew, success is guaranteed. And indeed they pull it off except for the escape from the wonderful, morally upright and ever so-kindly but not stupid at all Mrs. Wilberforce. There is only one way out: kill her.

Linehan has done a good adaptation of the movie script and left the rest to the director and cast. Tim Carroll has decided to turn the production into a farcical, slapstick comedy. Both those approaches require some tact and restraint. He has a fine cast but shows little restraint.

Professor Marcus wears a long scarf which drags on the floor. How many times can Mrs. Wilberforce step on it and have us find it funny? There is a blackboard in the room that the quintet is renting and it can be rolled around. It is and it hits Harry in the face very hard. You expect sadistic humour like that in a farce but, again, how many times can you whack the man in the face and still find it funny?

There are good lines and funny situations. Mrs. Wilberforce has invited her friends for tea and promised them a concert by the quintet. The poor chaps that can’t tell which side of the violin is up are forced to perform. They scratch and scrape their instruments and claim to have produced “modern music.”

Steven Sutcliffe as Louis, Ric Reid as Major Courtney and Andrew Lawrie as Harry

 in The Lady Killers. Photo by David Cooper.

There are good lines about the parakeet General Gordon who is ill and covered by a towel. Below him is an urn with the ashes of the late Mr. Wilberforce. All done well and producing genuine laughter.

The criminals have great difficulty remembering their assigned aliases especially One-Round who has been hit on the head far too many times and when a knife hits his skull it causes no brain damage. There is nothing to damage.

The cast from Chick Reid to all the criminals to the poor Constable Macdonald (Kristopher Bowman) who has to listen to Mrs. Wilberforce tell him that the local newsagent is a Nazi, do superb work. The problem is in the directing where Carroll goes overboard in the slapstick and farcical elements of the play.

Set Designer Judith Bowden scores a major success in her design of Mrs. Wilberforce’s house. On a revolving stage, we see a cross section of the house showing the rented room on the second floor, and the entrance way and kitchen on the main floor. The stage revolves and we see the front of the house and then the side. The house plays an important role in the play and the design is simply masterful. 

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The Ladykillers by Graham Linehan adapted from the screenplay by William Rose continues in repertory until October 12, 2019 at the Festival Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com.

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture at The Greek Press. www.greekpress.ca

THE GLASS MENAGERIE – REVIEW OF 2019 SHAW FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The Shaw Festival’s production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie has many strengths but there are choices made by director Laszlo Berczes that do not serve the play well. The production is in the Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre in a small playing area with spectators on all sides. There is an immediacy and intimacy that can bring the audience inside the drama. But it works only partially.

Before the lights go down we see Andre Sills talking to audience members and doing magic tricks. He is flamboyant and entertaining but then takes his cap off and starts with the monologue of Tom, one of the main characters of the play. His first words are indeed about tricks that he has up his sleeve but he tells us that he is the opposite of a magician. He is supposed to be dressed as a merchant marine which is what he becomes after abandoning his mother and sister. His tone is plangent, he expresses grief, sadness, perhaps guilt. Having him entertain the audience as a magician serves no purpose. We have started on the wrong foot.

We get to know him much better as the play progresses and Andre Sills is a sympathetic Tom, a man of dreams caught in the reality of a lousy job in a shoe factory and a miserable situation at home. 

 Allegra Fulton as Amanda and André Sills as Tom in The Glass Menagerie 

(Shaw Festival, 2019). Photo by David Cooper.

At home he has his mother Amanda, a complex character whose interpretation is pivotal to the play. Allegra Fulton does a fine job in the role as far as she is allowed. Amanda lives in an illusory world of the past. The world of wealth, servants, class, gentility and gentlemen callers in the South of her imagination.  It is pathetic, almost laughable but at the same time heart wrenching to see someone living in a world of illusion so vividly imagined.

There is another side to Amanda. In her illusions and ambitions for her children and in her struggle to control things and make ends meet, she goes seriously overboard and becomes at time simply ridiculous. Perhaps even laughable. Berczes does not allow Fulton’s Amanda to become ridiculous. He keeps a tight rein on Amanda and though we see her devotion to her children we do not see how unbearable she can be to the extent that she drives Tom to abandon her and his beloved sister.

Laura is a sad and at times pathetic person. Julia Course’s portrayal shows us only a part of this. Her body language is superb even if her deformity with a shorter leg is underplayed. The issue I have is with Course’s voice. She speaks in a ringing tone that bespeaks confidence and belies deformity, physical and psychological. She is crushed physically and psychologically and her only defence is her escape to the world of her glass figurines.  

Jim, the gentleman caller, was a high school hero on whom Laura had a crush. Dare I say that Jonathan Tan despite his fine delivery of his lines, does not convince one as a former hero who has not reached his potential but has lost none of his confidence?

The set by Balazs Cziegler is perfect for the compact playing area and the non-realistic tenor of the play. 

Julia Course as Laura and Jonathan Tan as Jim in The Glass Menagerie 

(Shaw Festival, 2019). Photo by David Cooper.

Tom and Laura have deep affection for each other and they know their mother’s idiosyncrasies and idiocies well enough to have developed ways of dealing with them. They roll their eyes and bump their shoulders when Amanda goes on one of her tirades. This is admirable sibling love but is also suggests a system of defence. If they could defend themselves against their mother, Tom may not have to abandon them. A nice touch but it is misleading about Laura who is defenseless in the real world.  

The Glass Menagerie is a powerful play but Berczes in his conservative and restrained approach has robbed it of some of its emotional power. Tom, Laura, Amanda and indeed Jim (despite his surface self-assurance) live on the edge of emotional collapse. There is no way out for them.

To be fair, Berczes has added a beautiful dream sequence in which Laura and Jim dance around the stage before reality lands on Laura and crushes her. It is a brilliant directorial stroke.

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The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams continues in repertory until October 12, 2019 at the Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com.

James Karas is Senior Editor - Culture at The Greek Press. www.greekpress.ca 

THE RUSSIAN PLAY AND SEX – REVIEW OF 2019 SHAW FESTIVAL PRODUCTIONS

Reviewed by James Karas

The Russian Play by Hannah Moscovitch is a jewel of a play that receives a gem of a production at the Shaw Festival. It is a 50-minute lunchtime performance and all it does is leave you hungry for more.

The play is set in a town somewhere in Russia in the era of Stalin sometime in the 1920’s.

Sonya (Gabriella Sundar Singh) narrates and acts in her own story.  She works in a flower shop near the town cemetery and is the mistress of Piotr (Peter Fernandes), the married gravedigger.  She is found out and driven out of town for her conduct. She goes to another town and becomes the mistress of the rich and married Kostya (Mike Nadajewski).

There is an ever-present violinist (Marie Mahabal) that accompanies Sonya in the telling of her story.

 

Peter Fernandes as Piotr and Gabriella Sundar Singh as Sonya in 

The Russian Play. Photo by David Cooper.

Singh gives a superb performance as Sonya, a woman used and abused but with enough spunk and humour to face life fearlessly. She faces the audience, draws them in, tells them that this is a love story and then asks the vital question: where do you hide a piece of bread?

Fernandes as the rootless gravedigger is digging room for young and old alike. For the rich Kostya Sonya is just another piece of meat who succumbs to him out of necessity but with little hesitation.

The violinist provides a moving obbligato to the play but I am not sure why she attacks Sonya sexually in the opening scene of the play. The mention of Putin is anachronistic and unnecessary.

This is a moving, funny, wonderful play about society and a strong woman that is done to perfection. A standing ovation for director Diana Donnelly and the cast. It may be lunchtime theatre but it is worth the trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake to see it alone.

Mae West still looms in the North American imagination as a sex symbol and perhaps more so for some of her bon mots: “Is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?” Less well known may be the fact that she wrote some ten plays which are, to put it very politely, rarely performed.

The Shaw Festival has staged her 1926 play Sex. The theatrical palaeontologist who dug up the play deserves a tip of the hat largely because the story surrounding the play is much more interesting than the play itself.

It’s 2019 and as I am walking towards the Festival Theatre and a friendly usher asks if I am going to see “the play by Mae West because I am not allowed to say the title.”  We both laugh but he keeps his delightful vow of silence.  

 Diana Donnelly as Margy LaMont in Sex (Shaw Festival, 2019). Photo by David Cooper.

When the play was first produced many New Yorkers were freaked out by its immorality (hint: it deals with pimps and prostitutes). West was convicted and sentenced to 10 days in jail. She spent eight days in the clink not because she had to but because it was good publicity.

The Shaw Festival offers the following: (a) a play written, produced and directed by Mae West in 1926. (b) a Canadian premiere – the play has never been revived anywhere. (c) a play about S-E-X with hookers, pimps, drugs and fun stuff like that. What more do you want?

You may want to see a good play too but you can’t have everything.

A few words about the plot. Margy Lemont (Diana Donnelly) is a blonde hooker that, to use West’s words, has been in more laps than a napkin. And she looks it. Lieutenant Gregg (Andre Sills), an English naval officer with an atrocious English accent, is a customer who is in love with her. Really in love with her.

Jimmy Stanton (Julia Course), a scion of a rich family is not a customer but is madly in love with her and wants to marry her. Why is Jimmy played so awkwardly by a woman? And why is hooker Agnes played by Jonathan Tan, a man?

Pimp Rocky (Christopher Bowman) drugs and robs Jimmy’s mother Clara (Fiona Byrne) who is the spitting image of Margy, whose life is saved by Margy who does not want her son to marry Margy but who has to keep her mouth shut because Margy knows what Clara was doing with the pimp. Clear?

The play has a considerable number of roles and many of the actors take two or more roles.

Why do Director Peter Hinton-Davis and Designer Eo Sharp think that piling suitcases and trunks in what is supposed to be Margy’s apartment appropriate set décor? The Stanton pad looks just fine in the last act.

New Yorkers loved the play in 1926 and to hell with bad reviews. Maybe hearing Mae West say “let me check what’s happening down in the English Channel” as she groped below Lieutenant Gregg’s belt was worth it.

We will have to settle for acquiring the right tell our heirs, executors, successors and whoever did not go to the Shaw Festival this season– after we scan our surroundings for possible moral turpitude – that we have seen Sex by Mae West.      

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The Russian Play by Hannah Moscovitch continues until October 12, 2019 on various dates at the Royal George Theatre. Sex by Mae West continues in repertory until October 13, 2019 at the Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com.

James Karas is the Senior Editor – Culture of The Greek Press www.greekpress.ca