HERE ARE THE FRAGMENTS - REVIEW OF THEATRE CENTER PRODUCTION

James Karas 

If you think of theatre as an auditorium or a room where you sit and watch a performance, then hold onto your seat. Better still let go of your seat because if you see Here Are The Fragments you may sit in any number of seats or you may not sit down at all. You will be able to meander in a large number of areas, look at sets and equipment, and touch anything you want or put earphones on and listen to various items.

Let’s start from the beginning. Before you enter the Franco Boni Theatre at the Theatre Centre, you will be informed that, well, this is not a conventional production. You can go in and out of the theatre during the performance. You can touch everything but are asked to put it back where you found it and basically that this is freewheeling theatre unlike anything you may have seen before. 

 Peter N. Bailey. Photo: Dahlia Katz

When you enter the playing are, you find exactly eight chairs for the audience and the rest stand against the walls of a large room. There may be around forty or fewer people in the audience. A man wearing a white coat enters holding a clipboard and asks a series of questions such as do you hear voices, do you read people’s thoughts, do you think someone else is reading your thoughts etc.

The questioner is a psychiatrist and we realize that these are questions that may be asked of a person who is delusional or hallucinatory or suffering from some other form of mental illness. The psychiatrist takes his white coat off, sits in a chair and is transformed into a man suffering from schizophrenia. His son is trying to get to him by offering food and conversation but the man is lost to all contact.

That is the introduction to this ninety-minute play written and created by Suvendrini Lena, co-created by Leah Cherniak and Trevor Schwellnus, and co-directed by Cherniak and Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu.

At that point we move into the much larger space of the Boni theatre. There are numerous sections to see as you walk around. There are small cubicles, open spaces and a large number of headphones that you can put on and listen to something about mental illness. I tried several headphone and the subject was schizophrenia.

The main subjects of the play are mental illness, its treatment (or lack of it) and racism. The psychiatrist Dr. Chauvet (played by Allen Louis) is black as is his son Eduard (Kwaku Adu-Poku). Ether (Kyra Harper) is a woman suffering from schizophrenia. The forth character is Frantz Fanon (Peter N. Bailey), the psychiatrist and brilliant intellectual who wrote Black Skin, White Masks about the depth and negative effects of racism, especially under colonial conditions.

 Allan Louis. Photo: Dahlia Katz

Here Are The Fragments touches on racism, colonialism and schizophrenia. What you see depends on where you are in the various places available to you. You may pick up a copy of Black Skin, White Mask and read the helpful passages marked for you. There are many other books that may draw your attention. You may listen to something on earphones. You may watch a scene where Dr. Chauvet is treating a patient who has been hospitalized for some forty years and is on her deathbed. You may listen to Fanon broadcasting about the fate of Algerians before and during their revolt against French colonial occupation. Or you may go for coffee or do nothing.

There is no focus and no attempt to lead you to any coherent understanding of a plotline. There is no doubt about what you ingesting about mental illness and racism. If you are a good liberal and imagine that you know something about racism and pat yourself on your superior back, you should be shocked by the depths of racial hatred that Dr. Chauvet and Frantz Fanon faced and that is certainly still with us.

In the end we go back to the first scene and witness Eduard trying a new approach to his father’s schizophrenia thus leaving us on somewhat hopeful note. I am not sure how much hope there is for theatre so unfocused and disjointed.

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Here Are The Fragments in a coproduction by The ECT Collective and The Theatre Centre continues until December 1, 2019 at The Theatre Centre, 1115 Queen St. West, Toronto, Ontario. www.theatrecentre.org

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press

BETWEEN BREATHS – REVIEW OF PLAY ABOUT JON LIEN AT FACTORY THEATRE

James Karas

Can you write an effective play and illustrate the life of a humanitarian scientist who devoted much of his life to rescuing marine animals, mostly whales off the coast of Newfoundland? Robert Chafe has. The play is Between Breaths about Dr. Jon Lien who was a professor at Memorial University. He rescued more than 500 whales that were caught in fishing nets, a feat that involved knowledge, expertise, considerable risk and just plain guts. Lien had them all.

Chafe wants to give some details about Lien’s life but he also wants to demonstrate the difficulties and risks of untangling massive trapped animals. 

 Steve O'Connell and Berni Stapleton

The play has three characters, Jon (Steve O’Connell), his wife Judy (Berni Stapleton) and his assistant Wayne (Darryl Hopkins). It also features three musicians (Brianna Gosse, Steve Maloney and Kevin Woolridge) who are on stage throughout the performance and play music composed and arranged by The Once.

In the opening scene we see Jon seated in a wheelchair and unable to speak. He is clearly suffering from a kind of dementia. He is comforted by his wife but we witness the tragic end of life. In fact Dr. Lien died in 2010 at 71 after suffering from mental illness for many years.

The play opens with his death but it takes us though episodes of his life and ends with the triumphal saving of a whale. The play is indeed a tribute to a great humanitarian and it is no doubt deserved.

How well does it work as a play? It has its moments but in the end it does not work particularly well. The musicians provide background music and songs that add nothing to the production. Because they play most of the time, the actors have to be seriously and obviously miked and some of the time their delivery is simply stentorian. In a small theatre, the mikes should be unnecessary and if the music makes them a necessity, we can do without the music.

Darryl Hopkins and Steve O'Connell

The set by Shawn Kerwin has the musicians occupy a semicircle at the back of the stage. The centre of the stage features an area that is supposed to represent the ocean and the action takes place in front of that, close to the audience. There is lighting design by Leigh Ann Vardy, and sound design by Brian Kenny. These are necessities for illustrating the rescue of a whale and as such they are effective.

Director Jillian Keiley and the actors make great efforts to convince us that what is happening on stage represents the rescue of a whale. It is not convincing and we have to accept the fact that certain things cannot be done well on the stage.

The actors deserve kudos for their work especially O’Connell as the main character.

The admiration for Dr. Lien’s work, his contribution to marine science are well documented and he is deservedly honoured for his achievements. The play does make his name known to people who may have never heard of him and it is a delight to see Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland perform in Toronto. (I am sure there is a profound reason for the unorthodox name (simple irony?) but it escapes me.)       

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Between Breaths by Robert Chafe in a production by Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland  opened on November 21 and runs until December 8, 2019 at the Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario. www.factorytheatre.ca/

James Karas is the Senior Editor – Culture of The Greek Press

BUFFOON – REVIEW OF NEW PLAY BY ANOSH IRANI AT TARRAGON

Reviewed by James Karas

Buffoon is a new play by Anosh Irani that showcases the immense acting talent of Anand Rajaram. He gives a solo performance at the Tarragon Theatre Extra Space for about 90 minutes with a chair as his only physical prop and his genius.

Felix is a child of the circus. In the opening scene he gives a dramatic-comic description of his birth by Trapeze artist The Flying Olga. He is born in the circus, of course and he spends most of his life there. The play has several plot strands but Felix’s relations with his parents, Ishmael or Smile, the ticket seller man who adopts him, and Aja, the woman he falls in love with are the most important. 

 Anand Rajaram in Buffoon - Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann

Rajaram is a master of mime, voice changes, physical contortions from facial expressions to virtual acrobatics and has a marvelous emotional range. He is rarely still as he illustrates almost everything he tells us with a gesture, a grimace, a change in accent or a more dramatic physical activity.

He was born in the Leningrad circus and his parents Olga and Frank abandon him to one Ishmael who is better known as Smile. Ishmael has adopted a posh English accent because it sounds better. He wants Felix to read and gives him a copy of Moby Dick which opens, of course, with the words “Call me Ishmael.”  

Felix, face covered with white chalk like a clown, walks on stage diffidently, indeed nervously. He tells us that he really has nothing to say, He gives us his philosophy of life in Mark Twain’s phrase that “The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.” The day Felix was born, with his mother going into labour and having dramatic contractions in the circus, is dramatic, frightful and quite funny. Felix makes it funny.

His love life with Aja proceeds from his utter ignorance about love to a tragic conclusion. He is so ignorant at the beginning that he reads Romeo and Juliet for instruction. He goes through a tragic separation form Smile who gives him money that he skimmed from ticket sales to the circus and the sale of drugs.

 Anand Rajaram in Buffoon - Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann

The plot strands do get complicated and somewhat opaque but Rajaram’s inexhaustible store of energy kept the show going.

There is real drama in the end when we realize who Felix is talking to. It brings us back to the beginning of the story. I will not say anything further.

The show is a marriage between the actor and director Richard Rose, seamless, symbiotic and extraordinary. Separating the actor from the director is almost like separating the dancer from the dance. If that does not convince to see this play, nothing will.  

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Buffoon by Anosh Irani continues until December 15, 2019 at the Tarragon Theatre, Extra Space, 30 Bridgman Ave. Toronto, Ontario.  www.tarragontheatre.com

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press

AMADEUS – REVIEW OF FOLGER THEATRE PRODUCTION IN WASHINGTON

By James Karas

Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus was a smash hit forty years ago in London and around the world and was transferred into one of the finest films of all time, directed by Milos Forman. The play is still a going concern and the Shakespeare Folger Library has given it a redoubtable production at its lovely theatre in Washington, D.C.

The play is ostensibly about the fictitious conflict between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the Italian composer Antonio Salieri in 18^th century Vienna. The jealous and second-rate composer Salieri wants to destroy the genius Mozart in the court of Emperor Joseph II and there is a rumour that he in fact poisoned him. Salieri is on his death bed in 1823 and he recalls what happened more than thirty years before that. 

     Ian Merrill Peakes as Salieri and Samuel Adams as Mozart. 

Photo: C. Stanley Photography

Salieri makes a deal with God (not Christ, he insists) that if He makes him a great composer he will dedicate his life to Him.  There is no evidence that God was a part of the “deal” because He capriciously and unfairly gives the gift to compose great music effortlessly to the giggling and dirty-minded Mozart. He gives Salieri the gift of appreciating and recognizing great music. God has a great sense of humour.

The lion’s share of work on the stage falls on Ian Merrill Peakes as Salieri. We meet him as an old man in the last hour of his life. He wants Mozart’s forgiveness as he recalls his youth, happier days as the toast of Vienna and his crushing defeat upon the appearance of the child genius.  Peakes handles Salieri as an old man in a wheel chair reasonably well and then sheds his hat and robe to become his young self.

We see Salieri’s passion for music and women, and his frustration and furor at being unable to compose like Mozart and losing his prize pupil to him. His anger is directed at God as his faith is shaken after offering so much to the deity.  Peakes gives a fine portrayal as the passionate composer who in the end realizes that he has become a footnote in musical history as the patron saint of mediocrity.

Samuel Adams as Mozart has a silly, high pitched giggle, is a bit of a dandy, a social boor and a foulmouthed composer who can write music as if taking dictation from God. We see him as a braggart, always broke, in triumph and in despair until we witness his final deterioration as he is composing his famous Requiem. He is not likeable but he is a genius and Adams delivers him as such.     

 Members of the cast of Amadeus at Folger Theatre. Photo: C. Stanley Photography

Shaffer portrays the people responsible for musical life at court and in Vienna as out of touch boors. The all get bad press but they are entertaining as relics facing a genius. Justin Adams is the Baron, James Joseph O’Neill is Count Orsini and Ned Read is Kapellmeister Bonno.

The Emperor (John Taylor Phillips) in his several appearances is mostly clueless and uses his favourite phrase “there it is” to get out of every situation and give us a laugh.

Lilli Hokama as Mozart’s wife Constance is tolerant, sympathetic and ambitious on behalf of her husband. She is willing to offer her body to Salieri for a “quickie” just to get him to recommend her husband to the Emperor. A fine performance.

Amanda Bailey and Louis Butelli play the two Venticelli (Little Winds), a sort of Chorus that gives us some information, a lot of gossip and rumours.

One of the pleasures of watching the play is sharing Salieri’s enthusiasm for Mozart’s music, especially his marvelous appreciation of certain passages. We are treated to snatches of music to whet our appetite for more.

The set by Tony Cisek in the beautifully paneled Folger Theatre consists of oversized pieces wood in the form of parts of a harp. Given the subject, it is a superb set. The 18^th costumes by Mariah Anzaldo Hale are gorgeous.

The production, ably directed by Richard Clifford had a slightly sluggish beginning but it picked up the pace and in the end provided a fine performance of a modern classic. 

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Amadeus by Peter Shaffer continues until December 22, 2019 at the Folger Theatre, Folger Shakespeare Library, 201 E Capitol St SE, Washington, DC 20003. https://www.folger.edu/

James Karas is the Senior Editor of The Greek Press. www.greekpress.com

COPY THAT – REVIEW OF NEW PLAY BY JASON SHERMAN AT TARRAGON

Reviewed by James Karas

Jason Sherman’s new play Copy That opened at the Tarragon Theatre and one is hard pressed to come to grips with it. We meet four fast-talking, excited and anxious writers who are under the gun to draft four episodes of a cop show for television. The pressure comes from “above,” the voice of Elsa, also known as The Angel of Death who merits a Nazi salute. Elsa is played with Gauleiter and duplicitous style by Janet-Laine Green.

The talking and moving speed is reduced to comprehensible speed and we find out the identity of the writers (but not much more) and some details about wrestling with a script to please Elsa, the network and people in higher places which may stretch to God.

The writers are a motley crew, intentionally chosen as such. Maia (Emma Ferreira) is half black and half white, Colin (Tony Ofori) is black and Peter (Richard Waugh) and Danny (Jeff Lillico) are all white.

 Janet Laine-Green and Tony Ofori. Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann.

What appears as a play about the turbulent lives of writers trying to please and write a TV series that will work takes a sharp turn when Colin is stopped by a couple of cops for driving a nice car while black. More precisely, for driving while under the influence of alcohol with an almost white woman (Maia) asleep in the back seat. What follows is a racist attack on Colin including tasering, physical assault and humiliating arrest. It is a familiar story that we get from many parts of the United States and we like to pretend that it does not happen in Canada.

From then on the play tackles the issue of racism, the representation of racist cops on television and the fight against that type of bigotry. The problem is that these writers are simply trying to write entertaining episodes for a television show. Therefore we have the clash of ordinary television programming and high moral standards and social conditions.

The arguments are not particularly original and the fight by Colin against writers who are trying to make a living and have to follow the instructions of The Angel of Death and higher authorities is pretty staid. People sympathize with Colin but the reality of writing a script for television and the reality of being beaten up by racist cops cannot be united easily into a social, anti-racist tract and a multi-episode television series. Or can they not?

Sherman tries hard to convince us that maybe, just maybe they can but the end of the play is highly unsatisfactory, unclear and unconvincing.

There is relatively little character development. Peter is high-strung, histrionic and under pressure to please the boss. We do get some background information about him but he remains the same person, acting the same way almost throughout the play.

Jeff Lillico’s Danny is basically a yes-man at the beginning and realistic about what the job requires until he is accused of racism because he maintains the dividing line between television entertainment and social commentary. Ferreira as Maia says relatively little until she explodes and asserts herself. But she backs off in her accusations against the racist cops for brutality and leaves us hanging.

There are a few laughs, much dramatic and over-dramatic acting but in the end you are left with relatively little to take with you on leaving the theatre. Director Jamie Robinson seems to have done his level best to liven up the arguments but there is not enough substance to work with. Very disappointing.       

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Copy That by Jason Sherman opened on November 13 and will play until December 6, 2019 at the Tarragon Theatre, 30 Bridgman Ave. Toronto, Ontario.  www.tarragontheatre.com

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of the Greek Press

MADAMA BUTTERFLY - REVIEW OF 2019 REVIVAL AT THE MET

Reviewed by James Karas

Anthony Minghella’s production of Madama Butterfly premiered at the English National Opera in London in 2005 and at the Met in New York in 2006. It is still a going concern and is telecast Live in HD from the Met this season.

This is the fifth time I seen this production and I must admit that Minghella’s use of Bunraku puppetry has lost some of its appeal. The Bunraku puppets are not traditional dolls manipulated by strings but plastic devices that require a lot of puppeteers on the stage to manipulate them. The little boy in the opera, for example, requires three puppeteers to make it move around. Each handles a different part of its body and the effect is frequently interesting. The puppets are used for Cio-Cio San’s son and for her in a ballet sequence at the beginning of Act I, Scene 2.

The puppeteers are dressed in black and their faces are covered by veils. They give admirable evidence of their athleticisms and adeptness in handling the puppets.  There is a complex use of mirrors, birds in flight, stars in the sky and commotion.

This time however I wondered how much they added to the opera and if Puccini’s work needed such excessive gimmickry

 

Hui He as Cio-Cio-San and Paulo Szot as Sharpless. Photo: Richard Termine / Met Opera

Hui He does may not fit the physical description of a very young Japanese girl who falls in love with Pinkerton, a creep of an American sailor. But she has a beautiful voice that expresses Cio-Cio San’s deep emotions and we forget everything else. Her “Un bel di vedremo” where she imagines the arrival of her husband’s ship in the harbour of Nagasaki is full of passion, tenderness and heart-wrenching longing.   

Tenor Bruce Sledge sang the role of Pinkerton in the Live from the Met broadcast replacing the indisposed Andrea Carè, I am not sure if he is the ideal Pinkerton but as a last minute replacement he deserves gratitude rather than criticism.

Paulo Szot gives an exemplary performance as Sharpless, the American Consul. He is a pillar of decency and he expresses both vocally and physically his discomfort, disgust and sympathy. He is the messenger of Pinkerton’s betrayal and he knows that his news will kill Cio-Cio San. We see all of this in his sensitive facial expressions alone. Placido Domingo was scheduled to sing the role but the allegations of misconduct by numerous women have caused him to relinquish all further singing on the Met stage.

Mezzo soprano Elizabeth DeShong is a spunky, faithful and compassionate Suzuki. She has a big voice, a pleasant personality and a fine stage presence that make her a pleasure to watch.

  

Theses broadcasts need a Director for Live Cinema that people who go to the opera house are not burdened with. He is the person who decides what we see by controlling every long shot, close-up, angle and, most importantly, duration of each shot. 

Elizabeth DeShong as Suzuki.Photo: Richard Termine / Met Opera

Habib Azar was the man responsible for this broadcast. I tried hard, I really did, to ignore the travesty of his choices but could not. Near the end I tried to estimate how long he was able to keep his finger off his converter (or whatever he is using). I don’t think I saw too many if any, scenes where he did not click a change for five seconds. Some shots lasted much less than that. There are many instances that demand that we simply watch the scene and be able to see several people on stage at the same time for action and reaction. Not a chance. He just kept clicking like a child on a video game that just plays with the controls. He screwed up on several occasions including during the emotional climax of the opera when Cio-Cio San sings “Tu Tu Piccolo Iddio!” as she is about to commit suicide. Good grief!

You may have to shut your eyes on occasion to listen to the splendid music played by the Met Orchestra conducted by Pier Giorgio Morandi, the Metropolitan Opera Chorus and the singers just to avoid the childish shot changes by Azar.

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Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini was shown Live in HD at select Cineplex theatres across Canada on November 9, 2019. Encores will be shown on January 25, 27, 29 & February 9, 2020. For more information go to: www.cineplex.com/events

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

LET’S RUN AWAY – REVIEW OF DANIEL MACIVOR’S ONE–MAN SHOW

Reviewed by James Karas

Daniel MacIvor is a man of the theatre with playwriting, acting and directing to his credit. He has also made forays into film and television and has built a strong reputation as a solo performer with a solid portfolio of works. His latest creation with director and dramaturge Daniel Brooks is Let’s Run Away which is now playing at the Marilyn and Charles Baillie Theatre in Toronto.

MacIvor is an expert and talented solo performer. He enters the playing area nervously. Runs around the stage as if he were an amateur, very uneasy performer who is trying to get comfortable with the set and the equipment. He fools all of us as he settles into the character of Peter who will tell us his story over the next eighty minutes.

 

Daniel MacIvor. Photo: Canadian Stage

Peter starts by reading from his mother’s unpublished journal that mentions him. But wait. It is not accurate and he interjects, corrects and adds. He takes us through his confused life story from being abandoned by his mother, life in a foster home, in a motel, in a basement and other events that have shaped his bitter life.

He runs nervously and neurotically between microphones. He scolds the technician who handles the lighting and is very aware of his audience. He makes rich literary references from Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism to Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse. The books are sent to him by his mother who abandoned him twice.

Peter sings, runs back and forth and has so many insecurities, anxieties and neuroses it is hard to keep up with him. His story is told in fragments with numerous diversions and distractions that I found difficult to follow. I thought that Peter’s story did not have enough for an eighty minute performance but the fact is it has too much.

MacIvor’s performance is superb but the fragmented story struck me as almost incoherent and I simply could not get into it.

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Let’s Run Away  by Daniel MacIvor (writer and performer) and Daniel Brooks (dramaturge and director) in a production by reWork Productions, presented by Canadian Stage runs until November 17, 2019 at the Marilyn and Charles Baillie Theatre, 26 Berkeley Street, Toronto, Ontario. www.canadianstage.com.com

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press