GNIT – REVIEW OF 2025 SHAW FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas 

Gnit is a play by Will Eno that was first produced in 2013. Its production by the Shaw Festival, directed by Artistic Director Tim Carroll, marks the play’s first appearance in Canada. Carroll seems to have a high opinion  of the play and hence its Canadian debut.

The Shaw’s program informs us that the play is based on Henrik Ibsen’ s Peer Gynt.

Upon entering the Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre, I asked the volunteer welcomer at the door what the word Gnit means. She did not know but told me it is a play about the mind. After being told by Peter Gnit, the main character in the play, that his name is the result of a typo, I figured out that the error resulted in Gynt becoming Gnit. Peter and Peer are obvious.

There are extremely rare occasions when you watch a performance and understand very little, get almost nothing out it and wonder on what criteria the play was selected for production.

Mike Nadajewski as International Man, Qasim Khan as Peter and 

Julia Course as Bartender. Photo by Michael Cooper.

Gnit has six characters and I will set out the names of the actors and the roles they played.

Qasim Khan is the only actor who plays one role, Peter Gnit, and we see him in his youth and later life. He tells us that does not know who he is and we never get a grip of his identity either. In the opening scene we see him with his mother in a dialogue that can come from Samuel Becket or some absurdist play. He decides that he wants to marry a woman that he loves (?) but his mother informs him that she is getting married that day. Peter attends the wedding and elopes with the Bride on that very date. We do not see any of this but we do see the bride a number of times after that without understanding much of anything. That at least looks like a plot. 

Julia Course: she plays six characters. They are Solvay, Bartender, Lady of Interest, Gravedigger, Auctioneer and Gabrielle. I think I recognized most of these characters but shoot me if I can say very much about them.

Nehassaiu deGannes: she played four roles - Mother. Uncle Joe, Beggar and Local Person. Let’s just say my acquaintance with most of them is nebulous.

Patrick Galligan: he played ten roles. Strangers 1 and 3, Moynihan, Voice, Hunter, Robber, Sphinx, Shackleton, Pale Man and Reporter. Nice to have met them but who are they all?

Mike Nadajewski: Town, Green Family, International Man, Begriffin. Come again?

Gabriella Sundar Singh has twelve roles: Stranger 2, Bridesmaid, Bride, Outdoorswoman, Woman in Green, Helen, Case Worker, Anitra, Pastor, Bremer, Anina.

If my counting is correct, the six actors had to represent 37 characters. I tip my hat to them in admiration for being able to do some fast costume changes and represent characters often  for only a minute or so. As I key in the names of the characters from the program, I have no idea who many of them were or what they did for the play.

As for Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, no doubt there were people in the audience who know the play well and could relate Gnit to that play. I have seen Peer Gynt twice and have read it, but I could not relate the one play with the other except superficially.

Caroll sets a brisk pace for the almost countless scenes of the play. Some scenes last for less than a minute, I think, and there are others that last minutes. How they are connected escaped me. Once again, I commend the six actors who changed costumes and roles with amazing speed and tremendous acting ability.  

The set design by Hanne Loosen consists  of about a dozen easily moveable boxes and tubes hanging from above. There was a variety of costumes of all descriptions for the 37 characters that passed before our eyes.

I confess that I got nothing out of the play and have no idea what Carroll had in mind when he added the play to this year’s program.
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Gnit by Will Eno will run in repertory until October 4,  2025, at the Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre as part of the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.  www.shawfest.com.

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press, Toronto

WAIT UNTIL DARK – REVIEW OF 2025 SHAW FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Wait Until Dark is a suspense thriller by Frederick Knott, adapted for the stage by Jeffrey Hatcher. It involves Susan (Sochi Fried), a young, blind woman who lives in a basement apartment in Greenwich Village, New York in 1945. She has a young neighbor called Gloria (Eponine Lee) who lives on the floor above her and her husband Sam (JJ Gerber). The play has three other characters: Mike (Kristopher Bowman), Carlino (Martin Happer) and Roat (Bruce Horak).

The idea of a suspense thriller is just that, suspense, surprise, shock and on-the-edge-of-your-seat anticipation of what might happen next. A revelation in a review of facts about the characters may lead the astute to figuring out the plot  and after that they may want to do to the reviewer what Macbeth did to Duncan. Let’s see how much I can say without revealing anything of substance.

The play takes place over Friday and Saturday afternoon. It is tightly plotted. The basement apartment has two large windows and messages are probably conveyed by opening and closing the blinds, but can we be sure? A dead body is discovered in a closet in the apartment and there is a safe whose contents and combination are unknown. Pretty suspicious, I would say. 

Sochi Fried as Susan, Kristopher Bowman as Mike and 

Martin Happer as Carlino in Wait Until Dark (Shaw Festival, 2025). 

Photo by Michael Cooper.

There are some questions about Susan’s husband and somebody (one, two or all three men) wants to get something from Susan. The deck is loaded and it will take about two hours and twenty minutes to unravel everything. In the meantime, there will be a few scary, shocking and gasping incidents. No facts divulged by me.

Sochi Fried as Susan is intelligent, astute and a potential victim of violence. There are shocking and breath-stopping events that I will tell you nothing about. The three actors do superb work in their roles but I refuse to tell you more than that.    

Bowman, Gerber, Happer and Horak give outstanding performances and i say this without my tongue in my cheek. Eponine Lee as Gloria runs up and down the stairs at great speed and gives a superb performance.

The set by Lorenzo Savoini shows a credible image of a 1940’s basement apartment and the lighting design by Louise Guinand is well done to represent the plot development involving the blind occupant.

The thriller is directed expertly by Sanjay Talwar with a sharp eye on timing and pacing,

For the rest, you will just have to see the play. 
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Wait Until Dark by Frederick Knott, adapted for the stage by Jeffrey Hatcher continues at the Festival Theatre until October 5, 2025, as part of the Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com.

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press, Toronto

MAJOR BARBARA – REVIEW OF 2025 SHAW FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake may bear Bernard Shaw’s name but out of the dozen productions this season including the two Holiday offerings only one play is by him. And even that is staged in the small Royal George Theatre which will close for demolition at the end of this year. This is the seventh time that Major Barbara is produced at the Shaw Festival and most of the previous ones (except the 2013 productions) were at the Festival Theatre. The Shaw is not a good place to see a lot of plays by Bernard Shaw.

The current production of Major Barbara directed by Peter Hinton-Davis has some superb acting and imaginative touches that make a visit to Niagara-on-the-Lake exceptionally worthwhile even if you have some complaints about it.

Hinton-Davis sets the play precisely between January 5 and 7, 1906 (a year after it was written) whereas Shaw was content with less exacting timing, The director adds some hymns that were sung with relish by the cast without adding much to the production but the play is about the Salvation Army so there you go.

The first act is set in the library of Lady Britomart Undershaft (Fiona Byrne), the wife of the millionaire arms manufacturer, Andrew Undershaft (Patrick Galligan). Undershaft is an unabashed capitalist who is in the business of providing weapons that kill people to whoever is willing to pay for them. He is separated from his family and does not even recognize his children, son Stephen (Taurian Teelucksingh) and daughters Barbara (Gabriella Sundar Singh) and Sarah (Lindsay Wu).

Our attention is drawn to  Barbara, a major in the Salvation Army whose goal in life is to save people’s souls. Her father believes in providing food, shelter and the amenities of life for workers without worrying about their souls. Barbara and her father reach a climax when the Salvation Army accepts money from him, the purveyor of instruments of war and death. 

André Morin as Adolphus Cusins, Gabriella Sundar Singh

as Barbara Undershaft, Taurian Teelucksingh as 

Stephen Undershaft and Patrick Galligan as Andrew 

Undershaft. Shaw Festival, 2025). Photo by David Cooper

The first act belongs to Fiona Byrne as the imperious, sarcastic and marvelous Lady Britomart. She comes from aristocratic lineage but must rely on her estranged husband for the money required to maintain her lifestyle. Byrne displays strength of character, wit, and intelligence, and dominates the act with a stunning performance.

Galligan keeps his own as does Andre Morin as the classicist Adolphus Cusins but their turn to express the position of their characters will wait until the final act of the play. They do superb work. I had problems with Gabriella Sundar Singh’s portrayal of Major Barbara. She seemed to lack the power to create a convincing and commanding woman. She seemed to disappear in the crowd even when she took the principled decision to leave the Salvation Army when it accepted money from her father. She eventually “sees the light” but I did not feel the strength and conviction of her faith in the Army or her conversion to capitalism.

In the final act all arguments come to a head with Galligan taking control of the situation with conviction and assurance. He gives an outstanding performance. Morin gives a fine performance as a man of strength and ability and gives us a Cusins who can run a large industry even though he is not sure if three-fifths is more than one-half. He is deeply learned man with a command of Ancient Greek and he joined the Salvation Army because he was attracted to Barbara and not out of any religious conviction.

The set by Gillian Gallow is unrealistic featuring a blue background with steps on each side. In the first act the back of the stage features a flowery background with a photograph of half of the face of a woman. The scene changes to the Salvation Army shelter and then to the Undershaft arms factory are achieved economically with minimal fuss and the whole thing works well except for the scene in the factory where Hinton-Davis adds the cacophonous bellowing of a hymn while in the background we hear music from Richard Wagner’s Gotterdammerung.  Very annoying.

Shaw could not be knocked off the soap box once he got on it and it holds true for Major Barbara. But fine acting and directing do the job and we enjoy the arguments and the exceptional production
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Major Barbara by Bernard Shaw continues at the Royal George Theatre as part of The Shaw Festival until October 5. 2025 in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com.

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press, Toronto

NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 - REVIEW OF 2025 PRODUCTION AT ROYAL ALEXANDRA THEATRE

 Reviewed by James Karas

 Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 closed about a year and a half ago at Crowsnest Theatre, Toronto  but it proved so popular that the Mirvish company has revived it at the Royal Alexandra Theatre for a run to August 25, 2025. Dave Malloy is the composer, librettist and orchestrator as well as a borrower from Tolstoy of a work that has many of the hallmarks of an opera but calling it that may leave a lot of empty seats in the theatre.

The Great Comet, despite its vaunted provenance from War and Peace, involves love stories and complications that require a Family Tree in the program with arrows pointing around eleven photographs of the characters to tell us who is who. The aristocratic Natasha (Hailey Gillis) is engaged to Andrey (Marcus Nance) but falls in love with the playboy Anatole (George Krissa) and plans to elope with him. They are prevented from eloping and depressed Pierre (Evan Buliung) steps in to console Natasha. They both see the Great Comet of 1812 as a sign of good hope but the two and a half hours of the show are over and you will have to read War and Peace for the rest.

In the beginning, Natasha and cousin Sonya (Vanessa Sears) arrive in Moscow to stay with Marya (Louise Pitre), Natasha’s godmother. Marya advises Natasha to visit her future in-laws, Prince Bolkonsky (Marcus Nance again) and his daughter Mary (Heeyun Park). Good reason: they are loaded. Bad result: the Prince is a miserly jerk and the visit is calamitous.  

Hailey Gillis and George Krissa in Natasha, Pierre & 

the Great Comet of 1812. Photo: Dahlia Katz

In the meantime, we need more complications. Anatole and friend Dolokhov (Lawrence Libor) along with Pierre go drinking and meet Helene who happens to be Anatole’s sister and Pierre’s wife. Helene is too chummy with Dolokhov and Pierre  challenges him to a duel. Bang. No one is dead.

We need to unravel things. Elopement thwarted. Natasha takes poison but not enough. Anatole gets his comeuppance and Andrey returns but does not forgive Natasha. She and Pierre see The Great Comet of 1812 and they consider it good news and so do we.

Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 is sung through with a rich variety of songs, recitatives and music styles. Some of the songs have a Russian folk song flavour, sung with vigour and accompanied by accordions.

Director Chris Abraham wants to provide us with a fast moving and boisterous program with rich use of audience participation. Actors run up and down the aisles of the theatre. They interact with audience members, including dancing with them. There are audience members on the stage and the actors encourage and lead the audience in applauding the performance and laughing. There are roving guitar, violin, viola, cello and accordion “players”. They show enthusiasm and create enthusiasm in the audience. Abraham does not want the level of audience involvement and excitement to lag or diminish and all the frantic activity is infectious.

It is one hell of a show. The singing is very good and the ensemble acting is outstanding.

Set Designers Julie Fox and Joshua Quinlan provide a two-story set that wraps around the stage. It suggests opulence without overdoing it. The costumes by Ming Wong suggest aristocratic attire and appear appropriate for the nineteenth century Russian setting.

It is a rousing, rip-roaring show that had the audience in the palm of its hand and was given an enthusiastic standing ovation.
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Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 by Dave Malloy (composer, librettist and orchestrator and borrower from Tolstoy) in a production by Crow’s Theatre and The Musical Stage Company  continues until August 25, 2025, at the Royal Alexandra Theatre. 260 King St. W. Toronto, Ont. www.mirvish.com

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press, Toronto

MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION – REVIEW OF 2025 LONDON PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession gets a redoubtable production at the Garrick Theatre in London, directed by Dominic Cooke. It boasts the star power of Imelda Staunton as Mrs. Warren and it is a fine reminder what Bernard Shaw could do at his best.

Mrs. Warren’s Profession is in fact Shaw’s third play. He wrote it 1893-94 and published it in 1898 with his first two pieces under the title Plays Unpleasant. Producers treated it like the plague, and it was produced privately in 1902 and promptly banned from public performance. Its first production in the United Sates had the same fate. Its second production in the United States had a worse fate. It was banned and the cast were arrested and charged with “offending public decency.”

What did the play show that offended the delicate sense of decency of late 19^th century Britain and America? Many women at the bottom of the social ladder were paid so poorly that they had to resort to extreme measures to survive. A second job was inevitable and at times the only thing left for some women was to sell their body. The impolite word for that is prostitution.

Imelda Staunton and Bessie Carter in Mrs Warren’s Profession. 
Photograph: Johan Persson

Mrs. Warren’s Profession deals with that subject but on such a rarefied level that one hardly recognizes what it is talking about. We first meet Vivie Warren (Bessie Carter). She is an attractive, self-assured woman living in an upper-crust house (we see her in a garden) and enjoying the life of the well-to-do. Mr. Praed (Sid Sagar) a successful architect and gentleman, comes by, looking for Mrs. Warren. So does Sir George Crofts (Roger Glenister), a mature man who is above a gentleman, he is a knight of the realm.

This is high society, and they are friends of Mrs. Warren. Vivie and we slowly become acquainted with Mrs. Warren’s profession. She is the managing director of Private Hotels across Europe. Come again? Well, they are bordellos, or to stoop to unacceptable language for some, they are brothels or whorehouses. Mrs. Warren started at the bottom of that profession and has risen to the top. She did have a child in the process, but we do not know the identity of Vivie’s father. What the women did and why is fine as long as no one mentions it and offends public decency.

We meet the respectable town rector, the Rev. Samuel Garner (Kevin Doyle) and his useless son Frank (Reuben Joseph). The latter is infatuated with Vivie. The reverend is a comic figure and played for laughs, but he does have a secret that solves the infatuation issue and a mystery.

The crux of the play is Mrs. Warren’s defence of her present position in the profession (poverty forced her to practice it when young) and Vivie’s reaction to finding out the source of the money for her lifestyle. Mrs. Warren showed strength and resilience in her ability to rise to the top and is refusing to give it up. Vivie displays revulsion and strength in her refusal to continue living on the avails of her mother’s job.

The other side of Mrs. Warren's Profession. Photo: Johan Persson

Sir George, a man of 60, wants to marry the attractive Vivie and give her a good life without her getting mixed up in the reality of what he does. His offer of marriage is based on “I have money, what more do you want” which Vivie rejects out of hand and proceeds to find a way of supporting herself.

Cooke has made a significant addition to the production: a chorus of ten women dressed in white underclothes, who appear, to change the stage props and walk around as samples of the women who work in the bordellos that Mrs. Warren and Company operate.  

Staunton and Carter give powerful performances as the opposing mother and daughter. Glenister gives a prime example of the apologist for mistreatment of people and the father and son Rev. Samuel and Frank Gardner are comic figures with an extra layer for the reverend who maintained the respectable appearance while partaking of the pleasure provided by the abused women.

Set and Costume designer Chloe Lamford has created an atmosphere of wealth and comfort in sharp contrast to the underlying reality of the play. Brilliant.

Dominic Cooke has directed a stunning production of one of Shaw’s best plays that will not offend anyone’s delicate decency but should point to a reality that has not been entirely eradicated.
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Mrs. Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw continues until August 16, 2025 at the  Garrick Theatre, 2 Charing Cross Rd, London, WC2H 0HH. https://thegarricktheatre.co.uk/tickets/mrs-warrens-profession/

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press, Toronto

THE DEEP BLUE SEA – REVIEW OF 2025 THEATRE ROYAL HAYMARKET PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play The Deep Blue Sea gets a major revival at the gorgeous Theatre Royal Haymarket in London. It is directed by veteran director Lindsay Posner with set and costume designs by Peter McIntosh. It stars Tamsin Greig as Hester Collyer, Hadley Fraser as Freddie and Nicholas Farrell as Sir William Collyer.

The plot is simple. Hester is found unconscious in her apartment after her landlady smelled gas. She entered the apartment and found an empty bottle of sleeping pills and concluded that Hester had attempted to kill herself. It is true, she did.

The rest of the play attempts to explain the reasons for her attempt. Hester is the daughter of a minister and has some painting talent. She was married to Sir William Collyer, a judge of the High Court whom she left. Farrell gives a fine performance as the decent man who loves his wife but did not and perhaps could not offer her the sexual satisfaction that she needs.

Her way out was a relationship with Freddie, and it is difficult to say anything positive about him. He is an incipient alcoholic, selfish, unemployed, thoughtless and lazy. He may have made an impression as a test pilot at the beginning. He no longer loves her, but he is still good in bed. Fraser is superb as the swaggering, former test pilot who is looking for work when he is no longer capable of doing it. Superb performance.

Scene from The Deep Blue Sea. Photo by Manuel Harlan

Her husband (they are not divorced yet) is a gentleman, successful, thoughtful and generous. We get glimpses of their married life and there is no doubt that for all his sterling qualities Sir William was not a passionate lover. Freddie is and his main attraction is probably his sexual prowess. At its lowest, it seems that Hester leaves her husband for sexual pleasure. The politer version would be love and perhaps at the beginning a more exciting life. All of that is in the past and at present Freddie is a jerk.

His friend Jack Jackson (Marc Elliott) sets an example of living well and being responsible, but that view does not register with Freddie.

Hester’s neighbor Miller (Finbar Lynch) gives an example of decency with a sense of humour. He studied medicine but is no longer permitted to practice. No explanation is  given but his current job as a bookie. He helps Hester medically but when asked if she might do it again, he replies “I am not a prophet. He has an instinctive understanding and empathy for Hester’s condition. Haltingly he tries to give some insight to Hester about her life and life in general and in the end, he appears to have some success. 

I was not entirely satisfied with Tamsin Greig’s performance as Hester. She is a deeply troubled woman who took a brave step in leaving life at the top with a High Court judge and a knight. She fell in love  (give her credit for it) and it was a disastrous decision but she cannot easily extricate herself from it. Greig did not display the strength of character  and at times appeared almost mousy. She is not. Unfortunately, Greig did not define the role of Hester for me and was not a convincing protagonist.

The set by McIntosh consisted of a large but rundown apartment that looked appropriate for a woman in bad financial straits. The rent had not been paid for a month and she was trying to sell some paintings to make ends meet. Freddie offered nothing.

Lindsay Posner is an experienced director and does superb work with the production but he may not have got the best out of Greig in her portrayal of Hester.

There is an autobiographical and mythical angle to the play. The mythological angel that occurs to me is that of Helen of Troy who left her husband King Menelaus to run off with Paris. Was Menelaus a bore in bed? Unlike Hester, Helen went back to her husband and we don’t know how he felt.

The play may hark back to Greek mythology but for Terence Rattigan it had an autobiographical inspiration. The gay playwright was abandoned by his young lover for another man. He could not very well write a play about homosexual love in 1952 but this was his way of expiating a terrible chapter in his life. Menelaus would have understood. 

A very good night at the theatre.

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The Deep Blue Sea by Terence Rattigan played at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, 18 Suffolk Street London SW1Y 4HT London, England. www.trh.co.uk

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press, Toronto.

THE CONSTANT WIFE – REVIEW OF 2025 ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas 

Many people will recall a play by W. Somerset Maugham called The Constant Wife that opened in Ohio in 1926 and has often been  revived. It is a pleasant comedy about a constant and wonderful wife and an equally wonderful husband with one fly in the ointment, as they say. The husband, you see, is having an affair with the best friend of the constant wife. And she finds out and the play is taken up with the unravelling of that indiscretion.

The Royal Shakespeare Company has decided to revise Maugham’s play by having it updated by Laura Wade and providing a version based on the original.

The facts please.

Constance Middleton (Rose Leslie) and her husband John (Luke Norris) have it made. They are happily married, well off (he is a Harley Street $$$$ surgeon) and the sun is shining and all is well. There is the small issue of John’s roving pecker which has found a nest of repose in the arms Marie-Louise (Emma McDonald) who happens to be Constance’s’ best friend.

ROSE LESLIE AS THE CONSTANT WIFE. Photo: Johan Persson 

That’s bad only if “discovered” as they say and if you want a play, it must be discovered. In this case the Christopher Columbuses are Constance’s blabbermouth younger sister Martha (Amy Morgan) and her more discreet mother Mrs. Culver (Kate Burton). And you guessed it, Martha tells Constance that her husband is unfaithful, and Constance does not go to Texas to buy a gun. We are in civilized London after all.

We need a couple more twists for laughter and a plot to entertain us for a couple of hours of crisp dialogue and funny situations.

Fifteen years ago, Constance knew Bernard (Raj Bajaj) who went abroad and is now back and wants to relight the candle that he had for Constance then. He is handsome, rich and has a Saville Row tailor. What more can one ask for?

Marie-Louise’s oafish husband Mortimer (Daniel Millar) found John’s cigarette case under his wife’s pillow, and he is very suspicious about how it got there. So are we, but please, let’s keep it clean. He barges into the well-appointed Middleton home making seditious accusations about a cigarette case under a pillow. The clever Constance explains that it was she who put the cigarette case there and not her husband who should not be smoking at all let alone before or after coitus or in someone else’s bedroom.

You think about that. (I want to know what they were doing at the precise moment that the cigarette case fell under her pillow but as I said we will behave,) In the meantime, we get a crisp, finely paced and acted comedy. Just watch the textbook-perfectly accented butler Bently (Mark Meadows) then enjoy the beautiful performance of the spunky, intelligent Rose Leslie as Constance. We like Emma McDonal for her fine acting but disapprove of her raunchy character. Well, maybe. Bajaj is the perfect gentleman, and the rest of the cast are wonderful actors at light comedy.

Director Tamara Harvey puts everything together from pace to timing to give us a superb light comedy.

One more fact. Mortimer’s unfounded but factually accurate suspicions are assuaged and Marie-Louise’s predisposition to adultery is or will be satisfied by a non-doctor and they will have their fun, and we will enjoy light comedy at its best. I had to tell you that lest you were concerned about the ending.
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The Constant Wife by Laura Wade based on the play by W. Somerset Maugham continues until August 2, 2025 at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, England.  https://www.rsc.org.uk/

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press, Torono