STRATFORD RE-DISCOVERS GREEK TRAGEDY – GREAT PRODUCTION OF ELEKTRA

Laura Condlln (left) as Chrysothemis and Yanna McIntosh as Elektra in Elektra. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Reviewed by James Karas
***** (out of 5)

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s production of Sophocles’ Elektra presents an outstanding example of what it can do at its best. It can reach back to the roots of Western drama and deliver a staging of a great play that is faithful to the spirit of the original and approachable by a modern audience. It is theatre at its best.

The production brings together an outstanding director with a distinguished cast who combines a fine translation of the Greek text with music and dance to produce ancient drama in a form rarely seen anywhere.

Much of the credit must go to Thomas Moschopoulos, the director whom Des McAnuff brought from Greece. He is respectful of the poetry of the text and combines it with song, dance, rhythm and movement and physicality that dispel any idea of Greek tragedy being static or difficult to understand.

Yanna McIntosh dominates the production with a stellar performance as Elektra. Sophocles’ Elektra is a middle-aged woman obsessed with hatred of her mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aigisthos, and with an overwhelming desire to avenge the murder of her father by them. McIntosh, hair disheveled, dressed in rags, perhaps somewhat deranged, performs Elektra at such an emotional pitch that it leaves you breathless.

Seana McKenna is Clytemnestra who murdered her husband and shows no remorse. Dressed in a smart suit, she rationalizes her action as revenge for Agamemnon’s sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia at Aulis. McKenna moves from the coolly cerebral to the histrionic in a simply superb performance.

Ian Lake plays Orestes with Peter Hutt as his servant who gains admission to the place by subterfuge. Both perform well as does Graham Abbey as the matter-of-fact Aigisthos.

Laura Condlin as Chrysothemis appears in an elegant pantsuit wearing stylish sunglasses in sharp contrast to her sister Elektra. She is not bothered by her father’s death and is not interested in revenge. A convincing performance by Condlin.

The essential elements of a Greek tragedy that are most frequently botched or absent are the Chorus and the use of music.

There is no instrumental music in this production but Kornilios Selamsis has composed vocal music for the Chorus of Women and most of the characters of the play. The Chorus and the main characters at different times throughout the performance, sing, chant, hum, recite and stamp their feet to produce rhythmic beats. The music may have liturgical and Cretan folksong overtones but it is essentially modern music. It emphasizes or accompanies Anne Carson’s fine translation and is not confined to the choral passages. All the main characters are given vocal passages. The Chorus also dances to the choreography of Amalia Bennett.

The Chorus does not speak in unison (a frequent pitfall for directors) but the members move freely and become fully integrated in the drama. The other pitfall is keeping them bunched together. Moschopoulos does not make that error and keeps the Chorus and the main character moving in this highly physical production.

Three rectangular tables occupy the stage of the Tom Patterson Theatre. We see the dismembered parts of a statue on each of them - a head, a torso and the legs. It is a startling image, of course, and no doubt symbolic of the murder of Agamemnon and Elektra’s obsessive search for revenge. The Designer of this concrete counterpart of Elektra’s psychological state is Ellie Papageorgakopoulou.

In addition, the sides of the stage are fenced and they give the appearance of a cage, again a perfect reference to Elektra’s mental state who is imprisoned as much by her mother and her lover as her own hatred and fixation.

The costumes seem to go all over the place from the appropriate to the questionable. The clothes worn by Elektra, Clytemnestra, Chrysothemis and the Old Man (a long black robe) present no issue. The women of the Chorus wear a variety of modern dresses and clothing that need not cause any concern.

My difficulty is with Orestes who wears nothing but white, knee-length underwear in the opening scene. In the final scene, he appears wearing a white short-sleeve shirt, brown short pants and knee socks. His friend, the silent Pylades (E. B. Smith), appears clad in a dark cap and black clothes and looks like a terrorist.

In ancient Athens Elektra was performed at dawn in a large outdoor theatre at the foot of the Acropolis as part of a religious festival. The actors wore masks but we know almost nothing about the music and dance patterns of the Chorus. If Sophocles were to see his Elektra at Stratford, he may not recognize it across twenty-four centuries, but as a man of the theatre, he would no doubt applaud this production because it captures the spirit of his play.
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Elektra by Sophocles opened on August 11 and will run in repertory until September 29, 2012 at the Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL – OUTSTANDING AIDA IN CONTEMPORARY SETTING AND POLITICS

Daveda Karanas as Amneris and Noah Stewart as Radamès with members of the ensemble in The Glimmerglass Festival's production of Aida. Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival.

Reviewed by James Karas

The Glimmerglass Festival is located as far away from the hubbub of war and religious conflict as one can imagine. The rolling hills and meadows by Lake Otsego, near Cooperstown, New York are a long way from the murderous wars of the Middle East.

The Festival’s Artistic and General Director Francesca Zambello has decided to bring contemporary issues to the stage of the Glimmerglass Festival’s Alice Busch Opera Theatre by placing Verdi’s Aida in a war-torn setting and producing the politically-charged Lost in the Stars about South African racism.

When the curtain goes up on Aida we hear startling gunshots as soldiers rush on the stage and fall on the ground. The setting according to Verdi may be the Egyptian Royal Palace at Memphis, but in Zambello’s staging it is a bombed building. The soldiers carry semi-automatics and there are computers presumably used to prepare for war.

Flags are waved patriotically and the Ethiopian prisoners captured by the victorious Egyptians are clearly Muslims. We have a full fledged Middle East conflict with patriotism, religious differences and mistreatment if not torture of prisoners all weaved into Verdi’s opera which is more of a love story than a tale of national conflict.

The Ethiopian princess Aida is sung by soprano Michelle Johnson. She has a sensuous and expressive voice and gives a superb performance. She invests “Ritorna Vincitor”, for example, with passion and drama capturing her dilemma between loyalty to country and to love. Equally effective is her “O Patria mia”, full of the sense of loss and longing for her homeland. 

The athletic and muscle-bound tenor Noah Stewart sings Radames. From his opening aria “Celeste Aida” to the end when he is tied to a gurney, he is vocally splendid. I thought he was a bit awkward in his movements on stage but other than that he makes a first rate Radames.

Princess Amneris plays second banana to Aida. She loves Radames but he does not care for her. Zambello has made the eternal triangle more interesting by giving us a very attractive Amneris. In the hands of mezzo soprano Daveda Karanas, this Amneris is beautiful and alluring and fully worthy of Radames’s love. She is no unattractive duckling chasing the heroic general. Karanas gives an outstanding performance in the role both in characterization and vocal prowess.

Bass-baritone Phillip Gay made a fine impression as the King. He exuded regal authority and vocal power even though he is a young man. Very good work, indeed.

Bass-baritone Eric Owens is a big-voiced singer and did fine work as Amonasro and kudos go to Joseph Barron as Ramfis, Lenora Green as the Priestess and Clay Hilley as the Messenger.

The costumes by Bibhu Mohapatra were not uniformly successful. The khaki and belts suggesting soldiers at war anywhere in the Middle East presented no issue. The King was dressed in what appeared a more pharaohic costume. When she first appears Aida seems to be wearing a bridal gown. When the Ethiopian prisoners are brought in, you realize that her dress is in line with her countrywomen but by that time you have already scratched your head about her appearance.

Aida is a big opera and I have seen productions where small zoos were brought on stage for the Triumphal March. Zambello did not bring any animals on stage, thank goodness.

In the small Alice Busch Theater there may be concern about producing the grandiose parts of the opera. The outstanding Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra and Chorus under the baton of Nader Abbassi  had no difficulty bringing the rafters down as they say. Both the intimate and the grand part of the work stood out in a rousing and splendid night at the opera.

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Aida by Giuseppe Verdi opened on July7 and will be performed eleven times until August 25, 2012 at the Alice Busch Opera Theater, Cooperstown, New York. Tickets and information (607) 547-0700 or www.glimmerglass.org

SOPHOCLES’ ELEKTRA OPENS AT STRATFORD SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL

Thomas Moschopoulos

By James Karas

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival will produce a Greek tragedy this year.

That statement should merit no more than a mention in the Festival’s annual programme but it is such a rarity that it deserves a screaming headline.

The Festival has gone even further this time in hiring Greeks to direct and design the production and to compose the music for it.

Elektra will be directed by Thomas Moschopoulos who has extensive experience in directing classical and modern plays as well as opera. Most Canadians would probably claim ignorance of his work because they have never been to Epidaurus or the Athens Festival or the numerous other venues where he has worked. Millions of them, however, have seen his spectacular work as the director of the closing ceremonies at the Athens Olympics in 2004.

From left: Yanna McIntosh, Seana McKenna
Andrew Eccles photo

Elektra tells the story of the revenge meted on Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthos by her children. She butchered her husband Agamemnon on his return from the Trojan War and now a vengeful Elektra is waiting for her brother Orestes to return and kill their mother.

There are three extant Greek tragedies that deal with the Elektra myth one by each of Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles. Why did Moschopoulos choose the play by Sophocles?

Although he had studied it, he had never directed the play before and the decision to do it came in an indirect way, he told me during a recent interview.

When Moschopoulos was invited by Des McAnuff to direct a Greek tragedy at Stratford, he came over to scout out the landscape, so to speak. He saw Yanna McIntosh and Seana McKenna and he was so impressed by their talent that he wanted to do a play in which he could use both of them. He quickly decided on Sophocles’ Elektra. And how did he decide to give Elektra to Yanna and Clytemnestra to Seana? “Instinctively” he replied. He could not give any further explanation other than an instinctive reaction to these actors. 

From the numerous translations available, Moschopoulos chose Anne Carson’s rendition of the play because of its simplicity. “Greek tragedy is very economical’, he said.  And the Stratford cast is “very sensible and sensitive” to the poetry, he said.  Carson uses short sentences and colloquialisms that can be recited rapidly.

The production will have original music composed by Kornelius Selamsis. Music was an important part of Greek tragedy but we know virtually nothing about it. Moschopoulos goes back to Monteverdi and the early composers of opera for the structural ideas about the music to be used. He appreciates that there is an operatic aspect to Greek tragedy but he relies more on the Greek Orthodox liturgy and Cretan folk songs for the musical approach.

The Chorus, an utterly essential part of Greek tragedy, sings a cappella but the members do not speak in unison.  There was certainly music for the Chorus in Ancient Greece to accompany the choral odes but he has chosen not to use any in this production. There was singing during the episodes of the play (as opposed to the choral parts), according to Moschopoulos, and he will use Salamsis’s music there.  Greek tragedy appears static but Moschopoulos believes that there was considerable physicality involved. We know that the Chorus danced in the original productions and that tradition will be maintained in this staging.

The actors (but not the Chorus) wore masks in Ancient Greece but they were playing in theatres that held as many as 30,000 spectators, by some estimates. Elektra will be done in the small, theatre-in-the-round Tom Patterson. It is close enough to a Greek amphitheater in design, according to Moschopoulos and he had no difficulty adapting to it. 

A few words about the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and Greek drama may bear repeating.  Tyrone Guthrie directed Oedipus Rex in 1954 and the production was reprised in 1955. A good start.

The next production of a Greek tragedy was in 1978 when what one critic called “a pointless rewrite of Medea” by Larry Fineberg was staged. Ten years later they offered a truncated version of Oedipus Rex.   Finally, in 1993, David William staged The Bacchae  and, if you are counting, that means it was the first serious attempt at Greek tragedy for Stratford in forty years.

In 1997, the 1954-55 production of Oedipus Rex was reprised and things really picked up in 2000 with Seana McKenna doing Medea.

In 2003 Stratford finally discovered Aeschylus and Aristophanes. The production of Agamemnon at the Studio Theatre tried to pretend that Ancient tragedy can be staged  like modern drama. Nikos Dionysios’s The Birds was an imaginative treatment that tried to capture the exuberance of Attic Comedy.

The last contact with Greek tragedy by Stratford was in 2008 with The Trojan Women directed by Marti Maraden. It had Martha Henry, Seana McKenna and Yanna McIntosh in the cast and left no doubt that Stratford can do a first rate job if it assigned the task to the right people.

Maybe we can start a trend.
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Elektra  by Sophocles opens on August 11 and will run in repertory until September 29, 2012 at the Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

THE SUNSHINE BOYS – NOSTALGIA AND GOOD LAUGHTER FROM SOULPEPPER

Kenneth Welsh & Eric Peterson. Photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

Reviewed by James Karas

Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys is a very funny play and it provides a couple doses of nostalgia. One dose is decidedly a borrowed one and the other is perhaps a real memory for many people. Soulpepper has revived this 1972 play for its summer season in a very good production.

The play is about Willie (Eric Peterson) and Al (Kenneth Welsh), two vaudeville comedians who performed sketches for 43 years. That was during the great age of American comedy or so we are told. We are quite willing to accept that verdict and enjoy a bit of borrowed nostalgia about an era and a mode of entertainment that is long gone.

The play was produced forty years ago and one may find some truth in saying that they don’t make them like they used to. You can say that about the product of any old master (Simon is now 85) and look back to the good old days even if they were not that good or are that old. Those old enough may wish to remember the good old days.

The Sunshine Boys pays tribute to vaudeville by bringing together two crotchety vaudevillians who hate each other. Eric Peterson as Willie hates his former partner because he used to spit in his face during performances and poked him with his finger. Now he lives alone in a small apartment in New York and is still looking for work. Peterson is a first rate actor and he does a terrific job in the role.

Kenneth Walsh as Al is more humane and tolerant than Willie. He is not bitter and any chance of reconciliation is bound to come from him. Walsh is a perfect foil for Peterson’s Willie and he does superb work in the role.

The catalyst for the action is Willie’s nephew Ben (Jordan Pettle) who tries to bring the two men together to perform one of their sketches for television.

There are two nurses in the play. One is the mythical, gorgeous blonde (Sarah Wilson) who has big breasts and leans over for Willie (and the audience) to stare at her “back”. Well, Wilson has the requisite attributes and gets the laughs as the dumb blonde.

The other nurse is the far more realistic, no-nonsense caregiver played by Quancetia Hamilton. She may not have Wilson’s physical attributes but she is a very funny actor who gets her laughs.

Pettle plays an agent, decked in a three-piece suit, who is desperately trying to deal with his irascible and irrational uncle and tries to get them to rehearse for their TV appearance.

The play is directed by Ted Dykstra and although it gets most of the laughs it falls short of an inspired production that instigates instant howls of laughter. I mean the type of hilarity that the audience anticipates and bursts out almost instantaneously.

You do get a taste of vaudeville of long, long ago, a smidgeon of more recent New York, some timeless and some dated humour and a good night at the theatre.
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The Sunshine Boys by Neil Simon opened on July 26 and will continue until September 22, 2012 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Mill Street, Toronto, Ontario. www.soulpepper.ca 416 866-8666.

SPEED-THE-PLOW – TONGUES WITH NO BRAKES AND MINDS WITH NO STEERING WHEELS IN OUTSTANDING DRAMA

 Ari Cohen and Jordan Pettle. Photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

Reviewed by James Karas

David Mamet is the master of machine-gun dialogue, short sentences shot out, frequently overlapping with the words of the last speaker and creating riveting theatre. This talent was displayed to good effect in his 1988 play Speed-the-Plow which is now showing at the Young Centre in a superb production by Soulpepper.

At times you get the impression that Mamet’s characters have tongues without brakes and minds without steering wheels. They say what they want to say with little regard the listener.

The play has only three characters and is a dark satire on the movie industry but Mamet is not interested only in the shallowness and vacuity of films being made and the equally shallow, ego-driven would-be moguls. He has written a subtle play about manipulation, power struggle, office politics and the interplay of greed, sex, treachery and hypocrisy.

Charlie Fox (Jordan Pettle) runs into the office of Bobby Gould (Ari Cohen) to announce that he has nabbed someone “from across the street” to do a movie for their studio. The dialogue develops around the conviction that they will make lots of money and get their names on the screen above the title of the film. They are loyal friends, they insist repeatedly, but what is really obvious is their geed, shallowness and hypocrisy.

Pettle plays Fox as an over-excited, promoter and self-promoter on the verge of success. Cohen’s Gould wants to pretend he is near the top already (he can make a movie for under thirty million dollars without any approval) but he is just as vacuous and superficial as Fox.

The anticipated success is muddled by the presence of a tall and beautiful temp worker named Karen (Sarah Wilson). She appears innocent and eager to please but the men are obviously interested in more earthy things. Gould invites her to his house and the two men make a bet on whether he will have sex with her. It is a pure game of manipulation and one-upmanship and if Gould does have sex with her the victory will be his. In their world the only thing that counts is their ego. Karen shows that she knows a few things about manipulation herself and she can stand her ground quite well.

The seesaw conflict among the three lasts for about an hour and twenty minutes but it is riveting theatre. The acting is superb. The play can be done even more quickly and forcefully but director David Storch has chosen a less violent approach to the pacing and the dialogue. A more forceful approach may have been preferable but that may be a matter of taste.

The set by Dana Osborne consists of a simple and very ordinary desk for Gould’s office – he is a powerhouse producer only in his imagination - and ordinary furniture for his apartment. He could be an office worker on a tight budget.

Speed-the-Plow is not produced very frequently and once again one expresses gratitude to Soulpepper for its judicious choice of plays and its frequently outstanding productions.
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Speed-the-Plow by David Mamet opened on July 16 12 and will continue until September 22, 2012 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Mill Street, Toronto, Ontario. www.soulpepper.ca 416 866-8666.

WANDERLUST BRINGS SOME OF ROBERT SERVICE’S POEMS, A FEW SONGS AND NONE OF HIS LIFE

Tom Rooney (centre) as Robert Service with members of the company in Wanderlust. Photography by David Hou

 

Reviewed by James Karas

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival has taken Canadian content seriously this year. Four out of fourteen plays can claim to be “made in Canada” and one of them, Wanderlust, goes one step further. It is a musical that was commissioned by the Festival from playwright Morris Panych and composer Marek Norman, both Canadians and it is about a “Canadian” poet.

They have taken the poetry of Robert Service (played by Tom Rooney) as their starting point and fashioned a pleasant musical around his verse and a fictionalized version of his life. Panych directs the production.

Panych sets the story in a bank (Service did work for the Canadian Bank of Commerce) where as a lowly bank employee he dreams of visiting strange places like the north and writes poetry. He often sleeps on the bank vault because he stays late versifying and he is also in love with Louise Montgomery (Robin Hutton) who happens to be engaged to Dan McGrew the Assistant Manager (Dan Chameroy).

The action does move to the Yukon for “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” and “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” two of Service’s most famous poems.

The plot will turn around the eternal triangle (which will not have the usual happy resolution) and the composition of verses by Service.

Panych manages to inject some light humour into the courtship of Louise and the activities of the tellers in the bank. Mr. McGee, the bank manager, is quite amusing in the hands of Randy Hughson as is Ken James Stewart as Noah the clerk. He is quite funny.

Lucy Peacock is the drunken landlady who is in love with our hero but she is almost wasted in the role.

Dan Chameroy is the straight-laced McGrew in contrasts to the dreamy and passionate Service.

The rather thin pot is augmented with a number of musical numbers. It is after all a musical. The music is pleasant enough though hardly memorable. It is partly controlled by the rhythm, of Service’s poetry. He wrote in simple language with the regular rhythm of rhyming couplets.

Norman’s music usually follows the poetry as if he were reciting it but he does manage some melodies. I cannot remember a single one of them but the performance was good,  especially during the second half which was reasonably enjoyable.

Rooney is good as Service – a dreamy, decent man in love with Louise who insists that she loves him. Unfortunately, she is a modern woman and is lying to both McGrew and to Service.

Service (1874-1958) led a full and very colourful life but I guess Panych and Norman could not condense it or pick a few incidents from it and at the  same time give us some of his poetry.

In the end you get some poetry, a few pleasant laughs, some forgettable songs around a fictionalized life.

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Wanderlust by Morris Panych (book) and Marek Norman (music) opened on July 11 and will run until September 28, 2012 at the Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratford-festival.on.ca

SATIRE ABOUT THE WAR OF 1812 NOT PARTICULARLY ENTERTAINING AT STRATFORD

From left: Richard Alan Campbell as General Harrison, Greg Campbell as General Renssaeler, Richard Clarkin as a Cabinet Gent, Jacob James as President James Madison, Linda Prystawska as Dolly Madison, Mac Fyfe as a Cabinet Gent, Michaela Washburn as Mrs. Hull and Anand Rajaram as General Hull in VideoCabaret's The War of 1812. Photo by Michael Cooper.


Reviewed by James Karas

Michael Hollingsworth has created a one-man industry writing plays about Canadian history. He calls his series of plays The History of the Village of the Small Huts (i.e. Canada) and it has kept him busy for about thirty years. The Stratford Shakespeare Festival kills several birds by producing his The War of 1812, albeit in the tiny Studio Theatre Annex: it produces a Canadian play, about Canadian history on the 200th anniversary of the event. What more do you want?

Hollingsworth also directs this production by VideoCabaret of which he is an Artistic Director. He is not interested in a narrative or patriotic tale of the war but he does give us a satirical look at the conflict that pitted the British Empire against the recently created United States with the Natives in the middle and probably getting the worst of it.

Eight actors represent several dozen characters from the American, British and Native sides. The actors wear heavy make-up, almost white faces with red lips. They usually address the audience instead of each other. The women speak frequently in falsetto voices and no one speaks in a natural tone.

The characters appear almost like marionettes and they speak in an exaggerated and at times gesticulatory manner. They may be seen as clowns or certainly caricatures of the roles that they portray. It is a satire, after all.

Jacob James, for example, portrays President James Madison, who is short, wears a wig and has an almost white face and red lips. He gesticulates when he talks. He also represents Rev. John Strachan from the British side as well as an American and British Soldier.

Linda Prystawska is Dolly Madison, Laura Secord and Ann Strachan with fairly similar characterization of all of them The point may be that these people are all fools and are involved in a foolish war. No argument there.

Anand Rajaram plays a stentorian Tecumseh and the cowardly General Dearborn. Again, they are portrayed as foolish people but for all the satire there is very little humour or laughter in the portraits of these characters.

Richard Alan Campbell plays General William Harrison and James Secord, both of them silly men.

Richard Clarkin plays the clownish General Isaac Brock from the British side and General Wingfield Scott for the American wing.

The action takes place in the dark and lights are focused on the faces of the actors. There are no props to speak of except for a couple of portraits and some maps that are shown. The plot moves quickly in short scenes, almost vignettes.

Despite the name of the production company, there is no use of video.

I make no secret of the fact that I did not like the production. There are people who find this type of satire highly effective and entertaining but unfortunately it left me cold. Frequent use of phrases like “pardon my French” by a number of characters did not help and the lack of much humour made the situation worse.

This is a clown show or a marionette presentation of a satirical look at The War of 1812 in a style that simply did not resonate with me.

You are welcome to love the whole approach and disagree violently with me.

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The War of 1812 by Michael Hollingsworth opened on July 1 and will run until August 12, 2012 at the Studio Theatre Annex, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca