TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD – REVIEW OF STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Harper Lee’s 1960 novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, has become a classic of American literature. Its sensitive treatment of growing up in Alabama in the 1930s is full of wonder, discovery and humour. Its treatment of the disease of racism and the fate of a black man accused of raping a white girl is harrowing to the core and utterly unforgettable.

The novel was adapted for the screen by Horton Foote and the 1962 film directed by Robert Mulligan and starring Gregory Peck is considered one of the great movies of the 20^th century.

 

Jonathan Goad (centre) as Atticus Finch with members of the company. Photography by David Hou.

In 1990 the novel was adapted for the stage by Christopher Sergel and the Stratford Festival has staged his adaptation at the Festival Theatre. Subject to one complaint, this is a compelling production of a novel-turned-into-a-play that is almost completely successful.

Director Nigel Shawn Williams has assembled a superb cast to tell Lee’s great story. Jonathan Goad plays Atticus Finch, a decent small-town lawyer, a genial man, a sensitive father and in the end a truly brave defender of a black man before a jury of bigots and in the face of the Ku Klux Klan.   

Finch is a widower with two children to raise, Scout (Clara Poppy Kushnir) and Jem (Jacob Skiba). They have a friend Dill (Hunter Smalley) and Williams has the issue of dealing with three youngsters on stage. He deals with them as with the rest of the production with expertise. Kushnir is superb as the intelligent, curious and very active Scout and Skiba and Hunter are both foils and partners in her activities.

The children develop a fear of and a prejudice against a neighbour that they call Boo Radley (Rylan Wilkie). The plot strand is illustrative of the danger of bigotry and a story of growing up and learning.

The main plot strand is the accusation of Tom Robinson (Matthew G. Brown) of raping Mayella Ewell (Jonelle Gunderson). He is black; she is white and his guilt is presumed. Some of the most dramatic scenes in and out of the courtroom ensue as Robinson is put on trial. Randy Hughson gives a stunning performance as Bob Ewell, Mayella’s ignorant and vicious father.

Tim Campbell is an impressive sheriff and Joseph Ziegler is the folksy but tough Judge Taylor.

 From left: Hunter Smalley as Dill, Irene Poole as Jean Louise Finch and Clara Poppy Kushnir 

in To Kill a Mockingbird. Photography by David Hou.

Even if you know the plot, the production provides riveting drama as the trial proceeds from the examination of witnesses to our view of the ignorance, evil and bigotry of most of the townspeople. The apogee is reached when Atticus sits in front of the jail door at night and the townspeople come dressed in Ku Klux Klan hoods ready to lynch Robinson. It is a frightful and unforgettable scene.

Sergel’s dramatization is excellent in capturing the drama, humour, atmosphere and the social structure of the town. But he decided to add a character to the play that provides nothing but annoyance. The play opens and closes with a woman called Jean Louise Finch and we see her throughout. She is a grown up Scout in 1968 and she looks back at the events of her youth in the 1930’s. Jean Louise (Irene Poole) almost never leaves the stage and quickly becomes a fly in the ointment. She sits at the counsel table and on the witness chair when there is no witness there and is basically and annoyingly everywhere.

We are also shown photos of Martin Luther King Jr. and hear his sonorous voice from speeches that he made in the late 1960s that have nothing to do with the novel which was written in 1960. We could have done without her and without the additions.

Aside from that the production provides another opportunity to visit a great novel that Stratford’s production renders into unforgettable theatre.   

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To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, dramatized by Christopher Sergel, opened on June 2 and will run in repertory until November 4, 2018 at the Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW – REVIEW OF 2018 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

If you are a devotee of the cult musical The Rocky Horror Show by Richard O’Brien you need not read this review. Get your tickets immediately for the Avon Theatre where it will be performed in repertory until October 31, 2018. If you are not, you may wish to share my wonder at a show that has attracted, if the audience at the Avon Theatre is indicative, a following of aficionados whose enthusiasm for it has no bounds.

As you get near the Avon Theatre, you will see men and women dressed in leather, black stockings, lots of feathers, black attire, loads of makeup, high heels and an assortment of similar apparel. That describes a substantial portion of the audience. As for the stage, the actors wear similar but substantially more exotic costumes.

 Dan Chameroy (centre) as Frank N. Furter with members of the company. 

Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann.

The theatre is full of haze and the idea that this is no ordinary theatrical performance is apparent everywhere from the sidewalk to the auditorium. When the show begins there is a flash of lights aimed at the audience which is followed by an instantaneous outburst of vigorous applause and yelling. An Usherette (Erica Peck) selling popcorn appears on the stage and her sheer appearance and subsequent singing, screaming and screeching are accompanied by such passionate applause and noise from the audience as to leave you breathless.

And that is just the beginning. The enthusiasm of the audience and their participation in the show may compare with the reaction of teenagers to a rock music idol where they scream with orgiastic passion ceaselessly for no apparent or detectable reason.

The Rocky Horror Show has been around since 1973 and it is a takeoff on the Frankenstein story, with loud, very loud music, sci-fi characters and somewhere between the screams and the outlandish acting, a plot. The plot? Well, Janet (Jennifer Rider-Shaw) and Brad (Sayer Roberts) are engaged to be married but they lose their way while returning from a wedding. They get a flat tire and end up in a castle in Transylvania while looking for a telephone to seek help.

We meet the Narrator (Steve Ross) who is greeted with noises of derision from the audience on sight. We quickly discern that the cult disciples know every word, every note, every move and every gesture of the musical and react accordingly. We will meet a chorus of phantoms, Riff Raff (Robert Markus) and Frank ‘N’ Furter, (Dan Chameroy). By now you know you are in some inter-galactic universe at least on the stage and pretty soon you wonder if that applies to the Avon Theatre as well. Frank introduces himself by singing “Sweet Transvestite” from Transsexual Transylvania. Transvestite and transsexual only begin to describe the sexual content of the show.

The Rocky Horror Show is highly interactive. A good number of members of the audience (I could not tell if they are real members of the audience or plants) yell out comments and generally participate in the show. Some of the comments seemed planted. When someone on stage asks who is Eddy? Someone in the audience yells out “A Trump supporter.” On the question of where did he get something, the answer comes “from Ikea.” Before Brad starts singing “Once in a While” someone screams “How often do you jerk off?”

 Members of the company in The Rocky Horror Show. Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Frank creates Rocky (George Krissa) who is a gorgeous specimen of a man - handsome, musclebound and blond, he could be a Greek god.

Trevor Patt plays the scientist Dr. Everett Scott and the cast adds up to a large number of players on stage.   

The decibel level on and off the stage was unbelievable. As the show’s end approached, the audience burst into yet another round of applause and I don’t mean with hands held at chest level. The hands are thrown up in the air and they yell, they scream, they stand up, they start dancing on the spot and in the aisles doing The Time Warp Dance.

The show is directed and choreographed by Donna Feore with sets by Michael Gianfrancesco and costumes by Diana Osborne.

The Rocky Horror Show is more of an orgiastic and ritualistic experience than theatre, musical or otherwise. If you have never seen it, you may wish to experience it. Those who have experienced it, are not reading this review.           

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The Rocky Horror Show by Richard O’Brien opened on June 2 and will run in repertory until October 31, 2018 at the Avon Theatre, 99 Downie St, Stratford, ON N5A 1X2. www.stratfordfestival.ca

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS – REVIEW OF STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

James Karas

Keira Loughran directs an imaginative and at times robust production of The Comedy of Errors for the Stratford Festival. Shakespeare’s short play comes directly from Roman comedy, Plautus’ Menaechmi, to be exact. It involves two sets of identical twins with identical names, separated from childhood. They find themselves in Ephesus and mistaken identities and mayhems ensue. There are opportunities for a lot of physical humour and verbal exchanges that can be the source of laughter if well executed.

Loughran takes the play by the scruff of its neck, shakes it up vigorously and gives us a sometimes enjoyable and at times confusing evening in the small Studio Theatre. The play requires some 18 actors, a lot of commotion with entrances and exits and deserves a larger stage but Loughran does the best she can in the small space available.

 

Members of the company in The Comedy of Errors. Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann.

The play is set in Ephesus but the Ephesus of this production is somewhere in the imagination both in location and time. The costumes are a motley collection of colours and styles, vaguely sexually provocative and the only locale I could deduce was anywhere, anytime.

Men take on women’s roles and vice versa without any respect for Shakespeare’s text. The Duke of Ephesus is played by Juan Chioran dressed like a great Victorian dame but with suede boots above the knee and enough leg showing to place her anywhere you want. The courtesan is played by Sebastien Heins in drag. Heins is a big man and Qasim Khan who plays Antipholus of Ephesus, a client of the courtesan, is not. One can just imagine the services rendered by the courtesan to him to deserve a very expensive present that Antipholus is buying for her!

Egeon (Gordon Patrick White), the Syracusan merchant and father of one set of twins wore a top hat, long coat and had piggy tails that made him look like an indigenous North American in offensive attire.

Amelia Sargisson (left) as Luciana and Alexandra Lainfiesta as Adriana. 

Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann.

Luciana (Amelia Sargisson), the sister-in-law of Antipholus of Ephesus, is made to look like Sarah Palin.

Antipholus of Syracuse (Jessica B. Hill) is a woman while Antipholus of Ephesus (Qasim Khan) is a man. With their wild hairdos and purple shawls, they look like unemployed actors trying to make an impression.  Similarly, the servant Dromio of Syracuse (Beryl Bain) is a man while Dromio of Ephesus (Josue Laboucane) is a man.

You get the idea. But there is a question: what is the point of all of this? The plot has enough intricacies and can stand on its own as highly entertaining of well done. If Loughran had a vision for the play, it escaped me. All the variations in costume, sex and look-alikes added confusion rather than clarity and just plain fun.

The production did contain some forceful delivery of lines, physical comedy and imaginative choreography of physical encounters which produced laughter.

Rod Beattie as Dr. Pinch, the schoolmaster and conjurer, almost steals the show He looks like a plastic toy which shakes and quivers and suddenly stops on being given a signal. Beattie also plays Luce, a grotesquely obese woman.

Loughran seems to have been striving for a production that is so imaginative as to be out of this world but the result was simply confusing. There were just too many things that were inexplicable and they took away from the virtues of the production rather than adding to them. Too bad.

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The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare opened on June 1 and will run in repertory until October 14, 2018 at the Studio Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

AN IDEAL HUSBAND – REVIEW OF 2018 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The Stratford Festival delivers a largely successful production of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband deftly directed Lezlie Wade with sets by Douglas Paraschuk and costumes by Patrick Clark.

An Ideal Husband is a Victorian melodrama that is raised above the genre by Wilde’s wit, aphorisms and inverted phrases. The plot creaks on occasion and the wit dries up now and then (unlike, say, in The Importance of Being Earnest) but it can be made to work.

The melodrama? Our ideal husband, Sir Robert Chiltern (Tim Campbell) is rich (Paraschuk’s set of the front hall and the parlour of his house in Grosvenor Square proves it) and very successful. He is Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs. He has a beautiful and devoted wife, Lady Gertrude Chiltern (Sophia Walker), a pretty sister, Miss Mabel (Zara Jestadt), and life is good.

Bahareh Yaraghi as Mrs. Laura Cheveley and Tim Campbell as Sir Robert Chiltern. 

Photography by Emily Cooper.

But there is a skeleton in Sir Robert’s closet. He achieved his wealth and position by selling a cabinet secret!  

Enter the beautiful, unscrupulous, greedy and ambitious Mrs. Laura Cheveley (Behareh Yaraghi). She wants Sir Robert to lie to the House of Commons about the Argentina canal project and present it as a good investment when in fact it is a fraudulent scheme. Mrs. Cheveley will make a pile of money of course. If Sir Robert does not stoop to the blackmail he will be ruined and disgraced because she has the evidence of the treachery on which his wealth and position are built. Full marks to Yaraghi for a fine-honed performance.

An Ideal Husband is set in London’s high society in 1895. Only the servants don’t have titles, otherwise the stage is strewn with aristocrats, ladies and gentlemen. The representation of that society on the stage, in their opulent setting, with their impeccable tuxes and suits for the gentlemen and gorgeous gowns for the ladies, requires a certain stylized acting and the perfect upper crust, chiseled English accents. They are not easy to achieve and the success of the cast of An Ideal Husband ranges from the passable to the well done.

The success with accent is not necessarily the ultimate mark of success. The talented Joseph Ziegler, for example, who is not particularly adept at accents, does a superb job in the secondary role of Lord Caversham. He gives a fine portrayal of the upstanding peer who has a wastrel of a son. Ziegler gives an excellent portrayal and gets all the laughs.

 

Joseph Ziegler (left) as The Earl of Caversham and Brad Hodder as Lord Arthur Goring. 

Photography by Emily Cooper.

The show is stolen by Brad Hodder as Lord Goring, Lord Caversham’s son. He is cynical, lazy and basically does nothing except live for pleasure. His problem is his father who wants him to get married and make something of himself. Hodder plays well with the clever Miss Mabel who outsmarts him into proposing to her.

I had difficulty taking Tim Campbell as Sir Robert. He is a big man and I see him as a grandee in a Western rather than as a British gentleman. His pairing with Sophia Walker as Lady Gertrude did not seem to work very well and their deep love for each other as the perfect couple was less than convincing.

There are a large number of ladies and gentlemen, footmen and servants in the cast who were nicely dressed with uneven performances and accents.

Lezlie Wade directing gets most of the laughs and despite the unevenness of the play and the relatively minor issues with the cast, we get an enjoyable evening at the theatre.    ______________

An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde opened on May 31 and will run until October 28, 2018 at the Avon Theatre, 99 Downie St, Stratford, ON N5A 1X2. www.stratfordfestival.ca

THE MUSIC MAN – REVIEW OF TRIUMPHAL PRODUCTION AT STRATFORD FESTIVAL

Reviewed by James Karas

What follows is a rave review of The Music Man, the triumphal “opening” production of this year’s Stratford Festival.

But first the news. The season was scheduled to open on May 28, 2018 with a production of The Tempest directed by Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino and starring Martha Henry as Prospero.

In well-established tradition, on a hot and sunny evening, the Scottish pipers in full regalia were on hand to welcome the Pooh-Bahs. They limos arrived and the dignitaries walked on the red carpet in all their grace and finery. They and hoi polloi started taking their seats in the Festival Theatre when the public address system was heard advising us to vacate the theatre. We did and we were instructed ever so politely to go beyond the garden and then told to leave because opening night had been cancelled.

 Daren A. Herbert (centre) as Harold Hill with members of the company in The Music Man. 

Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann. 

Someone had informed the police that there was a bomb in the theatre. It was a hoax but it took pretty much the whole night to make sure that nothing had been planted in the theatre.

Thus The Music Man took place of honour as the opening production the next night. The event of the previous night had a galvanizing effect on the audience who attended with the determination that no terrorist or would be-terrorist would affect the venerable Festival. There was police presence and care taken for our safety but no one seemed to mind. In fact there was feeling of a united front in the face of a possible risk.

This became apparent during the singing of our national anthem when everyone sang with added vigour and conviction.

The audience’s enthusiasm and conviction remained unabated during the performance, a performance of such extraordinary energy, enthusiasm and just plain joy that it left everyone agog. I cannot recall ever having seen a spontaneous standing ovation in the middle of a show at the end of a dance routine. It happened in this production and I need hardly add that the cast at the end of the show was greeted with wild enthusiasm.

Meredith Willson’s great 1957 musical is a love story (flamboyant conman Harold Hill and reserved librarian Marian Paroo) in small-town Iowa in 1912.  He pretends to be a professor of music who will organize a band and she knows that he is a liar. They fall in love anyway and the town miraculously gets a marvelous marching band with beautiful costumes.

In the meantime there are some melodic songs, rousing music (Seventy-six Trombones) and dance routines that contain rhythm, discipline, acrobatics and enough energy to fuel a jet engine. The routines and almost everything that happened on stage energized the audience and created such a symbiotic connection between stage and auditorium that is the essence of theatre but rarely achieved with such success. 

Most of the credit must go to Donna Feore who directed and choreographed the production. Every step, every somersault and every move is done with studied precision and elegance.

 

Daren A. Herbert as Harold Hill and Danielle Wade as Marian Paroo in The Music Man. 

Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Daren A. Herbert plays the exuberant, lovable, conniving and convincing Harold Hill and Danielle Wade as Marian is the target of his passion. Well-sung, well-acted, well-done.

The citizens of the town are good for comic relief starting with Mayor Shinn (Steve Ross), his wife Eulalie (Blythe Wilson), Marian’s mother Mrs. Paroo (Denise Oucherek) and the town ladies,. The town teens are led by Tommy played by the stupendous dancer Devon Michael Brown who can do Olympic level somersaults and dance with extraordinary athleticism. He craves Zaneeta (Heather Kosik) daughter of the seriously disapproving mayor.

There are children, salesmen and a horse that brought the house down. Winthrop Paroo, (Alexander Elliot), Marian’s shy and lisping kid brother brought the house down with his rendition of “Gary, Indiana.” 

The “news” of the bomb threat will no doubt go down in the history of the Stratford Festival. What followed the next day with the production of The Music Man should be remembered by those who were there as an antidote to the threat and the resulting great night at the theater.

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The Music Man by Meredith Willson (book. Music, and lyrics) opened on May 29 and will run in repertory until October 26, 2018 at the Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

FROZEN – REVIEW OF SEVEN SIBLINGS THEATRE PRODUCTION

 By James Karas

Bryony Lavery’s Frozen, now playing at Artscape Wychwood Barns, consists of about thirty brief scenes performed by three actors. There is a dramatic plotline that emerges slowly and builds up to a climactic scene. Most of the scenes are monologues with the actors addressing the audience directly and a handful of scenes involve two characters but never all three together.

Director Will Kings tells us in a program note that he was drawn to the as a piece for actors and he is right. We see Nancy McAlear, Madryn McCabe and Scott McCulloch being put through a series of tough and talent-testing scenes that may serve as great acting school exercises where the student is asked to act out difficult emotional states. 

 

Madryn McCabe and Scott McCulloch in Frozen 

Madryn McCabe plays Agnetha, a psychiatrist who is doing research on serial killers and the idea of forgiveness. She has issues of her own including fear of flying and problems with her fellow researcher. We see McCabe/Agnetha as a lecturer before fellow professionals, as a psychiatrist trying to understand the mind of the psychopath Ralph (McCulloch), dealing with Nancy (McAlear), the mother of one of his victims and her own problems. With some exceptions, she is facing the audience and alone and goes through a series of emotional turmoils that she must rise to in a matter of seconds. There is very little time for emotional build-up and she must rise to the demands of the scene in a leap.

This applies to all three actors. Nancy’s daughter has disappeared at age ten. She holds on to a dream that one day her girl will knock on the door and say she is back.

She slowly learns that it is not likely to happen and finally must accept the fact that her daughter was brutally sexually molested and murdered by a serial killer. The range and depth of emotions that McAlear must express, including the idea of forgiveness and meeting with the murderer, is staggering and she rises to them.

Ralph has a very expensive collection of pornographic material with an emphasis on little girls. He regrets that killing young girls is illegal. He is a liar and goes through a series of emotional outbursts screeching his anger, breaking down occasionally and in the end showing perhaps a shred of humanity or maybe not even that. I will not spoil the ending for you.

 Scott McCulloch 

The play takes place in England but Agnetha is American and therefore speaks with an American accent. Ralph speaks in an English accent, and it is thick cockney. Nancy, my guess is, speaks with a Yorkshire accent.

The play is done in a small room in Artscape Wychwood Barns before an audience of about a dozen people. The only props were four white boxes which were stacked in different configurations by the actors.

Lavery, who is now 70, has written some 25 plays and Frozen is probably her best and certainly her best known work.

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Frozen  by Bryony Lavery produced by Seven Siblings Theatre opened on May 25 and will run until June 3, 2018 at Artscape Wychwood Barns, 601 Christie St. Toronto, Ontario. www.sevensiblingstheatre.ca/

OF MARRIAGE AND MEN – REVIEW OF DELIGHTFUL DOUBLE BILL AT SHAW FESTIVAL

James Karas

The Shaw Festival has found a highly pleasant pair of one-act plays by Bernard Shaw and given them a delightful production. The plays are The Man of Destiny and How He Lied to Her Husband. The first is the more substantial play but not enough to fill an evening at the theatre. Shaw wrote How He Lied in 1905 while on holiday in Scotland during four days of continuous rain.

The title given to the comedy double-bill is ironic because in both plays an intelligent, strong woman dominates men and both plays are concerned with the honour of a woman.   

Krystal Kiran and Shawn Ahmed in How He Lied to Her Husband. Photo by Emily Cooper.

Henry (Shawn Ahmed), dressed in tails, arrives at the well-appointed drawing room of Aurora. He is a handsome eighteen year old poet who is full of so much passion and ardour that it simply overflows. The object of his passion is the mature and beautiful Aurora (Kristal Kiran). He wants to take her to the theatre and then to his place. But there is a problem.

Aurora is married to Teddy (David Adams) but that is not the problem. Teddy has found the poems that Henry has written to Aurora and that is the problem. Henry says he didn’t. Teddy says he did. Tempers flares, violence is imminent. A lady’s honour is at stake. OK. Change tactics. Yes he did write the letters. Disbelief, distress, tempers boil over. During all of this Aurora, the intelligent, strong woman looks at the two men with an insouciant smile and serene demeanor.

We watch with pleasure the fine performances by Adams, Ahmed and Kiran under the fine directorial hand of Philip Akin on the beautiful set by Steve Lucas. How He Lied to Her Husband is like a Greek loukoumada, crusty dough filled with heavenly honey. Just delightful.

The Man of Destiny is about the youthful Napoleon who in 1796 is in an inn in Italy. A hapless Lieutenant (Andrew Laurie) arrives supposedly bringing dispatches only to blubber out that the dispatches and his horse have been swindled from him by a charming young man. He is really angry.

A Strange Lady (Fiona Byrne) arrives and the Lieutenant says she took the dispatches. Well, after a few turns in circles, it turns out that the Strange Lady was impersonating a Man when she hoodwinked the Lieutenant.

Napoleon (Kelly Wong) knows that he has met a woman of strong character and high intelligence and it takes some effort to get the dispatches. But the Lady is not interested in the dispatches. She wants to save the honour of a lady and that is none other than Josephine, the wife of Napoleon. There is a dispatch suggesting that Josephine has been unfaithful.

Andrew Lawrie, Martin Happer, Kelly Wong and Fiona Byrne in The Man of Destiny. 

Photo by Emily Cooper.

The entertainment comes from the poor lieutenant who is quite amusing in the hands of Lawrie and Martin Happer as the inn owner Giuseppe who sports a heavy Italian accent is quite funny. Wong is a strong Napoleon who is no fool but he knows a scandal is better avoided that provoked.

Fiona Byrne gives the best performance as the Strange Lady who combines mental dexterity and female wiles to keep the men, even Napoleon at bay and get her way.

Once again Philip Akin deserves kudos for his directing of a fine cast and achieving commendable results.

The set designed by Steve Lucas and representing the inn is bright and pleasant. 

Shaw could not resist descending into verbosity but in this one-acter it is limited and we enjoy seeing two marvelous productions of rarely seen plays.

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Of Marriage and Men by Bernard Shaw had its media premiere on May 23 and will continue in repertory until October 2, 2018 at the Royal George Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com.