OTHELLO - REVIEW OF 2019 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

With the usual pomp and circumstance, blaring trumpets and red carpet for the elite, the Stratford Festival opened officially with a production of Othello. Nigel Shawn Williams directs a fine production with a superb cast that results in an outstanding night at the theatre.

The production has the fundamental requirement for staging Othello which is talented actors to fill the roles of Iago, Othello and Desdemona. The diabolical Iago is a more interesting and difficult character and gets top billing over the other two main roles. Gordon S. Miller gives a brilliant performance as an Iago who is subtle, manipulative, abusive and absolutely evil but is able to operate beneath a veneer of honesty, obedience as a subordinate officer, and friend. We see all these characteristic in Miller’s performance and get a picture of the terrifying monster. 

Gordon S. Miller (left) as Iago and Michael Blake as Othello. Photo: David Hou. 

Michael Blake is a highly effective Othello. We first see the officer and gentleman, self-assured and commanding. He faces the accusations and insults of using magic to attract Desdemona with equanimity and poise. We watch with riveted attention as Iago’s poison begins to take effect until all of his fine qualities disappear and Othello becomes a veritable monster.

In the exceptionally moving last scene, we see Othello regain his stature and dignity, and come to the realization that by killing Desdemona he threw away the richest pearl. But Othello is much more than a lover and husband. He also recalls his defence of Christianity in Aleppo when he slashed the throat of a turbaned Turk. A marvelous performance by Blake as we see all the facets of the Moor.

Amelia Sargisson is a beautiful Desdemona and a woman in love. She has the strength to choose between duty to father and loyalty to husband and be happy in her choice. She is playful and loving until the reality of Othello’s unthinkable jealousy dawns on her. Her murder is well staged and Sargisson’s Desdemona is remarkable for her poise, her passion, her innocence and her tragic end.

The lesser roles are done well. Johnathan Sousa’s Cassio is an ordinary officer, too weak to command or control his drinking. Roderigo (Farhand Ghajar) is an infatuated fool reaching for Desdemona. Michelle Giroux plays the Duchess of Venice, a modern woman who knows her job. Shruti Kothari is a spirited Bianca making a living the hard way.

Williams gives the play a modern setting with most of the characters wearing the same army fatigues. As far as I could see at the start, there were no insignia to indicate different ranks. Then I noted small patches on the chest to differentiate the officers. In a play where rank is of the utmost importance, more attention should have been paid to the uniforms and insignia. 

Amelia Sargisson as Desdemona in Othello. Photography by Chris Young.

We have a general and an ensign who have won glory in many battles but there are no decorations whatever on their chests to indicate that. The uniform means something because when Othello crosses the line from dignified general to insanely jealous husband he is without his army jacket. Iago’s wife Emilia (an excellent Laura Condlin) is also in uniform (officer, soldier?) and solves the problem, I guess, of Desdemona having a servant in the 21^st century.      

  

The set by designer Denyse Karn consists of a beige backdrop with several doors. Karn also designs the projections which together with the work of Lighting Designer Kaileigh Krysztoifiak provide a rich variety of backgrounds. This includes the indication of streets and buildings as well as surging sea waves and nightmarish images. Highly effective work.  The only props Othello requires are a bed and a bench.

Williams adds an opening scene to the play. When the lights go on we see two men and a woman at the right edge of the stage. In the centre of the stage we see about a dozen men dressed in black who do a brief dance routine to a few very bars of loud, throbbing rock music. The men and woman are Othello and Desdemona getting married by a priest. Are the ghouls supposed to be a quickie, unscripted omen of things to come?

A strong and highly worthy beginning to the new season.

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Othello by William Shakespeare opened on May 27 and will play in repertory until October 27, 2019 at the Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

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

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY – REVIEW OF SOULPEPPER PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Do not miss August: Osage County which is now playing at the Young Centre.

Near the end of August: Osage County, Barbara recalls her poet father saying to her “You know, this country was always pretty much a whorehouse, but at least it used to have some promise. Now it’s just a shithole.”  It was a cogent description of the United States a dozen years ago when Tracy Letts’ play was first produced and it is even more apt today.

The play tells the story of a large, dysfunctional family from Oklahoma but it also points to the dysfunctional families of other American playwrights and reaches back to the fountainhead of such relations in The Royal House of Thebes and The House of Atreus.

Without mincing words, August: Osage County, is a masterpiece. It has a skillfully constructed plot, superbly drawn characters and is full of drama and humour that hold you in thrall from beginning to end.

Maev Beaty and Nancy Palk. Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann

Soulpepper’s production, directed exquisitely by Jackie Maxwell takes all the virtues of the play, puts them in the hands of an outstanding cast and the result is simply great theatre.

The play opens with Beverly Weston (Diego Matamoros), a drunk, disillusioned poet quoting T. S. Eliot as he interviews Johnna (Samantha Brown), a Native American for the job as a maid. Matamoros gives a superb performance in his brief appearance and then he commits suicide. His large family gathers in the big, rambling house for his funeral and the stage is set for the searing drama, the incredible revelations, the huge arguments and the great humour of the play.

The play is dominated by two women. There is Violet Weston (Nancy Palk), Beverly’s wife, a bitter, vicious, half-crazed woman who takes countless pills, drinks too much and at times forms words with difficulty. Palk, thin, half-crouched, delivers a bravura performance that should define her long career in the theatre. Her physical movements and vocal intonations, her furor and her pain add up to a tour de force of acting.

Her daughter Barbara (Maev Beaty) is made of the same material even though she initially appears different. Beaty gives a magnificent performance as a woman of great strength and a person who understands her deep flaws. She can get a huge laugh with a single word and grab the situation with a short phrase. Nothing but superlatives for her performance.

Beverly and Violet have two other daughters. The flighty Karen, played superbly by Raquel Duffy and the troubled Ivy played with great skill by Michelle Monteith.

The rest of the exceptional cast deserve kudos. Oliver Dennis plays the hen-pecked but decent husband of Mattie Fae (Laurie Paton) until he finds the strength to stand up to her. Mattie Fae has a secret that connects to Oedipus Rex but I will not spoil it for you. Her son “Little” Charles (Gregory Prest) is a sympathetic loser. 

 Michelle Monteith, Raquel Duffy, and Maev Beaty. Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann

Native Americans play an important part in the play. I will leave it at that. The play is rich in literary references and allusions including the first and last words being by T. S. Eliot.

The set by Camellia Koo represents several sides of the Weston house on a revolving stage. At first we see the two-story interior of the house with two stair-cases. The stage revolves and we see the dining room. Beautifully done.

Much of the credit for the extraordinary production belongs to the expertise of Jackie Maxwell. She orchestrates every action and reaction by the actors, manages every intonation and move and the result is theatre at its best.

Do not miss August: Osage County.  

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August: Osage County by Tracy Letts opened on May 24 and will run until June 23, 2019 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Tank House Lane, Toronto, Ontario, M5A 3C4. www.soulpepper.ca.

GETTING MARRIED – REVIEW OF 2019 SHAW FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Getting Married, one of the two plays by Bernard Shaw offered by the Shaw Festival this season, gets is a solid production directed by Tanja Jacobs with a number of aspects that deserve praise and others that attract comment.

The 1908 play is a talkfest in the Shavian manner of taking a main subject and expanding the conversation into numerous byways. In this play Shaw takes on marriage and his characters discuss divorce, sex, politics, the position of women and the social order in England in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. Jacobs brings the action to 1950 by which time some things had changed but many remained the same.

 Steven Sutcliffe as Reginald Bridgenorth with the cast. 

Photo by Emily Cooper.

The scene is the spacious kitchen of the palace of the Bishop of Chelsea and Edith, his sixth daughter, is getting married. On the morning of the wedding breakfast preparations are apace and family members arriving.

The wide-ranging conversations that ensue have a drive of their own but the dialogues  need careful pacing to keep the play moving. Jacobs and the fine cast stickhandle this adroitly overall but there are some lapses. Getting laughs is not always easy and Jacobs adds some pratfalls, tripping over furniture and double-takes that evoke laughter. The rest of the entertainment rests on the ideas and reactions of some of the characters.

Bishop Bridgenorth (Graeme Somerville) is a wise, open-minded cleric, who gives the devil his due as he listens to opinions about the sanctity of religious marriages, contractual unions and polygamy. Somerville exudes the wisdom and devilish wit of the Bishop who is a dominant character.

His brother General “Boxer” Bridgenorth (Martin Happer) is a thick-headed and bemedaled officer who trips over the furniture and is forever proposing marriage to the intelligent and independent Lesbia (Claire Julien) who is forever rejecting him in no uncertain terms. Marriage is not for her. He can think of nothing else but marriage. Happer does well as the somewhat ridiculous and broadly comic general.  

The dozen characters in the play fulfill a number of views of marriage.  Edith (Katherine Gauthier) and Cecil Sykes (Cameron Grant), the couple that is getting married, change their mind. They find out by reading a pamphlet that marriage can be a dangerous undertaking. If he becomes a lunatic you cannot divorce him and if she runs up debts, you are responsible for them. Gauthier and Grant are entertaining and intriguing in looking for something like a reasonable marriage. How about make it simply contractual?

Lesbia wants children but not a husband and she cannot have the former without the latter. Makes no sense especially when the choice of husband is a fool like the general. Julien as Lesbia strikes the balance between independence and common sense with good arguments.

The bishop’s brother Reginald (Steven Sutcliffe) and his almost divorced wife Leo (Monice Peter) illustrate the state of divorce laws brilliantly. Leo is a free spirit who wants and maybe needs more than one husband. In order to divorce Reginald, they had to manufacture an assault and an affair with a prostitute. Leo’s next husband-to-be Hotchkiss (Ben Sanders) shows up to complicate matters. The three are free spirits and the actors do a great job with them.   

Cameron Grant as Cecil Sykes and Katherine Gauthier as Edith Bridgenorth. 

Photo by David Cooper.

Reverend Oliver Crowell Soames, a lawyer, tries to draft a marriage by contract. Mrs. George Collins (Marla McLean) turns up. She a mysterious woman of many talents. She is a clairvoyant, she goes into a trance and you will just figure her out for yourself after giving kudos to McLean for her performance.

The set by Shannon Lea Doyle shows a kitchen with a couple of tables and stools as well as hanging copper pots and pans. The small stage of the Royal George Theatre does not allow for much grandeur but the set is more than adequate.

Professor Higgins tells us that “an Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him” but in this production there are almost no such differences in speech. For example, William Collins (Damien Atkins), the green grocer would be immediately distinguishable by his accent from the upper crust Bishop. There would be gradations in accents to indicate social status. They may all be English but in this production, all spoke in our local style. So be it.

Be prepared for a wide range of arguments on numerous issues, done well, and you will enjoy the production.

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Getting Married by Bernard Shaw will run in repertory until October 13, 2019 at the Royal George Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com.

MY FAIR LADY – REVIEW OF BARTLETT SHER PRODUCTION AT LINCOLN CENTER

Reviewed by James Karas

Director Bartlett Sher seems to have cornered the market for imaginative, indeed brilliant, productions of classical musicals and numerous operas at the Metropolitan Opera. His production of My Fair Lady, now running at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center is yet another example of his superb directorial talent.

This Fair Lady gets a lavish production with a superb cast done to high standards that define the American musical at its best. The fair lady is Laura Benanti who has a ringing voice and sculpted face making a delightful Eliza. It is no wonder that Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Christian Dante White) dotes on her and hangs outside the house on the street where she lives belting out, well, "On the Street Where You Live." 

Harry Hadden-Paton and Laura Benanti. Photo: Joan Marcus

Eliza of course needs a suitable counterpart in the upper crust, ill-mannered, gruff and confirmed old bachelor Professor Higgins who wants to fashion a lady out of a squashed cabbage leaf. The man to do all of that and sing is Harry Hadden-Paton. He is young (OK, and handsome too) and quite impressive and funny in his rudeness. But does he eventually get his creation to marry him? Check Bernard Shaw and Alan Jay Lerner for possible answers. Then see what Sher has in mind for her.

My Fair Lady has a large cast but let’s deal with the major players. Starting at the bottom of the social scale is Alfred P. Doolittle, the common dustman as they say, Eliza’s dissolute father who would have higher moral standards if he could afford them.  He can’t until an American millionaire endows him with the curse of money and consequently middle class morality. His little bit of luck is over and he becomes concerned about getting to the church on time to commit the ultimate middle class crime: marriage. Alexander Gamignani is a hilarious scoundrel from start to finish.

At the other end of the social ladder is Mrs. Higgins who has real class. She knows her boorish son Henry well and takes Eliza’s side. Rosemary Harris, the grand lady of the theatre also represents a true lady of upper class English society at its best.

Colonel Pickering is another gentleman of the same class. Allan Corduner does fine work in the role even if he has to sing the awful “You did it.”

 

Laura Benanti, Christian Dante White, Allan Corduner. Photo: Joan Marcus

Sher uses of the huge stage of the Vivian Beaumont Theatre and the equally huge budget to great effect. The revolving stage brings us to the opening scene in Covent Garden with the columns of St. Pauls Church visible in the corner. We then get a glimpse of Wimpole Street before the gorgeous interior of Professor Higgins’ house is brought forward. We see the two story library and sitting room and when necessary a view of the upstairs bathtub and the outside. The race track, the ballroom of the embassy, the conservatory of Mrs. Higgins’ house and the rest of the scenes are brought forward with efficiency and aplomb. There are no short cuts in this production.

Michael Yeargan is responsible for the sets and Catherine Zuber gets full marks for the beautiful costumes.

In other words, this is Broadway at its best.

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My Fair Lady by Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics) and Frederick Loewe (music), directed by Bartlett Sher, continues until July 7, 2019 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, Lincoln Center, 150 West 65^th St. New York, NY.  https://www.lct.org/

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

TCHAIKOVSKY – PRO ET CONTRA – REVIEW OF EIFMAN BALLET PERFORMANCE AT SONY CENTRE

Reviewed by James Karas

The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!

Well, not quite. The fact is they came, they entertained us brilliantly and they left before most of you got wind of it. Too bad for you.

I speak of the Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg which gave only three performances of Boris Eifman’s ballet TCHAIKOVSKY – PRO ET CONTRA – at the Sony Center in Toronto on May 9, 10 and 11, 2019.

TCHAIKOVSKY is a combination of theatre and ballet as developed by Eifman. As with his other works, Eifman examines the life of the composer through his music and zeroes in on some of his life’s experiences. But this is not a story in the narrative sense but in the balletic and psychological method that can express experiences through dance. 

 The programme begins and ends with Tchaikovsky’s death when past experiences and scenes from his life reappear to him. The first act uses music from Symphony No. 5 and the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and Oleg Gabyshev as Tchaikovsky with members of the company takes us through scenes in the composer’s life. We see the people that help and haunt him in the real and phantasmagorical world of his emotions.

Tchaikovsky’s patroness Nadezhda von Meck (Alina Petrovskaya) who provides the financial means for him to be able to compose and Antonina Milyukova (Lyobov Andreyva), the woman with whom he had a disastrous marriage also appear. In his emotional torments he sees himself as Rothbart, a guardian angel and Drosselmeyer, an evil demon, both are danced by Igor Subbotin. Through all of this he is able to create The Nutcracker.

In the second act, Tchaikovsky’s torments continue as he is torn between the desire to conform, his need to create and the realities of his impecuniosity and homosexuality. Von Meck’s money provides the means of survival and creativity gives him the way to escape into the heroic milieu of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin and the world of gambling in The Queen Spades.    

In addition to scenes from The Nutcracker, we have scenes from Onegin with Tchaikovsky’s Double, Igor Subbotin, dancing Onegin, Daniel Rubin dancing Lensky and Lilia Lishchuk as Tatyana. In the marvelous card scenes from The Queen of Spades, Igor Subbotin dances Herman, Alina Petrovskaya is the Countess and Daniel Rubin is the Joker. 

The second act includes music from the Serenade for Strings, Capriccio Italien and Symphony No. 6, the “Pathétique.” All the music is unfortunately prerecorded and we have to rely on the Sony Centre’s speakers for it.

This is ballet with a difference. It is rich, nuanced and with biographical and literary allusions to make your head spin. The dancing is outstanding and richly textured. Eifman has combined elements of classical ballet with new ideas about theatricality and plot.

The production has two casts. One cast performed on May 9 and 10 and the other on May 11. I saw the May 11 cast.

Next time you hear that the Russians are coming think of ballet and not the current news.  

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TCHAIKOVSKY – PRO ET CONTRA, a ballet by Boris Eifman with music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky presented by Showone Productions was performed three times on May 9 – 11, 2019 at the Sony Centre, 1 Front St. E. Toronto, Ontario. https://showoneproductions.ca/  http://www.eifmanballet.ru/en/

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

BEAUTIFUL MAN – REVIEW OF ERIN SHIELDS’ PLAY AT FACTORY THEATRE

James Karas

Beautiful Man, now playing at Factory Theatre, has three women sitting on stools or standing by them, while facing the audience and purportedly talking to each other. Behind them there is a room in which a young man is doing pushups at the beginning and participating in the performance intermittently for the first hour. He takes over in the last half hour. The women are played by Ashley Botting, Mayko Nguyen and Sofia Rodriguez. They speak at an impressive speed and very expressively. Well done acting jobs.

What are the three women talking about for an hour? First, we are warned about the use of explicit language and the f word is used for those who may not know what “explicit language means.”

 

Ashley Botting, Jesse LaVercombe, Mayko Nguyen, Sofia Rodriguez. 

Photo: Joseph Michael Photography

The women watch a cop show and they describe at great length what Detective Rosie does. She finds the body of a beautiful man in a basement, they tell us, and add details of his penis right down to how Rosie pushed it with her pencil. Rosie’s husband (Jesse LaVercombe, listed as the Beautiful Man in the program) is ridiculed for asking her “how was your day?” He may be a teacher or a nurse or something else but the women are more interested in penises, erections and sex. This can be construed as satire about bimbos who watch too much TV and have nothing better to do than to discuss in excruciating detail what they saw. It turns out they see mostly lurid sex and violence which easily qualifies for pornography.

Then they move to discussing a far more violent show involving fighting and we have a Queen Di who is struggling for power with her sister. Di wants a man for his sperm and she collects a few specimens to see if they qualify for her harem. She crushes the testicles of the unacceptable applicants and makes) someone suck the paste that she has made. We get much information about the torture, plenty of references to male organs and their various positions and goodness gracious all the explicit language we you can handle.

We move to Antonia and Cassia and more grotesque descriptions. Then to a brilliant woman who was a sommelier and now is a lawyer and meets this bozo of a man who wants to tell her about a pinot noir that they are drinking. He is a pretentious idiot.

She treats us to a description of life in a big law firm and what it takes to rise up the slippery pole to partnership. Satire, irony, burlesque, none of the above, make your choice and follow the plot.

After one hour of this and much more, the three women take their bow and step aside. Now it is the turn of the Beautiful Man to speak to us. Did I tell you that while the ladies were talking he slowly took off clothes until he was completely naked? He comes back fully dressed and speaks to us as if he were the woman lawyer walking home after the pinot noir showdown and being fearful of being attacked by some men who are standing at a street corner. We get a full description of her thoughts and fears for almost half an hour until the actor leaves the stage and we are left to wonder what happened to the brilliant lawyer and wine connoisseur. The would-be attackers are simply wondering what she is thinking about.

We are told that the play “turns the tables on gender and power with the simple question, “What if men were the victims of objectification and marginalization rather than women?”

Objectification and marginalization are almost antiseptic words which carry a clinical message without describing the horrors of the behaviour of numerous men that are in the news.  There are men who would not understand the meaning of those words and do far worse. There are also men who do understand those words and can’t get past their conduct.

Three or thirty men talking about women the way the three women in the play talk about men would not prove anything. I can see the political intent of the play but it simply failed to make me see the turning of the tables in the theatre.

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Beautiful Man by Erin Shields in a production by Factory Theatre runs until May 26, 2019 at the Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario. www.factorytheatre.ca/

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

KING LEAR – REVIEW OF NEW YORK PRODUCTION WITH GLENDA JACKSON

Reviewed by James Karas

When you hear that Glenda Jackson is doing King Lear, you should start putting your boots on and head to the Cort Theatre in New York. You will not be disappointed.

In this modern dress production directed by Sam Gold, we have Glenda Jackson as an old and frail King Lear (she is a king and not a queen) with a furrowed face which at first blush may suggest that Goneril and Regan are right. The Authority that Kent discerns in Lear’s countenance is more in past remembrance of it than in present reality.

But as the play progresses, we see in Jackson a Lear with a deeply dramatic voice that she can modulate in her expression of fury, sorrow, humiliation and self-realization. She wears a formal suit in the opening scene and her voice is deep enough for us to accept her as a king. The result is a stupendous performance in a unique realization of King Lear.

The production opens on a formal occasion in a large gold-coloured state room. The men wear formal attire and the women wear gorgeous evening gowns. They are all sipping champagne while a string quartet is playing chamber music in the corner. This is not barbaric, old England. 

Glenda Jackson as King Lear and Jayne Houdyshell as Gloucester

The quartet will stay on stage during most of the performance and play frequently sometimes short snippets and longer pieces at other times. The music is composed by the eminent Philip Glass and he is listed on the programme above the director Sam Gold. The quartet emphasizes the aristocratic milieu and importance of the opening scene where the aging king divides the kingdom. I could not figure out what their presence meant for most of the rest of the performance.

At the beginning the beautifully dressed Goneril (Elizabeth Marvel) and Regan (Aisling O’Sullivan) appear quite polite if over-gushing and their evil side is revealed slowly but is quite sweeping in its viciousness. Cordelia (Ruth Wilson who also plays the Fool) stands her ground without being mousy. She is principled and honest.

The Duke of Cornwall is played by Russell Harvard who is deaf. He wears a Scottish kilt and is accompanied by a servant who communicates with him in sign language and verbalizes their exchanges for the audience. Bold casting by director Sam Gold and a fine performance by Harvard.

As with the evil sisters and Cornwall, Gold humanizes the characters. The evil Edmund (Pedro Pascal) is not exaggerated at all. He has a sense of humour and the evil in him is simply part of his nature. He enjoys his evilness and is shameless about it.

He is shown having rather graphic sex with Regan to confirm our suspicion about their relationship going well beyond a self-serving conspiracy. We know better anyway. Excellent work by actor and director.

 Aisling O’Sullivan as Regan, John Douglas Thompson as Kent, Matthew Maher as Oswald, 

Ruth Wilson as Cordelia and Elizabeth Marvel as Goneril

The Fool is played by Ruth Wilson as a Chaplinesque figure who is genuinely funny and touching. Superb work in the interpretation of a role that can be funny more in the imagination of the audience than on stage.

The famous scene near the end of the play where Lear carries Cordelia onto the stage crying “howl, howl” is altered for obvious reasons. She is lowered from the ceiling with a rope around her neck. A truly dramatic solution to the problem of having Jackson carry Wilson on stage.

The Duke of Gloucester is played by a woman, Jayne Houdyshell, pretending to be a man. I do not doubt Houdyshell’s acting ability but I wonder what is gained by having a woman play the role of Gloucester. Is Gold, in one of his personal quirks, insisting that a woman as Lear must be balanced with a woman as Gloucester? Perhaps.

Gold at 41 is a young director carving out a career in classical and modern theatre. He gives us a personal view of the play that may have a few too many personal touches. So be it. One can argue with him on many points but this production of King Lear is unforgettable.  

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King Lear by William Shakespeare continues until July 7, 2019 at the Cort Theatre, 138 West 48^th Street, New York. 212 239 6200

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