ON THE RAZZLE – REVIEW OF 2023 SHAW FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

On The Razzle is a classic farce that has a big edge over many such examples in the genre. It is written by Tom Stoppard. It does not have all the verbal pyrotechnics, philosophical arguments and brilliance of many of his other plays but it is still an exquisite piece of theatre. It is an adaption of a farce by Johann Nestroy but Stoppard uses only the plot outline. The language is all his own.

Artistic Director Tim Carroll’s choice is sound but the production itself, whatever its virtues, has one fundamental flaw: it is not funny enough. The plot has the usual complications of a farce and of course it requires speed in speech, high mobility and endless shenanigans to keep the audience amused and preferably roaring with laughter.

The day I saw the production there were several cast changes and for some reason the show did not get fired up to its potential, especially in the first half. It picked up some speed after the intermission and produced some laughter and at least acknowledgement of the verbal humour from the audience.

The plot borrowed from Nestroy should be familiar to most. It was adopted by Thornton Wilder as The Merchant of Yonkers and later as The Matchmaker which became Broadway’s Hello, Dolly!

Zangler (Ric Reid) is the owner of an upscale store in a village near Vienna and he wants to stop the progress of youthful love between his niece Marie (Lindsay Wu) and the penniless Sonders (Drew Plummer). He sends her to his sister-in-law Fraulein Blumenblatt (Tara Rosling) in Vienna to prevent anything untoward happening between those two lovebirds. 

Ric Reid as Zangler, Kristi Frank as Christopher and Mike 

Nadajewski as Weinberl in On the Razzle. Photo by Emily Cooper.

Accompanied by his new fast-talking servant Melchior (Jonathan Tan) Zangler is going to Vienna to marry Madame Knorr (Claire Julien) who owns a fancy-dress shop. There is more: Zangler assigns management of his business to his bright-eyed clerk Weinberl (Mike Nadajewski) and the not-too-swift Christopher (Kristi Frank). The two decide to seek adventure in Vienna and guess who will run into whom. The farcical elements are all in place.

Puns, double-entendres, mangled words are abundant. Weinberl and Christopher end up in Madame Knorr’s shop and he picks up a Scottish cape marked for Mrs. Fischer. He pretends to be the newly married husband of Mrs. Fischer (Elodie Gillett). The store clerk Philippine (Alexandra Gratton) goes to fetch Madame Knorr, the dressmaker, and Christopher comments that she is probably hemming and hawing. Mrs. Fischer and Weinberl pretend to have been married for three days while Madame Knorr keeps gushing and the audience is treated to double-entendres. Weinberl says he may have been a little forward in marrying her and Mrs. Fischer replies that he is in danger of meeting himself coming back. Weinberl expresses reluctance about buying the Scottish cape because the tartan fad is played out. “Plaid out – such a sense of humour” replies Mrs. Fischer.

The play is set in Zangler’s shop, in Madame Knorr’s fancy dress shop, The Imperial Gardens Café, Miss Blumenblatt’s home and other scenes. There are working class costumes and high-end Viennese society attires, especially dresses. Christina Poddubiuk does splendid work in making the wonderful sets that can be changed work smoothly.

The plot with all its complications is pure 19^th century farce elevated by Stoppard’s colourful language but neither aspect seems to work to produce gales of laughter. I can’t blame the cast. Frank and Nadajewski do a good job as slapstick comics and Ric Reid as Zangler is straight out of operetta. Elodie Gillet as Mrs. Fischer and Claire Julien as Madame Knorr are high society ladies who provide comic business. 

The minor characters such as the Tailor and the German Man (Jason Cadieux), the Coachman and the Scotsman (Patrick Galligan), Lisette, Scotswoman and Ragamuffin (Alexandra Gratton) the Belgian and the Constable (Graeme Kitagawa) are good for some laughs. But these parts do not add up to a satisfactory whole. Despite some funny moments, director Craig Hall seems to have been unable to orchestrate a coherent, funny production.

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On The Razzle by Tom Stoppard continues on selected dates until October 8, 2023, at the Royal George Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.ca

 James Karas is the Senior Editor Culture of The Greek Press

RICHARD II – REVIEW OF 2023 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The current production of Richard II at the Stratford Festival is bound to evoke extreme reactions. No doubt there will be fans who find the staging brilliantly imagined and executed. Some will be less enthusiastic. Some will go to the Tom Patterson Theatre to see Shakespeare’s play but a look at the program should dispel that notion. Brad Fraser and Jillian Keily get equal billing in the byline, the first as adapter and the second as conceiver. Keily is also the director. My lack of enthusiasm for the result will become obvious.   

A glance at the cast list reveals a surprising entry. This production has an Army of Angels, fifteen in all, who appear right after the lights go down and almost never leave. Some of them wear angel’s wings, others are dressed like punk rockers with scant clothing and leather outfits. I never figured out on whose side the Angels were or what they were doing in the play in the first place. Yes, I realize that Richard believed that God sent angels to protect him.

Richard II is about the deposing of God’s appointed king to the throne of England and his replacement by a usurper. On the surface this is a serious crime not just against the deposed king and his subjects but against God.

In the opening scene we see the Angels and the King do a wild dance. There is more dancing and musical interludes to come. King Richard, as played by Stephen Jackman-Torkoff wears an over-sized crown suitable for a farce or an operetta and is dressed in see-through and frilly white clothes as in, well, a farce. He is immature, petulant, nasty, arrogant, irrational, childish, clownish, and generally disgusting. At one point we find him in a large hot tub, surrounded by angels where he engages in serious homosexual acts with his cousin Lord Aumerle (Emilio Vieira). The hot tub is brilliantly designed where people can go under a stretched sheet and appear as if they are underwater.

Stephen Jackman-Torkoff as King Richard II with members
 of the company in Richard II. Stratford Festival 2023.
Photo: David Hou

The public display of sexual affection and activity between Richard and Aumerle will be generously displayed. There are moments in Shakespeare’s play where Richard considers the meaning of kingship (the hollow crown) and approaching death. We are almost sympathetic to him when he expresses his conviction that he is God’s anointed king. Nothing like that happens in this production.

The two enemies, Bolingbroke and Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk, whose feud and subsequent banishment by Richard precipitates the crisis are supposed to settle it by personal combat. Richard in his irrational and idiotic behaviour cancels the bout before it begins and banishes the two aristocrats. In this production Fraser and Keiley have them engage in a boxing match.

Parts of Shakespeare’s play do emerge from the phantasmagoria and even with serious cuts to the text we hear some of Shakespeare’s lines but forget “this royal throne of kings.” Jordin Hall turns in an exemplary performance as Henry Bolingbroke, the eventual usurper who becomes King Henry IV. Richard treats him abominably and he rebels so he can get his titles and wealth back. He turns usurper when that becomes impossible. Hall is an outstanding, serious man to be reckoned with. His conscience bothers him to the end, and he wants to go on a pilgrimage to the Hoy Land to expiate his sins.

The role of the Duke of Northumberland in Shakespeare is played by a woman, Sarah Orenstein as an impressive Countess of Northumberland, forthright and fearless. Her son Hotspur is done well by Thomas Duplessie.

The light and special effects by Leigh Ann Vardy are out of this world befitting the production and a rock concert.

The costumes by Bretta Gerecke, once you get past Richard and the angels, are modern suits for some of the men and gowns for the women.

The noise from the stage and the opening night audience who started screaming as soon as the lights went just about drowned out some of the lines. What was left was good, but we will almost certainly forget. But we will never forget the work of Brad Fraser and Jillian Keiley. It surpassed our fantasies or was it nightmares.  Please don’t come back.

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Richard II by William Shakespeare, adapted and conceived by Brad Fraser and Jillian Keiley continues until September 29, 2023, at the Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

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

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING – REVIEW OF 2023 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas 

Go to Stratford and see Much Ado About Nothing. It is the funniest production of the play you are likely to find with a director and a cast that are simply outstanding.

You remember Much Ado. It is the one about Beatrice and Benedick, whose verbal sparring and vehement denials of any attraction to each other, and their friends’ attempts to bring them together and lead them to the altar - and leave the audience with their heads laughed off. It is also about Hero and Claudio, the young lovers whose marriage is interrupted at the altar by evil lies. And yes, this is the play with one of Shakespeare’s funniest characters and the tormentor of the English language, Constable Dogberry.

There is no doubt that the greatest credit for this production goes to director Chris Abraham. This is vibrant, inventive, imaginative, fast moving, and hilarious theatre. Abraham can evoke laughter and merriment out of almost anything. Abraham makes shameless use of the audience to generate laughs. For example, Benedick can’t take his boot off. He steps up to an audience member who helps him. He wants to read the lyrics of his song but needs help. He gives a piece of paper to an audience member who holds it up. Benedick starts to read but the paper is upside down. He turns it over and gets roars of laughter.

Maev Beaty (left) as Beatrice and Graham Abbey as 

Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. Photo by David Hou. 

After their friends’ underhanded and funny attempts to convince the two that the other loves him/her, Beatrice goes to invite Benedick in for dinner. He thinks she really loves him; she does not yet. He displays peacock-like male bravado including stripping his shirt off to show his muscles. She approaches him and plucks a hair from his chest. Hilarious.

Abbey and Beaty give masterly comic performances as they act and react to each other. Both have vocal and physical agility as anti-lovers, reluctant lovers and of course as wooers, subliminal or otherwise. Beaty flails her arms and uses her body in a stunning performance that, along with others in the cast, puts the audience in the palms of her hands.

We all wait for the appearance of constable Dogberry (Josue Laboucane) with a troupe of village idiots. Laboucane’s Dogberry is flamboyant, fearless, self-assured, not-too-bright and, of course, a master of malapropisms non-pareil. He is accompanied by a full complement of misfits who are hilarious. All the characters in the production speak in an Ontario accent and thus we do not get the difference in social class between Dogberry’s crowd and the aristocrats.

Austin Eckert (centre left) as Claudio and Allison Edwards-Crewe
 (centre right) as Hero with members of the company. Photo by David Hou.

The subplot of Much Ado involves the wooing and marriage of Claudio (Austin Eckert) and Hero (Allison Edwards-Crewe). They are text-book lovers and about to be joined in forever-blissful matrimony. But the evil Prince Don John (Michael Blake) and his confederates allege that Hero was unfaithful the night before her wedding and Claudio dumps her on the altar. She drops “dead”. There are not too many laughs in that except for the investigation and superb police work by Dogberry and Co. but Abraham squeezes some, nonetheless.

The straight characters and backdrop for the action, the host Leonato (Patrick McManus), and the visiting Prince Don Pedro (Andre Sills) are played with exemplary professionalism by the actors.

Abraham strikes a boisterous and joyous atmosphere from the start of the main plot. There is music, singing, and dancing. There are 3 musicians on stage, George Meanwell playing violin, guitar and accordion, Jonathan Rowsell playing tuba and recorder, and Stephan Szczesniak on percussion and jaw harp and they provided a significand addition to the great joyfulness of the production. Thomas Ryder Payne composed the music.

In addition to involving the audience for the sake of laughter, Abraham did not hesitate to interject phrases. “This is opening night: says Abbey/Benedick” for example. But there is a more serious interpolation. The program announces that there is “additional text by Erin Shields.”  

What?

Erin Shields is given about a quarter of the page that has Shakespeare’s biographical blurb in the program. We applaud her accomplishments. She tells us that she consulted about half a dozen Shakespearean experts and received “invaluable feedback during the development of this new text.” She clearly took her assignment seriously.

Her “new text” is intended, I presume, to give Much Ado a feminist point of view. Shakespeare wrote in the sixteenth century and reflected the moral world of his times. The views of marriage, chastity and social classes reflect that world. This is shown in the first limes of the play when the messenger reporting on the war that just finished is asked “how many gentlemen have you lost.” Not people, not common soldiers, but “gentlemen.” The comforting reply is few and no one of the higher classes. What matters is class and not human beings.  

I can’t pinpoint chapter and verse the additions to Shakespeare’s text made by Shields. As we are shuffling to get comfortable in our seats for the play to begin, Maev Beaty recites some lines about “Why does a woman stare into a glass” as we see a woman standing on the balcony looking into a mirror.

Near the end of the play when Claudio and Hero are reconciled and about to get married, Hero has a few things to say. What if she had met Mr. Right before she knew Claudio? What if she had, take a deep breath, sex with him? Was her chastity and chastity itself the prime possession of a woman? We are talking about another world with different views from ours.

The word “Nothing” in the title is clearly a pun. The meaning of the word “nothing” or noting as it was pronounced in Elizabethan England has attracted considerable commentary. “Noting” could also mean female genitalia. Is Shakespeare being ironic about the obsession with chastity in his time? That is an interesting subject for scholars to examine not something that should come as “additional text” in a production. 

In any event, it made a small difference for most people and it did not detract from this fabulous production.

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Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare continues until October 27, 2023 at the Festival Theatre of the Stratford Festival, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

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

GYPSY – REVIEW OF 2023 SHAW FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas 

Gypsy is a full-blooded and wonderful musical with an outstanding pedigree. With book by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, it could hardly go wrong and it did not in 1959 when it opened on Broadway or today as one of the main productions at the Shaw Festival. Directed by Jay Turvey, the performers hit all the right notes and the thought that went through my mind while watching was that they don’t make them like they used to.

Gypsy is the story of Rose Hovick  (Kate Hennig), the almost mythical stage mother who has or had dreams of showbusiness success of her own but eventually concentrated on promoting her daughters Louise (Hanna Otta as Baby Louise and Julie Lumsden as an adult) and June (Ariana Abudaqa as Baby June Madelyn Kriese as an adult) in the rough-and-tumble world of vaudeville in the 1920s and 1930s). Louise eventually became the famous Gypsy Rose Lee.

The show opens and ends (except for “Rose’s Turn” sung by Rose) with “Let me entertain you,” sung haltingly by Baby June and Baby Louise after the gorgeous Overture and in full throat by Louise and the Show Girls as a finale. But the show ends with Rose Hovick’s coda, “Rose’s Turn” where she admits that she had a dream that did not come true. Louise comforts her with the thought that Rose did not have a mother to push her. Rose Hovick muses that she was born at the wrong time and went into vaudeville, an art form that was dying. A beautiful and in-your-face self-assessment. And it is a great follow-up to her “Some People” sung at the beginning where she defiantly sings that some people can get a thrill knitting sweaters and living in a living room “but some people ain’t me!”

Julie Lumsden as Louise with Showgirls Caitlyn MacInnis

and Tama Martin in Gypsy (Shaw Festival, 2023). Photo by David Cooper.

Kate Hennig is a bigger-than-life mother Rose. She is fearless, aggressive, loud, unstoppable and meets every failure with forceful ambition to succeed the next time. Her dream of show business success for her daughters has no bounds. She convinces Herbie (Jason Cadieux), a former booking agent who went into the candy business to become the manager of her children’s act. He accepts. Cadieux turns in an excellent performance as a decent man caught in the whirlwind of Rose’s daunting character and overwhelming ambition and dream for her daughters. Hennig dominates the production and our (and her) realization that she did not do it all for her daughter. She succeeded only vicariously but the initial and fundamental drive was for herself.  That is the supreme and moving part of the musical and of Rose’s life.

We watch the character of Louise develop from a child performer (Hannah Otta) pushed by her mother to keep going even when she was no longer a child to the reluctant, frightened adult Louise (Julie Lumsden) who painfully emerges as the independent, superb vaudeville performer Gypsy Rose Lee. I do not hesitate to assign kudos to Otta and Abudaqa (baby June) but the highest marks for a stunning performance go to Lumsden.

Gypsy demands a large production. There are numerous scene changes from hotels to backstage to vaudeville houses. The sets and beautiful costumes are designed expertly by Cory Sincennes who deserves high marks for his work. Genny Sermonia provides superb choreography for a show that places high demands on dancing. Jay Turvey deserves a standing ovation  for his directing a big and complex production.

The final irony is that the success of Louise as Gypsy Rose Lee came about because of performances in a burlesque dive as a striptease artist. She had to perform there because she and her mother had to pay for necessities. Louise as Gypsy Rose Lee  (1911 – 1970) achieved success as an actor, author, playwright and, of course, dancer. In 1957 she wrote Gypsy: A Memoir on which the musical Gypsy is loosely based. In the end her mother Rose Hovick achieved the fame and success that she craved, albeit posthumously.

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Gypsy by Arthur Laurents (book), Jule Styne (music) and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) continues until October 7, 2023, at the Festival Theatre of the Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com.

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

ARMADILLOS – REVIEW OF FACTORY THEATRE PRODUCTION

 Reviewed James Karas 

Armadillos is a new play by Colleen Wagner that is now playing at Factory Theatre in Toronto. Wagner is a prolific writer and her biographical blurb in the program informs us that “she was a professor at York University and has taught numerous courses on playwriting and screenwriting at various institutions across Canada.” Armadillos may not rank as one of her finest plays.

The play deals with the treatment of women and illustrates its message through Greek mythology and a current narrative. The four characters of the mythical part are Zeus, Hera, Thetis and Peleus. In a play-within-a-play, they are performing a representation of Zeus (Ryan Hollyman) in primordial time who is trying to solidify his power on Mount Olympus as the chief honcho. He sees possible opposition from the goddess Thetis who is  supported by the mother goddess Gaia. The solution is to get rid of Thetis by any means. Hera retains the services of the mortal heroic warrior Peleus as the hit man of the operation.

Hollyman’s Zeus is loud, dictatorial and concerned about his hold on power. He is also a brute who satisfies his lecherous appetite frequently through rape and incest (Hera is his wife and sister). Mirabella Sundar Singh is a feisty Thetis who wants to secure a good position for herself in the celestial government. Zeus is a liar and tries to pretend he is giving her a contract with a good position and possibilities for advancement. Zorana Sadiq is the faithful wife/sister who must satisfy her brother/husband’s lust and find a way to get rid of Thetis.

The cast of Armadillos. Photo by Jeremy Mimnagh

Paolo Santalucia as Peleus looks heroic and as a mortal displays great respect for the divinities. Those who recall the opening line of The Iliad know that Peleus is described as the father of Achilles, the greatest hero of the Greeks. Thetis is his mother and she held him by his Achilles heel when she dipped him in the River Styx to give him supernatural power. Forget that myth. The alternative story tells of Thetis being raped by Peleus, another image of male domination and abominable treatment of women.

In the second act, we see the actors who played in the Greek myth socializing after a performance. Jay who played Zeus is a maladjusted man awkwardly reaching out to Sofia (Hera) who is uncertain about men. They seem to be making progress until Jay dumps her in a bar when he gets a text message with an offer of sex. Dyrk (Peleus) drinks too much, takes drugs and tries to seduce or actually seduces Karmyne (Thetis) and ends up sleeping in the park. 

Gods and men may be pigs but the play does not get us anywhere. The acting  is reasonably good but the art of enunciation is not practiced by all the actors. Do they not teach enunciation, even elocution in acting schools?

Trevor Schwellnus’s set consists of three arched doors and a few props like seats and a table. With accept that the lighting represents Mount Olympus and as the back of the stage where the actors in the mythical play meet.

Director Jani Lauzon gets us through the text but that is not enough to make it a night at the theatre.     

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Armadillos by Colleen Wagner, directed by Jani Lauzon, opened on June 8 and will run until June 24, 2023 at the Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario. www.factorytheatre.ca/

SIZWE BANZI IS DEAD – REVIEW OF SOULPEPPER PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Sizwe Banzi is Dead is an extraordinary play by Athol Fugard in collaboration with  John Kani and Winston Ntshona, two actors who appeared in the play in Cape Town and in London. The play premiered in 1972 when apartheid was a vile fact of life in South Africa.

In Soulpepper’s production Tawiah M’Carthy plays Sizwe Banzi and Amaka Umeh plays Styles and Buntu, directed by Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu.  

We first meet Umeh in the role of Styles, in his tiny photography studio in Port Elizabeth. Sporting a white shirt and a bowtie, Styles is an appealing and colourful character. He is a natural storyteller and for about three quarters of an hour he will be alone on stage informing and entertaining us. He rarely stops moving as he relates stories about life including his stint working for the Ford motor company when the big boss came to visit. Amaka Umeh is a woman but she handles the role with such aplomb that one hardly notices her gender.

Styles is affable and no doubt wants to be likeable to draw in business. We know that he is working under the oppressive regime of apartheid where the white ruling class does not consider him human. Umeh switches from Styles to Buntu, Sizwe’s friend with whom he discovers the body of a dead man in an alley near a bar.

Styles played by Amaka Umeh and Sizwe Banzi played by 

Tawiah M'Carthy. Photo credit: Dahlia Katz

Sizwe Banzi has come to Port Elizabeth looking for work and goes to Styles Photography to have his picture taken so he can send it to his wife and children in another town. His identity presents a problem. He is caught without a work permit and is given three days to find a job or clear out of town. He cannot find a job and he is a dead man.

The inventive Buntu recommends to Sizwe to take the dead man’s identity book and take his name, Robert Zwelinzima. after switching the photograph. In other words, Sizwe Banzi must “die” and come to life as the dead man who happens to have a pass for working.

Sizwe resists changing his identity for practical (what am I going to tell my wife and children?) and far more fundamental reasons. In desperation, he asks if he is a man or not and takes off his clothes to show us that he is indeed a man. But not in the South Africa of his day. 

Taking away one’s identity is like removing one’s soul and Fugard and his co-writers make that point poignantly clear and without being preachy. Styles’ description of what happened at the Ford Motor Company is satirical rather than critical and the play makes its point in a frequently light mood on a topic that does not bear lightness.

In the end Sizwe and Styles return to the photo studio and Sizwe poses for his picture, perhaps as Robert Zwelinzima. Has he reverted to Sizwe or is he dead and has taken on another identity. If so, the triumph of the apartheid regime is complete. They have reduced people to passbooks.

Otu does a superb job of directing the play which has many complexities despite the surface appearance of simplicity. The performance seemed to lag somewhat in the second half and I could not decide if it was intentional or not. Overall, this is a superb production  of  an outstanding play.  

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Sizwe Banzi is Dead by Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona continues until June 17, 2023, at Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Tank House Lane, Toronto, Ontario. www.soulpepper.ca.

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

PRINCE CASPIAN – REVIEW OF 2023 SHAW FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The Shaw Festival is back with a third production of a play based on C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. They give us a vibrant and entertaining production of an adaptation of Prince Caspian, the fourth novel in the Narnia series.

The stage adaptation by Damien Atkins of the children’s story has a colorful story of good versus evil, with lots of colourful characters, swashbuckling scenes, talking beasts, walking trees and spectacles to thrill youngsters and entertain adults.

We meet four children, Peter, Susan, Edmond and Lucy (first seen in the earlier Chronicle,  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) who are magically transported to Narnia. They were there a year ago but nothing is the same this time. Narnia is in ruins. The measurement of time in Narnia may be very different from that on our earth. One year here could be one hundred years there. They became kings and queens in Narnia and ruled for many years but when they returned to England, they were away for no time.

Narnia is now ruled by the evil King Miraz, a usurper of the throne that rightfully belongs to Prince Caspian (Michael Man). He wants to rebel of course. The four children become kings and queens with Peter becoming the High King. Accompanied by Trumpkin they traverse Narnia and meet with adventures and misadventures. Peter challenges Miraz to single combat and they display superb swordsmanship. The battle scenes between the two armies are brilliantly staged and exciting. Kudos to John Stead for his fight direction. Alessandro Juliani’s original music is dramatic and the sound designs are splendid.

Marla McLean, Andrew Lawrie, Kiana Woo, Kyle Blair,
and Shane Carty. Phot: David Cooper

I need hardly tell you that the four children return to England where we left them. They were at the station wating to board trains to go to their boarding schools. The adventures in Narnia took a long time, it seems, but they began and finished in a moment when the children returned to reality.

The beautiful fairy tale is acted by a wonderful cast. The four children are represented by Kyle Blair (Peter), Andre Lawrie (Edmund), Marla McLean (Susan) and Kiana Woo (Lucy).with their friend Trumpkin (Shane Carty). They have fine English accents and we accept them all as youngsters. Michael Man as Caspian is suitably heroic and nice unlike his usurper uncle Miraz in the hands of Sanjay Talwar (who also plays Nikabrik) who looked imperious and disgusting.

A dozen actors took on nineteen roles with Qasim Khan acting Glenstorm, Bulgy Bear 1, and of course Aslan, Pattie Jamieson handling Trufflelhunter, Sopespian and Prunaprismia, Fiona Byrne as Doctor and Patterwig and Jade Repeta acting as Reepicheep, Glozelle, and Bulgy Bear 2. Well done with a salute to Voice and Dialect Coach Jeffrey Simlett for getting credible English accents.

Director Molly Atkinson gets outstanding marks for the intelligent and inventive directing of the work. She kept it going at a brisk pace and never lagged.

The sets and costumes designed by Cory Sincennes are right out of medieval swashbuckling and fairy tales that every child may relate to. The huge tree, the ruined palace and the marvelous costumes are a treat to the eye. The characters from Aslan the Lion with its huge head, the centaurs, half man, half horse and able to kick with their hind legs, the walking trees, the soldiers in their black helmets and black armour and the other animals provide an array of sights that fascinate and are a joy to watch.  

Prince Caspian is the product of the fertile and vivid imagination of C. S. Lewis and one of the seven books of The Chronicles of Narnia. The book dates from 1951 and it is written in an English milieu with colloquial English expressions of the time. How many children express surprise by saying “By Jove”? Productions of parts of The Chronicles seem to represent the tastes of the English Tim Carroll, the Artistic Director of The Shaw Festival. So far so good but may we now move to Canadian fairy tales?

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Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis adapted for the stage by Damien Atkins and directed and dramaturged by Christine Brubaker will run in repertory until July 21, 2019 at the Festival Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com.

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