It’s kind of strange to listen to the Ring Parable of Nathan the Wise in English. This is taught in class. And it’s amazing to see it performed in Canada. By Diane Flacks as a brilliant, humble, kind, human … wise Nathan. Once again Antonio Cimolino and the Stratford Festival are pushing boundaries. Thank you!
Another Macbeth! This time without transporting it into the now (or rather the 60ies in South Africa, even though I liked the idea back then)
No, this time it’s the classic approach with lots of thunder, lightning, howling, three exceptionally frightening wise ladies, and a cauldron that is cooking up some dangerous, evil things. It’s truly a nice change to all that “adapting” that happens in the Aeneid. Again the cast is great, the interaction between Macbeth Ian Lake and his lady Krystin Pellegrino reminded me a lot of that one scene in “slings and arrows” 💬👇- in other words: brilliant. Scott Wentworth as Banquo was fantastic – no surprise. I have up until now loved everything he’s done at the festival so far. Again he is tackling a father’s part (merchant of Venice was one of his strongest parts and I loved him in it) and it’s great to see him change from warrior to doting parent. The chemistry between the actors works, therefore a great evening is had by all.
No great surprises, but a solid performance and a credit to the festival.
☝💬 The scene I was referring to: in the TV show, when Macbeth returns from war, his wife – unbeknownst to the actor playing the lead – starts kissing him, then in a surprise mone rips off his pants to the deafening applause of the audience. Well, the pants stay on in this production,but boy, that shirt off scene… is it getting hot in here???
It’s four amazing actors playing with most of the parts of Shakespeare’s midsummer night’s dream. I was glad I was familiar with the play, as otherwise it would have been a lot less interesting. Dion Johnston, Mike Nadajewski, Sarah Afful and Trish Lindstroem were absolutely fabulous.
And that’s all the good things I’m able to say about the thing. It was shown in what appeared to be a dirty basement with 12 rows of seats. An installation by an artist seemed to me as if everything that had been stored in there was now tucked to the ceiling, but hey, that’s art. Also, I had ordered my ticket in November, when they hadn’t even known yet what venue to use. And then I was seated in the second to last row, and basically didn’t see a thing. I admit I raised a stink and the marvellous stage manager sat me and 3 others in row b.
Unfortunately the directing – by Peter Sellars! – consisted mostly of turning down the lights on the dark coloured stage. It was a bit tiresome. So not really a huge win, this one.
It’s Noel Coward. It’s supposed to be brilliant. To think he wrote this over one weekend, no rewrites, makes it even more impressive. He based the play on a famous American actress (she was the first Blanche in streetcar named desire) – and after seeing the play she reportedly never spoke to him again. He seemed to have created a very accurate portrayal of her highly disfunctional family.
In this production Lucy Peacock is the famed actress who fights getting older by terrorising the guests that are lured into their mansion in the country. Stage star Judith Bliss, her novelist husband and their two grown children have each invited houseguests for the weekend. But as the Blisses indulge their artistic eccentricities in a hilarious whirlwind of flirtation and histrionics, the guests begin to wonder if they’ve landed in a madhouse – and if they can survive the weekend with their own wits intact. The family is dangerously witty, sharp tongued and intelligent and they have no scruples to bring their guests in the worst possible situations. A harmless kiss leads not only to immediate engagement but also to mother Bliss dramatically giving her children away.
When the guests abscond early in the morning, the family is again happily quarreling about streets in Paris and if they lead to a certain place. Their guests certainly feel lucky that they escape unseen!
The audience is lucky, too. The cast is amazing, Cynthia Dale brilliant as the demi monde, and Lucy Peacock is grand as always. It’s fast paced fun, cleverly unmasking the eccentricities of the rich and famous. A must see in this season in Stratford!
Honestly: just to see the great Tom McCamus dressed in a school girl’s summer dress and later on as a hare is worth the ticket.
It’s a kids’ play and as such it’s fun, it’s loud, it’s full of energy and has great costumes. I saw it midweek which meant there were less kids and more pensioners as school has already started. To follow Alice on her quest to become a queen even though she has to start out as a pawn is fun and the poems and dialogues are both witty and clever. I didn’t catch any of the jelly beans they threw into the audience. 😦 it’s hilarious even for grown ups.
I especially loved the very creative way they had designed the set. It’s a colourful display of trees, stars, there’s books and horses with hoarse voices (see what I did there?) and even without knowing the books it’s huge fun to watch that particular game of chess unfold. Trish Lindstroem is a brilliant Alice who depicts a seven year old incredibly believable. I already wrote how much fun Tom McCamus was in his flowery dress (to think the day before he was a psychotic king… LOL) and Cynthia Dale as the Red Queen was amazing as always. To think that she was on stage AGAIN for the evening performance of Hay Fever makes me really envy her stamina. She was great in HF as well, btw.
It’s a seldom played drama that centres around one of the less fabulous kings in English history. John Lackland is often depicted as not very brave, accused of giving in too easily to French demands. With him the reign of the Plantagenets ended. But he was a younger son, and instead of landing in some convent or other, her managed to not only rule England for more than a decade but also signed the Magna Charta (or was forced to signing it – historians differ there), which is the base of modern law.
In the play king john is confronted with his nephew, a boy whose mother – with a little help from the French – wants to push him onto the throne. And it is really the women who are the driving force of the events that follow – at least John makes it look that way. Because his mother opposes the very idea.
And there’s also Philipp the bastard, who – instead of getting the land from his albeit legitimate younger brother – accepts a title as Plantagenet and enthusiastically follows John to war. His sarcastic wit and fighting skills secure him his king’s friendship as they lay siege to a town in France. Because John does go to war against France and Austria (and they even found a guy who eerily looks like one of our less attractive rulers lol)
And while king John is excommunicated and claims to have won the war, in the end it is a marriage that seals a contract between France and England. Only that king John can’t enjoy the peace that hopefully follows: a monk has poisoned him, he dies.
Now the cast. Tom McManus as king John. He adopts an almost singing, lisping voice that makes his orders to kill his young nephew all the more scary. He says outrageous things with a smile a and a wink. He is, as always, very good.
A pleasant surprise is Graham Abbey as Philipp, whose acerbic one liners are to the point and provide the lighter counterpoint to the dramatic story. He has great comedic timing and he gets better every year. Yes, he plays to his female audience, but hey, he has something to play with! If you got it, flaunt it.
Oh, I booked a second performance for me. I figured I deserve it. 😉 and this time it’s going to be stage door!!
Geraint Wyn Davies and Yanna McIntosh – two first rate actors … what can possibly go wrong. Apparently a lot, otherwise someone wouldn’t have laughed out loud during Antony’s death scene. It was probably the worst ouch moment in this production.
It started out so well. Antony and Cleopatra together in Egypt, living the good life, casually dressed and enjoying each other almost a bit like a wedded couple where the spark of first love hasn’t vanished yet. Antony mostly ignores the letters from Rome that remind him of his duties, Cleopatra trying to entice him anew each day, knowingg that her power and standing comes from his army and should he go for good, neither she nor her followers would be safe for long.
But then there’s one letter he can’t ignore. Antony’s wife died and he has to come back to Rome. And as soon he’s there he sheds the lover and becomes the politician again – he marries the Caesar’s sister. That he then leaves for Egypt doesn’t go over so well.
The Egyptian army is no match for Roman soldiers and even Antony’s oldest friend defects, only to die. One last time Cleopatra wants to test Antony: she has servants tell him she is dead as she wants to know how he’ll react. He does react though not the way she had expected. Left by his friends, his army scattered, the battle lost he now thinks there is nothing more to live for. So in a beautiful moving scene he falls into his sword and slowly bleeds to death “not dead…” he sighs. (Cue in laughter)
I was so ashamed I actually skipped stage door.
Oh, Cleopatra: in order to not fall into the hands of the Roman victors who would have displayed her in a triumph, she lets herself get bitten by a poisonous snake.
I loved Seana’ s portrayal of a mature intelligent queen who is politically aware and sexually attractive to get what she wants. She was incredibly impressive. And I don’t know if it was me or if he had a bad day, but I wasn’t overwhelmed by geraint wyn davies. Maybe I saw him in too many Shakespeare plays where he used his Welsh accent. But in his scenes with Cleopatra – even though there was much kissing and grasping – I got more the impression of a constantly tipsy merchant than of a high ranking soldier enthralled by the most beautiful woman of all Egypt.
Now, I’ll see it again. Maybe we’re both in a better disposition then. At least that’s what I hope.
This new musical is another world premiere at the Stratford Festival and it’s living up to the town’s theatre’s high reputation – not least thanks to the skills of Tom Rooney, who plays Robert Service with all the passion and desperation this character deserves.
It’s about Robert W Service, a British bank clerk who by emigrating from his native England to Canada follows his heart and his “wanderlust” he portraits in many poems. Dubbed as the Canadian Kipling in real life, he goes from job to job, closing in to the wide planes of the yukon territory that call to him whenever he’s bound to a desk job to earn some money. He died with 84, famous and hopefully after a happy and fulfilled and successful life as a writer of both poetry and novels, having it make to the Yukon as well as having travelled through America, Canada, even Russia.
Our musical starts while he is employed at the Canadian bank of commerce branch in Victoria, British Columbia, – two years before they actually did send him to the Yukon branch. While he is in Victoria though, he writes poems full of longing about the life of a free man, digging gold, being a cowboy. Yet he cannot make up his mind to leave the security of the bank for good: He is in love with his beautiful coworker Luise, even though she is engaged to his boss, aptly named Dan McGrew. Luise is flattered by his attention and encourages his infatuation – dangling the carrot of a life together and casually mentioning a ploy to embezzle money easily from the bank. Robert is too smitten to resist. He takes the money to have a chance of a life of adventure – only to discover that dearest Luise wanted the fortune for herself alone, leaving him with fraud charges at the bank.
But then it is she who is duped: as a test Robert had filled a bag with his clothes and not with money, on the contrary, he had returned the embezzled money back into the correct accounts, now able to claim he was just executing a test to prove how easily money would be vanishing. As he attributes the test to his boss Dan McGrew he ensures that McGrew is sent to the Yukon branch to build the new bank there. He, Robert, is going to stay in Victoria. Because only there, the owner of the bank tells him, he could do what he’s best at: to dream.
The play itself is moving and the crime plot interesting enough to capture its audience. Unfortunately the music is fun, but not extraordinary even tho they used the ballads “The shooting of Dan McGrew” and “The Cremation of Sam McGee “, both fabulous examples of his poetic skills.
Thanks to Tom Rooney, Dan Chameroy as Dan McGrew and Randy Hughson as the bank owner (and the brilliant Lucy Peacock as shady Mrs Munsch) the play is fun to watch and left me with a smile!
A war – we hear the distant drums right at the beginning – is over and the victors come to the conquered as friends – the friends they were before the war started. So it is of no surprise that Claudio soon finds love for Hero (Tyrone Savage, Bethany Jillard) who in turn when Don Pedro woos in lieu of Claudio is only too happy to marry him. And while their wedding is planned, Hero’s cousin Beatrice (Deborah Hay) finds a different kind of emotion: spite – for Claudio’s best friend and best man to be Benedick (Ben Carlson). An emotion Benedick only too happily shares with her. The two – who’d make a lovely couple – hate each other, it seems, and cannot stand to be in the same room for more than a few winks.
Therefore and with Don Pedro’s planning, Hero and Claudio find the time between kissing and planning a future to think of a prank, a way how to get these two into the wedding spirit. Hero tells her maids how fabulously in love Benedick is with Beatrice and only too shy to confide in her – as she is always so ill tempered and harsh towards him. And all the while the girls know that Beatrice is eavesdropping behind the stairs, trying desperately to hear each and every word her friends utter.
The same goes for Claudio – he is discussing Beatrice’s love for Benedick with their generous general, while Benedick squeezes himself into the tiniest nooks to hear everything. Never in his life had Benedick thought that Beatrice’s sharp tongue covered deep feelings for him – he definitely must approach her much more friendly in the future.
So while the two couples are thoroughly and very happily distracted by their feelings, and their host Leonardo is happily arranging family ties with the victors, one is not so happy. Don Pedro’s brother John, obviously the loser in this past war, cannot stand to see the happy faces of his victors. With the help of maid Margaret (Claire Lautier) he slanders Hero’s impeccable reputation by bragging that he had slept with her the night before her wedding – and he does so at her wedding. Claudio believes the vile story and calls off the wedding, when Hero is not able to defend herself properly. He storms off and Hero, shamed to death by the wrongful accusations, collapses into a catatonic state.
Beatrice, already considering Benedick her future husband, wants him to kill Claudio as she is convinced that Hero is not guilty – even more so as Don John is nowhere to be found when they try to clear up his story. And the immediate family declares Hero dead and brings her to the family tomb – a suggestion of the household’s priest who this way wants to prove that Claudio still loves Hero.
Claudio indeed is devastated by the news that his love has died because he believed in lies – as lies it is: a group of – let’s call them thieves has aggravated the magistrates and has been brought to Don Pedro to be convicted. But they confess to hearing Don John talking to his servant that he is going to slander Hero’s reputation to put an end to this bond with his enemy. Claudio offers his life, but Leonardo orders him to marry his “niece”, who looks an awful lot like Hero herself. But – it’s a new Hero for a new life – and finally the two lovers are reunited and able to start a life where trust hopefully is established more convincingly.
Benedick and Beatrice have also found their true feelings – they do love each other after all, and now that Benedick is no longer obligated to kill Claudio in a duel, their wedding is on too. Don John, it is reported, has escaped to another country and won’t bother them any longer. The only one still alone after all these twists and turns is the General, Don Pedro, to whom Benedick finally wisely cracks: Get thee a wife, Don Pedro, get thee a wife.
I admit, it’s not my most favorite Shakespearean play – too many of the concepts are out of time now. But it wasn’t just about Shakespeare in this one: for me Benedick and Beatrice stole the show – married in real life, Ben Carlson and Deborah Hay had the bickering, the sharp repartees down perfectly – but the loving gestures, the glances, and finally the all encompassing kiss too. It is always a joy to see Shakespeare come to life through great actors who revel in the chance of just having FUN – in capital letters – on stage. Therefore both Hay and Carlson dipped into slapstick as they were trying to listen into their friends’ conversations. There was a lot of brilliant physical comedy when Hay actually slipped down a couple of steps on the beautiful staircase and Carlson almost broke a piece of furniture in his attempt to hide. The contrast to their intense scene where Beatrice orders Benedick to exact revenge on Hero’s behalf was all the more stark and equally convincing. I loved the way they played off each other.
And even though I do realise that it’s highly unlikely for them to be on the same stage next year, I want to see these two in next year’s playbill – please!
This play by Thornton Wilder is a hell of a ride and a laugh a minute. It also shows a sequence of characters archetypical in theatre as well as in life. There is the rich grumpy father who hates to spend his money, his naive little daughter who is in love for the first time, the aspiring artist who loves her back, the young employer, who wants to experience an “adventure”, the big hearted aunt with the shady past and finally the matchmaker, Dolly, who by looking for husbands and brides for others is always on the hunt for a husband of her own.
Directed as the farce it was intended to be, The Matchmaker is a fast paced fun play that works with stereotypes that were the cause of much laughter since Einen Jux will er sich machen by Johann Nestroy (1842) – a play that at times seems to go along the same lines of plot and moral – both plays end with the realisation that adventures are great, just as long as they are not too much of an adventure – and that it’s best to have “the right amount” of sitting at home and having an adventure in ones life.
It’s all about the fantastic actors, though: Seana McKenna is absolutely outstanding as Dolly. A wink here, a half smile there and the audience is enslaved by her skills. She had me laughing so loud, she actually was looking my way: when Dolly finally accepts the marriage proposal she had been working towards to for months – the mock weary “I’ll try” with just the right amount of being worn down was absolutely priceless.
Add to that the grand Tom McCamus as Horace Vandergelder whose first and foremost reason to live is to be rich and not spending a bit is an ironic, fun and true depiction of someone with not much joy in said life. His dialogues with Dolly are hilarious, the way his blustering ego is outnumbered by the woman a lesson in acting.
And then there’s of course Geraint Wyn Davies as Malachi Stack who is “trying out Vandergelder as new employer”. Hilarious and drawing from previous comedic parts he is a joy to watch in his quest to find … well, whiskey and happiness, because, look you – there’s only ONE vice at a time! LOL
Also breathtakingly hilarious the crazy aunt Miss Flora Van Huysen – Nora McLellan – in kimono like garb, with a misplaced love for opera and a blind spot for life, but well meaningly recognising everyone’s problems with “This is my life!”
All in all this Thornton Wilder classic is an audience favorite in its own right (even made into musical Hello, Dolly at one point), but when gifted with actors like the above mentioned it’s truly a treat. I had a great evening and am looking forward to seeing it a second time. 😉
Theatre and me 