Our
Class, the provocative docu-drama
by Tadeusz Slobodzianek that
mixes semi-fictional characters into a real historic event is a striking
stand-out in the current Toronto theatre season and speaks well of the
partnerships that CanadianStage has formed with a few of the smaller producing
companies in Toronto (a similar arrangement next season will see Studio 180
co-produce the Canadian premiere of Clybourne Park, Bruce NorrisÕs Òand then what happened?Ó follow-up
take on Lorraine HansberryÕs A Raisin in the Sun).
For
more than a century Poland had been divided by the European empires of Prussia,
Russia and Austria-Hungary. The state of Poland was reconstituted only
post-World War I by the Treaty of Versailles. After only twenty years of trying
to build a democratic nation state, the Ribbentrop-Molotov Treaty divided
Poland again. It is in the midst of all this that the playwright focuses on the
small town of Jedwabne and the massacre of 1,600 Jews that occurred there in
1941 as an object lesson of those times as well as our own.
Studio
180 artistic director, Joel Greenberg is back in his element with a docu-drama
presentational style that he deployed so effectively in two previous (and very
well received) productions, Laramie Project and Stuff Happens. Ironically, the strength of Our Class is reminiscent of the late Polish director, Jerzy
GrotowskiÕs notion of a Òpoor theatreÓ - where actors focus on the very root of
the theatre itself; effective story telling that can only be successful when it
reaches an audience of spectators.
But
despite the crisp direction and the clearly articulated content of the play,
North American audiences will need a little help in understanding the complex
series of events that form the chronological spine of the play. After
performance Òtalk backÓ sessions, extensive program notes with chronological
time-lines and a study guide, provide helpful didactic elements that will
assist those who might well walk out of the theatre trying to figure out who
was doing what to whom when and most problematically - why?
In
a close ensemble piece such as this it is difficult, perhaps even unfair to the
work, to call out performances that merit special attention. Some of the
writing is so strong that the actor playing the role is bound to be singled out
for mention (the malevolent and duplicitous Zygmunt played by Jonathan Goad is a good example) so IÕll refrain from going on
any further. However, one must give full credit to the work of the playwright
here who has grappled with one of historyÕs long, dark shadows and successfully
pulled it into the light of day.
Anusree
Roy continues to solidify her
reputation as an always welcome addition to any local theatreÕs season of
plays. In Brothel #9 (seeded
and developed by Factory Theatre) she has written a play that takes place in
Calcutta but speaks to the international problem of sex trafficking.
The
play centres around the role of Jamuna (played with spot on verity by Roy) as
she goes about the depressing day to day tasks of running a small brothel. At
the playÕs opening, the owner and landlord of the brothel, Birbal (Ash
Knight), delivers a young woman
to Jamuna who has been newly recruited by the old ruse of a promised job in the
big city. In fact, young Rekha (Pamela Sinha) has been sold into sexual slavery by her own
brother-in-law. When Rekha discovers her circumstances and calls out to a local
police officer named Salaudin (Sanjay Talwar) for help, he promptly strikes a deal with Jamuna
for a one time only ÒfeebieÓ with the virginal Rekha. Pamela Sinha handles the rape scene with great sensitivity
by way of both onstage action and off stage vocal reactions. Her gradual
accommodation to her circumstances and JamunaÕs second act admission of her own
history within the sad walls of this establishment, make for a compelling drama
that needless to say does not have a happy Bollywood ending.
Ash
Knight as the landlord pimp is relentless in his unfeeling ambition to expand
his business while Sanjay Talway, as the corrupt police officer, Salaudin,
portrays an authority figure that represents a massive unfeeling bureaucracy
offering no hope for the underclass. Although there is some doubling of roles,
these four characters carry the playÕs theme forward against a real social
backdrop that is almost too vast to really comprehend. Roy has painted a small
portrait of social reality that helps us to see the broader picture.
Shawn
Kerwin (set and costume design)
is in her element here by providing a lush palette of color that struggles to
peek through the dirt and grime of the brothel. Kerwin is the set designer to
go to when the play is firmly in situ. Her understanding of place, ambience and
timeframe continually informs her scenography and provides just the right tone.
Nigel Shawn Williams directs
the actors with dignity and grace, never allowing the material to become
salacious or voyeuristic. The show I saw included an ASL (American Sign
Language) adapted performance for the Deaf community that utilized three
signing actors onstage mirroring their speaking counterparts that Williams blocked
in seamlessly.
Occasionally
there are production problems which seem like they have come to us by way of a
process that just feels incomplete somehow. This is the case with Divisadero (directed by Daniel Brooks) which the program notes indicate was
collectively adapted by the company from the novel of the same name by Michael
Ondaatje.
The
tell tale signs of this started at the playÕs rise when Maggie Huculak (playing the role of Anna, the playÕs central
character) crossed to centre stage and approached a standing microphone. In
very precise and somewhat slow articulation she began a recitation of the first
line in the novel that seemed to indicate either one of two things: the words
were so sacred and important she didnÕt want anyone to miss a single syllable,
or that this was just the beginning of a long, under rehearsed evening in which
the actors were still struggling to remember lines.
Adaptations
are, by their very nature, reductive exercises. There is no way that everything
from this novel about three siblings (unconnected by blood) growing up in the
Northern California of the 1970s can get into the play script (or the movie
script for that matter). But when a company of players is looking at a
relatively short rehearsal period in the best of times, it is probably wise to
bite the bullet early and come in on the first day of rehearsal with a complete
script that you feel honestly represents the story, ideas and overall creative
vision of the author. I donÕt know for sure if the problem in Divisadero was too many cooks, but this might have been the
case. Anyway, the performance felt more like a workshop (albeit with memorized
script) than a fully realized play.
Having
said all this, there were some very affecting moments provided by Huculak and
her cast mates Liane Balaban, Justin
John Rutledge and Tom McCamus. McCamus, in particular, as a wannabe card shark,
explaining to us in an extended monologue the finer points of winning at Texas
Hold ÔEm, had all the earmarks of an actor who got to the table early in the
rehearsal process so that by the time opening night arrived he was ready to cut
the deck and deal.
Eternal
Hydra by Anton Piatigorsky was first produced at the Stratford Shakespeare
Festival in 2002 as part of their 50th anniversary season. The
script was commissioned and workshopped by the Festival to inaugurate the
opening of their Studio Theatre, a space that is dedicated to the production of
new work by contemporary playwrights. At that time, when I reviewed the play
for Aisle Say, I found it intellectually engaging and, at just one act, about
the right length to put forward the playwrightÕs thesis which has to do with
whether or not an author living in Paris between the World Wars plagiarized
and/or appropriated the work of a woman that he may or may not have been
sleeping with. The fact that the famous Irish author, Gordias Carbuncle
(purposely constructed to put us in mind of James Joyce), could be sleeping
with a woman who is also African American adds a clever, although somewhat
contrived, racial twist to the story that heightens the charge of voice
appropriation.
Since
its inaugural production, the play itself has become a bit of a hydra having
grown a second act. What was a neat, concise problem play that left its
audience pondering where artistic integrity did or did not begin and end has now
become a somewhat prescriptive play with remedy neatly provided by the final
curtain. Although this diminished it somewhat for me, the play still provides
great roles for some very fine actors who were ably directed by Chris
Abraham.
David
Ferry, as the willful author
Gordias Carbuncle and Liisa Repo-Martell as Vivian Ezra, the professor of literature who ÒdiscoversÓ
CarbuncleÕs final manuscript, have great rapport and attraction for one another
all the more remarkable in that the relationship is played out entirely as a
figment of EzraÕs overly active imagination.
Cara
Rickets skillfully portrays the
up and coming African American writer named Pauline Newberry who has written a
biography about Selma Thomas, the (fictitious) African American poet who is
alleged to have had an affair with Carbuncle. Both have sought out CarbuncleÕs old
New York publishing firm (Sam Malkin plays the now second generation publisher with cynical wisdom ) to
pitch their manuscripts. So the stage is certainly set for interesting conflict
and debate but by the second act the playwright shifts the scene to post-Civil
War Louisiana in order to give Selma Thomas her due. What started out as a play
about writers and writing, dissolves into a new set of characters which
attempts to add additional layers on to the original argument.
By
the end, I was starting to suffer from hyper plot construction (which is the
opposite of writerÕs block) and was thinking it might be best to just leave
both manuscripts in the drawer for awhile.
Canadianstage,
under the directorship of Matthew Jocelyn, continues to seek out partnerships that broaden the mandate of the
organization that seeks to live up to its name. In co-producing Michel
TremblayÕs Saint Carmen of the
Main with the National Arts
Centre of Ottawa, Jocelyn has chosen to resurrect a play that is touted as a
classic but may really be an artifact that is now deracinated of time and
place. The production is directed by the NACÕs Peter Hinton.
Much
has been made of the new translation by Linda Gaboriau that has replaced the earlier version by John Van
Burek who, along with Bill Glassco, brought Tremblay to the attention of
English speaking Canadians in the mid-70s at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto.
Van BurekÕs sense of poetic lyricism coupled with a deeper understanding of
QuebecÕs politics during this tumultuous period really made the play what it
was. That is now pretty much all gone.
The
irony here is that the huge investment the playwright makes in the Greek
chorus-like cast (13 chorus members in a cast of 19 actors), is now largely
redundant with much less power and strength in their pronouncements (whether
textual or sub-textual).
Nevertheless,
one of CanadaÕs finest playwrights certainly knows his way up and down the
haunts of MontrealÕs Boulevard Saint Laurent (aka The Main) and has created
some memorable characters a number of whom are in evidence in this production.
The incomparable Diane DÕAquila
does a lovely turn as Harelip, CarmenÕs loyal backstage assistant whose
unrequited love is heartbreaking to behold while Gloria (played by the great Jackie
Richardson) is the one time
mentor of Carmen now turned her chief rival on the strip.
By
reducing the social and political dimensions of Carmen, Laara Sadiq is given the unenviable task of trying to gain
sympathy for the main character who just seems to be over reaching when she
(continually) asserts that she will someday find success as a singer of her own
songs. In this regard she resembles Hosanna in TremblayÕs 1973 play of the same
name, who also yearns to be something more - in this case a movie star. But
this is where the similarity ends. Hosanna is a more modest play with only two characters but carries within it
a heart and soul that far surpasses Saint Carmen of the Main. If anyone would like to challenge this thesis, I
suggest they check out the upcoming remounting of Hosanna at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival this
summer.
As
Barrymore (starring Christopher
Plummer reprising his Tony award
winning performance) comes to a close after a successful run at the Elgin
Theatre and Billy Elliot opens
for an extended run at the Canon Theatre, I canÕt help contemplating these two
very different takes on a life in the performing arts.
John
BarrymoreÕs stage career peaked in 1920 with his portrayal of Richard III on
Broadway. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he followed this success
with Hamlet that played for 101 performances on BÕway in 1922 and led Barrymore
to remount the play in London three years later. His later years were filled
with difficulty. By the late 1930s his faculties were greatly diminished,
probably as a result of the grain alcohol he drank during the Prohibition
years. As his mental acuity faded he became unable to memorize lines and was
reduced to having everything written out on cue cards when he appeared in front
of an audience. Barrymore died in Los Angeles in 1942 at the age of sixty.
William
Luce has written a play about
John Barrymore that is really more of a vehicle than it is a drama. DonÕt get
me wrong, I missed the New York run of the show and was delighted when the
Toronto remount was announced which (as I write) is being filmed for an even
wider audience. In this version, John Barrymore is portrayed as a loveable
drunk who reminded me a bit of the comic character created by the late Foster
Brooks in his nightclub act. I say this because it is not easy to sustain the
character of a drunk on stage for a prolonged period of time without the joke beginning
to wear thin. The device works well for Plummer and even allows him to work a
bit blue (for the blue haired crowd that is) with the occasional ribald
limerick or juicy bit of Hollywood gossip thrown in as an aside for good
measure.
PlummerÕs
comic timing is impeccable, his bearing appropriately regal/tipsy and his
interaction with his unseen assistant, Frank (played by John Plumpis) sympathetic and endearing. Placed in this
context the script is successful; a triumphant star turn for a great star.
Billy
Elliot, on the other hand, is the
story of a rising star - someone who is not yet who he will become. I am a big fan of the movie version of Billy
Elliot and was initially
skeptical when I heard about plans to make it into a musical. I need not have
worried, the creative team behind this production has created a powerful piece
of theatre that lifts the spirit like a grand jete.
Stephen
Daldry (who I have admired ever
since seeing his class conscious version of An Inspector Calls in 1994) coupled with the brilliant choreography
of Peter Darling, has invented
new ways to push the story forward with sequences involving parallel action and
overlapping scenes that is unique and original.
But
I think it was the moving but modest score by Elton John with book and lyrics by Lee Hall that finally won me over to the show. Always
motivating but not intrusive - the libretto and score just seems to let the
story do what it needs to do and be what it is. True, the humor is of the
broader music hall variety that is closer to Benny Hill than the poignant
understatement of the film and the final moments of the show donÕt capture the
same frisson inducing flash forward moment that ended the movie but then I
guess thatÕs why film was invented.
Also,
let it be noted here that the Swan Lake sequence in the second act (where Billy
dances with an older version of himself) features a simple flying harness
provided and choreographed by the firm of Flying by Foy proving that you can produce flying sequences
that effectively serve the purpose of the show without breaking bones or
jeopardizing the safety of actors.
The
Toronto production has four Billys who will dance the show during its run here.
On opening night I saw young Cesar Corrales dance the role. A rising star indeed.
PLEASE
NOTE: Aisle Say readers who would like to peruse a broader overview of Canadian
theatre should check out the new website maintained by the Canadian Theatre
Critics Association which can be found at the following URL:
www.canadiantheatrecritics.ca/reviews.html