Morris Panych is pretty much a force of nature in these
parts. As a first rate theatre director and playwright he works like an agronomist,
tilling and cultivating the local talent from one end of the country to the
other, season after theatrical season. Not every crop blooms as one might hope
it would (100 productions and counting) but the bounty is significant (two
Governor General Awards along with numerous other accolades) and the current
seasonal harvest of delight at Soulpepper, Panych's production of Hungarian
playwright Miklos Laszlo's 1937 play, Parfumerie, is just another example of
how, when all the natural elements conspire as they should, beauty can prevail.
Although this production will have closed by the time
Aisle Say readers see this review, let this be my early bid (along with several
others already submitted) to ensure that Soulpepper revives the show next
holiday season.
Most people will be familiar with the story of the beauty
shop owner, Miklos Hammerschmidt (played here with just the right combination
of authority and angst by Joeseph Ziegler) and its quirky covey of employees by
way of its reinvention in two films (The Shop Around the Corner, You've Got
Mail), one musical (She Loves Me) and one film musical adaptation (In the Good
Old Summertime). What a treat then, to be able to return to the original play
in a fine and very serviceable new rendition by Adam Pettle and Brenda Robins
that Soulpepper has appropriately mounted as a holiday offering.
And before I go any further, let me say that Parfumerie
not only smells like a hit, it looks good too with an inspired art nouveau set
by Ken MacDonald that is the finest realization of design and construction that
I have yet to see in the unforgiving black box of a theatre that represents the
mainstage of the Young Centre for the Performing Arts. With no wing or fly
space, MacDonald has worked a mini-miracle of his own.
The Soulpepper acting ensemble is at its best here and
clearly portrays the marked difference in production values that can be
achieved when a group of actors with the aspiration to become a repertory
company pass the first decade mark. If one wanted to fault Soulpepper, it could
be for not trying harder to build and advance a company that truly reflected
the multiracial, multicultural composition that is the day to day reality of
the city of Toronto.
Last year
I received the Soulpepper brochure that
pictured an impressive line-up of 37 actors. Not one was a person of
color.
Yes, it's true that the new youth initiatives always feature actors of
color—but these do not play out in the year to year contracts that are
offered to the
major players.
Perhaps this could be artistic director Albert Schultz's
new year's resolution.