Sarah
BernhardtÕs biography (plural - there are many), recounts a 1910 episode in
which she appeared for one night only at New YorkÕs Globe Theatre in a play
called, Judas, which was
promptly banned as indecent in New York, Washington and Boston. The play was
written by John Wesley De Kay, a flamboyant entrepreneur turned playwright who
hired the Divine One to star in the role of Mary Magdalene. De Kay (who, as a
businessman, was a kind of Donald Trump of his day) portrays Mary as the lover
of Pontius Pilate before she hops into bed with Judas Iscariot on her way to
bedding Jesus.
In
taking on the role, was Bernhardt still smarting from her Canadian tour of five
years earlier when the Archbishop of Quebec City had her banned from performing
in the city because he considered her plays and her performances immoral? Did
she now want to ensure that blasphemy was listed prominently as one of her
cardinal sins?
Playwright
Michel Marc Bouchard in his
new play, The Divine: A Play for Sarah Bernhardt, commissioned by the Shaw Festival and currently
running in repertory there until October 11, does not attempt to answer this
question but does raise a substantial number of others.
This
proves to be both a blessing and a curse.
It
is a blessing for Bouchard because it allows this deeply intellectual and
cogent playwright to investigate the social milieu of the period. His play
focusses on the Quebec City banning of Bernhardt and also encompasses a look at
the rigid class structure of the time and the oppressive role of the Catholic
church whose hierarchy the ruling Anglais willingly left in place because it
served their purposes. He also interrogates the harsh conditions rendered by
industrial capitalism with a portrayal of the sweatshops wringing the lifeÕs
blood out of the working poor of the day. And finally he courageously
challenges an educational system that was corrupted in large part by a church
whose attendant crimes against children and adolescents are by now well
documented.
This
is a lot of ground to cover in one evening and therein lies the curse.
Jackie
Maxwell, who directed the play with consummate skill, also lists herself as
dramaturge which, for BouchardÕs play, apparently saw a gestation period of
four years in development at the Shaw Festival. As director she does a great
job, as dramaturge not so much. Fiona Reid as Sarah Bernhardt makes a belated entrance in the first act
(perhaps to facilitate a laugh line later on in which Bernhardt is rejecting a
script she dislikes because her character only enters late into the first act).
Reid is quite wonderful in her largely comedic approach to the role but we donÕt
get too much sense of her interaction with the authorities of the day until the
playÕs epilogue in which we are told (by another character) how an angry mob
hounded her out of town and wrote ÒDirty JewÓ on her personal railway car. This
is an event that could have served as a compelling climax in the second act
rather than a narrated afterthought in an epilogue.
But
Maxwell the director ultimately saves the day with an excellently cast ensemble
featuring top notch performances by Reid, Wade Bogert-Obrien as Talbot, a young man who is entering the
priesthood, and Ben Sanders as
the young seminarian with the soul of a playwright who would rather be entering
the theatre. But it remains with the heart wrenching performance delivered by Mary
Haney as Mrs. Talbot to truly
anchor this play (the counterweight really to the ego driven Bernhardt) and in
so doing remind us what the word ÒdivineÓ really means.
The
opening of The Lady From the Sea
is already underway as we enter the Shaw FestivalÕs Court House Theatre. We see
a tall, flat rock with jagged sides (the centerpiece of Camellia KooÕs striking set). At the end of this cliff-like
overhang lies a crumpled bathrobe. The sound of waves can be heard crashing on
the beach below. Someone has gone for a swim. The houselights go to dark
signaling the playÕs beginning and then quickly rise again revealing the wet,
naked body of the playÕs leading character, Ellida Wangel, the wife of Dr.
Wangle, a small town physician. She lays prostrate on top of the rock and
reaches for her robe, exhausted after her plunge into the ocean. We hear her
gasp for breath and she has a haunted look in her eyes.
After
director Meg Roe so brilliantly
focusses our attention with this opening scene, she wisely lets the playwright,
Henrik Ibsen, start doing the talking. Moya OÕConnell (ironically starring in a role also favored by
Sarah Bernhardt) plays the obsessed (and oppressed) Ellida, with all the
qualities of a Shavian feminist sprinkled with the despair and longing that is
the currency of every Ibsen heroine. OÕConnell is onstage almost throughout the
play and we are riveted to her every word and emotion.
Couple
this with Ric ReidÕs outstanding
performance as the compassionate and loyal husband, Dr. Wangel, and the plot is
set for the entrance of the tall, dark Stranger (played here by Mark Uhre). The sub-plot involving Ballested, the
artist-in-residence (Neil Barclay),
and Dr. WangelÕs family Bolette (Jacqueline Thair), Hilde (Darcy Gerhart) along with a suitor and a tutor - played by Kyle
Blair and Andrew Bunker respectively - all mesh well in this perfect
adaptation by Erin Shields who
mercifully took IbsenÕs five acts and distilled them to a brisk 90 minute
emotional roller coaster that remains true to the playwrightÕs intentions.
887 is an autobiographical solo tour de force by Robert
Lepage that premiered in Toronto
as part of the Pan Am GameÕs Panamania cultural festival. In this latest Ex
Machina production, Lepage once again teaches us about a theatre of
possibilities where writing, acting, directing and scene design all come
together with stunning effect while lifting the heart and challenging the
intellect. The cultural, territorial, historical and political landscape of
LepageÕs native Quebec is portrayed here not only with an amazing thematic
relevancy but with an awesome and powerful coherence articulated by LapageÕs
acute sense of theatricality.
In
1970, the political and cultural struggle of the Quebec people was at its
height. Lepage was thirteen years old and living through traumatic times with
his family in a small apartment on 887 Murray Avenue (not all that far from
where he lives today in Quebec City). His father, to whom this production is
dedicated, was a taxi cab driver and a strong partisan of the working class but
not a separatist.
Flash
forward to 2010 and the now 52 year old Lepage is ask to participate in a
commemoration of a cultural event that occurred exactly forty years previously
and was called La nuit de la poesie
(the night of poets) when the Quebecois literary champions of the movement took
the stage in Montreal to denounce much that they saw wrong with the world.
Lepage was asked to recite a poetic polemic by Michele Lalonde entitled, Speak
White, for the commemorative
performance. His struggle to memorize the text and his journey through history,
memory, personal reminiscence - attended by no little amount of post traumatic
stress from his childhood - accounts for the raw material of the play.
There
will be a great deal written about 887 as it now makes its way through the festival circuits and touring
venues internationally. If it comes to a festival or theatre near you, please
donÕt miss it. The Ex Machina company has again delivered something truly
extraordinary. A real gift from the gods.
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