Although Shakespeare has been removed in name from the Festival
(it used to be the Stratford Shakespeare Festival but now is called simply the
Stratford Festival after the small town in Ontario where it abides), it is
still Shakespeare and the classical canon at the core of the FestivalÕs mandate
that is its strength. So let us start there - with two Kings and some Queens.
In the annals of male Shakespearean performance in the English
speaking world, every once in a great while the earth moves and a new champion
emerges. It does not occur often because the barre is set so high, and it is
not an easy stretch. Thus, it is in every generation there are those who will
remember their favorite actors in the classic roles. In England, the
bardolators remember GielgudÕs King Lear and compare it to OlivierÕs or
Scofield or Beale.
Likewise for the epicenter of Shakespeare in performance in
North America. Stratford Festival regulars remember William HuttÕs portrayal
and compare it to Brian BedfordÕs and Christopher PlummerÕs.
Now there is
Colm Feore
playing Lear and the barre has been raised once again. In watching FeoreÕs
approach to the role on the mainstage of the Festival Theatre, I couldnÕt help
comparing him to the great Estonian actor, Juri Jarvet who played Lear in the
1971 Russian film directed by Grigori Kozintsev. With a score by Dmitri Shostakovich,
it is perhaps the worldÕs greatest rendering of the play ever committed to
film.
Director
Antoni CimolinoÕs
production of King Lear restores the essence of the play and
makes it real for a contemporary audience. And not a minute too soon because his
emphasis on social justice values, and the human elements within the play point
to Shakespeare as a fellow traveler in the 21st century, something that is so
often missing in
contemporary
performance.
CimolinoÕs idea is that, with striking prescience and almost
eerie accuracy, Shakespeare describes the characteristics of our age with
regard to wicked problems like war, political division, poverty, the challenges
of age and the rivalries of duplicitous siblings. The boomer generation
immediately recognizes their own parents in LearÕs struggle with what is
clearly the early stages of dementia or AlzheimerÕs disease. His willfulness
and emotional outbursts, his paranoia and irrational pronouncements are of
increasing concern to his daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia as well as
others who attend his court.
In the midst of this interpretation, a harsh light is focussed
on the old regent. So much so that the concerns of his three daughters almost
sound reasonable. I say this because so often Goneril (
Maev Beatty) and Regan (Lilsa Repo-Martel) are portrayed unsympathetically (for many good
reasons) while Cordelia (Sara Farb)
is too often beatified. Here Cordelia simply states her truth and that is, she
will not patronize her father by pretending to love him any more or less than
she does. While her two sisters indulge in hyperbolic accolades, she intuits
that he is beginning to mentally slip away and that his request to his three
daughters, i.e. to profess how much they love him, is not based on anything but
ego. In most productions, we sympathize with Cordelia but wonder if she isnÕt a
bit too abrupt with her father. Here she is the first to correctly signal that
there is a problem.
Later in the play, a vicious argument erupts between Goneril and
Regan when Lear announces he is coming to live with them. They both protest the
intrusion, and kvetch that having to house and feed the KingÕs retinue (which
includes 100 knights) is completely unreasonable. This is the first time in my
lifetime of watching this play, that I agreed with them! They werenÕt acting
like ingrates or spiteful siblings. They almost sounded like rational and
somewhat caring human beings who were simply not looking forward to the
prospect of having a castle full of rowdy, drunken knights moving into the wing
down the hall. Goneril and ReganÕs vehement protests now make complete sense
because we all understand that what is really needed here is a good assisted
living facility for the irascible old man. As the complexities of the situation
escalate and get entirely out of control, the tragedy of it all makes much more
sense.
Stephen Ouimette (Fool),
Jonathan Goad (Kent), Scott
Wentworth (Gloucester), Evan
Buliung (Edgar), Brad Hodder (Edmund), Michael Blake (Albany), and Mike Shara (Cornwall) provide the infrastructure that girds
this very tall King Lear at the Stratford Festival.
If you feel insecure because you canÕt quite remember what
ShakespeareÕs
King John is about, donÕt
worry. It is one of the least frequently produced plays of the entire canon and
was not even done during ShakespeareÕs lifetime. The first recorded production
was not until more than a century after his death.
But King JohnÕs backstory is well known in popular culture. All
you really need to understand is that the rascally, pimple faced bumbler, John
(played by Nigel Terry in
The Lion in Winter) was the favorite of Peter OÕToole (King Henry II) who thought he
should succeed him on the throne, while Katherine Hepburn (who played Eleanor
of Aquitaine) favored Richard the Lionheart (Anthony Hopkins). I mean, come on,
Richard the Lionheart for pityÕs sake. So then, in another movie, when John
does take the throne he is the one who gives Errol Flynn (Robin Hood) such a
hard time by sicking the Sheriff of Nottingham on him while Richard the L. was
off on a Crusade. Things got so bad that the English barons finally had to put
the King in his place by imposing the Magna Carta. That about says it all right
there.
So with all this in mind, I highly recommend seeing
Tom
McCamus as the haughty and somewhat
juvenile King John square off against the equally arrogant and hapless Philip,
King of France (imperturbably played by Peter Hutt). McCamus is onstage literally throughout the play
and adds layer upon layer to his character making it a very compelling
performance in a role seldom seen. Add to this excellent supporting work from
the likes of Patricia Collins
(Queen Eleanor), Jennifer Mogbock
(Blanche of Spain), Seana McKenna
(Constance), Andrew Lawrie
(Prince Henry), Wayne Best (Hubert),
Graham Abbey (Philip, the
bastard), Noah Jalava (Arthur),
and Brian Tree as Cardinal
Pandulph. E. B. Smith doubles avec facilitˇ as Melun and Chatillon.
Thankfully, director
Tim Carroll has spared us most of the hokum he refers to as Ņoriginal practicesÓ.
This is the invented ideology currently in practice at ShakepeareÕs Globe in
London that labors with an aesthetic purporting to bring us closer to the
BardÕs work by using an all male cast with various value add ons like being
able to see the actors change into their doublet and hose during performance
(presumably to assure us that they do it one leg at a time with the aid of
dressers).
In
King John, Mr. Carroll
has limited his approach to using a candle lit stage rather than actual stage
lighting in the Tom Patterson theatre and allowed the very talented women of
the Stratford Festival to act in his play. Of course, William Shakespeare
himself used the most advanced stage technology he could get his hands on
during his lifetime of producing at the original Globe theatre and IÕm
convinced that if he could be reincarnated as theatre critic to comment on Mr.
CarrollÕs work he would laud the performances here while condemning the set and
lighting design (or more precisely, the lack thereof).
Before the curtain went up on
Chris AbrahamÕs gay, campy romp production of A
Midsummer NightÕs Dream, I overheard two
ushers in the theatre discussing the comments made by a school teacher from the
midwest U.S. who had attended a preview performance with a group of high school
students on a field trip. She swore she would never return to Stratford again
after seeing this show. Serendiptitously, the people of Ontario have just
elected their first woman premiere who also just happens to be a lesbian. So it
would seem that the high school teacher from the American midwest can tolerate
a play about a man who is turned into an ass but if he becomes attracted
to one that is off limits for the
youth. Excuse me while I scratch my head a bit.
Although AbrahamÕs take on the
Dream does not push the sexuality nearly as much as Diane
Paulus did in her adaptation of the same play entitled The Donkey
Show, it does offer a heavily gender bended
version with plenty of improvisational dialog and some interpolated 80s new
wave pop songs. The opening is framed around a contemporary gay wedding at
which the two men being married are feted with a backyard production of
ShakespeareÕs play. To summarize the transformed casting elements: Egeus is a
hearing impaired father (Michael Spencer-Davis) who signs his discontent with daughter HermiaÕs (Bethany
Jillard) infatuation with Lysander (here
played by an androgynous looking Tara Rosling demanding her rights as a gay woman to marry her
lover). Oberon and Titania are played by Evan Buliung and Jonathan Goad who alternate as Titania from one performance to
the next. Puck is also played by a woman, the actor Chick Reid who also plays against type in that she is older
than the norm for the role. Peter Quince, the stage manager of the Athenian
workers who are writing a play for Theseus and Hippolyta is also a woman (Lally
Cadeau). The fairies are a group of hip looking youngsters including one
quite adorable girl who plays the Changeling Boy here changed to Child (Charlie
Rose Neis).
The play certainly has its moments, especially in the first act.
But the conceit wears thin and by the end, the improvisational dialog seriously
undermines the play-within-a-play sequence because we are already in a play
within a play from the very start. Consequently,
Stephen Ouimette (Bottom), Karl Ang (Snug), Keith Dinicol (Snout), Victor Ertmanis (Flute) and Brad Hodder (Starveling), all have to push much harder to get
the laughs they usually get without even trying.
All this is unfortunate because had Abraham only read
ShakespeareÕs play a bit more closely he would have found a way in for his
concept neatly provided by the playwright. The wedding between Theseus and
Hippolyta could easily have been changed to Theseus and Hippolytus at the
beginning. This would not only have allowed the gay friendly concept to stand
firmly (and proudly) from beginning to end but it would also have allowed
Abraham to correct his most egregious error in casting. That is not to have
allowed the under used Maev Beaty to play Titania. It really should have been
her role and it was heartbreaking not to see her be alllowed to play it in this
production.
This
Dream has been
lauded by some critics and condemned by others. Richard Ouzounian, the critic
for the Toronto Star, gave it
only 1/2 a star, the lowest ranking I have ever seen him give. Not to be
outdone, J. Kelly Nestruck (writing in the Globe and Mail) awarded it a rare four stars (out of four). Robert
Cushman, who writes for the National Post, has suggested that it should be graded somewhere in between. The
whole thing has created quite a buzz and IÕm all for that.
However, to my mind, gender bended casting within the
Shakespearean canon should really concentrate on opening up casting
opportunities for women, not men. It is the very talented women of the
Stratford Festival who have been denied the training and performance
opportunities embedded in assaying the great roles of Shakespeare on the main
Festival Stage. An all woman cast should be considered as appropriate as an all
male
cast. Perhaps then we can
begin to directly address gender related issues in the performing arts while
providing equal opportunity employment that will truly Ņrestore amends.Ó
Taken as a whole, the Stratford Festival has come out swinging
in the early part of their season on the Shakespearean side of the ledger.
Stimulating theatre, especially for younger audiences, and that is exactly the
direction the SF needs to go.
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