There
are some revelatory moments in Antoni CimolinoÕs current production of Hamlet, about the militant Dane who believes he must
take up arms against the state or commit suicide as a way of dealing with life
under a royal, usurping dictatorship filled with corruption and rot.
This
Hamlet is driven by Jonathan
GoadÕs intelligent interpretation
of the conflicted prince. He is forced to break off the relationship with his
beloved Ophelia because he knows early on that the whole thing is not going to
end well. Goad plays Hamlet with the usual conviction that the role demands,
but it is the compassion and empathy of this engaged Hamlet that is new and
allows him to put his own stamp on the role. He feigns madness and pleads with
Ophelia to flee to a nunnery. A crazy request that belies a heart breaking
state of mind as he tries to get someone for whom he cares deeply out of harmÕs
way and into a safer place.
Foremost
in this latest SF rendering of the tale, I have never seen an Ophelia (Adrienne
Gould) performed with such a huge
emotional arch. Her performance provides a series of fluorescent bridges that
connect pivotal scenes and draws the play onward to its final, tragic end. It
is a powerful performance for the ages, and if any one actorÕs work in this
production should be singled out as brilliant, original and historically
noteworthy, I believe it is hers.
GouldÕs
Ophelia adds startling moments of clarity such as in her mad scene when she
literally screams: ÒMy brother will hear about this!Ó with such fury that I
thought I never heard the line before - at least not this reading of it.
Subtext: ÒIÕm going to tell my brother, Laertes, (played with equal force by Mike
Shara) and boy is he gonna be
pissed when he gets home!Ó
On
average the Stratford Festival trots out a production of Hamlet about once every five or six seasons. After this
one it would probably be wise to shuffle the play off stage for a while and
give it a rest. I say this to preserve the FestivalÕs reputation and especially
that of Antoni Cimolino, the SFÕs artistic director and the director of this
remarkable production. With such strong supporting roles played by Seana
McKenna (Gertrude), Geraint
Wyn Davies (Claudius), Tim
Campbell (Horatio), Tom Rooney (Polonius), Sarah Afful ( Player Queen), and Juan Chioran as the Player King, and equally strong technical
support from Teresa Przbylski
(design), Michael Walton
(lighting) and Steven Page
(composer), no one (Cimolino included) is going to top this benchmark of a Hamlet for a long time to come.
The
Adventures of Pericles proves
conclusively that Shakespeare at his hack writing worst still can come up with
a script that is meritorious and stage worthy when compared with any of the
stuff that we count today as historical drama or fictionalized epics. I include
here tv shows like The Vikings,
Game of Thrones, Wolf Hall and so on.
Evan
Buliung is a great Pericles, the
Prince of Tyre. At various times, he is rich and in command, poor exiled and hunted,
in love and tragically deprived of love, has a daughter - loses a daughter,
curses the gods, gives praise to the gods; its just one thing after another and
Buliung moves everything along at a good clip with the help of excellent work
from Sean Arbuckle (as Cleon),
Deborah Hay (doubling as
Thaisa and Marina), Marion Adler
(Diana), Wayne Best (doubling
as Antiochus and and Simonides), David Collins (Cerimon), Randy Hughson (the
slimy Bolt) and E.B. Smith
(doubling as Thaliard and Leonine, the two villains).
Lovers
of the Bard really need not go to their variorum editions (that at times have
assigned this play to the category of Òspurious and doubtful works by W. S.Ó)
to read up on the playÕs meaning before they buy a ticket. One is likely to
loose sight of the plot (which I am certainly not going to even think about
summarizing here) early on when interacting with the text alone.
It
is also Scott WentworthÕs
careful use of the chorus and the larger ensemble that moves the pacing of the
story forward. Although some of the actors doubling in roles become a bit
confusing for the audience, in the end, this seldom produced play (the first
time the SF has had a run at it) keeps our attention, miraculously fosters
believability and wins over our hearts. That, I believe, is what the enterprise
is all about.
DonÕt
miss the opportunity to see WentworthÕs skillfully directed production and you
will see the story unfold as it is meant to be - one rip snorting tale.
Last
seasonÕs Beaux Stratagem by
George Farquhar, first produced in 1707, was a big hit with Stratford
audiences. So if you liked that bit of Restoration comedy, you will love Oliver
GoldsmithÕs She Stoops to Conquer.
Joseph Ziegler (who plays the
beset Mr. Richard Hardcastle) is being heralded on his return to Stratford
after an absence of thirty years. The homecoming is well deserved and speaks to
a period when a number of young and upcoming talents were either not invited
back or decided to pursue a different road. Whatever the reason, StratfordÕs
loss was TorontoÕs gain as the formation of Soulpepper Theatre (of which
Ziegler and the recently deceased and lamented Robin Phillips were founding
members) was the result of it all.
Martha
HenryÕs trustworthy direction
follows a well lit avenue - just trust in the playwrightÕs material and you canÕt
go wrong. Oliver Goldsmith has provided excellent sign posts for this tale of
two suitors - Brad Hodder and Tyrone
Savage respectively as Young
Charles Marlow and George Hastings, who travel from the city into the country
in search of a mate. Suffice to say, we arrive at our final destination with
much satisfaction.
Credit
for this successful journey must also go to HenryÕs careful attention to the
minor but pivotal characters who ride sidecar through the playÕs several
subplots. Andre Morin, Gareth
Potter and Paul Rowe reminded me a bit of Larry and his brother Darryl
and his other brother Darryl in the old Bob Newhart Show tv series, as they sight gaged their way through
the roles of servants trying to figure out what to do with their hands while
waiting on their betters. Likewise, Lally Cadeau is wonderful as Pimple,
maidservant to Maev BeatyÕs
effervescent Miss Kate Hardcastle. Also, the comic paring of Sara Farb and Karack Osborn as Miss Constance Neville and Tony Lumpkin are
great fun to watch.
In
style, Restoration comedy is best played seriously. The preposterous nature of
the plot, its misdirection and switched identities, provides the humor for
characters who are caught up in all the tom foolery. It is only Lucy PeacockÕs performance that fails in this regard. Her
over-the-top caterwauling and in-joke winks to the audience (ÒarenÕt we all
just having such a wonderful timeÓ kind of thing) tends to hog the spotlight a
bit too much at the expense of her fellow players.
But
Stratford audiences clearly love the classic comedies of the Restoration period
as exemplified by the work of Goldsmith this season and Farquhar last. Now can
anyone say, Richard Brinsley Sheridan?
The
Physicists by the Swiss
playwright Frederich Friedrich Durrenmatt (translated for the SF by Birgit
Schreyer Duarte and adapted by
playwright/actor Michael Healey)
is one of the early plays out there in the international repertoire that makes
us think seriously about the relationship of science and society post Second
World War (BrechtÕs Life of Galileo
and Michael FraynÕs Copenhagen
also come to mind). The strength of DurrenmattÕs prescient piece is that it was
first produced in 1962 and spoke directly (albeit through the popular form of a
murder mystery) to the real threat of nuclear holocaust.
The
principal characters in The Physicists share two major commonalities; all three are expert in physics and
all three live in a hospital for the mentally ill. Herbert Georg Beutler (aka
Isaac Newton, played by Graham Abbey) spouts on about his discovery of gravity; Ernst Heinrich Ernesti
(aka Albert Einstein), played by Mike Nadajewski is the moral conscience of the play as he puts
the blame on science itself for creating the nuclear bomb. Geraint Wyn
Davies, in a definitive
performance as Johann Wilhelm Mobius, believes he channels the words and wisdom
of the ancient biblical King Solomon. They are all overseen by Fraulein Doktor
Mathilde von Zahnd (Seana McKenna)
who plays a kind of evil, humpbacked, club footed, female version of Dr.
Strangelove.
The
play still has much to offer us although personally I think DurrenmattÕs other
popular success, The Visit,
gives a contemporary audience more to consider as a modern morality play.
Dramaturgy aside, the production is ably directed by Miles Potter, and
certainly fits within this yearÕs intellectual thesis at the SF which explores
plays examining moments of discovery.
Saving
ShakespeareÕs The Taming of
the Shrew until last in this
review of five productions currently on exhibit at the Stratford Festival is
not because I think of it as being on the bottom rung of the ladder, thereby
adding insult to injury to those who view the play as problematic.
On
the contrary, there is much to admire in director Chris AbrahamÕs production which broadcasts a sensibility that
stays with you longer than any of the shows mentioned above and as such
deserves some thought and consideration in the final paragraphs of a
retrospective that usually begins, ÒIn conclusion...Ó
First
let me say that IÕm not one of those folks who believes that the anti-Semitism
in The Merchant of Venice or
the sexism in The Taming of
the Shrew renders the texts
un-produceable for the contemporary stage. On the contrary, IÕve seen very
compelling productions of both plays in very diverse environments over the
years and believe strongly that they can be produced with much modern
relevancy.
Chris
AbrahamÕs Taming of the Shrew
begins with a very creative hook of a beginning and - except for one major
misstep - almost ascends to greatness.
Shakespeare
is always teaching his audience how to woo. LoverÕs wooing in the woods outside
of Athens in A Midsummer NightÕs Dream, Rosalind teaching Orlando how to woo in the Forest of Arden,
Benedict and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, the various hook ups in Loves LabourÕs Lost, and so it goes. But never was there such a rough
and tumble love-match tussle of wooing as is provided in The Taming of the
Shrew.
There
have been a number of famous acting couples who have taken on the roles of
Katharina and Petruchio over the years and I believe audiences see the play
more sympathetically when this is the case. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne
enjoyed success with Shrew on
Broadway in 1935 and subsequently toured across North America. This touring
production became the basis for Cole PorterÕs musical, Kiss Me Kate. Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy were on deck at
LondonÕs Old Vic in the 1950s for a production of Shrew that was to be financed by the NBC radio network
but funding never materialized. And Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton
acquitted themselves famously in Franco ZeffirelliÕs 1967 film version of the
play. In the SFÕs production, Ben Carlson and Deborah Hay are
the off-stage partnered and onstage sparring P and K, who may not have the
international fame or tax bracket status as the aforementioned stars, but who
certainly do not lack at all in the talent department.
Excellent
supporting roles (see actors mentioned above on the title page) provide for a
seamless ensemble in this production. Julie Fox (design) and Kimberly Purtell (lighting) provide welcome subtlety and restraint
in the technical area while George MeanwellÕs concertina, lute, mandolin and
cello doubling (quadrupling?) provides needed harmony in the midst of all the
discord.
This
all takes us up to that final, troubling speech in which Kate must give her
advice to the women in the audience and appear to submit to the male supremacy,
oppressive patriarchy and in-your-face sexism of the age in which she lives.
Now
I donÕt believe anyone in the Festival Theatre on the night I saw the show,
thought for one second that our hero, Katharina, (an indomitable performance
delivered here by Deborah Hay) was going to do any such thing. But that is what
the text says. So what does a director do with the text as Shakespeare wrote
it? Scholars, critics and essayists have been pondering this question ever
since the play was first produced.
Unfortunately,
director Chris Abraham, who messed mightily (and quite successfully) with the
opening of the show, does nothing at the playÕs conclusion where it needs it
the most.
My
colleague, Laura Cudworth, theatre critic for the town of StratfordÕs own
Beacon Herald, said it very well. After complimenting Abraham for contemporizing
the playÕs opening, saying it Òshowed promise for an innovative treatment of a
tricky play,Ó concludes her review by observing: ÒAbrahamÕs clever intro
featured a joke about treating ShakespeareÕs works with irreverence. In the
case of this play, perhaps its irreverence that is most needed. The showÕs
beginning was inventive and surprising; it would have been brilliant had it
ended in the same way.Ó
My
sentiments exactly.