Once again, I spent three days at the theatre in Stratford, travelling by train.  VIA was on time both ways again, and the trains were busy.  If only they had more equipment, they could carry more passengers.

Anyhow, this is supposed to be the “Reviews” section.

Reviewed here:

Phèdre (**)
Cyrano de Bergerac (***)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (****)
The Importance of Being Earnest (***)
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (***)

I will be back in Stratford at the end of October for West Side Story, a show with rave reviews from anyone I know who has seen it.

Phèdre, by Racine (in a new adaptation by Timberlake Wertenbaker)

Directed by Carey Perloff

Probably all you need to know about Phèdre can be summed up in a thumbnail character list.

Theseus is the King of Athens, and he is under protection of Neptune, a god.  He has a son, Hippolytus, and a wife, Phèdre, stepmother to Hippolytus.  Theseus has been away for a while and might even be dead.  He isn’t.  That’s what having gods as friends does for you.

Phèdre lusts after her step-son, but he is aghast at the idea.  Meanwhile, a princess, Aricie, loves Hippolytus, and he seems to like this.

Oenone, nurse and confidante to Phèdre, falsely accuses Hippolytus of rape hoping to protect Phèdre’s honour.  Theseus, rather thicker than most kings when confronted with accusations of filial misbehaviour, believes this story.  He banishes his son, and asks his buddy Neptune to destroy him. 

Neptune obliges in short order with a sea monster.  What are friends for, after all.  I used to think kings had executioners and assassins, but getting a god to do it has more style.

Things go downhill from here.

For much of the first hour, we are treated to a lot of declamation.  People make rather long speeches without a hint of poetry, and I was reminded of domestic debates on stony hillsides in Wagner, but with no music.  This comes under control with Aricie’s arrival on scene, but the damage has been done.  The characters do become a tad more sympathetic, but not the play.  This is a production of some academic interest, but not a dramatic one, and the text hasn’t got a single memorable line.

This is a new translation by Wertenbaker who has lots of original work and adaptations to her name.  Director Perloff, who hails from the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, also has lots of credits in her bio.

In Stratford’s season brochure, Phèdre is described thus:

“This exquisite new adaptation of Racine’s masterpiece sheds new light on his fearless examination of a soul denied the balm of heavenly grace.”

I should recognize text like this from my experience with TIFF screenings that I studiously avoid.

The director’s program notes and a “Talking Theatre” discussion with Startford’s General Director Antony Cimolino suggest that Catholic guilt was at the heart of Racine’s thesis.  I certainly didn’t find that in the text, and the main flaw is Theseus’ willingness to believe the worst of his own son.  Shakespeare mined family jealousy a lot better.

Why do I care about these people?  Because I have no sympathy, Phèdre becomes a capital-L lesson, a tedious moral, not a shared journey.

There’s good acting by Tom McCamus (Theseus), Seana McKenna (Phèdre) and Jonathan Goad (Hippolytus), but they are wasted in this production.

Phèdre continues at the Tom Patterson Theatre until October 3.

We will meet a kinder, gentler Theseus a few plays later in my visit.

Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand (translated and adapted by Anthony Burgess)

Directed by Donna Feore

Cyrano was the production I most anticipated on this Stratford visit, but it didn’t quite reach my expectations.

The opening was promising enough.  Down centre, off the edge of the Festival stage, sits a makeup table.  A few characters dressed and masked in comedia style come in to “prepare” for the show we are about to see.  A powder puff.  A whiff of dust, of theatre magic, on the air.  The Festival’s traditional gong rings to signal curtain up.

A young cadet, maybe a would-be Cyrano (actually another of the Feore clan, I believe) comes onto a stage, flashes his sword about and strikes a pose.  A spotlight projects his profile, larger than life, onto the back wall where text from Cryano appears.  It’s all a bit Cirque du soleil, but could be the start of an interesting production.

Alas, the magic stops here.  I wish it hadn’t.  We need to feel something of Cyrano’s panache and what better way than with theatrical style, élan.  A continuing problem lies with the set, a moveable staircase that is repositioned as needed for various locales, and even does double-duty as a barricade in Act III.  There’s room for the staircase, or room for all of the actors, but not at the same time.  This I really have to put down to direction given the contrast with the smaller, busier stage so brilliantly choreographed in Bartholemew Fair which I reviewed in July.

When the play begins (I hesitate to use the term “action”), we (and the “audience” on stage) await the arrival of a very over-the-hill actor for a dramatic reading.  Cyrano has challenged him, in the name of good taste, never to appear again on pain of the rapier’s point.  This whole sequence takes rather too long, but the “actor” finally starts and Cyrano appears moments later.  Needless to say, pompous, overblown delivery (left in French for extra effect) loses, but we are not quite sure what gives Cyrano the right to dictate the style of his age.  That was a flaw for me in the character — is Cyrano a stylish, witty, intelligent man saving us from the blowhards of his age, or is he just full of himself in another way.  If I’m having these doubts, something is wrong with the character.

Only the briefest of plot is needed here as the story is well known.  Christian, a member like Cyrano of the Gascony Cadest, loves Roxanne.  So does our hero, but he is too shy and sensitive about his appearance to pursue the lady in his own right.  Instead, Cyrano coaches Christian, writing and speaking for him to win Roxanne’s heart.  Act II, the balcony scene between all three, where we see Cyrano’s true feelings, is a gem.

The nobility doesn’t like Cyrano because he mocks them constantly, and the Comte de Guiche seeks to fix everything by shipping the Cadets off to war with the Spaniards.  Cyrano keeps up a steady correspondence with Roxanne on Christian’s behalf, but, sadly, Christian is killed almost immediately as battle begins.  Cyrano saves the day, but the Comte’s plan to be rid of him has gone awry.

I have to pause here to talk about the staging.  This is the year for pyrotechnics at Stratford, and they seem to be trying to wow audiences by blowing lots of things up at the slightest opportunity.  I can’t help quoting the season brochure again where we learn that Cyrano will be “packed with exhilarating swordplay”.  Not quite packed, I fear, and I can’t help thinking they were saving on rehearsal time and swordfighting skills.

After the battle, Roxanne loves the man who wrote her so passionately, but thinking he is dead, retires to a life of perpetual mourning in a convent.  The real author, Cyrano, visits her every week when he isn’t otherwise occupied with insulting the nobility.  Enroute for what will be his last visit, he is attacked by an “accidental” falling piece of masonry, and arrives mortally wounded.  Cyrano asks Roxanne whether she still keeps Christian’s last letter, and asks that she read it.  As she does, Cyrano himself picks up the words he wrote years ago, and only then does Roxanne know the truth.

Cyrano’s death should be heartbreaking, but for some reason I didn’t connect.  Here I must confess a longing for the beautiful production with the late Heath Lamberts at Shaw where the last act found the stage in autumnal light and leaves fell, first one, then almost a rain, onto the dying Cyrano.  There were leaves at Stratford, but they must have fallen to budget cuts given how few appeared on stage.

I mentioned Cyrano’s panache earlier, and that’s what was really missing here.  The text is given mainly in English (Burgess’ translation), but on occasion the actors will switch into French, and that’s a real treat.  There is poetry in those words, poetry we don’t hear in the English.  The magic of the opening is never regained.

Colm Feore is quite good as Cyrano, although I think his Don Juan of 2007 was better.  Everyone else plays his or her part, but there were no standouts.

Cyrano de Bergerac continues at the Festival Theatre until November 1.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by Shakespeare

Directed by David Grindley

The Dream was unexpectedly the best of the lot on this visit.  This is a solid production with a good actors.  Nobody tries to be the big star, and they all seem to have a marvellous time.  Dream shares this with Bartholemew Fair which I reviewed after my July visit. 

I will assume everyone knows the plot and the characters and won’t go into much detail on that score.

Theseus, yes that Theseus, is a kinder, gentler version in Shakespeare’s hands, although he has just won his wife, Hippolyta, in battle — “I wooed thee with a sword”– but family relations seem rather good.  David Stickney gives us a Theseus who knows he is better to have concord in the family. Egeus, a member of the court, wants to put his daughter Hermia to death for disobeying her father’s betrothal plans, but Theseus is having none of this.  He projects firm, but understanding, regal authority.

Meanwhile in the forest, Oberon and Titania are having a spat.  In this production, for a change, we learn just why Titania won’t give up her changling boy — he is a gift from a dying accolyte, not just some kid she picked up at a fairyland IKEA.  Keeping this text in the play gives context and reason to Titania’s refusal, and makes Oberon’s mischievous behaviour less sympathetic.

At this point, I really must mention the casting.  Theseus, Oberon and Titania are all played by non-white actors as are many of their respective courts.  Dion Johnstone is a deliciously leather-clad Oberon, and Yanna McIntosh is his queen. Their fairy followers would be right at home in many clubs on Queen West, and they lend a very modern air of outsiders, as the fairies are, to the mortal, urban court.  Stratford’s colour-blind casting works marvellously here

Director Grindley (in his Stratford debut) and designer Jonathan Fensom establish the order and anarchy of court and forest with a simple set design.  In court, the classic Festival Theatre balcony stands on an otherwise empty stage.  In the forest, this balcony splits, falls forward and pierces the stage, the forest floor.

Tom Rooney as Puck wears a tight suit and round dark glasses, and I almost expected him to pull out a Blackberry at any moment.  (It would have to be a Blackberry with RIM just down the road in Kitchener-Waterloo.)  He is much more satisfying here than as Cassius in Julius Caesar.

The four lovers — Hermia, her suitor Demetrius, and their would-be lovers Lysander and Helena — are delightfully played by Sophia Walker, Ian Lake, Bruce Godfree and Laura Condlln respectively.

The heart of any production of The Dream is, of course, the “mechanicals”, amateur theatricals, tradesmen of Athens who will mount the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe for the king’s wedding.  Chief among them is Bottom the Weaver played hilariously by Ger Wyn Davies with a Welsh accent.  He grabs the stage whenever he’s on, but there is no sense of a look-at-me star turn.  Wyn Davies is delightful and loveable even without an ass’s head, and becomes Titania’s great love thanks to Oberon’s trickery.  They make a fine couple.

In the end, everyone is back where they belong.  I was particularly happy that there was no big wedding scene as this can seem rather tedious after the comedy of Pyramus.  The festivities were saved for the curtain call.

I must make a special mention re diction.  Unlike Julius Caesar where everyone spoke “naturally” to the point of destroying the text, in The Dream we had an entire company with a feel for Shakespeare’s English.  It wasn’t all posh BBC accents, but with rhythms and pacing, text as it was meant to be heard.  It’s a joy to know young actors will be able to grow into this style.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream continues at the Festival Theatre until October 30.  Production stills are available on the Festival website.

The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde

Directed by Brian Bedford; Designed by Desmond Heeley

This is another play where I won’t bother with the plot.  It’s Oscar Wilde after all, and I could not possibly improve on the telling.  For those who don’t know it, you can read Wikipedia.

Wilde was writing social satire on the ludicrous moral and social standards of Victorians, and it must be played is if the actors are unaware of their follies.  Indeed, it’s a stretch for a modern audience to put itself in that position without mapping Victorian foibles onto what passes for modern-day Christian morality.  Without care, the style can become burlesque, odd characters we laugh at without seeing ourselves.

Act 1 sets up the premise of Algernon Moncrieff and Ernest Worthing (aka John or Jack when in the country), men about town who have mastered the art of always having an excuse to be somewhere else.  Wilde’s contributes to the language “Bunbury” as a verb — invocation of a fictitious friend or relative living afar.  In Worthing’s case, his town character is his country Bunbury.  Alas, the two leads (Mike Shara and Ben Carlson) pushed too hard here trying to be arch rather than just being who they were.

Meanwhile Lane, the butler, (played by Robert Persichini chanelling Marvin the Robot from Hitchhiker’s Guide) was the strongest comic character on stage.  He is world weary, anticipates everything, but is appreciated for nothing.

Lady Bracknell (Brian Bedford), aunt to Algernon, arrives with her daughter Gwendolen Fairfax (Sara Topham), and Worthing, known to her by his country name, proposes.  Lady Bracknell will have none of it, but the would-be couple has other ideas.  Bedford plays Lady B superbly, all assumed status and condescension, a woman who always gets her way. 

Act 2 takes us off to the country.  Ernest Worthing, a Bunbury, must be hastily resurrected when Jack discovers that Algie is there under that assumed name.  Algie (Ernest) woos Cecily Cardew (Andrea Runge) who is Jack’s ward while she thinks Algie is Jack’s brother.  The acting is under better control here as Jack and Algie don’t have to carry everything themselves.  Miss Prism (Sarah Dodd), Cecily’s governess, is all strictness and attention to study, but she is easily distracted by an admirer, Rev. Canon Chausuble (Stephen Ouimette in a fine comic turn).

Act 3, the one Wilde himself considered the best written, is also the best performed.  Everyone is on stage and the excesses of the boys are definitely reined in.  Lady Bracknell is stunning in her red dress, hair and hat that wobbles with indignation on the slightest provocation.  In time, we learn that the boys are actually brothers separated at birth in the best theatrical tradition.  Despite all the trickery, everything’s just fine because we all have the right background in the end.

This is a good, but uneven production, which fortunately improves as it goes along.  However, to me Wilde isn’t aging well with the social context of the play over a century behind us.  I was raised on a diet of Masterpiece Theatre, but a younger audience might not connect as easily with the plot and characters.

A review of this production would be incomplete without mentioning Desmond Heeley’s design.  From the front curtain, a wonderful painting complete with the Royal coat-of-arms sporting “VR”, to the costumes and sets (each of which received applause in its own right), Heeley’s magic is everywhere.  This is his 38th production for Stratford in a career of over 50 years.

The Importance of Being Earnest continues at the Avon Theatre until October 30.  Production stills are available on the Festival website.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, by Burt Shevelove, Larry Gelbart and Stephen Sondheim

Directed by Des McAnuff

A Funny Thing is a well-known musical, although without that many well-known songs.  The story, loosely knit together from classical sources, involves a family:  Senex the titular head, his wife Domina (the name tells you all that’s needed), his son Hero, and Hero’s slave Pseudolus.  Hero (a rather nerdy Mike Nadajewski) loves Philia, a girl next door, but next door is a brothel.  To win his freedom, Pseudolus to win Philia for Hero.

One big problem.  Philia, a virgin (yes, imported specially by brothel-keeper Marcus Lycus), is already promissed to the great warrior, Miles Gloriosus.

There is much misadventure with confused identities, people in wrong houses, slamming doors befitting a French farce, and characters who always manage to appear at just the wrong moment.  The strong cast in many roles really do support the production, one which could easily falter from bad timing or inbalance.

In the end, Gloriosus and Philia find they are long-lost siblings, and everyone ends up with who or what they wanted.

The performance of A Funny Thing which I attended featured the understudy, Randy Ganne, in the role of Pseudolus.  This was originally played by Bruce Dow, and now by Sean Cullen.  Ganne did well for an understudy in this role, but depended on many other actors, notably those dogsbodies, the Proteans, whose antics during “Comedy Tonight” gave the number humour it would otherwise have lacked.  It’s crucial in setting the mood, and if it isn’t funny, the show would just limp onto stage.

Ganne also lacked an essential duality in his stage presence to be both a lead character, the slave yearning for his freedom, and a sly wit who routinely addresses the audience as a knowing master of ceremonies.  The slave was there, but not the master, and Ganne’s performance was much the weaker for it.

Dan Chameroy is Gloriosus in a performance that has been reviewed as “Shatneresque”.  He really is astoundingly full of himself, and in the absence of a strong Pseudolus, Chameroy has the best comic bits of the production.  This balance has probably changed now that Sean Cullen is sharing the stage.

Reviews of Cullen have been positive, and he should be able to strengthen what is already a good show.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum continues at the Avon Theatre until November 1.