Search: Dark Heart

At the Court House Theater, Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.

Written by Henrik Ibsen
In a new version by Erin Shields
Directed by Meg Roe
Designed by Camelia Koo
Lighting by Kevin Lamotte
Music and sound by Alessandro Juliani
Starring: Neil Barclay
Kyle Blair
Andrew Bunker
Darcy Gerhart
Moya O’Connell
Ric Reid
Jacqueline Thair
Mark Uhre

A story of obsession, longing and the power of love in a gripping production.

The Story. Henrik Ibsen wrote this in 1888. It’s been given a new version by Erin Sheilds. The lady in question is Ellida Wangel. She has always lived near the sea from an early age and her obsession with it suggests a deeper, more mysterious attachment.

The production opens with a mysterious woman, sitting naked on a rock, glistening with sea water, almost looking like a mermaid. This is Ellida. She is married to Dr. Wangel. It’s his second marriage. His first wife died. He has two daughters from his first marriage and there is a coolness between the daughters towards Ellida.

Ellida did have a son with Wangel, but he died in infancy. That has devastated her and added to her sense of loss, not fitting in, being anxious. Added to that is that years before she was besotted with a sailor and was engaged to him. But he murdered someone and went to jail. The sailor told her to wait for him which she did. But years passed and she gave up hope and married Wangel.

One day a stranger appears. It is Ellida’s long, lost lover and he gives Ellida an ultimatum, as long, lost lovers tend to do. He wants her to come with him immediately. Never mind that she’s married. He wants her now. Ellida has to make a terrible decision and she’s given the freedom to make it from her loving Dr. Wangel.

The Production. We hear the sea before the lights go up. Alessandro Juliani’s sound design captures the relentless crash of waves. Kevin Lamotte’s gloomy lighting evokes the gloom of Norway. The oppression hangs in the air. Camellis Koo’s spare, austere set completes that sense of the walls closing in. This is a place of gloom, rock, pounding waves and bubbling emotions.

The production opens with a mysterious woman, sitting naked on a rock, glistening with sea water, almost looking like a mermaid. It’s almost dark, so we assume it’s night. We learn that this is Ellida Wangel, who is out for her daily swim. The need for the sea is gripping her to the point that she has to go out even at night.

The production is directed beautifully by Meg Roe. She knows how to mine a play and find its heart and pulse, as well as its humour and pathos. She maintains the balance of that sense of something simmering but could always boil over. And she gets wonderful performances to a person from her cast.

It’s headed by Moya O’Connell as Ellida Wangel, has that tight smile that tries to hide a multitude of emotions. She doesn’t want to alarm her husband but her unhappiness and unease are obvious. O’Connell fairly shimmers with pent up anger, despair, trying to keep a grip on her anxiety. Yet there is an eagerness to be accommodating, a graciousness. It’s a performance of dizzying artistry and it’s typical of Moya O’Connell.

She is beautifully partnered by Ric Reid as Dr. Wangel. He is a fastidious actor. No detail is too small on which to build a character. Wangel obviously loves Ellida and Ric Reid shows us that Dr. Wangel is a doting husband who is fearful of losing his wife and does something daring and true to keep her with him. As Ellida tries to hide her anxiety under a veneer of gracefulness so does Wangel try to hide his frustration in dealing with his wife’s anxiety. He’s not impatient with her. He’s just struggling to find a way to make her happy and show her that he cares and worries for her.

As The Stranger, Mark Uhre, is walking danger. You just know this quiet talking, commanding man is no good. But he is compelling and that’s why Ellisa is so besotted with him.

Comment. This being Henrik Ibsen, the play bubbles with pent up emotions, all sorts of conflicted feelings, and it leaves Ellida and those around her almost breathless with anxiety. They all want something better. It doesn’t necessarily happen.

It’s also adapted by Erin Shields and while she is true to the spirit of the play, there is a fresh sense of the modern world without placing it in a contemporary world. This is a bracing version of the play and that sense is also instilled in the production. The fact that Ibsen knew his way around the rocky shores of a wounded heart so deeply and how it still resonates today, is enough to make The Lady from the Sea a totally modern play.

This is a gem of a production in every way.

Produced by the Shaw Festival

Run: April 30-September 13, 2015
Cast: 8; 5 men, 3 women
Running Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

www.shawfest.com

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At the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto, Ont.

Adapted by Anton Piatigorsky
From the play by S. Ansky
Directed by Albert Schultz
Set by Lorenzo Savoini
Costumes by Shannon Lea Doyle
Lighting by Bonnie Beecher
Composition, Mike Ross with Richard Feren
Sound, by Richard Feren and Mike Ross
Starring: Hailey Gillis
Diego Matamoros
Colin Palangio
Jordan Pettle
Alex Poch-Goldin
William Webster

A tremendously moving play in an often affecting production, which sometimes gets carried away with its own cleverness.

The Story. The story takes place in the 1860s, in a shtetl, (a predominantly Jewish town), in Russia. Hasids (orthodox Jewish men) discuss points of Jewish law, tradition, commentary etc. Seven years before, Channon, a scholar came to study there. He was invited to dinner by Sender, a devout Jew and a rich man. Sender opened his home to ‘strangers’ as part of his duty to fellow Jews. Channon sat across the table from Sender’s daughter, Leah, and fell in love with her. He never told her. She found him attractive and liked him. Either through tradition or shyness Channon never declared his intentions to Sender either. But to earn the right to declare his intentions and be worthy of her Channon left the shtetl to wander and study. He returned seven years later. Leah remembers him. She is friendly to him. He prays harder and fasts and hopes to make his move but learns that Sender has made a match for Leah with a rich family. Channon feels he has no chance. He feels his penance and faith have been betrayed and he dies of a broken heart. Leah is saddened by his death, and feels even worse because of the man her father has picked for her.

In death Channon takes command. His troubled, restless soul takes possession of a living person, and that person is Leah. Thus begins a fierce fight to exorcise the Dybbuk. There are startling revelations along the way. The result is a gripping, heartrending story that transcends time, religion and worlds.

The Production. Anton Piatigorsky has adapted S. Ansky’s play with his usual sensitivity. This is a work that is deeply literary, poetic, mystical and evocative of that time long ago. Piatigorsky references the Kabbalah, religious thought, questions of religion and Judaism.

Director Albert Schultz and his design team have created a murky atmosphere that bridges two worlds. The sets by Lorenzo Savoini of the synagogue, Sender’s house, a rabbi’s house, and a cemetery are rough hewn, dark, almost oppressive which is apt. Bonnie Beecher’s splendid, evocative lighting showers down shafts of misty light. There is a scene that tells the story of a couple who died under the chupah (canopy) as they were marrying. The couple and the canopy sway as they are pulled between the world of life and the world of the dead and finally descend into the world of the dead.

Occasionally a Dybbuk is an evil spirit. Not so with Channon. His is a heartbroken, desperate spirit. While Channon (Colin Palangio) is meek and quiet speaking when he is alive, in death his restless soul is commanding, angry and forceful when he possesses Leah (Hailey Gillis) and answers those who are trying to remove him from her body.

His ‘possessing’ her is also moving. He stands behind her, his arms around her. In her way she is holding him to her as well—two souls melded.

Colin Palangio gives a heartbreaking performance as Channon. He is almost stooped from penance and praying to be worthy of Leah. His voice is soft. When he sees her his gaze is intense. As Leah, Hailey Gillis has the confidence of a young woman who knows her mind and feels she can express it. She brightens when she sees Channon. She is attracted to him. She is not attracted to the young man her father has chosen for her and her upset at this situation is moving. Her father, Sender, is concerned as well. As Sender, Alex Poch-Goldin has that attitude of a man in control. He has money. That has weight in his community. But Sender is also a loving father, and Poch-Goldin is visibly moved by his daughter’s distress. And when she is possessed, here is a father who doesn’t know what to do to help her and that’s devastating to him.

On the whole this is a good production that serves the play, but I do have concerns. When Sender needs for the help of a learned Rabbi to help deal with the Dybbuk, he goes to Rabbi Azriel , played by a distinguished, older William Webster. Webster is commanding in his calmness and his knowledge in how to deal with such a problem. But when Rabbi Azriel needs further help with the problem, he goes to a Rabbi even more learned than he is. He goes to Rabbi Shimshin who is played by Jordan Pettle who is probably 30 years younger than Webster. Now that can’t be right. The world of the shtetl is precise. Those who are learned are elderly. Pettle, while a fine actor, serious, committed, thoughtful, it’s a real stretch to believe that the elder Rabbi Azriel would defer to a much young Rabbi Shimshin for help in this problem.

There is a messenger (Diego Matamoros) who seems to deliver words of wisdom about both worlds. He has an important message for Rabbi Azriel in his attempts to exorcise the Dybbuk. What he says is simple but profound. Surely that deserves a moment to sink in and startle Rabbi Azriel. Yet director Albert Schultz does not give Webster the moment to ponder it—Webster just carries on as if nothing serious is said.

For all his good intentions Schultz tends to give into over direction and fussy attention grabbing business in his productions. Case in point is a shadow image that initially looks impressive, but on further reflection makes no sense.

Both Leah and Channon stand about ten feet apart from either other, with their backs to each other. Both hold their arms out in front of them. Yet the shadow image on the back wall is of two people facing each other, their arms straight out towards each other, with their finger tips touching. If we are to view Leah and Channon that shadow image is wrong. It’s a lot of effort with confusing results to suggest that Leah and Channon are connected in a spiritual world. We are really taken out of a scene that should grab us and connect us to those two spirits. You want to tell Schultz that so much of his production is dandy, so enough with the ‘fancy-shmancy effects. Less is best.

Comment. For me, The Dybbuk is the best love story of all time. Period. Romeo and Juliet? Petulant teenaged pishers. How long did Romeo and Juliet take from the time they met, were smitten, married (a few days later); he had a swordfight and killed her cousin and was banished; then she has to marry Paris and takes a sleeping potion and makes people think she’s dead and then she’s buried and Romeo comes back and dies when he sees her supposedly dead—a week, a week and a half tops? Pishers! Feh.

On the other hand, in The Dybbuk Channon is a respectful man of his time. He follows convention and does not push himself on Leah, who he obviously loves. But for seven years he does penance in order to show God he is worthy of her and finally to win her. When that’s not enough and she is promised to someone else he dies of grief at the loss of her and perhaps his faith. Then his restless soul possesses her. A restless soul in the body of a live person, in this case, Leah, is a Dybbuk. Every effort of the senior Rabbi goes into exorcising the Dybbuk from Leah. What they don’t count on is that Leah’s soul doesn’t want him to leave. It’s this entwining of souls, transcending life and the real world and embracing the mystical world that makes this the best love story of all time for me.

Soulpepper Theatre Company presents:

Run: May 14, 2015 to June 27, 2015.
Cast: 22: 13 men, 9 women
Running Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

www.soulpepper.ca

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At the Factory Studio Theatre, Toronto, Ont.

Marionette, costumes and set design by Ronnie Burkett
Music, lyrics and sound design by John Alcorn
Starring: Ronnie Burkett
Rosemary Focaccia
Franz
Major-General Lesley Fuckwad
Meyer Lemon
Miss Lillian Lunkhead
And her brother who’s name I forgot.
Mrs. Edna Rural
Schnitzel
Dolly Wiggler
Little Woody Linden
And various accommodating gentlemen from the audience.

Ronnie Burkett, that master of sharp-speaking marionettes is back with his freewheeling, bold, blistering show that takes no prisoners but often has moments of startling tenderness.

The Beginning. Ronnie Burkett created The Daisy Theatre in 2013 as a co-commission of the Luminato Festival and the Centre for the Art of Performance at UCLA in Los Angeles. It was billed as “unleashed and unscripted.” Burkett created marionettes specifically for this show. Each marionette had a story. And because the show was unscripted for the most part, each show in the run was different. The cast of characters would vary from show to show. People from the audience would be invited to participate. What was constant was the sheer power of Burkett’s imagination and his breathtaking artistry with the marionettes.

The Return. Ronnie Burkett has returned to Toronto with a cast of about 40 marionettes. On the opening night there are familiar faces such as Dolly Wiggler, stripper extraordinaire, who never met a piece of clothing she didn’t want to take off in front of an audience; Major-General Lesley Fuckwad (retired), a no-nonsense military man who loves to break into song while wearing an intriguing costume; Miss Lillian Lunkhead, “Canada’s oldest and worst actress” who has criss-crossed the country with her brother doing scenes from Shakespeare and other masters. She is particularly fond of playing Juliet’s death scene (Juliet of course was 14. Lillian hasn’t seen 14 for decades and decades. Pluck and bad lighting have gotten her through); Schnitzel, a sweet, wide-eyed fairy child with a flower growing out of the top of his bald head, who is brow-beaten and perhaps worse by his brutish friend Franz. Through it all Schnitzel is the fragile creature we hold dear and want to protect; and the equally beloved Mrs. Edna Rural, a widow, who has left her small Alberta town to come to Toronto. She encounters a different world, different lifestyles that occasionally startle her, but she remains, optimistic, open-hearted and compassionate.

There are also new creations (for me at least, even after seeing several Daisy Theatre shows at Luminato in 2013). Meyer Lemon is a tired, old LA ventriloquist who has not worked in a long time. Little Woody Linden is his puppet. They walk out slowly from the wings. Meyer Lemon holds Little Woody Linden. During the act Meyer Lemon falls asleep but still holds on to Woody. Woody is left to speak for himself. He recounts how his colleague was masterful at throwing his voice in his hay-day. He could pronounce the difficult “M” and no one could tell because his lips didn’t move. Those days are gone, but Woody can’t leave because the two are ‘attached’ after working together for so long. Meyer Lemon awakens when he hears applause. He takes a bow; holds Woody aloft in a salute of sorts, then shuffles off.

Rosemary Focaccia is the angriest, most frustrated lounge-singer you will ever see. She is frustrated and vociferous at the incompetence of the stage hands she has to contend with. Swearing is her natural way of expression. She demands a spotlight and gets it.

Comment. Burkett bounds out, enthusiastic, brimming with anticipation to see how the evening unfolds. You get the sense that while there might not be a formal script, there is a structure, an outline of the story of each marionette that might change a bit from show to show. Burkett’s mind is so quick, his perceptions of the world of each of his creations so clear, that as ideas strike him, he will ad lib a comment that will leave you reeling. You also know that he knows which marionettes will be included in that evening’s performance and which will not.

Burkett briefly says how The Daisy Theatre will be different from his usual shows. There won’t be references to the Holocaust, Armageddon, mass destruction, disease, pestilence, or any of the dark subjects that have filled his shows in the past. The Daisy Theatre presents vignettes of the lives of the individual marionettes we will meet in the evening. This is not to say the tone and attitudes are different from a regular Burkett show. They aren’t. In The Daisy Theatre Burkett still champions the people who time, opportunity and society have passed by, but who continue to try no matter how deluded or forgotten they are. He gives voice to those angry at an unfair, mean world, and he gives voice to those adding to that unfair, meanness. But through it all, balancing the darkness, are Schnitzel and Edna Rural, the heart and soul of The Daisy Theatre. They are the fragile in nature but the true, strong of heart

Of course Burkett can be using his marionettes to voice his own anger and disappointment at the world he lives in. His sense of observation is so clear and sharp you will find yourself wincing quite often at the truth of what he says.

The constant in a Ronnie Burkett production is his staggering artistry. The action unfolds in a decorated wagon that holds the marionettes and props. Burkett stands about five feet above the wagon’s stage manipulating the wires and bits and pieces attached to his marionettes below. Burkett is brilliant. Clear and simple. But he is an artist not content to leave it at that. He is always pushing himself to do it better; to try something knew.

You spend most of your time picking up your dropped jaw at something dazzling he has done and just accept it as the magic of the master. Just when you think you can deal with Dolly Wiggler, a marionette who strips seductively, Burkett introduces us to Meyer Lemon and Little Woody Linden. In this instance he is manipulating Woody, a marionette whose mouth is opening and closing, who tries to jump away but is attached. I have long given up wondering, “How does he do that?” I just accept it for the artistry that is Ronnie Burkett.

I will be interviewing Ronnie Burkett tomorrow morning, March 20 on CIUT FRIDAY MORNING, 89.5 FM at 9 am.

Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes presents:

Opened: March 18, 2015
Closes: April 5, 2015
Running time: 90 minutes to 2 hours.

www.factorytheatre.ca

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At Theatre Passe Muraille, Mainspace, Toronto, Ont.

Written by Suzanne Lebeau
Translated by Julia Duchesne and John van Burek
Directed by John van Burek
Designed by Teresa Przybylski
Lighting by Jason Hand
Composed by Debashis Sinha
Starring: Patricia Cano
Caity Quinn
Harveen Sandhu

A harrowing, unsentimental look at the life of two child soldiers.

The Story. We are in an unnamed, war-torn country. Elikia, aged thirteen, and Joseph, aged eight, escape from a rebel camp where they are child soldiers. After Elikia witnessed unspeakable tortures and rape of her mother and family by the rebels, she was taken by them into the jungle, chosen by the warlord to be his wife and given a gun. She was ten at the time. She stayed for three years. Joseph was new to the group. Each was trained as child soldiers to obey orders and kill who they were ordered to.

They escape with one pair of boots between them, little water and whatever food, grass and sand, they can find to eat. Elikia is trying to take Joseph home to his village by the sea.

Juxtaposed with this story is the story of Angelina, a nurse in a hospital near Joseph’s village that treats children, such as Joseph and Elikia, suffering from the horrors of war. Angelina is testifying at a tribunal about child soldiers. She is using Elikia’s journal to describe the unspeakable and indescribable.

The Production. Director John van Burek continues to bring challenging plays from other languages to Toronto under the aegis of his theatre company Pleiades Theatre. The Sound of Cracking Bones comes from celebrated French Canadian playwright, Suzanne Lebeau. Julia Duchesne and John Van Burek did the English translation of the play from the French.

Van Burek does not shy away from challenges or the darkness in the material. For the purposes of the play he cast a cross section of ethnicities to realize that there is no one ethnicity of child soldiers. He also cast three women to play all the parts, which means that a woman, Caity Quinn, plays Joseph. And she does it beautifully.

To suggest the dark world of the jungle, designer Teresa Przybylski has created two huge, tall and forbidding structures reminiscent of the tangled trees of the jungle. At times they revolve. The leaves seem to be made of some metal. There is a rustling sound when it revolves. It’s forbidding if you are a kid in the pitch dark of the jungle. Added to that is the evocative lighting of Jason Hand. The result is a menacing, forbidding environment in which the enemy can be anywhere.

Because the audience is watching two young kids run away from the rebels, there is a breathlessness about the children’s desire to get to freedom at all cost. The pace is ramped up because Elikia is jungle-smart. She knows the rebels, the dangers, the pitfalls and what awaits them if they get caught. And of course there is the relentless sense of running.

Harveen Sandhu as Elikia maintains that heightened sense of urgency. This is a nuanced performance even though it’s easy to fall into the temptation of just being totally angst-ridden. Sandhu avoids that but still let’s us know of the heart-pounding predicament both children are in.

As Joseph, Caity Quinn is all gangly arms and legs, and boyish exuberance. Joseph has been through hell but still has innocence on his side. He learns quickly. With her short hair it’s easy to be convinced that Quinn is in fact an eight year old boy. This is the magic of theatre to take us into another world when it’s done so well.

As Angelina, Patricia Cano is grace and patience personified. She must bear witness to a tribunal that hasn’t got a clue. She must convey the beauty and horror of what Elikia has written and Cano does it with a quiet delivery, composure, pauses in her dialogue full of importance. Her exasperation is so well placed at the ignorance of the unseen tribunal it is resounding. When Elikia came to the hospital Angelina convinced her to give up her gun in place of a notebook to record what she saw for those three years in the jungle. The result was that eloquent, grim account.

Comment. In the last week I’ve seen two challenging plays that don’t let you look away. Abyss at Tarragon Extraspace is about the effects of the horrors of war on a young child who sees his family killed and carries that image with him into adulthood. And The Sound of Cracking Bones is about child soldiers who have seen and done worse.

Suzanne Lebeau in The Sound of Cracking Bones writes about something we only read about in the newspapers or see on the news, but she does it with a stunning poetic eloquence. Director John van Burek brings all that eloquence and fraught emotion to his gripping production. There certainly is something hard to think about. Kudos to everyone involve.

Pleiades Theatre with the support of Theatre Passe Muraille presents.

Opened: Feb. 18, 2015
Closes: Feb. 28, 2015
English performances: Feb. 18 – 28
French Performances: March 3-7, 2015
Cast: 3 women
Running Time: 70 minutes.

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January, 2014

Manon, Sandra and the Virgin Mary

At Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Toronto, Ont.

By Michel Tremblay

Directed by John Van Burek

Richard McMillan played Sandra as a sashaying, coy, seductive, bitter transvestite. As the audience filled in, McMillan, as Sandra, strolled on stage wearing a floor-length satin dressing gown. He sat down at a table facing us and stared.  His middle finger made small circles on the surface of the table. He pouted at the audience. He was toying with us. The performance revealed a deep-rooted vindictiveness and sadness.

Irene Poole played Manon, a repressed, religious woman, stuck in her own disappointment. She wore a severe black suit with a long skirt. When she sat her knees were tight together and were covered by the skirt. Poole still pulled the skirt tighter down her already covered legs.

Slowly, almost without us noticing, the huge backdrop of the Virgin Mary ever so slowly came into view. Kudos to the lighting of Itai Erdal.

Light Princess

National Theatre, London, England.

Music and Lyrics by Tori Amos

Book and Lyrics by Samuel Adamson

Suggested by a story by George MacDonald.

Directed by Marianne Elliott

Designed by Rae Smith

Lighting by Paule Constable

Choreography by Steven Hoggett

Starring Rosalie Craig

Not exactly a shining moment for Tori Amos in her musical theatre debut, or for Samuel Adamson who keeps just missing in his playwriting. About a princess who is cursed to defy gravity and never really alight on the ground.

The always imaginative Steven Hoggett devised choreography-movement that had the princess floating in air, and ‘bounced’ and flipped by a group of black-clad men who were therefore to be considered invisible.  A technicolor set and striking lighting from director Marianne Elliott’s stalwart team:  Rae Smith on sets and Paule (pronounced Paulee) Constable on lighting.

Henry V

At the Noël Coward Theatre, London, England

Written by William Shakespeare (of course!)

Directed by Michael Grandage (part of his season of plays with British star actors)

Designed by Christopher Oram

Lighting by Neil Austin

Composed and sound by Adam Cork

Starring Jude Law

An unevenly acted production with Jude Law playing Henry V— the draw for this production. Mr. Law is determined to be taken seriously as an all-round commanding actor (both in film and on the stage). He didn’t blow me away but I admire his tenacity and his not being afraid to disappear into his characters and be unrecognizable.

As the all-important Chorus  (who calls “O for a muse of fire….” and sets the stage and tells us what is going to be ‘crammed within this wooden O’),  Ashley Zhangazha left a lot to be desired, starting with contained passion and  comprehension of the text. He needed a director to help him and Michael Grandage was not that person. Zhangazha was so busy flinging his arms around and seemed so delighted to be onstage that comprehension of what he was saying was flung away.

The back wall was curved like Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, which is where the play was first done. But when Zhangazha came to the line “Crammed within this wooden O,” instead of flinging his arms wide to indicate the curved walls, he flung his hands down in front of him, indicating the floor. Mystifying.

Stephen Ward

At the Aldwych Theatre, London, England

Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber

Book and Lyrics by Christopher Hampton and Don Black

Designed by Rob Howell

Lighting by Peter Mumford

Sound by Paul Groothuis

Choreography by Stephen Mear

Directed by Richard Eyre

Starring Alexander Hanson

Dr. Stephen Ward, osteopath, arranged women for his male friends in high places. He introduced John Profumo — in the British cabinet — to Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies. There was a scandal. Political crisis. Stephen Ward was sacrificed. Andrew Lloyd Webber thought this would make a swell musical.

Alexander Hanson was a suave, smooth Stephen Ward. He smoked with style. He put the slow moves on women. He sang beautifully. You wanted to take a shower after spending time with the character.

Lloyd Webber repeated and repeated melody lines and songs he wanted to be the hit tunes. With all that repetition naturally the melodies stuck. The first scene took place in The Chamber of Horrors in Blackpool. A semi-circle of wax figures — a who’s who of the monsters of the 20^th century were there — Hitler, Stalin, the Acid-bath murderer and Stephen Ward. Ward came out of the line of wax figures and sang that he was there on display between Hitler and the Acid-bath murderer. Only he wasn’t. He was between Hitler and Stalin. The Acid-bath murderer was waaaaay over there at the other end of the line.  I knew we were in trouble then. The show closed in four months.

Mojo

At the Harold Pinter Theatre, London, England.

Written by Jez Butterworth

Directed by Ian Rickson

Designed by Ultz

Lighting by Charles Balfour

Music by Stephen Warbeck

Sound by Simon Baker

Starring: Brendan Coyle

Rupert Grint

Tom Rhys Harries

Daniel Mays

Colin Morgan Ben Wishaw

Silver Johnny was a rock star on the club circuit in London. People went wild when he appeared. Everybody wanted to represent him. A kind of bidding war happened. Things got ugly. A guy who managed him was found in two barrels.

In setting up the scene when Johnny goes on stage, Tom Rhys Harris swiveled his hips to get in the groove; put his hands down his pants to ‘fluff’ himself up; then flung himself over a railing to jump on the stage below. Talk about a dramatic entrance. No stairs for this guy.

Brendan Coyle (a long way away from Mr. Bates on “Downton Abbey”) played the brains of one of the groups. Ben Wishaw, who usually plays slight, sensitive men, was unrecognizable as one of the toughs. A fabulous production.

Ghosts

At the Trafalgar Studios, London England

Written by Henrik Ibsen

Directed and adapted by Richard Eyre

Designed by Tim Hatley

Lighting by Peter Mumford

Sound by John Leonard.

Starring: Adam Kotz

Jack Lowden

Brian McCardie

Charlene McKenna

Lesley Manville

As Mrs. Alving, Lesley Manville was glorious. She can assume a look of sadness, despair, joy with a tinge of ‘something’ and yet never give it away. You didn’t see the last scene in her first entrance.

The design/set/lighting etc. were the other stars. Dark, forbidding walls then became slowly transparent with light as a glass wall appeared where we thought there was wood.  I love the ache of the play; the trapped, gasping characters. The sins of the father heaped down on his innocent son. That Ibsen knew his way around a woman’s heart and mind.

Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense

At the Duke of York’s Theatre, London, England

Written by The Goodale Brothers

From the works of P.G. Wodehouse.

Directed by Sean Foley

Designed by Alice Power

Lighting by James Farncombe

Music and sound by Ben and Max Ringham

Starring Matthew Macfadyen

Stephen Mangan

The story is impenetrable, complicated, and hilarious. Bertie Wooster, that upper-class twit, was played by the lively, toothsome Stephen Mangan. The always calm, efficient, wily Jeeves was played by a totally contained Matthew Macfadyen. With a purse of his lips, a raise of his eyebrows, and a slow pan to the audience, Macfadyen spoke volumes but said nothing.  These two actors played all the characters, both men and women, sometimes at the same time. At one point the set was changed when a hook attached to a wall of the set was then attached to a stationary bicycle and one of them peddled like mad, and the set then revolved to reveal another location. Great silliness.

Emil and the Detectives

At the National Theatre, London, England

Written by Erich Kästner

Adapted by Carl Miller

Directed by Bijan Sheibani

Designed by Bunny Christie

Lighting by Lucy Carter

Movement by Aline David

Music by Paul Englishby

Sound by Ian Dickinson

Starring a cast of thousands it seems, and one of three Emils (I think I had Daniel Patten)

Emil was going to his relatives by train. His mother gave him some food for the journey and money for his relatives. A scumbag thug on the train stole the kid’s money. When  Emil arrived at his destination the word went out to all the kids in the town about the theft an the need to get it back. The kids rallied. The scumbag was caught. The whole thing looked like a film noir setting. Loved it.

This is the show I was seeing when, at intermission, Andrew told his girlfriend Emily (sitting next to me) that they would honeymoon in Venice but would live in Pasadena. Emily seemed agreeable. Then Andrew announced he wanted to get married when he was 24. That gave them 15 years to plan it all, Andrew pointed out, because he is currently nine.

Happy Days

At the Young Vic

Written by Samuel Beckett

Directed by Natalie Abrahami

Designed by Vicki Mortimer

Lighting by Paule Constable

Sound by Tom Gibbons

Movement by Joseph Alfond

Starring: David Beames

Juliet Stevenson

I saw the second or third preview. Not fair to comment. Never mind. This was one of the best productions of this hard play I have ever seen. Vickie Mortimer designed a mound of earth at the bottom of a craggy cliff. Every time the bell rang with its teeth-gritting sound, pebbles would trickle down the cliff. This takes away any mystery as to how Winnie got buried up to her waist. Even in repose, bent down over the mound, Juliet Stevenson as Winnie, looked like it was an unrestful sleep. The jollity was forced. The tenacity of Winnie was heartbreaking and impressive.

In Act II Winnie should be up to her neck in dirt. Here she wasn’t. She was up to her chin—much worse.  When Winnie screamed twice in Act II, to release tension, get rid of angst, the stones trickled more and faster. That made me heartsick. To be stuck, trapped, desperate to release a desperation by screaming, and the scream loosens pebbles that are slowly burying you. God! As Willie, Winnie’s consort, David Beames is masterful  — present but absent, trying to help and failing. The director is Natalie Abrahami. Brilliant.

 

 

 

 

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The following two reviews were broadcast on Friday, Dec. 26, 2014 CIUT FRIDAY MORNING, 89.5 fm. Into the Woods at selected movie theatres. A Midsummer Night’s Dream from Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, plus a mention of other Shakespeare productions from the Stratford Festival and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, Eng. That will play at selected cinemas over the next few months.

(PHIL)
Good Boxing Day to you. Ordinarily I would say it’s theatre fix time with Lynn Slotkin, our theatre critic and passionate playgoer. But Lynn tells me she’s reviewing films today with a theatrical background. Hi Lynn. Explain.

(LYNN)
Hi Phil. I’m reviewing the film of Into the Woods which opened at selected cinemas yesterday.

And I’m also talking about a filmed performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that played at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London.

Most important I have to say that Daniel Garber, our regular film critic, gave me permission to review Into the Woods and I just heard about the film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream this week. I don’t think Daniel would mind.

In both cases the films are based on plays that opened in theatres. In both cases the woods factor heavily, but there is a twist.

(PHIL)
Ok we can wait for the twist. Let’s start with Into the Woods. What’s the story?

(LYNN)
In the case of Into the Woods, this is the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical that opened on Broadway in 1987. Stephen Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics and James Lapine wrote the book (and also directed the musical for the theatre.

For our purposes for the film, Sondheim and Lapine repeated their writing duties. The film is directed by Rob Marshall.

The story melds several fairy tales: Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Rapunzel and Jack and the Beanstalk. At the centre of them all is a childless Baker and his Wife. They are desperate to have a child but can’t because the Witch next door put a curse on their house.

It seems that when the Baker was a baby his mother was pregnant again and had a craving for greens. So the Baker’s father stole greens from the Witch’s garden, including some magic beans. To call it square the Witch wanted the soon to be born baby to be turned over to her.

One thing lead to another….she took the baby and put a curse of barrenness on the future line of the Baker and his Wife. But there is a way to reverse the curse.

The Baker has to bring the Witch a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn and a slipper as pure as gold. That’s how all the other fairy tales meld together and it all happens in the woods.

(PHIL)
Is it a ghost story or something else.

(LYNN)
Being a Stephen Sondheim musical, it’s definitely something else. Sondheim delves into the wounded heart.

He knows about desperation and how to express it in a lyric. His facility with language is astonishing. Everybody in the stories is wishing for something better, something else. The Baker and his Wife wish for a child. Jack wishes his aged cow would give milk. Cinderella wishes to go to the Festival (at this point she’s not even thinking about the Prince). They all realize to be careful what they wish for. Then their wishes change. They don’t want to be alone. Even the Witch wants the child she stole—named Rapunzel—to remain with her and not to leave her alone.

The Baker, who wants to solve the Witch’s riddle on his own, realizes that it’s better to include his Wife in the process. And there’s an irate Giant who terrorizes the nearby village.

They all learn about decency, forgiveness, working together, some change for the better, some don’t.

(PHIL)
Has this been a smooth transition from the stage to the screen?

(LYNN)
Not entirely smooth. A set of the woods was created full of forbidding trees, darkness. The cast is star-studded and exemplary. Meryl Streep plays the Witch with all the flash and dazzle you would expect of that gifted actress. She’s bitter, angry, heartbreaking and sings like a dream. Kudos to the make-up people.

James Corden plays the Baker and his journey is the most profound. He learns how to take charge, be a leader, make hard decisions, and learn that he will not be like his father who deserted him when he needed him. Emily blunt plays the Baker’s Wife and there’s a loving delicacy about her. The Wolf is played by a wily, creepy Johnny Depp. So the acting talent is there.

The problem is director Rob Marshall. In spite of a background in musical theatre, as a film director he can’t get out of the way and let the material speak for itself. He’s so busy moving the camera all over the scene, circling an actor who is singing Sondheim’s difficult lyrics, that it’s all you can do to focus on the person singing.

Aside from the movie stars in the film, there is a host of celebrated British actors in it as well, but you would hardly know it because Marshall has deliberately shot them in gloomy light so you can’t make out their faces.

The Giant is played by a formidable Frances de la Tour, but again Marshall teases us with hints of her face. I found myself sitting forward to try and find the face in the tangle of branches obstructing it. Is Marshall being coy? Don’t show the face at all, if you want to be coy.

We see the Baker’s father in shadow the first time. Then you see his face later in the film in close-up to see that it’s Simon Russell Beale, considered one of the best actors in England. That seems like deliberately sloppy direction for the sake of atmosphere?

(PHIL)
Let’s move to the film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream You said there was a twist between the two films.

(LYNN)
Into the Woods and A Midsummer Night’s Dream are filmed versions of plays that originally played in a theatre.

With Into the Woods a whole set was built of the woods, and a village to accommodate the filming of the piece so they were going to adapt the stage play for film.

With A Midsummer Night’s Dream cameras were set up in Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, in London last summer and an actual performance was filmed from beginning to end. This is complete with packed audience, including the groundlings, some of whom had their chins resting on their arms which were on the stage as they watched.

The filming of actual performances for broadcasting or showing in a cinema is becoming the norm.

The National Theatre Live series has filmed many of its live productions and broadcast them hours later. The Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre is following suit.

Even our own Stratford Festival has filmed three of its productions from last summer: >King Lear, King John, and Antony and Cleopatra and they will be shown in high definition this winter and spring at the Cineplex at Silver City at Young and Eglinton.

(PHIL)
And again the woods factor heavily in the story?

(LYNN)
Yes. Hermia is in love with Lysander and he loves her. Her father wants her to marry Demitrius. She doesn’t want to. Her father therefore says that he is seeking the law of the land that allows him to marry off his daughter to whomever he likes, or have her put to death. A bit harsh, that.

Helena loves Demetrius but he won’t look at her. So to escape all this angst, Hermia and Lysander escape to the woods in Athens—and they are followed by Helena and Demetrius. There are also meddling and warring fairies in that woods and they get involved as well. Emotions are high.

Again a kind of frenzy of emotions swirls through those woods and all manner of mistaken identity; shifting identities; sexual innuendo comes into play.

(PHIL)
As this is a filming of a stage production, how is that transition?

(LYNN)
I think it’s better than most. In a stage play the audience can look anywhere on that stage at any character and glean something about the character or the production as a whole. In film, we look where the director focuses his lens and our attention. In filming a straight production while it’s going on the director has to anticipate where the audience might look. The camera has to be ready to film subtext or subtleties all over the place.

As I said this effort is better than most. It also helps that the production at the Globe is so well done; funny athletic, fall down funny. The stage version is directed by Dominic Dromgoole, the artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. It’s one of the funniest productions of this I’ve seen and the camera captures that. The acting is very strong for the most part—the biggest exception is Puck who is not impish, devlish, or funny enough.

This production will be joined later for a showing of The Taming of the Shrew January 24 and The Tempest on February 21. Once again Shakespeare comes to the fore, this time in film.

And if you want to see the genius of Stephen Sondheim and a smart theatrical book by James Lapine then check out Into the Woods.

(PHIL)
Thanks Lynn. That’s Lynn Slotkin, our theatre critic and passionate playgoer. You can read Lynn’s blog at www.slotkinletter.com. Twitter @slotkinletter

Into the Woods the film, plays at various cinemas in the city. Check listings for time and location.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream a filmed performance at Shakespeare’s Globe plays at the Bloor Hot Docs cinema tomorrow, December 27.
Again, check listings for time.

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At the Young Centre for the Performing Arts

Based on Spoon River Anthology Edgar Lee Masters.
Adapted by Mike Ross and Albert Schultz
Directed by Albert Schultz
Composed by Mike Ross
Musical Arranger and musical director, Mike Ross
Set and Lighting designed by Ken MacKenzie
Costumes designed by Erika Connor
Sound by Jason Browning
Starring: Frank Cox-O’Connell
Mikaela Davies
Oliver Dennis
Raquel Duffy
Peter Fernandes
Katherine Gauthier
Hailey Gillis
Gordon Hecht
Stuart Hughes
Richard Lam
Anthony MacMahon
Diego Matamoros
Miranda Mulholland
Oyin Oladijo
Colin Palangio
Nancy Palk
Gregory Prest
Mike Ross
Brendan Wall

A rousing production with toe-tapping music that is strangely at odds with the dark nature of the poems.

The Story. Each of the more than 60 poems in the evening is a story in itself. They tell of the loves, disappointments, unhappy marriages, jealousies; infidelities; rumour mongering of the town; the ruination of a reputation because of an early indiscretion; the effects of demon drink; and in a few cases, the joy and celebration of life.

The Production. We are at Bertie Hume’s funeral. We don’t enter the theatre in the regular way. Instead we are directed by funeral staff dressed in black to walk down a back stage corridor, fitted out to seem like a hallway in a house. Framed faded photos line the walls. At the end of the corridor, in an alcove, is an open casket containing the guest of honour. Ms Bertie Hume wears a nice dress. She looks peaceful from the fleeting glance I give her.

Next we walk through a cemetery, complete with ghost white headstones; then down some stairs and into the dimly lit theatre with a sign on every seat indicating “Family”, “Visitor” or “Passer-by.” I thought it a nice touch that many people who walked by offered me condolences for my loss.

When we are all settled and the lights go down further, the funeral procession moves through the cemetery, their way lit by lamplight. We see the procession’s progress on the other side of a scrim on which is a huge, imposing black tree with branches. It’s as if the branches spread out protectively over the final resting place of all the people who will come to life to tell us their stories.

We learn that Bertie Hume loved life. We are told to use her philosophy and grab at life as much as we can before it’s over. Then the stage becomes alive with the spirits who have passed on, and they sing the rousing, foot-stomping, intoxicating song, “The Hill.” I think to myself that this show is about heart-bursting life and all its raucous joy. Interestingly, Mike Ross’s music, melodic, vivid and lively suggests that, but Edgar Lee Masters’s poems suggest otherwise. The McGees—Ollie McGee played by the blazing Rachel Duffy and Fletcher McGee played by the equally impressive Brendan Wall, sing individually of their long marriage in which they hated each other for every second of it. He took her youth, made her old and angry and then she died. He accuses her of draining his life as well and haunting him in death. The music is throbbing and intoxicating. You can’t help tapping your foot.

Stuart Hughes is touching and moving as he sings of “George Gray” a man afraid of life who shrank from it and learned too late to grab at life. Nancy Palk is deeply affecting as she tells us of “Nancy Knapp” and how she and her husband succumbed to rumour and ill-will, as they saw their farm and fortunes fail, driving her mad.

The cast of 19 are hugely accomplished in illuminating the world of each poem/song with subtlety, nuance, a leer here, a smile there, a grimace, a stare. They also all play an instrument or three supplying the music. Through it all is Mike Ross, musician, actor, musical director, watchful, supportive immersed in melody, his eye on his flock.

Towards the end we hear from Bertie Hume (“Bertie Hume”), the guest of honour. As Bertie, Hailie Gillis rises out of her casket and sings of the glories of life. Her face is bright, eager, embracing. We get a sense of a young woman gone before her time. Fiddler Jones (“Fiddler Jones”) (Oliver Dennis) follows her with his own aged perspective of the joys of living, urging us to grab at life and hold on. It all ends with the same raucous, foot stamping rendition of “The Hill.”

Director Albert Schultz keeps the large cast moving efficiently, adding his particular directorial touches to each poem.

Comment. Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology contains more than 200 poems recounting lives, disappointments, loss and loves of people resembling people he knew growing up in his small Midwestern town. The poems are vivid in depicting the quirks and personalities of all those people.

Mike Ross and Albert Schultz culled about 60 of the poems from two editions of Masters’s masterpiece for the production; collaborated on an adaptation while Mike Ross also composed music for every poem in the show. It’s a huge accomplishment, so kudos to Soulpepper and artistic director, Albert Schultz for bringing it off and Mike Ross for the herculean job of setting all the poems used to music.

It’s an observation, not a criticism that Ross’s compelling music is more uplifting than the poems suggest. The cast add their own humor to each poem which also lightens the mood. Perhaps taken on their own, it would be different. I do wish, though, that the program was able to identify each actor with the characters they played. As it is, there is just a list of the talented cast.

There is a poem/song entitled “Bertie Hume” that is in the list of works covered in Soulpepper’s Spoon River Anthology, but there is no such poem in Masters’s work. A mystery. It was solved by Mike Ross who wrote that there is a poem called “Bertram Hume” about a man who celebrated life, but Ross thought it better expressed a woman’s sensibilities so he changed the gender and the name to better reflect that. I just love that sensitive thought. The whole enterprise if full of that kind of care.

Produced by Soulpepper Theatre Company

Opened: November 3, 2014
Closes: Nov. 15, 2014
Cast: 19; 12 men, 7 women
Running Time: 1 hour 35 minutes.

www.soulpepper.ca

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Hedda Gabler

At the Store Front Theatre, 955 Bloor St. W.

Written by Henrik Ibsen
Directed and adapted by Harrison Thomas
Set design by Desiderata Theatre
Set dressing by Lynne Griffin
Costume design by Desiderata Theatre
Lighting by Desiderata Theatre
Sound by Tallan MD
Starring: John Chou
Lea Diskin
Lauren Horejda
Lynne Griffin
Carmine Lucarelli
Cameron Sedgwick
Anne van Leeuwen

A bold, eye-brow-raising interpretation of Ibsen’s landmark play.

The Story. Henrik Ibsen wrote Hedda Gabler in 1890. It’s about Hedda Gabler, General Gabler’s pampered daughter. She had grown up expecting to live her adult life in the kind of comfort and wealth she enjoyed when she lived with her father. She seemed to be attracted to men of questionable reputations but she was terrified of scandal. She therefore marries George Tessman, the first respectable man who asked her. Tessman is a good natured, nebbishy scholar who is counting on an academic job to keep Hedda in the style to which she has been accustomed. They have just returned from their six month honeymoon, and are settling into their new, grand home. Tessman bought it with the financial help of his Aunt Julia and Judge Brack, a family friend.

She should have everything she wants to make her happy, except she’s bored with her life with Tessman, and agitated because she’s also pregnant.

They are visited by Thea Elvsted, with whom Hedda went to school. Thea has heard that her friend Eilert Lovborg has come to that town and she’s followed him. Thea was a nanny for old Mr. Elvsted’s children at a town some distance away. She eventually married him. Eilert was the children’s tutor. Thea and Eilert had a relationship. She helped Eilert reform his wild ways and was his muse as he wrote a successful book. To make matters interesting, Hedda had a passionate relationship with Eilert years before, but again, because of the possibility of scandal that would result from her keeping company with the wild Lovborg, Hedda called it off.

All the parties eventually meet in Hedda’s house. Eilert arrives to reacquaint himself with Hedda and finds Thea there. Judge Brack arrives to insinuate himself into Hedda and Tessman’s lives with more focus on Hedda. Tessman hears that there might be a competition with Lovborg for the job Tessman feels is his. The walls are closing in on Hedda. She had always wanted to control another person’s destiny and thought that Lovborg’s life was hers to control. She is proven wrong with terrible results.

The Production. Harrison Thomas, the director/adapter of the play has re-imagined both Tessman and Lovborg as students of biology instead of history as per Ibsen. Mr. Thomas’s vision of the world of the play “is simultaneously a Victorian drawing room, a monument to decay, and a giant terrarium,” as he says in his program note. Mr. Thomas also says his vision focuses “on insects as the manifestation of pure need and biological imperative discovering beneath the antiquated veneer of the play, a world of sex, death, hunger and fear.”

The furniture is dark and masculine. A leather sofa is upstage centre. There are other dark chairs. There are a few paintings on the walls. There are various tanks with insects in them, one assumes.

Tessman and Berta the maid enter, laden down with luggage. Hedda and George have just returned from their honeymoon. Hedda follows nonchalantly carrying a large framed portrait of her father (we learn this later). She gives the painting to Berta, vaguely indicating with a wave of her hand where she wants the painting hung, then wanders off to bed.

When Auntie Julia arrives the next morning she is dressed in a bright red two piece suit and a rather garish hat. She also wears a glittery brooch in the shape of an insect. I thought that was interesting.

That whole look seems odd and vulgar for a benign aunt. As Auntie Julia, Lynne Griffin is both motherly to George and occasionally brittle to Hedda. She is a woman who has opinions and perception. She displays both before she leaves.

Judge Brack arrives next to say hello. He sits talking to Hedda and for their whole scene eats continuously from a plate of grapes and pears on the table in front of him. He reaches over to snip grapes one at a time off a cluster, popping each grape in his mouth, eating it noisily while sitting nonchalantly talking to Hedda. Later he rises and chomps on a pear, leaving it half-eaten in the plate when he’s finished.

Matters heat up. Lovborg rises to the challenge of attending Judge Brack’s little party ignoring the temptations that will be there to challenge him. He loses his manuscript not knowing Tessman has found it. Hedda burns it and now thinks she can control Lovborg to do the right thing as a consequence.

The production is a bit rough on the opening. A sound effect of a gun firing doesn’t happen the first time a gun fires, but fortunately does for the crucial second time it’s supposed to go off. Dialogue comes out breathy and rushed. I trust matters will settle as they do the run.

As Hedda, Lauren Horejda is striking and confident. As Tessman, Cameron Sedgwick is boyish and under Hedda’s thumb for most of the play. He comes into his own when he decides to honour Lovborg’s work.

I think it a bold decision of Mr. Thomas to have Judge Brack (Carmine Lucarelli) press himself onto Hedda when he does in Act II, to raise the stakes. It’s just that I think that aggressive move comes a bit too early and diminishes the power of the subtle comment that Brack will come and visit her every night while Tessman works elsewhere. We should be building to this scene, not have it sidetracked.

Comment. It’s always interesting to see the work of a young artist at the beginning of his/her career and certainly a young artist with as much curiosity, intelligence and tenacity as Harrison Thomas. He is also an actor. But it is directing where I think his heart is. I found his reimagining of Romeo and Juliet earlier this year engaging and muscular in its vision. The same drive and intellect is obvious in this production of Hedda Gabler. And while I certainly applaud his bravery in rethinking Ibsen’s play by setting it in the insect world, I don’t think it works because the play does not support the thesis.

Insects live in a defined, formal world. The rules are clear. It’s the survival of the fittest and that’s that. There is no sentiment, no angst, no boredom. Humans live in a fuzzy, messy world full of one person trying to overpower another, manipulation, sentiment, angst, anger, disappointment, and boredom. That’s true in abundance in Ibsen’s play. And aspects Mr. Thomas says are in the insect world at its base (sex, death, hunger and fear) are certainly clear in the human world, so why stray away from them in a world that is tangential to Ibsen’s intent?

Ibsen wrote Tessman and Lovborg as students of history for a reason. Tessman is fascinated with the most arcane aspects of history without even a clue about their application to the wider, ‘real’ world. When Lovborg says that his next book will be about the future, Tessman says innocently, “But we don’t know anything about the future.” And he’s totally right. He doesn’t know anything about the future because he hasn’t seen an application of history to it. Isn’t the future only history repeated? Aren’t we told, “Know thy history, for it shall repeat itself? “ All this is news to Tessman but not to Lovborg, who does know how history is really the future repeated. To Tessman’s credit, he does admire and appreciate Lovborg’s scholarship and brains. Tessman’s calling is to honour Lovborg’s memory by organizing his work.

I can appreciate a director wanting to be provocative in his directorial choices, as Mr. Thomas does here, but sometimes a choice can backfire. For example, when Hedda first appears she is carrying a large portrait. Initially I thought she bought it on the trip and then instructed Berta about where to put it. But later it’s clear that this is her father’s portrait presumably brought from her father’s house to her new one. That makes no sense. The new house has been prepared for their arrival. That portrait would already have been there. They didn’t make a stop to the old house to get it. They came from the boat directly home. Does that mean she carried her father’s portrait with her for the whole of the six month honeymoon? I shouldn’t be wondering about these things.

When Brack arrives he is constantly eating from a fruit bowl, picking grapes from a bunch and noisily eating them. Is this to show his huge appetite for food as well as for Hedda? Perhaps to liken him to a praying mantis—a true predator? Ok, but the problem is that his eating so detracts from the actual scene between Hedda and himself that I can’t tell you a thing either of them said to one another for his pulling focus with every grape.

Later when Thea and Hedda have fallen asleep at Hedda’s while Thea waits for Lovborg to come and take her home, Hedda is awakened by Berta’s loud operatic singing of ‘o mio babbino caro.’ I believe that Lea Diskin, the actress playing her has that lovely operatic voice and would know that aria. I don’t for a second believe that Berta would know it.

A tiny point to conclude. Hedda loves the dangerous world of Brack and wants to hear about it since she daren’t dip into it. Brack loves regaling her with his life and keeping her company. They are in a sense alter-egos of each other. They would finish each other’s sentences in the same way. This is so clear when Brack and Hedda are talking and he mentions a triangle as a metaphor for his relationship with Hedda and Tessman, and that it’s like a train journey they are on. Then Tessman comes home at that point. Depending on the translation Brack says, “The triangle is complete.” Hedda says, “The train goes (moves) on. It is the same construction of the sentences for both, mirroring one another. In this production Brack says, “The triangle is complete.” Hedda says, “On goes the train” which is jarring and seems odd.

As I said, Harrison Thomas is a young director, feeling his way, thinking, questioning, pondering about the ideas of theatre. It’s interesting seeing him develop along his journey. I look forward to seeing what he does in the future.

Produced by Leroy Street Theatre and Desiderata Theatre Company

Opened: August 26, 2014
Closes: Sept 7, 2014
Cast: 7; 3 men, 4 women
Running Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes, approx.

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