Search: Dark Heart

Review: HEDDA GABLER

by Lynn on August 31, 2014

in The Passionate Playgoer

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.

{ 0 comments }

Text of Broadcast Reviews of: KAFKA’S APE, THE CONTAINER, ANTIGONICK, GRACEFUL REBELLIONS

by Lynn on August 8, 2014

in The Passionate Playgoer

The following plays were reviewed on Friday, August 8, 2014. CIUT FRIDAY MORNING, 89.5 fm. Summerworks roundup of four shows: Kafka’s Ape, The Container, Antigonick, Graceful Rebellions. All playing at various theatres until August 17.

The host was Phil Taylor.

(PHIL)
Good Friday morning, it’s theatre talk time with Lynn Slotkin, our theatre critic and passionate playgoer. Hi Lynn. What’s up this week?

(LYNN)
‘Morning Phil. This week it’s all things Summerworks. It’s a wonderful 10 day festival of about 42 one act plays that opened yesterday and continues at various locations until Aug. 17.

(PHIL)
With so much to choose from how do you decide what to see?

(LYNN)
In some cases it’s really easy—if there is swearing in the title or anything I can’t say on the radio, I won’t go near it. There are a few like that this year. But I will usually pick something original if at all possible. If the story is interesting or it’s written by a writer I like or stars or is directed by people whose work I admire, then I pick them.

I was particularly ruthless about the plays I picked for this broadcast. I saw four; one was a media preview I saw on Wednesday. They are: >Kafka’s Ape, The Container, Antigonick and Graceful Rebellions.

(PHIL)
What attracted you to these in particular?

(LYNN)
I saw Kafka’s Ape at a media preview Wednesday. Based on Kafka’s Report to an Academy—anything by Kafka will be challenging. This piece is that and more so.

An ape named Redpeter is captured in Africa and realizes to escape he must ape the ‘U-mans’ who have captured him. So he learns English and becomes adept at the ‘U-man’ ways—violence, intimidation, conquest. He climbs up the ladder of an organization that has branches in several countries requiring mercenaries and a war machine.

It’s a chilling allegory for countless instances from the notion of work makes freedom (Arbeit Macht Frei –the phrase over the gate at Auschwitz), to any conquering nation over another.

It’s adapted by Guy Sprung who also directs it with flare. It almost has the poetic lyricism of Tennessee Williams. With an impressive performance of Howard Rosenstein as Redpeter who adds to the poetic aspect by doing it with a southern drawl.

Then The Containerr by Clare Bayley, directed by Zachary Florence, fine work in both cases. It takes place in a shipping container. It puts the audience in the container along with several refugees who are fleeing their countries for whatever reason, hoping to get to England. I found that intriguing.

The audience sits on benches inside the container, joined by the various refuges. They bicker, angle for food, tell their stories to a point, keep secrets and try to keep their cool in terrible situations. At one point the agent, who is the go between, says that the driver of the truck transporting the container wants more money. They have all given their savings for the initial journey. They don’t have more, so they say.

It’s gripping how they manipulate and manoeuvre each other to help come up with the funds. I thought that perhaps the audience might have been approached in the container to donate money, but reasoned that since the audience hadn’t been approached other wise then they wouldn’t be in this instance.

(PHIL)
Is it claustrophobic in the container?

(LYNN)
There is a warning about that for those who are claustrophobic. It’s a container large enough for an audience of 19 and 4 refugees along with the agent who occasionally opens the door of the container to deal with those inside. It gets warm in there. We are given a bottle of water as we go in. When the door is slammed shut, we are in darkness. Any light comes from a crack along the door edge, from flashlights and the occasional light bulb.

We can never fully understand the trauma, drama and angst these people have to endure to run to freedom but The Container gives us a taste of it. I think it’s important to feel uncomfortable and unsettled occasionally—in this case, an hour.

The writing is sharp. The acting is terrific. It’s a fine piece of unsettling theatre—the best kind of theatre.

(PHIL)
And what about Antigonick. What the story on this one?

(LYNN)
I saw this because it is written by poet-writer Anne Carson and has a cast of a lot of first rate actors. It’s based on the Greek myth of Antigone and her two brothers who fought the Theban war on opposite sides. Both brothers died fighting each other.

King Kreon, the new Theban King, decreed that one brother should be buried with pomp and ceremony because he was on the ‘right’ side and the other brother should not be buried because he was on the other side. Antigone is irate and is determined to bury her brother. The King is incensed. It ends badly for a lot of people.

As for the title, a character comments on the phrase “the nick of time” and what it means. I looked it up. It means that something is done when there is no other time to possibly do it. Antigone buries her brother when there is no other time to do it. Hence I think the title is a combination of Antigone’s name and ‘nick’. Perhaps this is a reach on Carson’s part.

(PHIL)
How does Anne Carson treat the material?

(LYNN)
She gives it a contemporary treatment as does the director Cole Lewis.The language is both esoteric and contemporary.

Of the four shows this is the weakest. I think the play is ponderous in its efforts to be provocative. The production has some interesting ideas—for instance, Kreon cuts his way through a cardboard wall for his entrance. But overall the pace is slow and that’s deadly to a show that should be full of heightened emotions. And there is a character who throughout the show holds up bits of red string as he looks at the audience or measures a character, cuts the string then tapes it to the back wall making patters. I find that totally mystifying.

(PHIL)
And Graceful Rebellions. What’s it about?

(LYNN)
It’s about some of the best theatre I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a stunning piece of theatre. It’s written by a new playwright named Shaista Latif who also performs it. It’s directed by Evalyn Parry who is also responsible for its development through Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.

This is what grabbed me when I read the description in the Summerworks brochure: “Can a queer Afghan woman identify herself in an occupied land?” That’s almost too simplistic. We hear this story through four voice, with Ms Latif changing costume and persona in front of us. First a giddy girl of 14 is telling us of the engagement party for her older sister that her mother is arranging. She also tells us how her mother has taught her that Afghan women speak in a whisper; are obedient; don’t go out of the house without a male member of their family to accompany them; always appear covered up. It’s said without irony.

The girl’s friend is another girl who is different. She asks that her hair be cut like a boy’s. The girl’s mother doesn’t like this friend. The next voice we hear is the friend who wanted her hair cut like a boy’s. Her family is killed so she dresses like a boy and enters the world of men, opium dealing and fighting. In a sense she disappears from her previous life. The voice here is deep, serious, focused and almost chilling in its deliberate lack of emotion.

Then we move to Canada where a young Afghan woman, 17, is in the principal’s office for fighting. She was defending herself against a bully. She is gay but daren’t tell her mother and pleads not to be expelled because the shame would be great. She and her mother came to Canada for a better life. The young woman is hip, confident with a bit of sass and very funny.

The last voice is another mother preparing for a wedding. Her world has exploded open since she came to Canada from Afghanistan. Her world is also changing when it comes to gender issues; the nature of marriage and how women should act. This voice is grace itself, open-hearted and embracing of a world that is strange and so different from what she expects.

All these women with their different voices are performed by Shaista Latif, with nuance, subtlety, compassion and dazzling ability. She writes beautifully about a very difficult and tricky subject and certainly gives us a vivid look into an Afghan world.

Shaista Latif is a new, vibrant voice in the theatre in this city and I want to hear it again. I would see her next play in a shot. This is what I have to say to her: More please, soon.

(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

Kafka’s Ape, The Container, Antigonick and Graceful Rebellions play at various venues as part of Summerworks until Aug. 17. Check the website for details.
www.summerworks.ca

{ 0 comments }

Review: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, A Chamber Play

by Lynn on July 29, 2014

in The Passionate Playgoer

Red face of furyAt the Masonic Music Hall, 15 Church St., Stratford, Ont.

Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Peter Sellars
Set and installation by Abigail DeVille
Lighting by James F. Ingalls
Sound by Tarek Ortiz

Starring: Sarah Afful
Dion Johnstone
Trish Lindström
Mike Nadajewski

A rethinking of Shakespeare’s play turned on its head.

The Story. There are two productions A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Stratford. One a full-length version with enough actors to play the parts, reviewed previously on my blog and the other, this one, a chamber version in which four actors play all the parts. I will list the two synopses versions from the Stratford brochure.

First the version usually associated with this play: “Threatened with death if she marries against her father’s wishes, Hermia elopes with her lover, Lysander, pursued by rival suitor Demetrius and his spurned admirer, Helena. In the enchanted woods, love’s lunacy reaches its giddiest heights—both for the bewildered couples and for an aspiring actor transformed into the unlikely consort of a fairy queen.”

Then the description of the chamber version of the play: “Two couples become gods, animals, demons, monsters, children, playthings and finally, gradually compassionate, honest loving adults. Across one intense night of confusion, delusion, repression, permission, forgiveness and release, Shakespeare’s masterpiece moves right into the open heart of our multiple selves and conflicted identities—the only thing that we know for certain in this life is that, along with the climate, we are changing.”

The Production. There seems to be a concerted effort to get away from anything that looks like a play in a theatre. A new space—the Masonic Music Hall– has been refitted to accommodate the production. The whole inside of the space has been taken over by Abigail DeVille’s art instillation. The walls are covered in bits of wood, material, thin, choppy panels of plywood. The ceiling is festooned with old chairs, some with numbers on the back, tubing, wheels, a crushed downspout, mesh. It looks like someone’s garbage or old furniture cleaned out of an attic.

The point is illusive. If every effort has been made not to reference anything done before, and certainly not in anything as staid as a theatre, then this art instillation is irrelevant to this production. It is amusing listening to some of the musings of the audience trying to explain it all, or at least to pass on what they have heard from various ‘knowledgeable’ sources. No body seems to question whether it makes sense or not.

The stage is small and not very deep. There are two doors on one side and one on the other. The set is painted a dark colour to suggest the dark forest I suppose. The rumbling soundscape of Tarek Ortiz fluctuates for the whole production. Sometimes subtle, more often so loud the room vibrates.

The production starts in darkness, with the sound rumbling to its loudest point. James F. Ingalls’s lighting snaps up revealing the two couples (Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius and Helena) facing the wall, holding it, leaning against it. They look strung out, depressed, morose, unhappy and irritated. I’m thinking that perhaps these characters are having a bad day at re-hab. Mike Nadajewski appears particularly high strung as Lysander. There are a lot of attempts at ‘affection’. The men especially stroke the women, caressing, kissing. The women occasionally return the attempt at affection, but most times it seems they are annoyed at the effort, especially Trish Lindström as Hermia.

One of the many things that strike me about this production is its overwhelming anger. Everybody seems to be raging. There is a sense of malaise, anguish, fury, irritation and despair. Puck, usually impish and irreverent if Shakespeare’s lines are any indication, is irritated when “she” (Sarah Afful) says “I’ll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes” when she has to find the flower for Oberon. Otherwise Puck is bad-tempered and humourless.

Oberon is particularly angry. He (Dion Johnstone) truly bellows when he is describing what Titania will experience after the flower’s juice is dropped in her eye:

“The next thing then she waking looks upon,
Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.”

Huh? Why the anger? When the liquor of the magic flower is put in Demetrius’s eyes to correct Puck’s previous error, Demetrius screams in anguish as if tortured. Perhaps he thinks his eyeballs are going to be gouged out? Wrong play?

That said, the scene between Bottom (Dion Johnstone) and Titania (Trish Lindström) is playful, sensual and very sexy. Bottom and Titania sit on the ground. She is behind him with her legs spread. He sits between her legs and lies back resting on her chest. She strokes him. He looks back smiling. It is a rare moment of humour and sensuality in this dark and morose production.

To fully understand what is happening in the production you have to be very familiar with this play so that you know who is saying what. The program does not list the characters the actors are playing. You just have to know.

Actors flit from character to character without benefit of different costumes, make-up, props, voices or anything else that differentiates them. The lines are given in the same way, no matter what character an actor is playing. Everyone has relentless angst, rage, and despair. As one character aptly says, it makes for a ‘tedious night.’

Comment. It’s always fascinating reading Director Peter Sellars’ extensive program notes. For A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Chamber Play, he says that perhaps Shakespeare’s play is “too well known.” Perhaps that’s why he has chosen to present it in a way that seems so at odds with what Shakespeare is actually saying and how his characters would talk.

In his program note Sellars references ‘Shakespeare’s moral cosmology” and how it “mirrors the Buddhist Six Classes of Living Beings.” He references Buddha, Jesus and Allah in the Koran and all manner of esoteric musings to support his concept of the play. What he doesn’t seem to reference is the actual play. Shakespeare’s play of A Midsummer Night’s Dream seems to have been forgotten in Sellars’ efforts to create a startling concept of it.

Of course anyone with a passing acquaintance of theatre knows there is not one prescribed way to do any play, Shakespeare notwithstanding. Every thing is open to interpretation. Just witness the two productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream playing at the Stratford Festival now. Chris Abraham’s production looks ‘straightforward’ but of course isn’t.

Peter Sellars’ chamber version of the play is a radical rethinking of it. Both are provocative.

And as there are many ways of interpreting a play for production, there are as many opinions of it as there are people watching it. Many will fall on their knees in lemming-like slavish supplication to the iconoclastic efforts of Peter Sellars, thinking this is the most incredible interpretation of the play they have ever seen. Others will think it’s a load of pretentious crap. Me, I hated it. Hell would be having to sit through this raging, joyless, loveless mess again. Feh.

Produced by the Stratford Festival

Opened: July 24, 2014
Closes: September 20, 2014
Cast: 4, 2 men and 2 women.
Running Time: 1 hour, 45 minutes, no intermission.

www.stratfordfestival.ca

{ 6 comments }

Review: KING LEAR (London, Eng.)

by Lynn on July 4, 2014

in The Passionate Playgoer

At the Olivier Theatre, London, England

Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Sam Mendes
Designed by Anthony Ward
Lighting by Paul Pyant
Projections Designed by Jon Driscoll
Sound by Paul Arditti
Music by Paddy Cunneen
Starring: Stephen Boxer
Tom Brooke
Richard Clothier
Kate Fleetwood
Anne Maxwell Martin
Michael Nardone
Simon Russell Beale
Adrian Scarborough
Stanley Townsend
Sam Troughton
Olivia Vinall

A stunning production that gets into the head and heart of a man who had to go mad to see the light.

The Story. Well we do know the story, don’t we? Bully King Lear decides to divide up his kingdom amongst his three daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, and it all goes wrong. A sub-plot is about another father, namely Gloucester, who has two sons. One is Edgar his legitimate son and the other is Edmund, his bastard son. He is duped by Edmund to think Edgar is evil and plotting. It goes wrong for Gloucester too. Oh these difficult fathers and their resultant ruined, wounded children.

The Production. Anthony Ward had designed an impressive, spare but elegant set. The costumes are modern. Suspended above the stage is a huge sun with a halo of shooting red flames. The body of this sun is yellowish with rippling strands of the flames. Close to show time another sphere, this time black, floats slowly, like an eclipse, to cover the sun completely. Below on the stage is a narrow wood plank that goes from upstage down over the edge of the stage into the center aisle of the theatre.

The curtain rises on Kent holding a piece of paper that formally announces the division of the land. He’s a bit taken aback as he snaps at the paper and says to Gloucester, that he thought the King liked Albany better than Cornwall. This is a clear, neat way of showing that King Lear has already divided the land, and, according to Gloucester, he’s divided it absolutely evenly, and not favored one son-in-law over another. Note that Lear divided the land amongst his sons-in-law and of course whatever suitor won Cordelia.

For the formal division of the land the sisters and their husbands sit at a long table with six high-backed chairs. There is an empty chair to the right of Cordelia, which would have been the place for her husband. There are three microphones, one before each man, and one in front of the empty chair. Behind them are three courtiers, each holding a large, leather bound portion of the land being divided; further proof that Lear has already divided the kingdom and this game of “Tell me how much you love me,” is a cruel joke. Should anyone wonder how you have two damaged daughters like Goneril and Regan with a father like King Lear?

When each daughter has to speak, her husband slides the microphone to her. An added touch for Goneril is that the microphone squeaks when she speaks. King Lear sits in an impressive chair facing up stage at the table, his back to the audience. He too has a swivel microphone that stands beside his ‘throne’ so that he can position it in front of his face. When Goneril is speaking, Lear gets up, walks around the table, past Goneril and Regan. When he comes to Cordelia he kisses her on the head and goes back to his seat. No pressure, Cordelia to tell the guy what he wants to hear. No pressure at all.

Regan knows the game. When her time comes she sashays and flirts with her father. She sits on his lap. He loves it. He gives her a peck on the lips when she’s finished. It’s not a long, lingering kiss but my eyebrows do knit with that little peck.

Watching all this quietly is the Fool. He has entered down the aisle through the audience and sits on a box or something in the aisle, with his back to the stage, facing us. He wears a jaunty fedora with a feather in it.
When Cordelia can’t tell Lear how much she loves him in the manner of her sisters (“Nothing, my Lord.” “Nothing will come of nothing, speak again”), Lear begins his ranting rages. It’s the first time anyone has opposed him and he doesn’t know how to deal with it. So he banishes her. Then Kent defends her and he too is banished.

When Lear visits Goneril and Regan with his retinue of 100 boorish men, you can see the strain on their households. At one point Lear and his men come back from a hunt and hurl a full grown dead deer on the table. They drink bottles of liquor. Of course the daughters are none too pleased.

With Gloucester and his two sons, Edmund the bastard son is neat, tidy, wears a three piece suit, carries a brief case and looks like a responsible man. Edgar is sloppy, bed-head-hair sock-footed, carrying a bottle of wine from which he drinks. He doesn’t look too ambitious about anything. I like that juxtaposition. The bastard is respectable so it seems and is always trying to get his father’s favor and Edgar the slob already has his father’s favour, until his father is easily duped by Edmund into thinking otherwise.

Perhaps the most damaged of all of them is Goneril. Lear can’t even raise a complimentary thought about her. It’s “Our eldest, Goneril” when asking her to speak about her love for him, whereas it’s “Our dearest Regan.” And “Our joy, Cordelia.” Goneril gets his wrath. He curses her to be sterile. He calls her “My corrupted blood.” She shrinks under the invective. But when he rails at her, screaming, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child,” she can’t take it anymore and smacks him across the face that took him totally by shocking surprise. Me too. I said, “WOW!” perhaps a bit too loudly. Goneril’s turning point. I’m sure that smack is a surprise to her too. Her key to freedom, to be able to fight back.

Regan uses her feminine tricks on him. She’s coy. He is pleading, trying to play one sister against the other. It doesn’t work of course. Finally Regan gets her chance to let him know how she feels. As his last resort he says, “I gave you all.” And she replies with deliberate, controlled anger, “And in good time you gave it” pausing after each work for the full effect. Lear sails right into his next lines. Of course, I finally realize. He doesn’t think he’s done his daughters wrong all their lives. So while it’s important for Regan to get him between the eyes with that wonderful line, Lear still doesn’t get it. He does get it with Cordelia.

The storm-heath scene is dandy. Loud, dark, lightening. At one point Lear and the Fool are on the strip of wood during the storm. Then it rises up with both on it; Lear is at the top with the Fool crouching behind him, holding his leg, perhaps to anchor him. It gets so high, about 45° that I fear for the safety of the actors, not the characters! So a wonderful effect that kind of backfires…..I am taken out of the play worrying about the actors, as opposed to being in the play marveling at the characters. As the plank lowers down I see in the gloom that a small platform has also appeared on which Lear can stand, so he wasn’t at an angle at all, but on a piece of wood that appeared out of the rising plank.

Poor Tom (Edgar) is in fact naked as the lines say. He does cover up with a blanket of sorts. The hovel they discover is in fact a house being renovated. There are fixtures that are covered in plastic, one being a bathtub. The joint stool that the Fool mentions is in fact a steel toilet (or perhaps it was a bidet, not quite sure).
A startling scene, interpretation…..the Fool places himself in the plastic covered bathtub, sleeping, one foot over this side, one over the other. He wears wild stripped socks that I want. In Lear’s deranged state, he imagines the sleeping Fool as some monster and clubs him to death. (That’s right, in this production Lear kills the Fool.) When Lear says that he will have breakfast in the night time (or whatever construction that line is) the Fool lifts his bloody arm and finishes the line and dies. Lear realizes too late what he has done. When he’s asked about the Fool Lear says with the slightest hesitation, he hanged himself, thus lying. We know it and so does he. Here’s the question: WHY?????? I’ve got to say it’s a bold decision and, uh, wrong!

Gloucester’s de-eyeballing scene. We are in Gloucester’s house. He has a huge statue of Lear outside it in honour of the king. To be specific, we are in Gloucester’s wine cellar. A wall of bottles, baskets of bottles. A few chairs. Cornwall and some of his thug-servants tie Gloucester in a chair, his left profile to us. He is hooded. The chair is tipped back and a thug with a bottle of liquor? White wine? pours the liquid onto the hood covering Gloucester’s face in a kind of ‘water-torture.’ Gloucester is asked about Lear etc. The torture is to loosen him up. This happens three times, each time more liquid in his face each time for a bit longer. He doesn’t cry with the burning of the liquor in his eyes, which I find odd.

Then the real business. The thugs there turn Gloucester’s chair so that his back is to us. Cornwall—not a nice man—approaches him and from what I can tell sticks his thumb in one of Gloucester’s eyes and then throws the eyeball in a basket. Then, for a bit of variation, Cornwall approaches Gloucester again, this time with a corkscrew and shoves it in the socket. Screams from Gloucester. No breathing from the audience. Then Cornwall takes Gloucester’s head and turns it back and forth for more damage and then (wait for it) we hear a pop sound. The detached eye is thrown along with the corkscrew into the same basket as the first eyeball. The audience groans. Woow.

Director Sam Mendes does a bit of cutting at the end. When Edgar appears to Albany he doesn’t say to blow a warning three times and he will appear. He just appears. Nor does he say, “My name is Lost”, when he comes face to face with Edmund who asks who he is. Edgar says his name and goes after his brother and stabs him. Also cut is any redemption of Edmund when he is asked where Lear is. Edmund dies before he can tell. But just then Lear enters carrying the dead Cordelia, so it of course wouldn’t have helped at that point to know where Lear was and to save them. And I realize they cut the lines that says that Lear is four score. Why do that? The actor playing him is in his 50s but I would believe he’s 80. Silly cut.

Also odd is Kent’s ‘disguise’ which is just him with buzzed hair and a trimmed beard. None of the court recognizes him later but when he sees Cordelia she recognizes him immediately. Odd.

The acting. Simon Russell Beale is the most unlikely of actors. He’s short, squat, has a quick, waddle walk, and is simply brilliant in anything he does. He has played Hamlet, Richard III, Candide, Ariel, a cross-dressing soldier, and now King Lear. He is mesmerizing, dangerous, raging, damaged, and when he whimpers, “Please let me not be mad” he is heartbreaking. His hands flutter as he is mad. And he plays him with no neck. Truly. The costume comes right up to his head. His shoulders seem hunched up. Tight. But it also makes him looked stooped. As the play goes on his seems more and more stopped. Liked that. He gets into the very toes, let along the heart and soul of every single character he plays. And here as Lear, he makes him huge and human. When you least expect it you find yourself weeping for that angry, damaged man. Astonishing.

As Goneril, Kate Fleetwood is sleek, poised, a quivering mass of insecurity when her father is near, conflicted, hard and driven. When she is coming on to Edmund, she unzips her long slim skirt from the hem up to the thigh, revealing a lot of leg. When her husband comes into the scene she quickly puts the zipper down, covering up the leg.

As Regan, Anna Maxwell Martin is coy, flirty, sexually active, and dangerous and is having such a great time being evil, she has forgotten to take the audience along with her for the ride. She speaks far too quickly most of the time so that we don’t hear what she is saying because it comes out garbled. She tosses her hair. She goes from quiet to screaming in a thrice, thrusts herself forward for effect to make a point, which is lost because between her garbled speech and her distracting movements, we don’t hear what she’s saying. She starts off well, but then as the production goes on I get a headache from gritting my teeth. Ms Martin is a fine actress. I’ve seen her elsewhere and she was terrific. But here that quick, garble does her character no favours. Is this the director? A skittish actress? Don’t know.

As Cordelia, Olivia Vinall is properly bland. As the Fool, Adrian Scarborough is the wisest character on the stage. First you see him and then you don’t. He arrives and leaves quietly. He loves Lear but has no qualms about telling him he thinks he’s made a grave error with banishing Cordelia. When Cordelia is about to leave, the Fool embraces her hard and she him, then he leaves quietly through the audience. This ‘now-he’s-here-and-now-he’s-not is part of his magic. Scarborough lends dignity and conscience to the part and play.

As Cornwall, Richard Clothier is rather one noted and not as evil as one expects, dexterity with a corkscrew notwithstanding. As Gloucester, Stephen Boxer is courtly and compelling when he realizes his error regarding his sons.

The two brothers are always tricky. As Edmund, Sam Troughton is posh, driven and cold-blooded. As Edgar, Tom Brooke is shlumpy, without ambition, easy going perhaps to the point of aimlessness. But on the heath he assumes the appearance of a crazed, naked man. At this point he is watchful, moving, focused.

Comment. Sam Mendes has directed a clear, arresting production. He reasons that homelessness is a huge factor in the play. Lear, Gloucester, Kent, the Fool and Edgar are all homeless. With this he also adds general homelessness of people off in the heath besides Edgar. This is also a theory of Antoni Cimolino, the director of King Lear at my Stratford in Ontario. (no I won’t and don’t compare the two productions, or any other production). I am not convinced this decision works. His other wild decision of Lear killing the Fool doesn’t fly either. That said, Mendes has created a gripping production and thanks to the gifted Simon Russell Beale, one I won’t forget for a long, long time.

Produced by the National Theatre.

Opened: January 23, 2014
Closed: July 3, 2014
Cast: 21, 17 men, five women, and armies of men when needed.
Running Time: 3 hours and 30 minutes.

www.nationaltheatre.org.uk

{ 0 comments }

Review: CABARET

by Lynn on May 26, 2014

in The Passionate Playgoer

Cabaret

At the Festival Theatre, Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.

Book by Joe Masteroff, based on I Am A Camera by John Van Druten and Goodbye To Berlin Christopher Isherwood.
Music by John Kander
Lyrics by Fred Ebb
Directed by Peter Hinton
Musical Direction by Paul Sportelli
Choreography by Denise Clarke
Set by Michael Gianfrancesco
Costumes by Judith Bowden
Lighting by Bonnie Beecher
Sound by John Lott
Starring: Benedict Campbell
Juan Chioran
Deborah Hay
Lorne Kennedy
Gray Powell
Jay Turvey
Jenny L. Wright,

A thought provoking concept that is so heavy-handed it overwhelms the irony and nuance in the work.

The Story. Berlin 1931. In the Kit Kat Klub cabaret there is an Emcee who welcomes you in three languages to come in, leave your troubles outside, relax, enjoy yourself in any way you want. Everything inside the cabaret is beautiful. Outside trouble is brewing. There is a political party that is rising in power that is frightening.

Cliff Bradshaw is an American who has come to Berlin to write a novel. He is introduced to the Kit Kat Klub and gets a bit waylaid when he meets Sally Bowles, an English woman who sings at the club. She also seems to sleep with most of the men she has met. Cliff becomes one of them.

There is a subplot involving Herr Schultz, a Jewish fruit settler, and Fräulein Schneider, the proprietor of a boarding house where Cliff lives and teaches English to earn some money. Herr Schultz courts Fräulein Schneider by bringing her fruit.

Through it all the Emcee sings or leads the frenzied singing and dancing. Life inside the Cabaret goes on in its hedonistic way, oblivious to the growing unrest outside, until the unrest rears its ugly head and can’t be ignored any longer.

Background. First there was Christopher Isherwood’s novel, “The Berlin Stories” (1935), which was adapted into John Van Druten’s (1955) play, I Am A Camera. These led to the musical Cabaret with book by Joe Masteroff, music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb and directed by Harold Prince in 1966. In 1993 British director Sam Mendes directed a new version of the musical in which Cliff’s bisexuality was addressed among other changes. The 1993 Mendes version is the presently accepted version (Used at the Shaw Festival) until the show is rethought and we are blown away again.

The Production. Michael Gianfrancesco has designed a striking looking set in which the main playing area is a large black disc in the middle of which is a black winding staircase. Supporting the staircase are black rods that are the height of the staircase. Occasionally characters will hide in the space created by the rods, or wend their way through the maze of rods. In the case of the former the rods obstruct our view of the character, and in the case of the latter its looks awkward for characters to negotiate through the maze of rods.

As the audience arrives a character named Klown is already on stage applying details on his sad white faced makeup. He is dressed in a clown costume. A few other characters arrive to smoke, look out at the audience or the wings.

When the show begins, Cliff Bradshaw arrives with his typewriter and quickly goes up the winding stairs to the first landing, his room. There is the tapping sound of a typewriter. We will hear that sound effect throughout the show. Cliff addresses the audience and says, among other things, “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking….” My eyebrows knit in puzzlement? Concern? Cliff isn’t supposed to begin the show. It’s supposed to be the Emcee. And while Cliff describes himself as “a camera” in “The Berlin Stories” and later in I Am A Camera, he isn’t a camera in Cabaret. It’s only at the end of the show that he actually sees what is going on in Germany and knows he has to get out of there.

Then Emcee rises up from beneath the stage into white light to begin the show proper with “Willkommen.” He is in white-faced makeup with slashes of black for eyebrows and facial features darkened for garish effect. His hair is gelled to a spike. His black costume is a version of tails with sharp fin-like additions. He looks like he could have come from an Egon Scheile painting. He smiles, flirts with the audience, welcomes them, says everything in the cabaret is beautiful. But then he says, “Leave your troubles outside,” screaming the word “outside” pointing to outside by flinging his arm straight out, almost in a Heil Hitler salute. My eyebrows knit again. This is hardly welcoming and it’s only the first song.

When Cliff appears as per the musical, he is on a train going to Berlin, along with many others on the train. They sit on their suitcases. Lighting designer Bonnie Beecher has an effect that projects stripes of light on each person, suggesting the striped uniforms of the prisoners in concentration camps. My eyebrows are crocheting.

I found that often Hinton’s staging of a song is cluttered and distracting. For example, in the lovely song “It Couldn’t Please Me More,” Herr Schultz is courting Fräulein Schneider by bringing her some fruit in a paper bag. She is delighted with it and finally pulls it out of the bag as the surprise of the song. At the same time the chorus sings accompaniment while sitting on the winding staircase, looking down on Fräulein Scheider and Herr Schultz. But when she pulls the surprise from the paper bag, each member of the chorus above them also holds up the same fruit at the same time. Ok, where do we look? At Fräulein Schneider? It is her song. Or do we look up at the chorus, because our focus is distracted? So often a character is on the stage, singing, and something happens on the staircase above to pull focus.

At the end the Emcee is on the stairs above the stage and Cliff is downstage mouthing the words of the Emcee above. It also looks like Cliff has become a puppet with the Emcee manipulating him. Why is a mystery. Then Cliff goes upstage stands on the spot where the Emcee first appeared, and Cliff lowers down and disappears. Don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.

The cast is exemplary. As the Emcee, Juan Chioran is striking, charming with an edge and immediately frightening. As Fräulein Schneider, Corrine Koslo has a charm that is at once disarming and also informed by the need to survive. She is matter of fact when dealing with Cliff about renting him a room. She is almost girlish with Herr Shultz. But there is a speech she has when it seems her world is crashing saying that when there was inflation, she survived; when there was a shortage of food, she survived; and when there was revolution she survived. And I realize that in a different time or play she is in fact Mother Courage, that quintessential survivor. Benedict Campbell plays Herr Schultz like a giddy, sweet but silly man who can’t/won’t see what’s coming. He is that deluded representative of those who were German first and Jewish second. Gray Powell plays Cliff Bradshaw with a mix of boyishness and the creeping realization that trouble is coming. Cliff has integrity and Powell brings that out beautifully. As Sally Bowles, Deborah Hay is buoyant, properly affected, over-the-top in some cases, and haunted. Hay has a beautiful voice and the creative smarts to know how to sing her songs as if Sally’s life depended on it. Her singing of “Cabaret” is angry, desperate and gut-wrenching. Sally has just had a brutal operation. She goes to the Kit Kat Klub to resume her job. I am sure I see two patches of dark stain around her crotch of the slinky, sequined dress she wears, indicating she is bleeding. That touch is devastating.

Comment. I have enormous respect for director Peter Hinton. He is an intellectual with a sharp eye for the visual in which the images of the scenes seem to be taken from paintings of the day. The ‘look’ is always arresting. He scrupulously researches the period of the plays he directs. He conjures a concept that he believes will illuminate the work. I don’t doubt that he thought of every single second of Cabaret in terms of his concept. He had me thinking about every single second too in terms of that concept. The problem is that his concept for Cabaret is so overbearing, so ham-fisted in your face in its effort to make the point, that it crushes the heart, soul and irony out of the show. Hinton didn’t direct what was going on in the cabaret so much as he directed what was going on outside the cabaret, and that has proven deadly to the show.

I am puzzled as to why Peter Hinton did not seem to have faith in the actual show of Cabaret and felt he had to add that first scene for Cliff when it does not appear in the musical. The problem for Cliff is that he doesn’t write during Cabaret because he’s caught up in the whirl-wind life in the Kit Kat Klub and with Sally. Only at the end of the show does he come up with his devastating line that will begin his novel. So having that sound effect of typing throughout the show is misplaced and ill-conceived.

So often Hinton foreshadows what will happen: concentration camps with prisoners in striped uniforms, book burning, people being displaced taking their luggage with them, clearly identified (in this production photos are on the luggage). The question is why is foreshadowing needed at all if history has given us hindsight that’s 20/20? It’s as if the audience is not trusted to know and has to be hit over the head to convey the message.

The musical Cabaret is a wonderful piece of theatre. Imagine it, a musical that beautifully depicts the heady, hedonistic world of the cabaret, set against the quietly insidious danger outside it that is coming to get them. It’s a musical full of subtlety, irony, humour and packs a wallop. I so wish that Peter Hinton had trusted the musical to convey its message, rather than imposing a concept that crushed the life out of it in his production.

The result left me painfully disappointed.

Opened: May 10, 2014
Closes: October 26, 2014.
Cast: 25; 15 men, 10 women
Running Time: 2 hours 40 minutes, one intermission
Tickets: www.shawfest.com

{ 0 comments }

Review: DEAD METAPHOR

by Lynn on May 25, 2014

in The Passionate Playgoer

Dead Metaphor

At the Panasonic Theatre, Toronto, Ont.

Written and directed by George F. Walker.
Designed by Shawn Kerwin.
Lighting by Rebecca Picherack.
Sound by Robin Johnston.
Starring: Nancy Beatty
Michael Healey
Haley McGee
Eric Peterson
Noah Reid
Julie Stewart.

George F. Walker’s latest romp into the dark side of comedy, a world we recognize including the inventive, intoxicating use of swear-words.

The Story. Dean Trusk has done military duty in Afghanistan as a crack sniper. Now that he’s out of the military he needs a job. He comes to Oliver Denny, a thoughtful civil servant who places people in jobs. Not much call for snipers in the ‘real’ world notes Oliver. But Dean has responsibilities. His wife is pregnant. His feisty father Hank probably has dementia and his mother Frannie will need financial help to take care of him. Added to this are Oliver’s issues. His job is frustrating. He’s married to Helen a foul-mouthed, ball-breaking, self-absorbed politician who will break every rule to get elected and have power.

Just when Dean thinks there is no call for a sniper in the ‘real world’ he is inundated with money and requests to kill someone leaving no clue or trace. Who does he have to ‘off’? Practically everybody. Does he follow through? Heheheeh.

Crooked politicians; hapless innocents; frustrated decent people; angry older folks trying to cut through the BS. Welcome to George F. Walker country.

The Production. Director George F. Walker likes things simple in his productions. So designer Shawn Kerwin has the minimum amount of furnishings needed: two comfortable chairs and a round table stage right, when Oliver is interviewing Dean to find out what kind of work he can do; centre stage a grungy barbeque and two fold-up chairs for the scenes with Hank Trust and his family; and stage left a table and chairs for the scenes with Oliver and Helen Denny.

I worry when a playwright also directs his own play—who will tell the playwright to cut scenes and who will tell the director the reign it in? And I have been concerned in the past when Walker has directed his own plays because he seems to choose a “louder/faster” course of direction. I needn’t have worried here. The whole cast is microphoned. People’s hearing is getting spotty so best solve it by having them amplified.

The stellar cast can take care of the rest. They know about nuance, subtlety and shading. They know how to build a speech gradually for full effect. As Oliver Denny, Michael Healey has made a career playing sad-sack blinkers who seem to have the weight of the frustrating world on his shoulders. His wife Helen is played by Julie Stewart a force of nature who will mow anyone down in her wake if they get in the way of her power. She crosses her legs with such finality and conviction it’s like a declaration of war.

Dean Trusk is played by the boyish Noah Reid, with a dollop of sweetness to make what he is skilled in, seem ironic. Dean’s wife Jenny is no-nonsense, put upon and smart enough to see a way out. A Frannie Trusk, Nancy Beatty suffuses her character with heart, worry, and resolve. And Eric Peterson plays Hank. I sense that Hank is Walker’s mouth piece. Because Hank is old he can get away with saying and doing anything. Because he is played by an acting wonder named Eric Peterson hank is an angry hero to all. He fights the big giant and reveals dishonesty and corruption. He rails against big business; big government; rules, and especially Helen Denny—a scummy politician if ever there was one; organized religion and he rails against what is happening to him in his own body. It’s a bravura performance with the piece de resistance being what Hank tells Jenny what he wants to do with her corpse, and what he wants to put down her neck after he chops off her head. And it’s hilarious!

Walker ramps up the farcical twists and terns in the plot in Act Two and delivers an ending that looks like a twist but is really not. The play is however an hilarious and sobering work with lots to say and laugh about.

Comment. All the typical George F. Walker trade marks are clearly evident in Dead Metaphor, a play he finished three years ago. So while it’s convenient to cite Rob Ford as the brunt of his jokes, that would be off the mark although still appropriate, all things considered

As for the title Dead Metaphor this is what comes up when the words are Googled:
“A dead metaphor is a metaphor which has lost the original imagery of its meaning owing to extensive, repetitive popular usage. Because dead metaphors have a conventional meaning that differs from the original, they can be understood without knowing their earlier connotation.”

The dead metaphor “Freelance” is used in the play as an example of the meaning. In medieval times there were knights or armored horsemen at least, who travelled the country as medieval mercenaries looking to join an army to fight. Because they did not belong to any company the phrase “freelancer” was coined and applied. Of course one can apply that phrase to anyone over time.

The language is raw. The tone angry. The result hilarious. But it’s not for the faint of heart or those with an aversion to swearing. This is Walker’s world. Deal with it.

David Mirvish presents the Canadian Rep Theatre Production.

Opened: May 23, 2014
Closes: June 8, 2014
Cast: 6; 3 men, 3 women.
Running Time: 2 hours, one intermission.

{ 0 comments }

Review: Stars of David

by Lynn on May 24, 2014

in The Passionate Playgoer

Stars of David

At the Studio Theatre, Toronto Centre for the Arts, Toronto, Ont.

Based on the book by Abigail Pogrebin.
Conceived by Aaron Harnick and Abigail Pogrebin.
Directed by Avery Saltzman.
Designed by Scott Penner.
Lighting by Siobhán Sleath.
Original projection design by Michael Clark
Musical Director, Mark Camilleri
Starring: Darrin Baker, Gabi Epstein, Lisa Horner, Will Lamond

Produced by Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company in association with Angelwalk Theatre.

A thoughtful, funny, often moving account of what it means to be Jewish from the point of view of many prominent Jews, told in song.

Stars of David started as a book by Abigail Pogrebin, who interviewed prominent Jews about being Jewish; people such as writer-feminist, Gloria Steinem, lyricists, Marilyn and Alan Bergman, playwright Tony Kushnir, jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg, actor Leonard Nemoy, writer Aaron Sorkin, and businessman Edgar Bronfman.

Abigail Pogrebin and fellow writer Aaron Harnick then conceived of the idea of turning the book into a musical review. The essence of each interview was then set to music with lyrics written by some of the best composers and lyricists writing today.

While many of the songs are witty and funny, the main gist of the show is to illustrate how important Judaism, its traditions, and beliefs are to those interviewed. In some cases the traditions provided a difficult hurdle.

The haunting, moving song “As If I Weren’t There,” is a case in point. (Music by Tom Kitt, Lyrics by Abigail Pogrebin). When Ruth Bader Ginsburg was 17, the day before she graduated high school, her mother died. She adored her mother. She told Ginsburg that she could do and be anything. Unfortunately that did not mean saying Kaddish with the men when the family sat shiva. Young Ruth was desperate to join the minion and pray for her mother but her father forbade it saying that the laws of Judaism had to be obeyed—women were not allowed to say Kaddish with the men. An ironic comment since Ruth Bader Ginsburg grew up to become a judge on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Writer-Feminist, Gloria Steinem inspired the song “The Women Who Had No Names”, music by Jeanine Tesori , Lyrics by Susan Birkenhead. A group of women get together at Passover to cook and conduct their seder, without any men. Somewhere there is a Jewish law or rule that says that’s not right, but these women don’t care. Their aim in the song is to champion and remember the unsung heroes in their lives—their mothers. It is quite moving to hear “I am Abigail, daughter of Letty….” And know they are the words of Abigail Pogrebin singing about her mother Letty Cottin Pogrebin, writer and co-founder of Ms Magazine among others. And to hear Gloria Steinem championing her mother.

“Lenny the Great” (music by Dan Messé, lyrics by Nathan Tysen) is about young Leonard Nemoy who was bullied when he was a kid but through sheer grit grew up, lives long and prospers. Nemoy is noted for creating the character of Spock on Star Trek —his particular Vulcan salute, a definite space between the first two fingers and the last two fingers on the hand is based on the Priestly Blessing in Judaism.

Both designer Kenneth Cole and businessman Edgar Bronfman wanted to know more about their religion so they could pass that knowledge to their children and grandchildren. Cole and his Catholic wife agreed the children should be raised Catholic. But then he began thinking of Judaism and wanted to educate his children in that tradition but first had to learn about it himself. This feeling is beautifully expressed in “The Darkening Blue” (music by Duncan Sheik, Lyrics by Steven Sater.)

Bronfman says that his father prayed all the time but didn’t have a clue what he was actually saying in the Hebrew prayers. Bronfman didn’t want to be in that situation with his grandchildren so he began to learn about Judaism. In the moving and emotional song “L’Dor V’Dor” (music by Chris Miller, Lyrics by Nathan Tysen) we learn about passing on to the next generation the traditions and essence of Judaism. That’s how it survives.

Of course it’s not all serious. In “Smart People” (music by David Shire and lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr.) Aaron Sorkin deals with the stereotypes that think Jews are smart, witty, successful etc. Every time it looks like a lyric will result in the word Jew rhyming with it, the lyrics go off on another, hilarious tangent.

The song “Gwyneth Paltrow” (music by Gaby Alter, Lyrics by Jill Kargman) deals with all those people you didn’t know were Jewish, as in “who-knew-Jews” (Gwyneth Paltrow! Harrison Ford! James Franco!)

There are 15 songs, each dealing with the words and thoughts of distinguished people, all of whom happened to be Jewish. Avery Saltzman has directed the gifted cast of four efficiently, simply and without fussiness. Because of that the music and thoughts are beautifully served.

The cast is very strong. Gabi Epstein can squeeze the heart singing the wonderful “As If I Weren’t There”, and then crack you up with “Gwyneth Paltrow” (who knew?). Lisa Horner is a lively, boisterous performer in “High Holy Days” about Joan Rivers—who knows a thing or two about being lively and boisterous. But then Horner to could be quietly moving with “Balance” (Music and Lyrics by Alan Schmuckler) that tells the story of restaurant critic Ruth Reichl’s family and how they survived the war. The men also acquit themselves beautifully. Darrin Baker expresses the confliction and finally peace of Kenneth Cole in “The Darkening Blue.” And Will Lamond nails the difficult “Smart People” with charm, energy and grace.

Stars of David is a smart, sweet, moving, show of songs, words and thoughts of Jews. And no you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy and revel in its message. Of course it wouldn’t hurt.

Opened: May 10, 2014
Closes: June 1, 2014
Cast: 4; 2 men, 2 women
Running Time: 90 minutes approx.

{ 1 comment }

Text of broadcast reviews: WATCHING GLORY DIE and DREAMING OF ROB FORD

by Lynn on May 23, 2014

in The Passionate Playgoer

Two shows were reviewed on Friday, May 23, 2014: Watching Glory Die at the Berkeley Street Theatre, Upstairs until June 1, and Dreaming of Rob Ford Created and performed by Mike Daisey at the Big Picture Cinema 1035 Gerard St. E. until May 23.

The guest host was Phil Taylor

(PHIL)
Good Friday morning. It’s theatre fix time with Lynn Slotkin, our theatre critic and passionate playgoer. I didn’t think you were going to use the word ‘fix’ anymore out of respect for our mayor?

(LYNN)
I’m bringing back the word for this week because one of the two shows I’m reviewing is Dreaming of Rob Ford created and performed by Mike Daisey a wildly mesmerizing monologist, and drugs and addiction factor heavily, hence the word ‘fix.’

But the first show I’m reviewing is Watching Glory Die, written and performed by Judith Thompson. Produced by Canadian Rep Theatre at the Berkeley Street Theatre, Upstairs.

Glory is 19 and has been in various correctional institutions since she was 14. She was first incarcerated for minor offenses. The sentence got longer once she was serving her term because of more minor infractions. She began to choke herself and the guards would stop it by going into her cell, often. The warden ordered the guards not to interfere until she turned blue, as she thought this was Glory’s way of getting attention. This was a stupid and fatal error.

The play is based on the sad case of Ashley Smith. She is the troubled teenager who had been in jail for much of her teenaged years on various charges. She eventually hung herself, while seven of her prison guards watched on video monitors.There was a hue and cry and an inquest etc.

(PHIL)
How do you put that story on stage?

(LYNN)
Three women create Glory’s world. Glory herself, pacing around her small prison cell. Her adoptive mother, Rosellen sits stage left, fretting and worrying about her sweet, innocent daughter. And Gail, Glory’s hard-nosed prison guard.

Gail walks in a lighted border outside Glory’s cell. Gail looks on every inmate as a criminal. Glory is no different to her.

Designer Astrid Janson has created a boxed silver cell for Glory. No window is even suggested. Simple clothing differentiates each character. Glory wears a blue prison shift. Gail wears a dark guard jacket over the shift. And Rosellen wears a sweater. Glory wears her hair down. Rosellen wears hers in a loose ponytail. So little details make all the difference in the
characterization.

While Glory is often kept in a Therapeutic Quiet Room (read solitary confinement) the soundscape of Debashis Sinha suggests constant noise of one thing and another—that works wonderfully. The projections of Cameron Davis, of rain, shattered glass and other patterns also add to a sense of Glory’s fragile mind.

(PHIL)
Any other interesting aspects of the production that caught your eye?

(LYNN)
It’s directed by Ken Gass so anything on stage would grab my interest and imagination. Ken Gass directs with a firm sense of the troubled world of Glory.

The projection of glass shattering and the sound of it that follows says so much about what Glory is going through. Gass has guided Judith Thompson in her performance of the three women so we get a distinct sense of each character.

When Glory is alone with her thoughts she is this lost, fragile creature. When she is interacting with her guards she is feisty. She is also obviously mentally ill.

As Gail, Thompson is tough and hardened to the life. And as Rosellen with her voice a bit high, she is the worried mother who has not seen her daughter in more than a year because Corrections Canada keeps on moving Glory from one prison to another, sometimes across the country.

I must confess I am mystified why Thompson wanted to act in the production. She has been a celebrated playwright in this country for more than three decades. Why act in this play as well, I wonder? I think it could have used a professional actress who did not seem as self conscious as Thompson and certainly could have brought out more variation and nuance in each character.

(PHIL)
Do you think Judith Thomson is successful in telling this story through her play.

(LYNN)
Judith Thompson has a huge heart and fierce social conscience that champions the downtrodden innocent who can’t defend themselves. Her outrage at social injustice is palpable in her plays and certainly in Watching Glory Die. She is quoted as saying that “the impossible is happening in our country” and she is certainly right.

An unsettled man is tasered and killed in a Vancouver airport. A young man wielding a knife on a streetcar in Toronto dies after he is shot nine times by police who were outside the streetcar.

However sometimes Thompson’s outrage gets in the way of creating a balanced picture and that’s what we have in Watching Glory Die. Thompson is damning a prison system that is insensitive to its inmates without once referencing that Glory is mentally ill. The unseen warden forbids the guards to help Glory when she repeatedly tries to choke herself with ligatures, saying that will only give Glory the attention she is seeking.

Rosellen refuses to believe that Glory is trying to kill herself saying that that is Glory’s way of showing she wants to live. Rosellen also refuses to acknowledge Glory is mentally ill. Surely that is the centre of the problem and Thompson leaves it unsaid.

Instead we have Gail who is so stupid she gives in to Glory when Glory wants to ‘play’ with Gail’s glasses. And of course Glory doesn’t give them back when asked repeatedly and breaks them. This increases Glory’s jail time. What did Gail expect Glory to do?

While Rosellen doesn’t see her daughter for a full year, we never hear any comment about getting a lawyer, or calling the papers or anything to bring attention to her daughter’s situation. I can appreciate that Gail and Rosellen are isolated in their own way, but making them stupid as well weakens the play.

Gail is described in press information as having a conscience and being conflicted when she sees Glory choking and must obey orders and not help her.

She doesn’t seem too upset when the inevitable happens. She holds on to the line she was only following orders. She laments that she will be fired and probably the only job she’ll get is as a crossing guard. Witless woman.

Well intentioned though she is, I feel Judith Thompson has created an unbalanced, weak play about a serious subject.

(PHIL)
And what is Dreaming of Rob Ford about?

(LYNN)
It’s is written and performed by American superstar monologist, Mike Daisey. Daisey is the man who wrote and performed The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.

That’s the show he wrote exposing Apple for terrible working conditions in China and got into trouble when it was revealed that he made stuff up and a lot of what he said was not true.

Mike Daisey met Mitchell Cushman when Cushman wanted to adapt and produce his own version of the show in Toronto a few years ago. Daisey says he was impressed with Cushman’s script.

So Crow’s Theatre, of which Mitchell Cushman is associate Artistic Director, is building a new arts complex in the city’s east end. To raise awareness of the area and the performing/theatre possibilities there is something called The East End Performance Crawl along Queen Street East and environs that is running to June 1.

Quirky performances will be in various places, such as a yoga studio, and Jilly’s the strip club for example. The kick off event is Mike Daisey giving a free-wheeling extemporized monologue about Rob Ford, drugs, addiction, Canadians and embarrassment, among others. I bet the well turned out crowd who went last night, including Conrad Black, thought that was rather novel.

(PHIL)
How did the show work?

(LYNN)
Daisey sits at a desk with a glass of water beside him, a writing pad in front of him, and a handkerchief he uses to wipe his face a lot. David DeGrow’s dramatic lighting makes Daisey look forbidding. He talks around a subject then hones in referencing it. He tells us the usual about Canadians, polite, quiet, civilized. Americans, and he counts himself in that group, are wild marauders who rip and tear everyone out of their way.

Daisey is astonished at how many people showed up to learn even more about a man the majority never want to hear about ever again. And to give you an idea how rough and ready this whole enterprise is, the show takes place in The Big Picture Cinema that was an abandoned porn film house in its previous life. Words flow out of him at a clip; articulate, scatological; perceptive and very funny.

He wonders what Torontonians felt like when Gawker—a gossip site—broke the story about the Ford video tape. He says the heart and soul of the city was ripped out because of Gawker. He says he finds it amusing that anyone would think that Ford would resign. Daisey yells, “He’s an addict. They lie all the time.”

Daisey spins a story that winds and turns and winds back on itself and ties it all together. It’s a bit long at two hours with no intermission, but he is a wild-man of stories and if you are up for a challenge, see him.

(PHIL)
What else is coming up?

(LYNN)
This performance crawl looks intriguing. Something called TEASE at Jilly’s in which groups of five people experience five short intimate encounters with some of Toronto’s interesting performance artists.

The Ballad of the Young Offender by SideMart Theatrical Grocery, from Montreal but relocated here. About Rock and Roll and fear mongering.

In Case We Disappear—part standup, part confessional, part spoken word. You can get a full schedule by going to the Crow’s Theatre website.

Next week Stratford Festival opens as well with King Lear, Crazy For You, King John, Mother Courage, A Midsummer Night’s Dream among others….check the Stratford site.

And next Friday I will be interviewing Jackie Maxwell, the Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival.

(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.

Watching Glory Die plays at the Berkeley Street Theatre, upstairs until June 1.
www.canadianrep.ca

Dreaming of Rob Ford created and performed by Mike Daisey plays at the Big Picture Cinema, 1135 Gerard St. E. until tonight, May 23.
www.crowstheatre.com

{ 0 comments }

Review: Watching Glory Die

by Lynn on May 22, 2014

in The Passionate Playgoer

Watching Glory Die

At the Berkeley Street Theatre, Upstairs, Toronto, Ont.

Written and performed by Judith Thompson.
Directed by Ken Gass.
Designed by Astrid Janson.
Lighting by André du Toit.
Sound by Debashis Sinha.
Projections by Cameron Davis.

Produced by Canadian Rep Theatre. Plays until June 1, 2014.

An unbalanced play that refuses to address the real problem of the treatment mental illness in prisons.

The Story. Glory is 19 and has been in various correctional institutions since she was 14. She was first incarcerated for minor offences. The sentence got longer once she was serving her term because of more minor infractions. She began to choke herself and the guards would stop it by going into her cell, often. The warden ordered the guards not to interfere as this was Glory’s way of getting attention. Finally Glory hung herself, witnessed by the guards who did nothing until she turned blue, after which it was too late.

The play is based on the sad case of Ashley Smith. She is the troubled teenager who had been in jail for much of her teenaged years on various charges who hanged herself, while seven of her prison guards watched on video monitors.

The Production. Three women create Glory’s world. Glory herself, pacing around her small prison cell; her adoptive mother, Rosellen sits stage left, fretting and worrying about her sweet, innocent daughter; and Gail, Glory’s hardnosed prison guard who walks in a lighted border outside Glory’s cell. Gail looks on every inmate as a criminal. Glory is no different to her.

Designer Astrid Janson has created a boxed silver cell for Glory. No window is even suggested. Simple clothing differentiates each character. Glory wears a blue prison shift. Gail wears a dark guard jacket over the shift, and Rosellen wears a sweater. Glory wears her hair down. Rosellen wears hers in a loose ponytail.

While Glory is often kept in a Therapeutic Quiet Room (read solitary confinement) the soundscape of Debashis Sinha suggests constant noise of one thing and another—that works wonderfully. The projections of Cameron Davis, of rain, shattered glass and other patterns also add to a sense Glory’s fragile mind.

Ken Gass directs with a firm sense of the troubled world of Glory. The projection of glass shattering and the sound of it that follows says so much about what Glory is going through. Gass has guided Judith Thompson in her performance of the three women so we get a distinct sense of each character. When Glory is alone with her thoughts she is this lost, fragile creature. When she is interacting with her guards she is feisty. She is also obviously mentally ill. As Gail, Thompson is tough and hardened to the life. And as Rosellen with her voice a bit high, she is the worried mother who has not seen her daughter in more than a year because Corrections Canada keeps on moving Glory from one prison to another.

I must confess I am mystified why Thompson wanted to act in the production as well. I think it could have used a professional actress who did not seem as self conscious as Thompson and certainly could have brought out more variation and nuance in each character.

Comment. Playwright Judith Thompson has a huge heart and fierce social conscience that champions the downtrodden innocent who can’t defend themselves. Her outrage at social injustice is palpable in her plays and certainly in Watching Glory Die. She is quoted as saying that “the impossible is happening in our country” and she is certainly right. An unsettled man is tasered and killed in a Vancouver airport. A young man wielding a knife on a streetcar in Toronto dies after he is shot nine times by police who were outside the streetcar.

However sometimes Thompson’s outrage gets in the way of creating a balanced picture and that’s what we have in >Watching Glory Die. Thompson is damning a prison system that is insensitive to its inmates without once referencing that Glory is mentally ill. The unseen warden forbids the guards to help Glory when she repeatedly tries to choke herself with ligatures, saying that will only give Glory the attention she is seeking. Rosellen refuses to believe that Glory is trying to kill herself saying that that is Glory’s way of showing she wants to live. Rosellen also refuses to acknowledge Glory is mentally ill. Surely that is the centre of the problem and Thompson leaves it unsaid. Instead we have Gail who is so stupid she gives in to Glory when Glory wants to ‘play’ with Gail’s glasses. And of course Glory doesn’t give them back and breaks them. This increases Glory’s jail time. What did Gail expect Glory to do? I also don’t think for a second that Gail agonizes over her orders and her conscience.

While Rosellen doesn’t see her daughter for a full year, we never hear any comment about getting a lawyer, or calling the papers or anything to bring attention to her daughter’s situation. I can appreciate that Gail and Rosellen are isolated in their own way, but making them stupid as well weakens the play.

Well intentioned thought she is, I feel Judith Thompson has created an unbalanced, weak play about a serious subject that is never really addressed.

Opened: May 21, 2014
Closes: June 1, 2014
Cast: 1 woman
Running Time: 75 minutes, no intermission.

{ 1 comment }

Review: THE TEMPEST REPLICA

by Lynn on May 8, 2014

in The Passionate Playgoer

>The Tempest Replica

At the Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto, Ont. Created by Crystal Pite after The Tempest by William Shakespeare. Set by Jay Gower Taylor. Costumes by Nancy Bryant. Lighting by Robert Sondergaard. Sound by Alessandro Juliani and Meg Roe. Projection design by Jamie Nesbitt. Composed by Owen Belton. Voice by Peter Chu and Meg Roe. Danced by: Bryan Arias, Eric Beauchesne, Peter Chu, Sandra Marin Garcia, Yannick Matthon, David Raymond, Cindy Salgado.

An exquisite realization of The Tempest by Crystal Pite and her dance troupe, Kidd Pivot, told in dance, movement, sound, light and projection.

The Story. A man (Prospero in Shakespeare’s play) is banished from his kingdom by his enemies because he is expert in magic. That frightens them. They put him and his baby daughter (Miranda) in a boat which eventually lands them on an isolated island. There are two other creatures there: the monster (Caliban) who reluctantly does the man’s bidding, and a spirit (Ariel) who is more accommodating to do the man’s bidding.

One day the man’s enemies sail near the island. The man conjures a tempest to wash them ashore where he will confront them. Among the group is a prince (Ferdinand) who immediately falls in love with the daughter. First the man has the prince do a back-breaking task to prove his worth to marry his daughter. The man sees that the prince has a fine character and the tenacity to do the back-breaking task and allows the two to wed. The man confronts his enemies and deals with them and forgives others. He gives Ariel his freedom but doesn’t do the same for Caliban—who loathes him. In the end the man finds his own closure and release.

The Production. As we file into the theatre a man dressed in black shirt, pants and socks sits on the stage making origami boats. His folds are precise and sharp. He is meticulous with the shapes and construction. He tweaks his nose. When he finishes a boat he places it on his fingers and looks at it from every angle then carefully puts it down on the stage. He reaches for a piece of paper—there is a pile by his foot, stage right—and starts the process again. Making the folds precise and sharp. He tweaks his nose; holds the finished boat on his fingers and holds it up looking at if from every angle. He does this about 18 times in exactly the same, precise, choreographed way.

A curtain billows down and forward, behind the man. Then when the production proper starts a terrible tempest billows up. The curtain flips and folds across the stage as a sound effect conjures that storm. Projections of dancers clad from head to toe in white—even the whole head and face is covered in a white gauzy material—are tossed back and forth across the curtain as they try to hold on to each other and stand up.

When the tempest is over the man in black surveys his domain. He has conjured the storm. On the back wall simple projections indicate the Act and Scene that note important milestones from Shakespeare’s play to tell the story. A woman in a white dress, head and face completely covered in the same white, lays on the stage. The man drags her a bit across the stage. She is limp. Almost robotic in her movements. A projection lights up on a section of her costume: ‘daughter’. She is startled by the storm and saddened when she sees that men were swept overboard.

The man sits her down on the stage and tells her the story of how they came to the island. A projection of a window is shot onto the back wall of a man in silhouette reading a book—we hear the sound effect of pages rustling as the pages are turned. He demonstrates what he has learned. Magic. Another projection shows the window is high up in a tower of a castle. Below are silhouettes of men sneaking into the castle. One is armed. The man in the tower is surprised, taken out of the castle along with his infant daughter, set into a boat and cast off alone. One of the thugs in this scene carries the crying baby in a way suggesting he’s never held one before. He holds her straight out in front of him. When he hands the baby to the man in the boat, the man holds her tenderly to him, protecting her head, as a loving father would. (Wonderful image) The two land on an island. Other projections show how the baby has grown into a girl and then into a young woman.

The monster walks on all fours occasionally, certainly when the man is dragging him, is in white with spindles and spikes coming off his back. He is always accompanied with the sounds of grunting and slobbering. His head is covered in white as well. The spirit (Ariel) is slim and is in form-fitting body covering and tights, white again with the face and head covered. The enemies of the man roll onto the stage from the wings. They are in white suits. The prince is in white with his head and face covered. The daughter frets over him. The man sets the prince a task, to move a huge boulder (white) from one end of the stage to another, only to have a rope bring the boulder back to the original space. Where the prince hauls it up again. His hands get stuck under the boulder. Pulling his hands out from under the boulder is repeated in concise movements, and is funny.

These white clad characters in which the head and face are covered, tell us the bare facts of the story. We can differentiate between characters by their body language and their interactions. Seeing facial expressions is impossible. The facts are what are important in this first go round.

Then characters appear with their head and faces revealed and in clothes that are in colour and not white. The daughter is still in a dress, her hair is long and dark, her facial expression is light, lively, animated. Her movements are fluid and not robot-like. In these segments for the rest of the production relationships between characters is the focus.

The man treats the monster badly, physically, harshly. The monster fights back. The daughter and the prince have a pas de deux in which she finds him unconscious in the sea. The movement is fluid, clinging and suggestive of floating. Even his hair flips up as if caught by a wave. Stunning. In these segments no projections are needed to tell us the act and scene. We know Pite is repeating the story but with a different focus this time.

Dance of course is not my forte, but from a purely theatrical point of view that movement and the establishment of those relationships is done with clarity, simplicity, emotion, drive and intoxicating life.

Comment. It takes about three hours to tell the story of The Tempest speaking Shakespeare’s exquisite language. It takes about 80 minutes to tell the story of The Tempest Replica dancing choreographer-creator Crystal Pite’s exquisite dance-movement language. She has told Prospero’s story that is simple and complex at the same time. No you do not have to read the play beforehand to know what is going on. If you did then The Tempest Replica would be a failure. It isn’t. It’s a glorious, exquisite example of a creation that tells a story simply, pricks the imagination and squeezes the heart doing it.

A Kidd Pivot Production presented by Canadian Stage.

Opened: May 7, 2014
Closes: May 11, 2014
Company: 7; 5 men, 2 women
Running Time: 80 minutes.
Tickets: www.canadianstage.com

{ 0 comments }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →