Search: Rant, How our World and our Theatre is going to hell

I’ve spoken and written very often of my lovely friend Bob West. I met Bob in the summer of 1977.  He was the Company Manager for Side by Side by Sondheim that played the Royal Alexander Theatre. It was a Sondheim review that began in London, England and did a stint in Toronto.

I was anxious to see it because Georgia Brown was in it. She was in the first show I ever saw, Oliver, at the then O’Keefe Centre. She was sick that day and I was miffed. It was my first time going to a theatre, she should have been there. Side By Side By Sondheim also had Liz Robertson in the cast. While I didn’t know her, I had seen her in London in A Little Night Music starring Jean Simmons two years before.

I delivered a letter of introduction to Liz at the Royal Alex, with my traditional Tootsie Pop. We met in person after I saw the show. She knew who I was because I would send a bag of Tootsie Pops to Jean Simmons every month of her London stint. She put them on the steps leading to the dressing rooms with a note: “From Lynn Slotkin, our Canadian friend.” That was the beginning of our friendship. She introduced me to Georgia Brown. I told her the story of seeing Oliver but she was not there. “Where were you?” I asked. “She thought a bit, “I was sick.” (she rarely was so she remembered.)

I was invited often to go for drinks with them after the show. I had a car. They introduced me to the Mai Tai. They had a party for Bob’s birthday (July 2). I was invited and offered to make the cake. Liz was also going to New York to audition for a show that was slated for London and remember giving her a hunk of the cake in a piece of paper for the journey. I can’t actually remember meeting Bob during that summer stint of Side By Side….  But from then on my life was intertwined with that of Bob and Liz and the others I met along the way. We kept in close touch. I saw them every trip I made to London, initially that was every summer to coincide with Bob’s birthday.  When I was in London I would call Bob every morning from my hotel to catch up and make plans for a coffee or a meal or theatre.

Bob’s Early Days

After we knew each other for a long time Bob told me, “I was conceived in a hay loft.” I said that should be the first line of his autobiography. If anyone should have written a book about working in the theater, it was Bob West.  

Before he went into the theatre Bob worked for his father, a greengrocer, who sold his produce from a cart in Islington. Bob wanted to be in show business. He tried out as a singer and sang at the Palladium.

He was very efficient in organizing ‘things’ and came to the attention of Matt Monro, a wonderful British singer with a smooth, crooner voice. It happened that both Bob and Matt Monro were on the bill of the same variety show in Blackpool. During the show Mr. Monro asked: “Hey, Westie, can you drive? It seems Mr. Monro had tripped, fallen and broke his arm and needed someone to drive his Cadillac back to London and Bob was it. That was the beginning of their friendship.  Eventually it was decided that Bob would be the perfect tour manager for Matt Monro. Bob did that for six years, even going to South Africa with him and gave suggestions for his show there. Bob said that they were promised that Mr. Monro would be able to sing for a mixed audience. That was not true, so they found a large cinema and did a performance there for only Blacks. Monro entered from the back of the theatre singing “Born Free.” Woow. Pandemonium. He had to do it three times because the song was piped into the streets where a huge crowd had gathered (the performance was sold-out but people still wanted to hear him). 

Bob became the ‘go-to-guy’ for information on Matt Monro. Documentaries, newspaper articles, profiles, tv shows—Bob was always consulted and interviewed. He never gossiped. He always told the truth. 

Eventually Bob moved on from working with Matt Monro and began working for an up and coming fire-cracker of a producer named Cameron Mackintosh. Bob began working for Cameron in the 1970s as a stage manager, then a company manager then a production coordinator etc.  Bob had a knack for quietly, quickly solving problems, never losing his temper and just being a calm, reassuring presence in the mad world of the theatre. As he would say to me often, ‘just get on with it, Deeah’. (That ‘Deeah’ was not a posh ‘Deeaaah’ but a working class ‘Deeah’)

Bob continued working for Cameron until he retired about 21 years ago. Cameron so appreciated Bob’s contribution to the theatre that he arranged for Bob to be awarded a Special Olivier Award for Services to the Theatre in 2018. It took pride of place on Bob’s mantle. But he kept the award covered so it wouldn’t get dusty. And yes, I’ve picked it up and boy is it heavy.

Uncle Bob

Bob was absolutely beloved in the theatre and was known and referred to by almost everybody as “Uncle Bob” because he took care of everybody like a loving uncle would. (Interestingly, I never referred to him as that).

If I was in the West End with him, on our way for a coffee, perhaps a five-minute walk, the journey would take an hour because he knew everybody IN THE STREET! Young actors on their way to a show got this greeting as he stood in front of them and said: “Hello young man! Or young lady!” “UNCLE BOB!!” They would reply and he’d introduce me and they would chat about what the young actor was doing. He gave advice freely when asked. He encouraged all the time. Bob would talk to royalty, Cameron Mackintosh and the stage door keeper of any theatre in the West End in exactly the same way, with respect and consideration.

Young actors trying out shows at some cabaret after their evening performance would ask him to come and see it and offer advice. He often took me. I loved the adoration these young talents (and often not so young talents) showed him. He would sit watching the show: his head cocked to the left, his right arm folded across his chest, and his left arm folded up, resting on the right hand, with the index finger of his left hand perpendicular over his lips; watching with a loving, keen eye. Every suggestion he gave was given with kindness and respect and they were always thoughtful and helpful. The advice was accepted that way too.

He would see talent and know how important it was to give a young talent a chance. I learned in the past year that the wonderful Maria Friedman had unsure moments about her career and her abilities and Bob reassured her. She never forgot that and told him so the last time he went to see her perform.

He was not a push-over mind you. He could speak up and put people in their place. I was told he gave Elaine Paige a talking to and respectfully told her off. He had a lot of time for Patti LuPone because when he worked with her on Les Misérables in London he found her to be totally professional. It seems that people had trouble with that. Bob didn’t. He liked Ms. LuPone. I bought her autobiography for Bob and through a complicated process of getting the book to Patti, she signed the book to him and then mailed it to Bob in the stamped envelope I provided. He was chuffed at that.

While Bob never seemed to lose his cool his patience was often tried. He told me that for one show a young chorus boy had come back from his vacation and Bob saw him going to his dressing room:

Bob: “Oi, what’s that?”

Chorus Boy: “What?”

Bob: “That! On your skin?”

(Pause)

Chorus Boy, brightly: “Oh, that’s a tan, Uncle Bob. I had my vacation in Ibiza.”

Bob: “Right? You’re playing a street urchin in Oliver in Dickensian London with smog and fog all the time. You never see the sun and you have a tan from your vacation in Ibiza.”

The young man finally saw the problem.

Bob: “Ok, off you go to ‘whiten up.’ And he rolled his eyes in disbelief (with a quiet: “Dear oh dear oh dear,”  but not so as the young man would see.

Another time he got a frantic call from a young man in the show:

Bob: “Where are you? It’s past the half-hour call?”

Young Man: “Uncle Bob, Uncle Bob, I’m stuck on the other side of the Gay Pride Parade and I can’t get to the theatre!”

Bob: (sigh) “Well join the parade and make your way to the theatre as fast as you can.”

It wasn’t always young people in the shows he worked who gave him pause. On another musical one of the stars of the show called him and said she would not be in because she had to go to her doctor. The person was a bit of a fragile soul. After some talking and coaxing Bob found out that yes indeed she did feel she had to go to her doctor. But her doctor was in New York and the show she was in was in London! And she said she would be back in a week.

It’s times like these Bob would also say: “The world’s gone mad, Deeah.”

I got a great theatre education from Bob.

I always went to London for my summer vacation to coincide with Bob’s birthday, July 2. Before he retired, he was always working on a show so I would go to his theatre after I saw my show, to wait for him backstage and then go for a drink or for him to drive me to my hotel. The world backstage is completely different from the supposed glitz and glamour of the theatre. Backstage is cramped, dusty, sometimes dingy, grungy, sometimes crowded with actors rushing on and off stage going to and from their dressing rooms etc. From my perspective it was polite, civil, kind, professional, accommodating and respectful.  

This was so true as I watched Bob at work in a theatre talking to the actors or crew. Whether they were coming in or leaving for the night I heard a chorus of: “Hi, Uncle Bob.”  “Night, Uncle Bob”. “Night Uncle Bob,” “Night Bob”.

With Miss Saigon one of the effects was that a ‘life-sized’ helicopter would ‘fly’ into the scene complete with all the attendant effects of a helicopter landing, land and then take on the people trying to escape Saigon. That is if the helicopter worked. At one point the helicopter was out of commission for three months. They created the same effect of the helicopter landing and taking off, with lighting, huge fans, noise and ‘acting.’ The audience couldn’t tell the difference.  This is the magic of theatre: to convince the audience they were watching what they thought they were watching.

Bob worked on The Phantom of the Opera with Harold Prince and Bob said it was the best eight weeks of his working life. He appreciated Prince’s abilities and vision for that show, and Mr. Prince, I would guess, appreciated Bob’s professionalism to make sure that vision was realized.

Bob talked about The Phantom of the Opera with such enthusiasm I could hardly wait to see it. It was the summer of 1987. It was also the summer that Bob was working on the London premiere of Follies at the Shaftesbury Theatre. I spent a lot of time backstage at the Shaftesbury Theatre waiting for Bob. I got an intensive education leaning against a wall outside the stage door guard’s room waiting for Bob.

I went to see The Phantom of the Opera and loved it. I wrote extensively of it in my “Slotkin Letter” when it was in hard copy. I gushed about it when I saw Bob after his show. It was the first preview of Follies and he summed that up: “A shambles, Deeah.” He was calm, cool and pragmatic.

The cast for Follies was large and dressing rooms were at a premium. That meant that even the ‘stars’ had to share. So, Diana Rigg (who played Phyllis) shared a dressing room with Julia McKenzie (who played Sally). Just to keep peace Bob put a fridge in the room for the ladies. I’m sure there were other perks, but he did know how to work with big personalities—and this in no way suggests that those ladies were difficult.

Follies was a long show which meant that whatever I was seeing would be finished before Follies and I could go to the Shaftesbury Theatre where the show was still on, and wait for Bob.  One evening I was leaning against the wall backstage, looking up the corridor and saw Diana Rigg scurry down the stairs dressed very smartly ready for her Act II number. About 10 minutes later she came back to go up the stairs dressed only in a rather skimpy towel. Huh? I wondered what number that was. If this production was anything like the New York production her number should have been “The Story of Lucy and Jessie.”

Well of course this was not like the New York production, it was the London production and Sondheim cut some songs and wrote four others for London. “The Story of Lucy and Jessie” was cut and “Ah, But Underneath” was put in its place. When I saw the London show on its opening night I saw that it was a strip number for Phyllis (Diana Rigg). Over the course of the previews leading to the opening, Ms Rigg’s towel got bigger.

I noticed a dapper man with a lot of wavy hair backstage. He was Charlie, Diana Rigg’s dresser. If she was doing a play she always requested he be her dresser. Apparently, he was also Maggie Smith’s dresser. I don’t want to think of the goings on if both those ‘Dames’ were in a show at the same time and both wanted Charlie to dress them.

Previews progressed smoothly from that first ‘shambles’ preview. The corridor was quiet. I was sitting on the stairs leading up to the dressing room floors, waiting for Bob. It was 11:30 pm and it was a long day for this hard-working cast. A pair of legs encased in baggy pants went by. I looked up. Stephen Sondheim. Royalty! (exhale, Slotkin). Three pairs of legs went by—one in slim fitting jeans, smart boots, one a man’s pair of legs next to that and on the outside a pair of legs in stylish pants. I looked up: Diana Rigg in the slim jeans arm in arm with Charlie in the middle with his other arm through that of Julia McKenzie. Royalty! (exhale, Slotkin).  They leisurely walked up the corridor to leave, saying good night to the stage door guard.

Finally, the opening night. I was to meet Bob backstage to pick up my opening night tickets. It was a buzz of activity. Opening night cards and presents were delivered to the stage door guard for people in the cast. A young chorus boy in the corridor modeled the present given by Cameron Mackintosh to the entire cast: a beautiful cotton dressing gown in silver, grey and black (the colours of the production) with the logo of the show on the back. He was giddy when he modeled it. Bob gave me my tickets. He also introduced me two lovely gentlemen, Peter Robinson and Ernst Goetschi who were also going to the opening. Peter reminded me we had met in Toronto. Both he and Ernst have become fast friends over the years. Cameron Mackintosh came in to wish everybody a good opening. When he saw Peter he thanked him for doing such a good job of painting backstage. (Peter was a house painter then, often engaged by Cameron Mackintosh to paint the back of a theatre in preparation for the opening. Peter then transitioned after that into decorating houses, flats, etc.). I thought that was classy—it’s opening night, emotions are at high pitch and Cameron Mackintosh thanks a man for doing a good job of painting the backstage of the theatre. A lesson in humility and consideration to us all.

The opening of Follies was fascinating. I was intrigued by the changes and saw what was happening in “Ah, But Underneath.” Ms Rigg was using a large towel now. The explosion of applause and cheers must be intoxicating to a cast after all the trauma/drama of putting on a show.

The opening night party was at a club in the West End renamed “Tony’s” referencing the name of a club in the show. It was noisy, buoyant, raucous and joyful for most of those there. The stars of the show were still ‘working’, cornered by reporters for an interview, a quote, a few words about how they were feeling. I saw Cameron Mackintosh take a reporter gently by the arm to a quiet place. Loved that—making the reporter think he was so special that a quiet place was needed for Mackintosh to give him his undivided attention. Bob was relieved, charming and attentive to everybody. What an education I got.   

I began coming to London in January when I travelled with a group of subscribers to Mirvish Productions. We came to London for a week of theatre. I lead a discussion the morning after each show. There was also a walking tour of the West End with the group. Bob often joined us, charming one and all he talked to and he talked to everybody. They loved his stories, anecdotes of the theatres we passed and general comments about the theatre in London. They always asked about Bob when we got home and looked forward to seeing him on our next trip.

I was able to introduce Bob to Bryan Kendall, a dear friend and also a veteran of West End Theatre. Bryan was one of the founders of Theatre Projects, a company that was involved in all sorts of theatrical endeavors. I think both Bob and Bryan knew of the other but had not actually met. I introduced them at a lunch that became a tradition when I was in London. We’d all greet each other and then I’d just sit back and beam as these fonts of theatre knowledge reminisced.

Birthdays

Bob loved a good party for his birthday, surrounded by his family and long-time friends.  Once he rented a boat and we sailed up and down the Thames. There was his brother Frank and Frank’s wife Pam, their children, me, Peter, Ernst, Su Pollard, a wonderful, wild woman of comedy and flamboyant dresser who knew Bob from the Godspell days, Valerie Minifie, also from those early Godspell etc. musical days, Alan Hatton, a fellow company manager and also respected in the theatre.

One birthday there was a smart tea at The Wolseley in Mayfair  for 12 of us? that was so beautiful and elegant you just wanted to take picture after picture—but were forbidden by the management. Bob was not flashy or flamboyant. But he lived life well and wanted his friends to be there to celebrate. I was so glad to be included. I loved every minute of all that.

Vacations.

Bob would arrange some trips for us when I was over there in the summer. Most often we travelled with Peter and Ernst. We went to Yorkshire and saw the desolate, overwhelming moors. Peter’s family lived in North England and we visited them. We visited Bob’s brother and sister-in-law and family in the ‘provinces.’  There was a wonderful trip to the Cotswolds. Wales was terrific. We did the laundry in the flat we rented in Wales and were stunned at how bright colours and whites of the clothes were after a wash, only to find that we forgot to put the detergent in the machine. That was some powerful water. I always wanted to go to Switzerland to meet Ernst’s family. (Ernst is Swiss).

Most often we travelled with Peter and Ernst to their house in France and for several summers the four of us would fly there, rent a car and sally forth to the tiny town where the house was high in the hills. It was mostly calmly idyllic travel, except in one case.

We usually drove to Stanstead Airport, about an hour out of London I think. We would arrive early, eat a leisurely breakfast and check in and get on the plane. Except one time, on our way in the car, I checked for my passport and it wasn’t there. I left it somewhere in Bob’s flat (I was staying with him). Panic. My efficient friends went into overdrive. Bob got himself back to his flat in Barnes. Peter and Ernst continued on to the airport. I offered to just stay behind for the few days they would be away. They wouldn’t hear of it. Bob called when he got back to the flat and checked in various places I thought the passport might be. Nothing. I then remembered that after I went through customs at Heathrow coming into London, I put the passport in my jeans back pocket and not my backpack as usual. That’s where it was. Bob found it. He raced back to the airport taking a ‘tube’ and a train and made it within one minute of the check-in closing. I was so embarrassed at this lapse. No one made me feel stupid. I was not treated to bad temper or exasperation, and certainly not from Bob who had to do all that tearing around. Loved them all for that. And we laughed for years after that. 

In France we explored the countryside. We ate well (Ernst is a wonderful cook). We drank well (wine-making was the ‘industry’ of the village). And we played cards. There was a game of cards we played requiring strategy. I’m terrible at all that maneuvering.  Bob was quiet and held his cards close. Ernst was watchful and had a Cheshire-cat- smile. He tried helping me keep up. Peter was ruthless and wanted to win at all cost. He played with cunning, urging me to discard the one card he needed to win: “Come on, Sweety, “Daaahling (putting it on thick)  just one card, sweety.” He usually won he was so focused.  And Peter made me laugh harder than I have ever laughed before in my life; bent over silent-laughing, red faced, gasping for air, thinking:  “I will pass out from lack of oxygen. Can one pass out from laughing?”  I’m thinking, “He’s doing this on purpose. He knows he can crack me up and distract me!” The game had to stop while I controlled myself. Until the next time. Ernst smiled his sly smile. Bob made a little roll of his eyes. These guys knew Peter so well.

Health Challenges.

Over the years Bob had a few health issues, all met with a stoical resolve as he got on with life. A few years ago he developed dementia. It didn’t affect his memory—miraculously that seemed fine. It affected his speech. It was called Pick’s Disease. It’s not that Bob forgot words. It’s that he couldn’t form them. When he did talk it was all gibberish but he said the words as if knew what he wanted to say. He would labour over trying to get the words or a sentence out and one had to be patient. Usually my conversation was asking him yes or no questions or telling him how things were in Toronto. Still heartbreaking to seem him labour so.

When I was in London, now in the summer as well as in January, I’d call him every day in the morning to see how he was and to arrange a coffee date. I would take the train or tube to Barnes where he was living (on the other side of Hammersmith), walk to his flat then we both would walk to a café or restaurant for coffee or lunch.  When he was healthy he walked with a purpose, a confident stride. He’d firmly take my hand and guide me across the street. I loved that ‘take-charge-attitude’.

With the dementia and his age his walking was unsteady. But Bob was fearless in that he walked every day for the most part. Peter and Ernst got him a cane to help steady him as he walked. Bob was a very proud man and refused to use it. Sometimes he fell. I had to be firm and insist he take the cane when we went out to the café. He was not happy about that.

This last January when I was in London I called Bob and arranged to come to the flat at a certain time and day and then we would walk into Barnes Village (about 20 minutes walk) and have a coffee. I confirmed the information on the day and for him to stay there until I arrived.

In the morning of that day I went with friends to the Museum of London around the Barbican. After a quick snack I headed off to Bob’s. Taking the tube was tricky since the Hammersmith Bridge was under repair and buses were unreliable. So I took a cab. It took a bit more than an hour. When it looked like I’d be a few minutes late I called Bob—there is a kind of code—I call, leave a message then call again in the hopes he heard me. He didn’t pick up. That happens some times.

I finally got there, rang the loud bell and waited. And waited. And…..I knocked. Nothing. I went to the neighbours who I knew. They weren’t home. I looked around the corner thinking perhaps Bob was waiting at the bus stop. Nothing. I went back to ring the bell again. Nothing. I waited on the street for 15 minutes thinking he would come walking up. Nothing. God forgive me, but I wanted to kill him. (Exhale). I walked up the road to the train station (thinking I might see him coming the other way-but no). The train came and I was back at my hotel in no time. I called Bob again about an hour after arriving at the hotel. He answered! I asked: “Where were you? I was a bit late but I was there at your flat and you’d gone.” I couldn’t understand his answer of course. I said, “I’m sorry I missed you.” And he answered clear as a bell and full of emotion: “I’m sorry I missed YOU!” My heart melted.

Peter and Ernst arranged for a carer, a wonderful man named Kenneth, to come in every day for a few hours to make Bob a meal; see the place was clean and give him general help. Then it became necessary for full time help to be there—Bob was wondering off. In one of his wanderings Bob fell outside a store in Barnes Village. He had broken ribs. He got pneumonia and was in hospital. Peter and Ernst kept in close touch with me. Peter said he was failing rapidly. 

On Saturday, September 5 Peter sent me an e-mail asking me to call him. I knew it wasn’t good. I called London and Peter said: “He’s gone.” I loved that he didn’t want to tell me by e-mail.  That night, for comfort and something mindless, I began watching an old James Bond movie on T.V.: To Russia with Love. At the end the credits rolled and a smooth crooner voice sang “To Russia with Love”. I know that wonderful, smooth crooner voice. It was Matt Monro.  A little sign from Bob saying: “Get on with it, Deeah.”

Love you Bob,

Lynn

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Written by Wajdi Mouawad

Directed by Alon Nashman

Translated by: Shelley Tepperman

Sound by: Verne Good

Set and Costume by: Lindsay Ann Black

Cast: Kaleb Alexander or Alon Nashman

NOTE: I reviewed Alphonse a few weeks ago with Kaleb Alexander in Memorial Park. Kaleb alternated the role of Alphonse with Alon Nashman. The production moved to Dufferin Grove Park for a few days and I saw it again with Alon Nashman. While the production has closed I thought it important to comment on Alon Nashman’s work as well in these lean theatre times.

Alphonse is a perfect play for these times of isolation and uncertainty. Alon Nashman gives a multi-layered, vibrant performance. The production is pure joy giving the audience a wonderful opportunity to applaud.

The Story. The play is about Alphonse, a lost boy wandering a road who spins a series of stories, all while various people are looking for him. There are worried parents and siblings; school friends who are concerned; a cop who looks for him and Pierre-Paul René, Alphonse’s fragile, loyal, (imaginary) friend. Each character has a story and a connection to Alphonse and eventually to each other.

The Production.  Alphonse was written by Wajdi Mouawad and published in 1996. Alphonse is a play about isolation, uncertainty and finding ones way in a confusing world, so it’s perfect for these weird times we are going through.

It’s about 14 -year-old Alphonse who was on his way home but lost his way, so was wandering a road for two weeks. He has a vivid imagination and spins a lot of tales.  He conjures an imaginary friend named Pierre-Paul René in whom he confides. Mouawad seems to query is Pierre-Paul René imaginary or is he Alphonse’s alter ego. We can ponder that. In Alphonse there are worried parents and siblings; school friends who are concerned; a cop who looks for him and a cab driver who takes Alphonse home when he is found. Each character has a story and a connection to Alphonse and eventually to each other.

While I did see Kaleb Alexander do the part in Memorial Park and now Alon Nashman playing the part in Dufferin Grove Park. I am not going to compare the performances because both performances are different and each actor brings a different interpretation and his own individuality to the role.  Both are right. That’s the beauty of theatre.

Again, the audience seemed eager for live theatre. We all wore masks and respected the proper distance.

The area in Dufferin Grove Park where the production played already had various structures in place (for kids to play on) which seemed perfect for the purposes of this production. Alon Nashman makes vibrant, impressive use of these structures as he plays the 27 parts of the play.

Nashman has been playing Alphonse all over the world for about 20 years so he knows the characters down to their toes. Yet there is nothing stale or bored-feeling about his performance.

He’s microphoned so not one precious word is lost.  He is agile, climbing up onto the various structures and choosing often to do a backward jump up to a higher level. That was quite impressive.

Of the 27 characters Nashman plays there are: the fit adult Alphonse remembering that time when he got lost on his way home; the diminutive, young Alphonse who keeps walking home and not knowing or worried that he’s lost; his worried mother and his not so worried father; his school friends including a young girl who is his girlfriend; the almost waif-like Pierre-Paul René, the strapping, deep-voiced, caring police officer who goes out looking for Alphonse; the cab driver who takes him home and so many others.

Alon Nashman gave an energetic, engaging performance as Alphonse.  He’s both serious and whimsical.  He segues beautifully from character to character, and each character is clear and distinct.  This is a charming, vivid, multi-layered performance in a play that is multi-faceted.  

Playwright Wajdi Mouawad has created a play that is a journey of discovery, a playful adventure for children and a deeper exploration of life, the world and the universe for adults.  It asks simple but challenging questions: where are you going? Why do I exist?  His play is full of wild adventure, dazzling imagination, joyful revelations and community.  I loved the open-hearted aspect of this production and everything surrounding it.

Co-presented by Theaturtle and Shakespeare in Action.

For details about further Theaturtle productions to to: theaturtle.com.

Romeo and Juliet

NOTE: This show also close last weekend but deserves to be noted so you can catch the company’s next adventure.

Written (of course) by William Shakespeare

Adapted and edited by: Bruce Horak (who did the initial cutting), Kevin Kruchkywich, Ijeoma Emesowum and Rebecca Northan.

Directed, designed and performed by Bruce Horak, Kevin Kruchkywich, Ijeoma Emesowum and Rebecca Northan

A rousing, smart, thoughtful 75-minute rendering of Shakespeare’s classic set in Stratford, Ont. with local references. Beautifully performed in every way.

The Story and Production. It was created, adapted, acted and directed by a talented group of four actors who played all the parts: Bruce Horak, Kevin Kruchkywich, Ijeoma Emesowum and Rebecca Northan.

When this group is doing their improv work on the streets of Stratford they are known as Sidewalk Scenes.  But when they are doing serious work, such as Shakespeare with a twist, they are known as Parkade Plays. Romeo and Juliet was performed in the covered parking area of the Bruce Hotel in Stratford, Ont.

A masked Rebecca Northan checked the audience in and gave each of us a leaf of mint for the inside of our masks. LOVED THAT! We were seated by the rest of the cast. The seats were on either side of the playing area.  We were told that the cast would be moving in and around the chairs but would not linger—loved that care in case someone thought an actor was standing too close to them.

The production was given a decidedly local flavour. It was set in Stratford, Ontario and the grudge was not between two families but between to competing coffee bars in Stratford: Revel and Edison’s. The cast even had t-shirts with either Edison’s or Revel on it.

The play was certainly cut down but the story was told and respected.

The fights were full bodied and feirce (Bravo to Kevin Kruchkywich for creating the fights). Instead of swords, characters fought with wood ‘clubs’. There was nothing tentative and polite about it. A combatant sliced the air towards an opponent and it was blocked by the opponent’s club with energy and fury. The sound of the resultant ‘thwak’ was loud and sharp. It didn’t matter if the character was played by a man or a woman (Ijeoma Emesowum played Mercutio and Juliet for example), the fierceness of the fight was full-bodied and full of conviction.

Because the four actors played all the parts there was a dizzying amount of costume interchange. Often a one actor helped another on with his/her costume for a scene: a vest here, a scarf there etc. The various death scenes were almost choreographed ballet they were so exquisite. A jacket or shirt was removed when a character died as if he/she was separated from their spirit. Romeo (Kevin Kruchkywich) always wore a yellow scarf. When he died, his scarf was delicately place beside the sleeping Juliet. Loved the economy and poetry of the execution of that scene. There was no balcony of course (It’s a rather low parkade), so a rope suggested where the balcony was and we, the audience, just imagined that one side of the rope was the ground and the other was ‘up’ on Juliet’s balcony.

The acting from everybody, no matter what parts they played—and they played several—was terrific. Ijeoma Emesowum played a serious-minded Juliet full of whimsy and reason. She was also a feisty, impetuous Mercutio. Kevin Kruchkywich was a charming, boyish Romeo. He’s a character who flits from ‘true’ love to ‘true’ love. But with Juliet he was struck dumb. He found his mate and his match. Lovely playing between the two. Bruce Horak played the friar and the apothecary with equal seriousness and concern. The famous letter that had to be delivered to the banished Romeo had true resonance when it could not be delivered because of a plague in the city. Thus echoing our own restrictions because of the virus. Rebecca Northan played the Nurse with ditzy humour but not as a silly woman, but one who truly loved Juliet as a daughter. Northan also played a courtly Paris.  Rebecca Northan even supplied her own car as a prop—a police car—she drove it, with a blue police light blinking, screeching into the parkade to break up a fight between the warring sides. Loved that.

Bruce Horak did the sound design and it was wickedly clever. During Romeo and Juliet’s first night as a married couple had music playing quietly in the background—it was an instrumental version of “Tonight” from West Side Story, the Broadway musical based on Shakespeare’s play. Later Horak shook things up with an appropriate song by Lizzo. (sorry, I don’t know the title—I was just delighted to hear her sass in singing).

Comment. I thought this was a splendid production of Romeo and Juliet short though it was. It told the story with economy and wit. It was true to the spirit of Shakespeare and it was done with respect and seriousness. I asked Rebecca Northan about the cuts to the text, was this a company effort (they work so well together). Here’s her answer in her own words:

“Bruce Horak did the cut, then we each did more trimming or adding to our individual characters, making speeches even shorter, putting back lines we may personally have been in love with from the Folio. All done with respect, and a dash of cheekiness…always in favour of clarity. We chose as a group to go modern, and set it in Stratford.. We really wanted to strike a chord with locals. Each actor came to the table with a few “directorial ideas”….solutions to the deaths being to ‘shuffle off the mortal coil’ of our costume, making the spirit leaving the body as simple & elegant as possible. Kevin (Kruchkywich) did all the fights. Bruce (Horak) did the sound design. Ijeoma (Emesowum) kept us all emotionally on track. I suggested the notion of a rope in place of the height of the balcony. Most scenes were 2 handers, so the other two would keep an eye on blocking, story, and meaning. Our targets were: elegance, simplicity, clarity of story, give locals hooks throughout, look for levity & fun in the first third to contrast the tragedy. Play solutions, not problems.”

For me the result was pure joy. Loved it.

For future work look for Sidewalk Scenes: www.sidewalkscenes.ca

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Written by Wajdi Mouawad

Directed by Alon Nashman

Translated by: Shelley Tepperman

Sound by: Verne Good

Set and Costume by: Lindsay Ann Black

Cast: Kaleb Alexander or Alon Nashman

Alphonse is a perfect play for these times of isolation and uncertainty. The imaginative direction of the production by Alon Nashman and the multi-layered, vibrant performance by Kaleb Alexander are pure joy giving the audience a wonderful opportunity to applaud.

The Story. The play is about Alphonse, a lost boy wandering a road who spins a series of stories, all while various people are looking for him. There are worried parents and siblings; school friends who are concerned; a cop who looks for him and Pierre-Paul René, Alphonse’s fragile, loyal, (imaginary) friend. Each character has a story and a connection to Alphonse and eventually to each other.

The Production. I saw this in Memorial Park, 22 Little Ave. just off Lawrence Ave. W. The ‘boxoffice” staff was welcoming and very helpful in setting up a chair for me. A few chairs are provided. You can bring your own blanket and sit on the ground or bring a chair. I brought a blanket but the chair was better. Each section of the ‘audience’ area is set off with properly distanced circles into which the audience sits. We all seemed eager for live theatre (although truth be told, I saw a live show that afternoon as part of SummerWorks—still a thrill).

The performance takes place on a stage with an overhang. There is a table with a green drop cloth in the centre of it.  Kaleb Alexander, who plays Alphonse, saunters up to the stage to begin. He’s microphoned so not one precious word is lost. He plays more than 20 characters including: the fit adult Alphonse remembering that time when he got lost on his way home; the diminutive, young Alphonse who keeps walking home and not knowing or worried that he’s lost; his worried mother and his not so worried father; his school friends including a young girl who is his girlfriend; the almost waif-like Pierre-Paul René, the strapping, deep-voiced, caring police officer who goes out looking for Alphonse; the cab driver who takes him home and so many others.

Kaleb Alexander segues from character to character with an elegant ease. Each character has a physicality that precisely defines who that person is, complete with maleable voice fluctuations and accents. With just a variation in his voice and a subtle change in physical stature Alexander goes from being a strapping, fit man, to a fragile imaginary friend, to a fraught mother, to a imposing police officer. This is a wonderful, vivid performance that is agile, nimble, funny and sometimes even heart-breaking. It’s a perfect example of the kind of theatre work we have missed for so long.

The production is directed with winking-imagination by Alon Nashman, who knows a thing or two about this play. He’s played Alphonse across the globe for about 20 years. Now he is directing it (and playing Alphonse as well at some performances). The space is well used. Kaleb Alexander climbs on the table to suggest travel, hovers under the green drop cloth as if in a cave. There is a piece of business involving a vacuum cleaner that is pure joy. And it rains in one scene—popcorn!

Playwright Wajdi Mouawad has created a play that is a journey of discovery, a playful adventure for children and a deeper exploration of life, the world and the universe for adults. It asks simple but challenging questions: where are you going? Why do I exist? His play is full of wild adventure, dazzling imagination, joyful revelations and community. Exactly what theatre is.

Comment. I loved the open-hearted aspect of this production and everything surrounding it. Alon Nashman is the artistic director of Theaturtle. He says that he so missed creating theatre that he couldn’t stand not doing it any long so he engaged Kaleb Alexander to play Alphonse and collaborated with Shakespeare in Action to produce it. Bless them all.

Co-presented by Theaturtle and Shakespeare in Action.

DATES: August 20-23 at Memorial Park (22 Little Ave.)

               August 27-30 at Dufferin Grove Park (875 Dufferin). 

For details please go to: theaturtle.com.

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Christopher Stanton, the Artistic Director of the Hamilton Fringe Festival, is not letting a pandemic get in the way of producing the Festival this year. While events can’t take place as usual in person in the theatre spaces in Hamilton, Ont. they are taking place virtually on line and on porches in the city.

The whole endeavor is called What the Fest and it runs July 21-26 to see shows when they first appear and then until Aug. 9 for further live-steaming. It’s an eclectic mix of plays, music, songs, stuff for kids and sound scapes. I was pleasantly surprised to see work from people who were of a certain age and not just young theatre creators starting out.

The work I saw was a cross-section that ranged from lightly whimsical, serious in implication, a beautifully written and performed piece that was based on a true story, a play in which a young man has to deal with his father’s disappointment and a sweet reminiscence from a beloved journal.

Strange Bedfellows

By Ray Z Rivers

Directed by Ray Z Rivers

Cast: Ilene Elkaim

Valeri Kay

Ryan Perera

Ray Rivers

Ridhi Kalra

Terry and Beth are returning home to Canada after spending the winter in Florida. Their car breaks down after they have crossed the border, right down the road from Donna and Phil. Terry and Beth knock on Donna and Phil’s door for help. Beth doesn’t feel well—she thinks it might be all that drinking she did last night. Or maybe it was the burger. In any case Donna says that they have to quarantine if they are returning from the States and so Terry and Beth spend the next 14 days with Donna and Phil and their daughter, Malia. Beth gets sicker. Perhaps it’s the flu or a cough or something she ate?

Playwright Ray Z Rivers packs his play with all manner of hot button topics: the musings of Trump supporters, Canada-US relations, climate change, the sarcastic attitude of Malia (a university student) to everything adults say and the various secrets she’s hiding and of course the ever-present virus.

As time passes scenes take place in various rooms in Donna and Phil’s house with various costume changes to suggest the passage of time.

While we, the audience, come to the play with hindsight that perhaps Beth should get tested NOW, I liked that the people in the play were in the middle of it and didn’t have that hindsight, or even common sense until much later. Rivers has created a situation—strangers seeking sanctuary—which is fraught with possibilities, all humourous.

Conspiracy of Michael

Written and performed by Stephen Near

 Directed by Aaron Joel Craig

A man (Stephen Near) sits in a gloomily lit room (it’s a basement we learn later). He speaks with conviction about education and how the government dictates how you should be educated. He speaks about the tyranny of the multiple-choice answers to a question, and who says there is only one right answer? He comments on the tyranny of democracy. He laments that his mother has died and that his sister wants to sell the house, and he’s holed up there (in the basement) not budging.

Initially I wondered who he was talking to. Gradually, as Stephen Near’s play slowly reveals itself through his nicely modulated performance (kudos to director Joel Craig as well), you realize what is going on and who is talking. An interesting piece of writing about a complex situation.

Waiting for Mark

Written by Annie Massey

Directed by Joel Haszard

Cast: Diana DiMauro

Joel Haszard

Annie Massey

Rob Scavone

Harold Tausch  

I’m going to just copy the description of the show from the What the Fest site because it’s wonderfully wild.

“Waiting for Mark — an uplifting play about dead people on Facebook. Four strangers meet in a beige half-world. Daisy (a woman of a certain age who knits), Emma-Rae (a flighty actress from Coronation Street), Abel (an older fellah waiting for his own beneficiary cheque) and Devon (a youngish man who is taken with Emma-Rae) are dead, but they don’t know it. All were posting selfies to Facebook at the exact instant of their tragic deaths. Together, they face betrayal, victory, redemption and birthdays. Then comes the mysterious Vladimir – an envoy from the Boss. Mark Zuckerberg is losing billions and dead account holders aren’t buying from his advertisers. Will Vladimir finally delete their Facebook accounts?”

The premise is wild and rather fitting in this techno world that has us all captive to our screens. The people in the half-world don’t know they are dead. They have no sense of time. It’s cold in the room but the thermostat suggests otherwise. Abel has posed as his own beneficiary when he fakes his death and is waiting for his cheque (wild!).

Waiting for Mark can stand a bit of a tightening edit, but I’m just delighted Annie Massey, who plays Daisy with a lovely dead-pan, wrote it!

Sarah/Frank

Playwright: Steven Elliott Jackson
Director: Ryan Graham Hinds

Sound and music by David Kingsmill

Starring Rebecca Perry

Presented as a radio play.

From the program blurb: “In 1800s, when gender roles were clearly defined, Sarah, a young Canadian, becomes Frank, a Civil War soldier; also the only woman to receive a pension. A unique viewpoint from history.”

Sarah was born in New Brunswick. She was an immediate disappointment to her stern father. There were six kids in the family but only one son and he was weak and sickly. When Sarah was born her father wanted a boy, hence his disappointment. Sarah spent her life trying to earn her father’s respect and finally did when she worked hard beside him on the farm and didn’t flinch when the going got tough. She wore pants to work. She felt comfortable in them. While she got her father’s respect it didn’t last long because when she came of age he said that she had to marry and he would arrange it. That was enough for Sarah. She left home. Dressed as a man to disguise herself this allowed her to move freely in society. Sarah became Frank. Frank got a job as a book salesman. He prospered and did business in both Canada and the United States (although that’s not what they were called then). When the American Civil War broke out Frank enlisted and fought. The disguise was convincing.

Sarah/Frank is a wonderful play by Steven Elliott Jackson. (He wrote the equally compelling play, The Seat Next to the King). He has fashioned a play that creates the life of Sarah and Frank that is based on a true story. His language is particularly vibrant because he has captured the formal way of how one might speak in the 1800s when the play takes place, without it seeming stodgy. Sarah’s confliction between being born a woman but feeling more comfortable in her skin as a man is beautifully, sensitively established in Steven Elliott Jackson’s bracing dialogue.

Rebecca Perry (Confessions of a Redheaded Coffeeshop Girl) captures the many layers of Sarah/Frank’s character. As Sarah her voice is light but firm. When Sarah assumes the identity of Frank Rebecca Perry lowers her voice a bit to suggest the masculine voice. And later in life, years after Sarah assumed her feminine identity, her voice has the subtle quiver of a woman in old age. It’s care like this, aided by the fine direction of Ryan Graham Hinds, that make this one of the best plays I’ve ‘heard’ in a long time. Kudos also to David Kingsmill for his effective music and sound effects.

Loved this show.

Prairie Odyssey

Written and directed by Valeri Kay

Costumes by Cast and Valeri Kay

Lighting by Rev. Douglas Moore and Valeri Kay

Performed by: Sondra Learn

Alison Chisholm

Charly Chiarelli

Prairie Odyssey is a story of resilience in the face of grief and hardship in the 1930s. We get the details from the character of Becky on the occasion of the publication of her mother’s journal that chronicled that time.

The family lived happily and in prosperity in the small community of Chesapeake Bay until Bobby, Becky’s young brother died in an accident. The place held so many sad memories that the family moved to Saskatchewan because of the prospect of free land. Becky’s father would take up farming, something he knew nothing about. The play follows the difficulties of that first harsh winter and the drought-filled summer. Through it the family prevailed.

The cast play various characters and nicely differentiate between them by putting on a new hat or a different bit of clothing.

Charly Chiarelli plays various parts and also provides the sound effects and music, all played on a harmonica. At times I thought the music and sound effects overwhelmed the delicate play instead of just leaving the audience to use its imagination to fill in blanks. The amount of music should be rethought.

I appreciated the commitment of the cast.

[inboks/outboks]

Written and performed by Anthony Raymond Yu

Directed by Karen Ancheta

A young man is packing a box with books and other things. He is upset. As he tries to move a box with things on it he loses his balance and the box goes flying. In the mess he finds a letter, reads it, is further upset and crumples it into a ball and tosses it behind him. He then retrieves it, smooths it out and carefully puts it into a box of keepsakes. The doorbell rings. The young man pulls out his cell phone and looks at it for some reason. He puts down the phone and goes to the door (he’s off camera here). He says “Hello” but no one is there. When he comes back into the room music starts to play: Lukas Graham singing “7 Years” (“Once I was seven years old/My mamma told me/Make some friends…”

What followed was a performance/dance piece in which the young man takes an empty frame from the memento box and reacts with joy and love to the photo that might have been there. He also finds a long black scarf that he threads through the frame. The frame and the scarf encase him, bind him, hold and release him. The movement is full of grace, emotion, despair and other feelings as he remembers. The last scene is the man speaking to the camera as if addressing his father, suggesting they have had a falling out and it’s imperative that they come to an understanding.   

I was intrigued by this piece and by the artistry of its creator, Anthony Raymond Yu. There is a mournful elegance to it and lovely symbolism with the frame and the scarf, connecting the two. From the body of the work it’s not clear if it leads to the last line when the man talks to his unseen father. I wanted to know more about the situation and the piece only hints at it.

What was in the letter and who was it from? Am I supposed to assume it was a hurtful letter from his father? I think that must be clarified. Who rang the doorbell? Why did the man look at his cell phone? Perhaps these questions might be answered with further development of the piece.

I was so interested in the story I looked at what the program notes were: “An aging father; an injured son; and a wounded relationship unresolved. Poised between sending and receiving, the memories of a man and his father resurface. Sifting through their history of joy and grief, man measures the nature of his past in relation to his future.” I want to see that show!! I think [inboks/outboks] in its present state is a good beginning. It needs fleshing out so that the performance piece is brought closer to the description of it.

Comment: Anthony Raymond Yu gave an enthusiastic thank you to those who checked in to watch his filmed piece. He welcomed comments if they liked it. He also welcomed comments if a person didn’t like it or had a concern. He said, “I can’t grow if I don’t know how to grow.” How refreshing, an artist who knows and appreciates the value of all feedback both positive and offering suggestions of improvement. Anthony Raymond Yu—I’ll remember that name and look forward to his next show.  

Full festival schedule available at www.hamiltonfringe.ca/schedule.

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At Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Toronto, Ont.

Written by William Shakespeare

Adapted in parts by the company.

Directed by Allyson McMackon

Costumes by Brandon Kleiman

Lighting by Michelle Ramsay

Fights by Simon Fon

Cast: Richard Alan Campbell

Burgundy Code

Amanda Cordner

Michael Derworiz

Nick Eddie

Matthew Finlan

Sarah Machin Gale

Richard Lee

Alexa MacDougall

Alexandra Montagnese

Kwaku Okyere

Matthew Rossoff

Annie Tuma

A breath-taking, heart-stopping production that realizes the depth, darkness, love, sexuality and joy of the play. Bravo to director/visionary Allyson McMackon for this beautiful parting gift.

The Story. I am going to copy the press information because they did such a good job: “Spanning a single evening or a single sleep, Shakespeare’s play is set in Athens on the eve of a big wedding. Threatened with death if she does not marry who her father chooses, Hermia flees with her lover Lysander through a forest to get to an aunt’s house where they may love freely. Pursued by Hermia’s approved-of suitor Demetrius and the lovelorn Helena, a comedy of desires ensues as they enter a supernatural world with a warring fairy queen and king, a Hobgoblin named Puck and a group of actors rehearsing a play for the festive wedding.”

The Production.  Every single creative decision from the casting to the design to the performances to the direction is so accomplished they make my head swim.  The stage is bare. The playing space is a huge circle. The cast enters running, circles the area and scatters around the space. When characters are not in a scene the actors wait watching either stage left or right by the walls. The ensemble cast themselves in their parts. They also adapted Act I and Act V of the play to reflect certain ideas.

The production starts with various members of the cast taking turns trying to tell the story only to have another cast member say, “No, that’s not what happened.” Then that person tries to tell the story only to be interrupted by someone else, saying “that’s not how it happened” And that person tries to tell the story. And then the characters take their places and the play continues.

Brilliant.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play about confusion and mistaken identity—Puck puts the magic potion in the eye of the wrong Athenian for example. What better way to deepen that idea than with a bit of adaptation in which the characters can’t agree on how the story really happened or what it’s really about?

OK I know I was less than accommodating  when director Chris Abraham had writer Zack Russell add whole scenes to the Groundling Theatre and Crow’s Theatre’s production of Julius Caesar to establish his thesis about the play. In that case I thought the play did that on its own. In the case of Theatre Rusticle’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream the company has its own particular style of re-imagining established plays and stories while still being true to the spirit of the play and these adapted scenes fulfil the company’s mandate.

Director Allyson McMackon has created a production that is popping with energy. Of all the productions that I’ve seen of A Midsummer Night’s Dream I have never seen a forest (where it takes place) so teeming with buoyant, fearless life, sex, danger, darkness,  animals, insects, people, frenzied confusion, jealousy and love.

Hermia (Annie Tuma) and Lysander (Matthew Finlan) race through the forest on their way to his aunt’s house, to escape her father’s wrath and the demand that she marry Demetrius (Alexandra Montagnes). They get discombobulated in the forest. It’s night. Michelle Ramsay’s lighting is moody and striking.  Helena (Nick Eddie) is in love with Demetrius. Demetrius wants Hermia.  Hermia is in love with Lysander but her father wants her to marry Demetrius and if she says no then he wants her dead. (A bit harsh, that) Helena knows that Hermia and Lysander are escaping through the forest and tells Demetrius to make points with him, then they too go charging through the forest to catch them. The movement/action here is not just flitting from here to there. No, this is Allyson McMackon action. The actors run, flip, slide, and jump over and into each other. The images are striking. The text says that Helena is tall. Allyson McMackon, as director, and Nick Eddie as Helena go for the gusto by accentuating that. Nick Eddie is over six feet tall and the other actors are shorter. The image of the gangly, ‘cloud-touching’ Helena next to the other characters (and certainly Hermia) who are ‘diminutive’ in comparison is a wonderful sight, which is the point.  

In the meantime Oberon (Kwaku Okyere), King of the Fairies, wants his Fairie Queen Titania (Richard Lee) to give him “a little changeling boy” of whom she is protective. She won’t. He then uses trickery to steal the changeling boy from her. As Oberon, Kwaku Okyere moves stealthily close to the ground. He is almost cat-like or even lizard-like. The movements are fluid, muscular, graceful and balletic. He wears black tights and a form-fitting top that accentuates the muscularity of the character. Okyere, quiet voiced, conveys Oberon’s seductiveness, dangerousness and command.

As Titania, Richard Lee is also dressed in black—black flowing light cape and tights (kudos to costume designer, Brandon Kleiman). In this case the cape suggests wings so I get the sense that Titania is either a delicate flying insect or perhaps even a bird. But there is nothing delicate about Lee’s playing of Titania. While Oberon is close to the ground in his movements, Titania is upright, giving the sense she is in the air. Titania matches Oberon’s strength with her own determined resolve. They are a perfect match.   

Puck is often played as an impish, playful spirit. Here Richard Alan Campbell plays him as a bit muddled, confused and not exactly swift of movement. That could better explain his confusion in putting the magical flower liquid in the eye of the wrong Athenian. What a refreshing rethinking of this character.

McMackon keeps the pace at break-neck speed. Simon Fon works his magic by creating such high-stakes fights. All this passionate, frantic movement and activity leaves everybody breathless, including the audience. Make sure you know where the defibrillator is in the theatre.

Comment. This is the last production of Theatre Rusticle after which founder-artistic director, Allyson McMackon closes it down. She founded the company in 1998 and produced some of the most provocative productions over that time and she’s tired. I can appreciate that but it’s heartbreaking that this kind of consistent challenging, bracing theatre from this company will stop.   The artistic world is changing and she is going on to other challenges. She will still teach, direct etc.  And boy did she go out with a bang. The run is sold out but returns are possible. Do anything within reason to get a ticket.

In an effort to go green the programme etc. is on line. There is no hard copy of the  programme of the show. This is unfortunate. I so wanted a memento of this last Theatre Rusticle show to put in my drawer with all my other treasures. Thanks for everything, Allyson, especially all those times you made me gasp at some clever direction, or an image or an illuminated thought. Wonderful theatre does that.

Theatre Rusticle presents:

Began: Jan. 14, 2020.

Closes: Jan. 26, 2020.

Running Time: 2 hours and 30 minutes, approx.

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2019 Tootsie Awards

As many of you know, I have been giving out Tootsie Pops for many years to people in the theatre as a way of saying ‘thank you for making the theatre so special for me.’ Instead of doing top 10 lists of the best theatre and performances of the year, I do The Tootsie Awards that are personal, eclectic, whimsical and totally subjective.

Here are this year’s winners:

PEOPLE

The Guts of a Bandit Award

Kevin Loring

Kevin Loring is the Artistic Director of the Indigenous Theatre of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. He created a wide-reaching roster of Indigenous plays only to find out that the Federal budget did not award his theatre $3.5 million that was vital for its future development. He went ahead anyway. He kicked off the Indigenous season in September with a wonderful 10 day festival of plays, activities and ceremonies called Mòshkamo, that began with a flotilla of canoes being paddled along the Rideau Canal to the NAC. The next day, the building was hopping with ceremony, pride, music and theatre (The Unnatural and Accidental Women by Marie Clements—heartbreaking and beautifully performed). Mr. Loring has the guts of a bandit.

Bob  (Robert) Nasmith (Posthumously, alas)

Bob had always been a part of the alternative theatre scene in Toronto since the Rochdale/Theatre Passe Muraille days. Quietly fierce, tenacious, articulate and political. Seven years ago he was diagnosed with throat cancer that wrecked his taste buds. He lost weight; looked wizened and craggy and naturally decided to do Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett at the Backspace of Theatre Passe Muraille. It sold out. He did the show again. It sold out again. Cancer didn’t stop him from living every second until he couldn’t. Bob died Dec. 16, 2019.

The Jon Kaplan Mensch Award

In honour of Jon Kaplan, the long serving senior theatre writer/reviewer/interviewer for NOW Magazine who died April 28, 2017 and showed us what class, graciousness, generosity of spirit, love of the theatre and its creators and being a mensch was all about.

Bea Campbell 

Allan Teichman

Neil Barclay

Carolyn Mackenzie 

Jenny L. Wright

Barbara Worthy

Patty Jamieson

These lovely people took care of Jennifer Phipps in her last years of life. They took her to doctor’s appointments, bought her groceries, kept her company, checked in on her, planned her birthday when she was in the hospital and when she died they helped plan a swell funeral.  They went on to celebrate her life with a wonderful memorial August 12. All these mensches work or worked at the Shaw Festival, as did Jennifer. Classy!

Twenty Years is too Long to Wait for Work this Good Award

Richard (Ric) Waugh

Who had not been on a stage for 20 years until he was cast in Copy That by Jason Sherman at Tarragon Theatre, playing Peter, the senior writer on a TV cop show. Ric Waugh’s acting was beautifully contained, gripping, intense and even explosively incendiary at times. And always, always true.

No Church Ever Gave Communion Like This Award

Allegra Fulton

Allegra Fulton is a hugely gifted actor but in Between Riverside and Crazy she was eye-popping in her brilliant performance as Church Lady.

The production was produced by the Coal Mine Theatre. It was written by Stephen Adly Guirgis  and directed with sublime intelligence by Kelli Fox. Allegra Fulton played Church Lady, a demure woman who comes to the house of Walter in an effort to give him communion, since he doesn’t go to church. Initially she is almost shy, with a lilt of an accent.  But then she straddles him as he sits in his chair, puts the wafer in her mouth and proceeds to give him ‘mouth-to-mouth-communion,’ among other things.  Wow!

A Man of Many Talents Award

Majdi Bou-Matar

Majdi Bou-Matar is a director-artistic director, curator, creator of art, originally from Lebanon but now relocated to Kitchener, Ont. where he ran MT Space. His productions are arresting in their vision with a deep sense of story-telling. I first saw his production of The Last 15 Seconds in the Backspace of Theatre Passe Muraille (thank you Andy McKim). Jaw-dropping. I looked out for his work ever since. For the past 10 years he was the Founder and Artistic Director of the IMPACT Festival that brought a diverse roster of plays and productions from the Middle East, across Canada and South America to Kitchener. I finally was able to see many of those productions. Again, jaw-dropping in their impact. He is slowly doing more work in Toronto. Will someone please bring him here to resurrect the World Stage Festival at Harbourfront!

The One(s) to Watch Award

Diana Donnelly

Diana Donnelly is a wonderful actor and now she’s adding that shine to directing. In her first directorial effort she brought The Russian Play by Hannah Moscovitch to the Shaw Festival. It’s about a simple flower seller who falls in love with a grave digger in Stalinist Russia with sad results. This stunning early play by Hannah Moscovitch  is given a dazzlingly creative production by director Diana Donnelly who filled the production with stunning imagery and realized some of the best performances from her excellent cast: Peter Fernandes Marie Mahabal, Mike Nadajewski and Gabriella Sundar Singh. The production makes one eager for more from Donnelly.

Saphire Demitro

Who played Tracy Turnblad in Hairspray at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton. She was buoyant, effervescent, and illuminated the very best of this tenacious, lovely character.

Durae McFarlane

He played Avery, a young black man in The Flick produced by Outside the March and Crow’s Theatre. He was thoughtful, mysterious and heartbreaking. This was his first professional job. Wow!

Ali Joy Richardson

For writing and directing A Bear Awake in Winter.  This is a smart, thoughtful and confident writer and director, This play is wise, compelling and honest. My jaw dropped at the end because of the accomplishment of Ms Richardson.

Michael Torontow

He’s best known as an accomplished actor. He can now add director to that description. In his first directorial gig he directed a staged reading of Into the Woods for Talk Is Free Theatre in Barrie, Ont. What he created was a clear reading of the musical that was inventive in its presentation, creative, illuminating and accomplished in realizing Sondheim’s difficult piece. Kudos also to Arkady Spivak, TIFT Artistic Producer who first saw in Michael Torontow a natural director and gave him the challenge. Arkady Spivak could make this list every year if he’s not careful.

These Movers and Shakers are moving on……

He’s a Quiet, Courtly Man but his Productions Packed a Punch Award

Philip Akin

Philip Akin has been a driving force as a founding member of Obsidian Theatre Company in 2000 and the Artistic Director since 2006 where he directed such stunning productions as Ruined, Passing Strange, Intimate Apparel and Pass Over. He has decided to step down as Artistic Director and he should be celebrated for all his work.

She Took Familiar Classics and Gave Them A New Lustre Award.

Allyson McMackon

Allyson McMackon formed Theatre Rusticle in 1998 and has been its moving force since then. The company uses muscular, balletic movement to dig deeper into the meaning of classics. The results made such productions as Our Town, The Stronger Variations, April 14, 1912 and Peter and the Wolf fresh, vibrant and evocative. Her production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream set for January 2020 will be her last as Artistic Director when she steps down.

She Made Publicity into an Art Form Award.

Carrie Sager

The doyenne of theatre publicists who retired this summer after a long and successful career of making us aware of shows that mattered, made a difference and entertained–often all three at the same time. And she had an eagle eye to my grammar mistakes and gently drew my attention to them.

He Gave 110% Award.

Andy McKim

A man of the theatre. He has just retired as the Artistic Director of Theatre Passe Muraille after leading that company for 12 years since he became Artistic Director in 2007. Andy McKim believes in collaboration, communication and creating opportunities for women and people of colour. All of these initiatives were alive and well during his tenure as Artistic Director. And yes, he gave 110% in everything he tackled.

PRODUCTIONS

When You Think You’ve Seen the Best, This Blows it Away Award

Cabaret

Produced by the Grand Theatre, London, Ont. Book by Joe Masteroff, Based on the play by John Van Druten and the Stories of Christopher Isherwood. Music by John Kander. Lyrics by Fred Ebb. Directed by Dennis Garnhum. Cast: Isaac Bell, Tess Benger, Olivia Sinclair-Brisbane, James Daly, Phoebe Hu, Lawrence Libor, W. Joseph Matheson, Charlotte Moore, Margaret Thompson.

Dennis Garnhum created a bracing, revelatory, joyous, immersive, gut-twisting production of this brilliant musical about life in a second rate cabaret in Berlin while all hell was breaking out outside. Tess Benger nailed it as Sally Bowles.

You Missed a Piece Award

The Flick

Produced by Outside the March and Crow’s Theatre. Written by Annie Baker. Directed by Mitchell Cushman, Starring: Colin Doyle, Amy Keating and Durae McFarlane and Brendan McMurtry-Howlett.

 To director Mitchell Cushman, his creative team and his trio of stunning actors who meticulously showed us how his characters cared about their menial work in an old-fashioned cinema. Two characters repeatedly swept popcorn off the floor with such care and commitment they made the audience look harder and pay attention as they did it.

A Really Plump Chicken in Every Pot Award.

The Jungle

Produced by Tarragon Theatre. Written by Anthony MacMahon and Thomas McKechnie. Directed by Guillermo Verdecchia. Designed by Shannon Lea Doyle. Starring Shannon Currie and Matthew Gin.

The play details a complicated economic formula explaining how the few have all the money and power over the many and according to the formula it’s next to impossible to break through and overcome that inequity. But then MacMahon and McKechnie put a human face to it, focusing on two people working two jobs in an effort to do better. Director Guillermo Verdecchia’s stylish, unsentimental production turns that cold formula on its ear. A fat chicken is cut up in the play. It’s symbolic and it’s brilliant.

Knit One, Pearl Two Award

The Knitting Pilgrim

Produced, co-written and performed by Kirk Dunn. Co-written by Claire Ross Dunn. Directed by Jennifer Tarver. Was performed at the Aga Khan Museum.

Saying The Knitting Pilgrim by Kirk Dunn is a play about knitting is as much an understatement as saying Gateau St. Honoré is a simple dessert. Dunn started as an actor and when he was touring he passed the time in the van by learning how to knit and improving. Knitting took over his life.  This brought him to the attention of Nataley Nagy the Past Executive Director of the Textile Museum of Canada. She said his knitted work was a work of art, almost like an expressionist painting. She suggested he knit something that says something about the world. That was the birth of his triptych of tapestries—three panels that illuminated aspects of Judaism, Christianity and Islam—the commonality and differences of the faiths. The panels are about 11’ x 7’ and it took him 15 years to knit. They are astonishing as is his ‘simple’, gentle show.

It Wouldn’t Let Us Look Away Award.

Pass Over

Produced by Obsidian Theatre Company. Written by Antoinette Nwandu. Directed by Philip Akin. Starring: Kaleb Alexander, Mazin Elsadig, Alex McCooeye.

Antoinette Nwandu uses Samuel Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot as the model about two black men who wait on a sidewalk to ‘pass over’ to a better life.

I’ve loved this play since I first saw it in New York. I loved how it threw up my assumptions in my face; how it startled me with my blinkered thinking; how it upset and unsettled me for all the right reasons. I loved how Philip Akin’s masterful, sensitive production made us feel every high and low emotion the characters felt.

The Voice of Reason Award

Twelve Angry Men

Produced by Drayton Entertainment. Written by Reginald Rose. Directed by Marti Maraden. Set by Allan Wilbee. Costumes by Jennifer Wonnocott. Lighting by Louise Guinand. Starring: Neil Barclay, Terry Barna, Skye Brandon, Benedict Campbell, Keith Dinicol, Thomas Duplessie, J. Sean Elliott, Omar Forrest, Jacob James, Kevin Kruchkywich, Cyrus Lane, Brad Rudy, Jeffrey Wetsch.

I saw this in Cambridge, Ontario. I would have traveled to the ends of the earth to see a production this gripping, electrifying and compassionate. Eleven jurors of twelve are sure a troubled teenager killed his father. One lone juror is just not sure and he spends the whole play trying to change the minds of the other eleven. The play is wonderful. Director Marti Maraden and her stunning cast did a masterful job in realizing the power of the play.

No Cigarette Necessary Award

Sex

Produced by the Shaw Festival. Written by Mae West. Directed by Peter Hinton-Davis. Designed by Eo Sharp. Starring: Diana Donnelly, Julia Course, Fiona Byrne.

A street-smart hooker thinks she might have a chance of going ‘straight’ when a rich young man proposes, not knowing she’s in the oldest profession in the world. Bravo to Peter Hinton for his tenacity in getting this play produced and bringing Mae West’s talent as a writer to light. West wrote and starred in it in New York in 1926. The play is hard-edged, has the language of the street and characters who are well drawn, all given a production that was intelligent, stylish, atmospheric and even moving.

 The Best Way to End the Theatre Year Again Award.

Jack and the BeansTalk—A Merry Magical Pantomime.

Produced by Torrent Productions. Written and directed by Rob Torr, choreographed by Stephanie Graham. Starring: Greg Campbell, William Fisher, Christopher Fulton, Tim Funnell, Cyrus Lane, Jamie McRoberts, Caulin Moore, Teresa Tucci and the voice of Cynthia Dale.

Rob Torr and Stephanie Graham produce a show that engages their whole audience with a hilarious re-imagining of a classic story embraces their East End community and in short order is making this a Christmas tradition. We boo the villain, cheer the heroes, marvel at the costume changes of the Dame and laugh without inhibition. A perfect way of ending a year full of theatre-going.

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MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

In High Park, Toronto, Ont.

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Liza Balkan

Set by Joanna Yu

Costumes by Anna Treusch

Lighting by Rebecca Picherak

Composed and sound by Richard Feren

Choreography by Monica Dottor

Cast: Emma Ferreira

Can Kömleksiz

Richard Lam

Allan Louis

Nora McLellan

Christopher Morris

Natasha Mumba

Rose Napoli

Jamie Robinson

Heath V. Salazar

Helen Taylor

Emilio Vieira

Charming, bright, smart, wonderfully acted and directed in enchanting surroundings, but boy were most of the men in the play dumb. Not Benedick, he was a sweetie and wise, but the rest of them, Oy!

The Story. Beatrice and Benedick have a prickly relationship. They were a couple years before but he dumped her and she’s still smarting. She never misses a chance to throw a smarmy remark his way and he returns it. They of course are made for each other but how to make them realize it? Another plot line is the love of Claudio for Hero and she him. He wants to marry her but is easily duped by the dastardly Don John into thinking Hero is untrue. Oh Lord, what fools these men are! But I digress.

The Production. It’s the 36^th year of Canadian Stage doing Shakespeare in High Park. Canadian Stage is collaborating with the Department of Theatre, School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design at York University.

The two directors, Liza Balkan for Much Ado About Nothing and Severn Thompson for Measure for Measure, are respected actors transitioning to directing and took the Director’s MA Program at York.  After they finish the program, they each direct a Shakespeare in High Park. Both women have been directing elsewhere, but the York training takes them to another level.

The main structure of the set is multi-leveled with walkways off here and there. Joanna Yu’s set is festooned with colourful streamers and other notes of celebration. The army is returning from battle.

Much Ado About Nothing is directed by Liza Balkan who is gifted in realizing the great humour in the play as well as the pathos and the anger. For Much Ado About Nothing Liza Balkan has the cast engage the audience with respect but it’s not all played only to the audience. Characters interact with each other as well. There is nothing phony about playing to each other and the attentive crowd.  The production is lively, energetic and wonderfully funny.  

 Initially Rose Napoli, who plays Beatrice, appears on stage in rustic top and jean shorts and does about 10 minutes of stand-up it seems and discourses on women, politics, men, gender issues etc.  She’s abrasive, funny, powerful and takes no prisoners.  When the play proper starts she has a good handle on the language and the feisty personality of Beatrice. Liza Balkan has directed Napoli to always be on the move, flitting energetically here and there. Beatrice loves sparing with Benedick played with bemused good humour and a bit of warranted confusion by Jamie Robinson. He is less energetic than Beatrice. He’s more tempered, cautious, but still with lots of confidence. And when they realize they love each other she doesn’t need to flit so fast and so often. Lovely transformation.

Emma Ferreira plays Hero as a gentle, loving soul. She shows lots of backbone when she ‘reappears’ as ‘another Hero.’ She is firm, confident and stands her ground with Claudio who is repentant. Allan Louis as Leonato is courtly, gracious, but hot-headed when he thinks his daughter has been untrue—not maligned, but untrue. OY.

Christopher Morris is a gracious Don Peter and a calming presence. Natasha Mumba is a wonderfully oily, creepy Don John unapologetic and angry at the world. Emilio Vieira does a lovely turn as Claudio, easily influenced, quick to judge and just as quick to realize he’s wrong. You just wish that the character would learn a few things from his mistakes….but that’s men, eh? (ooops, sorry, digressing again). Nora McLellan plays Dogberry dressed as a scout master it seems—khaki shorts and shirt tucked in and a wide hat. She has all the wonderful officiousness of a man with a little power and a wonderful set of malapropisms. McLellan is very serious and therefore very funny.

There are wonderful dances during the production and at the end choreographed by the gifted Monica Dottor. Loved this production.

The cast of 12 play in rep with Measure for Measure.

Comment. Lord what fools these men be, with apologies to Shakespeare. Claudio is told by the shifty Don John that Don Peter (head of the regiment in which Benedick and Claudio were a part) was wooing Hero for himself and not Claudio. And Claudio believed him and was in a rage. When the truth came out, Claudio calmed down and proposed to Hero and she readily accepted (oh dear!).

Then Claudio is told by the dastardly Don John that Hero is unfaithful and he can prove it by showing Claudio that Hero is seen talking to a man at her window at midnight the night before the wedding. Don Peter was there too as a witness. Claudio then brings this up at the wedding, just before he is to accept Hero. He humiliates her in front of everyone. He doesn’t talk to her in private to get her side of the story. (I guess if he did ask her side she would tell him that it wasn’t her at the window and could he really see that well since IT WAS MIDNIGHT AND DARK!!!). And Hero’s father, Leonato also takes Claudio’s side and further humiliates his daughter in public. Only Benedick is thoughtful and reasons out various sides of the story.

The truth outs, but boy is it painful to women. And Hero marries Claudio in the end when he is contrite for a few seconds. I fear for that marriage.

The natural setting in the park, surrounded by trees with the terraced hill where the audience sits and eats their picnics, is magical. Sure planes fly overhead, dogs bark, kids playing elsewhere are loud, but when the show starts, nothing matters. The audience is silent. I note some people can’t help recording the show on their devices. Attentive ushers quietly scurry down the aisle to get the attention of the person, and in a smiling sign language of hands making a box and a shake of a head, the person puts the device away.

Presented by Canadian Stage

Began. July 4, 2019.

Closes: Sept. 1, 2019.

Running Time: 1 hour, 45 minutes, no intermission.

www.canadianstage.com

Measure for Measure.

High Park, Toronto, Ont.

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Severn Thompson

Set by Joanna Yu

Costumes by Michelle Bohn

Lighting by Rebecca Picherak

Composed and sound by Richard Feren

Choreography by Monica Dottor

Cast: Emma Ferreira

Can Kömleksiz

Richard Lam

Allan Louis

Nora McLellan

Christopher Morris

Natasha Mumba

Rose Napoli

Jamie Robinson

Heath V. Salazar

Helen Taylor

Emilio Vieira

A terrific production, both directed and acted, of a woman trying to survive quietly in a world full of men with power who want to compromise her.

 The Story. It’s Vienna and morals are going to hell in a hand basket.  Duke Vincentio has allowed this to happen and doesn’t want to come down on the people with stringent laws to get things back on the right track because then they won’t like him.  So he says he’s leaving the city and is putting Angelo, his second in command in charge.  Except the Duke doesn’t leave but disguises himself as a priest so he can see how things are going in the city.

Angelo is a by-the-book man.  As lax as Duke Vincentio was about the law, that is how stringent and blinkered Angelo is. He is unmovable when it comes to the law. So he resurrects a law that says if a man gets a woman not his wife pregnant, he must die. (a bit harsh, that.) A man named Claudio got his fiancé pregnant.  Angelo condemns him to death.  Claudio’s sister Isabella is about to become a nun and is urged to go to Angelo to plead her brother’s case. She is so eloquent that she charms Angelo but he doesn’t budge. However he asks her to come back the next day. She does and Angelo suggests that he will save her brother if she sleeps with him. Let us all gulp in unison. She tells this to Claudio who is horrified. But then….he reasons that the sacrifice of her chastity is less than him losing his life. I love her line: “More than our brother is our chastity.” The play is full of moral dilemmas.

The Production. It’s wonderful.  Severn Thompson directs this with such confidence in bringing out those moments that make you gulp. There is a lot of humour, especially with a character named Lucio (a randy, sly Emilio Vieira) who is a shady character and is at home in the seamier side of Vienna.

Isabella is played by Natasha Mumba with conviction, pride and a sense of dread when she has to consider what Antonio wants from her. That wonderful line: “More than our brother is our chastity” was cut and I missed it because it says so much about Isabella and her hard convictions. She is preparing to be a nun. She is a woman. Who are we to condemn her convictions? But Mumba is so fearless and convincing in conveying Isabella’s convictions and beliefs that I can deal with the cut.

Antonio is played by Christopher Morris as an arrogant, matter of fact man, who is clear and firm in his reasoning. He is not pure evil because Christopher Morris illuminates his own convictions. He is steely when he challenges Isabella when she says she will report him, and he says who will believe you? Angelo has the law on his side and also power over this strong woman.  As the Duke Allan Louis is as shady as the others in the play but is more subtle. There is a lilting humour when he is in disguise as the priest. When the Duke reveals his own feelings for Isabella and takes her hand. When she hears his comments she immediately drops his hand. Such a resounding moment, in a production full of them.

Comment. Since the Duke knows what’s going on one can assume that Antonio gets his comeuppance. But this is Shakespeare.  He’s not finished when Antonio is exposed. The Duke also is charmed by Isabella and makes her an offer too.  The whole idea of men having the power even though women have brains and can try and stand up to them, is so clear in Shakespeare.  What a brilliant writer.  I wonder that because Shakespeare wrote with such authority about how men had such power over women and how smart women were in dealing with that overwhelming power, that perhaps Shakespeare was a woman.

But I digress.

Presented by Canadian Stage

Closes: Aug. 31, 2019.

Running Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes, no intermission.

www.canadianstage.com

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As many of you know, I have been giving out Tootsie Pops for many years to people in the theatre as a way of saying ‘thank you for making the theatre so special for me.’ Instead of doing top 10 lists of the best theatre and performances of the year, I do The Tootsie Awards that are personal, eclectic, whimsical and totally subjective.

Here are this year’s winners:

PEOPLE

The Guts of a Bandit Award

Arkady Spivak, artistic producer, Daniele Bartolini, site-specific creator and director, and Mitchell Cushman, director.

For the creation of The Curious Voyage produced by Talk is Free Theatre,  that took place in Barrie, Ont. and London England over a three day stint all leading to a production of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street at a site-specific building in London.

The Jon Kaplan Mensch Award

(Renamed from the John Harvey/Leonard McHardy Mensch Award) in honour of Jon Kaplan, the long serving senior theatre writer/reviewer/interviewer for NOW Magazine who died April 28, 2017 and showed us what class, graciousness, generosity of spirit, love of the theatre and its creators and being a mensch was all about.

Natasha Parsons, Director of Patron Services, Tarragon Theatre.

Charming, personable, gracious and goes the extra mile in everything she does. She takes care of staff and actors when they are sick. And even when I buy a ticket on line to see a show at Tarragon for a second time, she always seems to know and puts a reserved sign on my favourite seat in the theatre even though I never asked for such a favour. Classy.

The Damaged Older Daughter Award

Deborah Hay

For the most shattering performance of Goneril I have ever seen, in Lear, directed by Graham Abbey and produced by the Groundling Theatre Company.

As played by Deborah Hay, Goneril was so terrified and damaged by her bullying and demanding parent, Lear, she shook and was almost too paralyzed to speak clearly without stuttering. This was revelatory.

The Labour of Love Award

Maev Beaty

For her stunning performance in Hannah Moscovitch’s Secret Life of a Mother  at the Theatre Centre, playing herself and Hannah Moscovitch about the gut-wrenching trials and joys of motherhood: miscarrying, labour and birth.

The Incendiary Passion of a Wronged Woman Award

Virgilia Griffith

For her breathtaking performance as Billie/She/Her in Harlem Duet  by Djanet Sears at the Tarragon Theatre.

Billie is told by her husband, Othello, that he’s leaving her because he’s in love with a white woman named Mona. We know it doesn’t end well for anybody, but Virgilia Griffith’s performance sears itself into your memory.

She Rocks Award

Sabryn Rock

For her stunning, heart-breaking performance as Nina in The Royale, written by Marco Ramirez, directed by Guillermo Verdecchia and produced by Soulpepper.

When Nina was younger she took as her ideal a white, blonde woman in a magazine. She tried to straighten her hair to look like the photo. Her brother Jay saved her when her hair burned. He grew up wanting to be the first black heavyweight champion of the world to make Nina proud of being black. In Sabryn Rock’s performance we saw a woman, proud, straight-backed, wearing pristine, starched, perfectly-ironed clothes, trying hard to be better than the ideal but wanting to be invisible and not attract notice. A performance that left me limp in my seat.

Actually, She Took Us All With Her Award

Clare Coulter

For her riveting performance as Mrs. Jarrett in Caryl Churchill’s play Escaped Alone produced by Soulpepper and Necessary Angel.

Mrs. Jarrett happens upon three ladies in a backyard, drinking lemonade and invites herself in. The performance was intensely focused, compelling and full of quiet rage. Coulter was so concentrated in listening to the other characters that she made the rest of us listen hard too.

He Clarifies Every Message, Even When the Dialogue is Deliberately Obtuse Award.

R.H. Thomson

He played Marshal McLuhan in the last year of his life, in Jason Sherman’s play The Message at Tarragon Theatre.

Thomson showed both a man struggling with the loss of language when McLuhan had a stroke and a man at the top of his game as he discoursed in a stream of consciousness about his thoughts and theories about the world, technology, religion, James Joyce, and punning.

Is There Anything She Can’t Do Award.

Hannah Levinson

For her performance as Small Alison in Fun Home by Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron, based on the Graphic Novel by Alison Bechdel in which her character was demanding, confident and endearing and her singing of “Ring of Keys was joyous; for her agile performance as Polly Peel (age 11) in The Preposterous Predicament of Polly Peel at the Toronto Fringe Festival,  book by Julie Tepperman with music and lyrics by Kevin Wong; and her unsettling performance as Iris in The Nether, by Jennifer Haley, produced by Studio 180 and Coal Mine Theatre, in which she played a little girl who appeals to those fantasy tastes of men who are attracted to little girls in the nether world of the internet, yet there is an adult behind the fantasy. Each performance is true, accomplished and startling for one so young (12-years-old).

The One(s) to Watch Award

Ahmed Meree

For his gripping, shattering play Adrenaline which he performed at SummerWorks.

It’s about a Syrian refugee spending his first winter in Canada as he remembers and is haunted by those he had to leave behind. It’s a startling piece of work and Ahmed Meree’s performance left me gasping at its eloquence.

Thalia Gonzalez Kane

Her first play was The ’94 Club that played the Tarragon Extraspace.

The play was about a group of teens in high school and all the sexual pressures that brings with it. The writing was bracing and smart, the ideas were clearly detailed and the characters were distinct and totally believable. Ms Kane is now studying in Ireland. Hurry up and finish there and bring us your next play.

Leora Morris

She directed The Philosopher’s Wife by Susanna Fournier for Paradigm Productions at the AKI Studio. She’s done SummerWorks and other small scale shows here, but her theatrical vision, her finesse in handling even the most challenging work and her ability to create compelling productions are huge. She’s Canadian, was educated at Yale and does a lot of work in the States. We need her here!

Rachel Cairns

She’s played Rosencrantz in the rock version of Hamlet at the Tarragon Theatre, Maggie in Bunny by Hannah Moscovitch at the Tarragon Theatre, #25 in The Wolves at Crow’s Theatre playing the tough but vulnerable captain of the team. In every role Rachel Cairns is distinctive, creative and accomplished.

PRODUCTIONS

The Provocative and Unsettling Award

A Delicate Balance

Produced by Soulpepper Theatre Company. Written by Edward Albee, directed by Diana Leblanc, starring a stellar cast.

The long carpet that flips up at the end in Astrid Janson’s set says everything about the family at the centre of the play. On the surface they are well-off, civilized and sophisticated but there are terrors lurking and the family and two friends are about to have the rug pulled out from underneath them. Diana Leblanc’s direction keeps everything delicately balanced as the family’s lives unravel, but you still hold your breath until the end.

It Grabs You By the Throat Award

Punk Rock

Written by Simon Stephens. Produced by the Howland Company. Directed by Gregory Prest.

Simon Stephens writes about the competitive world of education in a grammar school in England. Director Gregory Prest kicked it up a notch so that the confrontations, rock music and pace made you grip the seat.

The Elegant and Heart-breaking Red Dress Award

The Monument.

At the Factory Theatre, written by Colleen Wagner and stunningly, sensitively directed by Jani Lauzon starring Augusto Bitter and Tamara Podemski.

Lauzon likened the idea of women raped and murdered in war, to those Indigenous women and girls who have disappeared across Canada. In the play the man who killed and buried his victims tells the mother of one of the girls where they are buried. Jani Lauzon represented each body with a simple, beautiful red dress, hung on a hanger above the stage. Shattering and so moving.

High-flying and Adored Award

Mary Poppins

At Young People’s Theatre, directed by Thom Allison, starring Vanessa Sears as Mary Poppins.

Mr. Allison is fast becoming the director to go to when you want to illuminate the heart and soul of a show without pandering to sentiment. This was a production that reflected its audience. Mary Poppins is a no-nonsense person who puts the function back into dysfunctional when it comes to damaged families. Ms Sears was dandy.

It Left Me Breathless Award

The Runner

Produced by Human Cargo and played at Theatre Passe Muraille. Written by Christopher Morris, directed by Daniel Brooks and starring Gord Rand.

About Jacob, a paramedic with Z.A.K.A a volunteer group in Israel that collected dead Jews and bits and pieces of them for proper burial. The production was done entirely on a treadmill. Thrilling.

Terrific Enough to See It Again Award

Fun Home

 Produced by Mirvish Productions. Music by Jeanine Tesori,  book and lyrics by Lisa Kron, based on the Graphic Novel by Alison Bechdel. Directed by Robert McQueen.

About Alison Bechdel seen at three stages of her life as she comes to grips with her sexuality and her father’s deep secret. The production was ravishing, the cast was stunning.

The Tempest

Produced by the Stratford Festival. Written by William Shakespeare. Directed by Antoni Cimolino. Starring Martha Henry as Prospero.

Bold, beautiful, achingly moving and so human.

Paradise Lost

Produced by the Stratford Festival. Written by Erin Shields, directed by Jackie Maxwell.

Lucy Peacock played Satan and was “divine”. Based on John Milton’s epic poem of how Satan fell from grace and was shunted to the other place and got her revenge. Erin Shields’ writing is sharp, witty, keenly observed and provocative. A mesmerizing  production.

Every Brilliant Thing.

Produced by Canadian Stage. Written by Duncan MacMillan with Johnny Donahoe, directed by Brendan Healy, starring Kristen Thomson.

A play about life, things, ideas and people that make it worth living in a production that touches the heart and makes us all think of our own list of ‘brilliant things.’

What a Magical, Merry Way to End a Theatre-going Year Award

CINDERELLA, A Merry, Magical Pantomime

Produced by Torrent Productions in the East End of Toronto, written and directed by Rob Torr and choreographed by Stephanie Graham his producing partner.

This glorious, simple, irreverent pantomime of that beloved story was a wonderful way to conclude a full year in which I saw 330 shows.

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At the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, St. Catharines, Ont.

Part of the Foster Festival.

Written by Norm Foster

Directed by Patricia Vanstone

Designed by Peter Hartwell

Lighting by Chris Malkowski

Cast: Kirsten Alter

Peter Kranz

Amanda Parsons

A typical Norm Foster show full of humour and humanity, irascible characters and forgiveness.

 The Story.  Come Down From Up River  is a world premiere from Norm Foster, a Canadian writer who keeps churning out plays.  It’s part of the Foster Festival in St. Catharines and this is the festival’s third year.  This is the third play that Norm Foster has written that is set in Saint John, New Brunswick.

Shaver Bennett is a solitary, irascible man who lives in the woods of the Miramichi in Northern New Brunswick. He’s a logger. He has to go into Saint John, New Brunswick for medical tests.  He asks his niece Bonnie if he can stay at her place until the tests are over and then he will go home. He hasn’t seen Bonnie for at least 23 years because  he and his sister– Bonnie’s mother–had a terrible fight and that caused a rift in the family. Bonnie has been harbouring hard feelings about her uncle since then.   Lots to dredge up over the past 23 years and lots to explain.

Bonnie is a lawyer married to Liv Arsenault who is a graphic artist.  Bonnie is white and Liv is a woman of colour.  As far as Bonnie can remember Shaver has always been an angry, rigid thinking man and she sees no reason why he would change. She learns soon enough about holding a grudge and being forgiving.

The Production. This is a solid production. Peter Hartwell has designed a stylish single set of Liv and Bonnie’s living room with a door well up centre. There is a bar location extreme stage right when Shaver stops at a pub for a beer before going to Bonnie’s place, but for our purposes this is a single set. It’s well directed by Patricia Vanstone. She doesn’t have a character move unnecessarily. There is always a purpose and reason. Relationships are created with economy for the most meaningful results.  It’s well acted by Kirsten Alter as Liv, a forgiving open-hearted woman, and Amanda Parsons as Bonnie who is a bit of a rigid woman at first. The real surprise is Peter Kranz as Shaver. Peter Kranz spent a lot of time at the Shaw Festival playing buttoned-up characters who usually were very proper. Here he is almost unrecognizable with long hair and a messy beard.

As played by Kranz, Shaver is stoical, very funny and almost laid back.

The play does speak to today. Liv and Bonnie are married but they try to hide that from Shaver thinking he would not approve or understand. Bonnie’s assumptions of Shaver are disproved when he says he’s not shocked that Liv and Bonnie are married or that Liv is a woman of colour.  As Shaver says to both Bonnie and Liv, he might live in the woods by himself, but that doesn’t mean he’s stupid or unaware of the world.  Norm Foster gives Shaver quirky turns of phrases and a wry, dry sense of humour that Peter Kranz handles beautifully. Shaver is a man who wants to correct a wrong with his niece Bonnie. Bonnie needs to listen to his side of the story to find the truth about a secret in her life.

I do think the play goes on a bit too long and there are revelations that just seem to be ticking a box for relevance. Liv has a speech (given to Shaver) towards the end of the play about the racism she’s endured that I think would have been better placed when Shaver and Liv address the question of race when they first meet. Placing the speech at the end of the play just seems to be ‘tacked on”.

But on the whole Come Down from Up River is an enjoyable time in the theatre.

 Comment.  I went to Come Down From Up River because it is part of the Foster Festival in St. Catharines, and even though this is it’s third year, I’d never been. Often the cast is made up of actors who used to work at the Shaw Festival. Norm Foster just keeps churning out the plays that are easy entertainment. He’s very funny and often quite wise about the ways of the world. The plays are formulaic which is not a bad thing if it’s all done with skill, and Foster has skill.  There is usually a dilemma of some sort or other that the characters have to resolve—in this case Bonnie and Shaver have a lot of memories about their past hurts and wounds. Shaver seems to have mellowed over the years but Bonnie only remembers how he used to be and harbours resentment. It reminds me of a card I received once with a quote from Lillian Hellman: “People change and forget to tell each other.” Exactly.

Characters go over the hurts they endured, discover the person who hurt them has changed, and then go about resolving their differences.  Often the play could deal with issues of the day—same sex marriages, mixed marriages; bigotry etc.

Organizers in St. Catharines thought it would be interesting to have a festival of Norm Foster’s plays.  In a few cases the productions have been written especially for the Festival. They are world premiers, Come Down From Up River  being one of them. I think that’s a coup to have a few new plays specifically written for the festival.

And the venue of the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre seems new too—I could still smell the fragrance of the wood. We are greeted by volunteers and theatre staff and are guided every step of the way to the “indoor plumbing” or our seats etc. Every effort is made to make the audience feel welcomed. The last needed detail is to put the name of the theatre and it’s address on the program cover instead of burying it on page 27. Other than that, lovely.

The Foster Festival Presents:

Began: July 18, 2018.

Closes: Aug. 3, 2018.

Running Time: 2 hours 15 minutes, approx.

www.fosterfestival.com

Rosalynde (or As You Like It)

This is part of Driftwood Theatre Group’s Bard’s Bus tour that plays various dates in the Greater Toronto Area and also around the province.

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by D. Jeremy Smith

Designed by Sheree Tams

Music composed and directed by Tom Lillington

Lighting by Michael Brunet

Puppets by Eric Woolfe and D. Jeremy Smith

Cast: Geoffrey Armour

Sochi Fried

Caroline Gillis

Ximena Huizi

Derek Kwan

Megan Miles

Ngabo Nabea

Eric Woolfe

A seat of the pants production played simply on the grass of a park to an appreciative, if rambunctious, audience. It made me imagine what it must have been like in Shakespeare’s day with the actors totally focused on their work playing to a sometimes raucous audience. The result was thrilling.

The Story. Rosalynde (or As You Like It)–why did they make up another title named Rosalynde? D. Jeremy Smith, the director and adapter of the play and great mind and founding Artistic Director behind the Bard’s Bus Tour, felt that since Rosalynde is the heart and soul of the play, she should have her name up front.

He has placed the play in 1918 in Ontario. It was the height of the women’s suffrage movement, prohibition and the First World War Women got the vote, but not all women—South Asians, Japanese, immigrants and Indigenous women would have to wait a very long time for their voices to be counted.  D. Jeremy Smith wanted to focus on women’s accomplishments—so parts of the play are readings from Nellie McClung the great Canadian icon who worked hard to champion women’s causes and various political writings, Susanna Moodie and others.

Shakespeare’s play, As You Like It is followed closely but with a Canadian twist. Instead of their being two brothers vying for the dukedom of a city, in this telling there are two brothers: Senior and Frederick who are co-owners of The Dukes’ Distillery who have split. Frederick banishes his brother Senior who escapes to the Forest of Arden for a simpler life. This being Prohibition, Frederick sells his booze illegally across the lake to the United States.

Rosalynde lives with her cousin Celia and Celia’s father Frederick. Frederick in a fit of peak banishes Rosalynde, as he did her father. This results in both Rosalynde and Celia leaving in disguise for the forest as well. But before that Rosalynde meets and falls in love with Orlando who is well born but badly treated by his brother. (There seems to be a theme here.). Orlando falls in love with Rosalynde as well. This being Shakespeare things get complicated.

The Production and Comment. So a play about romance, intrigue, subterfuge etc.  As is always the case with Bard on the Bus Tour this is playing in various parks around the province and the GTA, but there is a twist. D. Jeremy Smith has said that his city (Toronto) is changing. (He also lives in the Chester/Danforth area which considering the shocking events along the Danforth,  Sunday, July 22 is sobering). Generally Smith and his company used to play parks in the downtown core as a rule, so audiences that were predominantly white.

Not anymore.  He said that if he wanted to bring Shakespeare to a larger audience then he had to bring Shakespeare to every audience.  When I saw the play, Thursday, July 26, I saw it in Parma Court in the Eglinton/Victoria Park area. The next day they would play Oakdale Park in the Jane/Finch area. These are two neighbourhoods that have had their challenges with violence.  But on Thursday July 26 the Bard’s Bus Tour was bringing Rosalynde (or As You Like It) to Parma Court Park.

It had been raining so the ground was wet and that meant that the company could not use lights (when it got dark) or microphone the cast. There were a few barrels as props and the audience sat on the ground on ground coverings provided by the company, inches from the actors and imagined the world of the play and listened.

I and another person were the only white faces in the audience. The rest was a mosaic of Toronto; lots and lots of kids of colour all lively, rambunctious, talking while the play was on and yet listening. Parents and other adults came a bit later. The audience was treated to free cans of coke and potato chips. The kids were in heaven.

The cast was focused, committed to giving the best performance—Sochi Fried is a feisty, lovely Rosalynde—and not at all rattled by the kids’ occasional lack of attention. Geoffrey Armour as a lively, extroverted Touchstone, plopped himself down in the middle of the kids and delivered his lines to them and the cast while eating grapes. He put his hat on a kid beside him, who loved that. Ngabo Nabea is a strapping, courtly Orlando. I loved that as the kids chomped on their chips, they attempted some kind of a whisper as they talked right in front of the action, a sweet sign of respect. When Caroline Gillis as Jaques thoughtfully gave her “Seven Ages of Man” speech, a woman behind me quietly said part of the speech with her. Wonderful.

There are clever puppets in the show and the kids loved them as did the adults. They all stayed to the end for the most part. And when it was over they all applauded and some shouted for them to comb back and do it again. That was wonderful.

I imagine it must have been like this in Shakespeare’s day with the audience being rowdy and the cast having to be totally engaged in telling the story in order to grab the audience’s attention.  I thought the whole experience was thrilling. Bravo to Jeremy Smith for wanting to give all audiences a taste of Shakespeare and to his stalwart cast for bringing it to them.

The Bard’s Bus Tour presents:

Began: July 13, 2018.

Closes: Aug. 12, 2018.

Running Time: two hours.

Various locations around the GTA and Ontario.

www.driftwoodtheatre.com

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