Live and in person at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre, Toronto, Ont. Playing until July 28, 2024.

www.mirvish.com

Book by Katori Hall with Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins

Directed by Phyllida Lloyd

Choreography by Anthony Van Laast

Set and costumes by Mark Thompson

Lighting by Bruno Poet

Sound by Nevin Steinberg

Projections by Jeff Sugg

Cast: John Battagliese

Antonio Beverly

Sarah Bockel

Brianna Cameron

Omar Madden

Deon Releford-Lee

Carla Stewart

Zurin Villanueva

Dylan S. Wallace

Roz White

And a large, hard-working chorus.

A raucous, energy-filled musical about the roller-coaster life of super-star Tina Turner.

Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock) had a life full of deep lows and exuberant success. Her mother ignored her perhaps because of jealousy and sent Anna Mae to live with her grandmother.

When Anna Mae was 17, she met and impressed Ike Turner with her singing. Ike was  a smooth rock and roller and she joined his band. He was charming at first then physically abused her for the 17 years they were together. He changed her name to Tina, married her after which she took his last name. She recorded albums with Ike and found her true rock voice and stage abilities. When she could not bear Ike’s abuse any longer, she left him with only $.36 in her pocket. Through guts, will and determination her luck turned around for her after 40 when she was given a new chance at stardom on her own, and true love with a man who adored her.

Award-winning playwright Katori Hall with Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins have created a book of the musical that touches on the basics of the story. There is no deep character development and no layered establishment of relationships in Tina, The Tina Turner Musical.  Fans of Tina Turner’s work will probably already know the minutiae of her life. They certainly will know the Tina Turner song book. The creators of Tina, The Tina Turner Musical, uses Tina Turner’s hits to forward the story somewhat from “Let’s Stay Together”, “Proud Mary”,  “Private Dancer”, “We Don’t Need Another Hero” etc.

Director Phyllida Lloyd, choreographer Anthony Van Laast and set and costume designer Mark Thompson worked together on the hugely successful Mamma Mia! and perhaps hope to strike gold again with Tina, The Tina Turner Musical.

Whoever is cast to play Tina will come under some scrutiny—can she pull it off and make us believe she is Tina Turner, that fireball of energy and grit? Will she have the chops and the voice that’s needed to carry over a stadium packed with fans. In the case of Zurin Villanueva who sang the role of Tina at my performance, the answer is a strong ‘yes.’ (She shares the role with Ari Groover)

Zurin Villanueva is a strong actor who can illuminate Tina’s vulnerability and her strong backbone. She has grit and tenderness. And she has the energetic body movements of Tina but does not play her as a copy or caricature. Villanueva brings her own interpretation to the role but still illuminates the essence of Tina Turner. And she has a belting voice. I just wished that I could understand what she was singing (and I know those songs). Enunciation is not a strong suit in this performance, and that’s a shame The energy required to be on stage for almost the whole three hours, to belt out song after song and to recreate the Tina’s particular choreography, requires the stamina of an athlete and Zurin Villanueva is certainly that.

As Ike, Deon Releford-Lee has a charm and smoothness that quickly gives way to a meanness that turns to violence. Ike was a serial womanizer and cocaine addict. But he had an eye for talent and he saw it in Tina. As Tina’s mother Zelma, Roz White is cold wisdom. Tina only wanted her mother’s love and acceptance and rarely got it. Roz White plays Zelma slowly revealing her own demons.  

Director Phyllida Lloyd and choreographer, Anthony Van Laast have created a fast paced, swift moving show that is really a concert of Tina Turner’s song book. Bruno Poet’s lighting is dazzling, bombarding the audience with light. The effect is rousing and exhausting. Ultimately, we see what made Tina Turner so famous. We only need to hear her first name to know who that was.

Mirvish Productions presents:

Plays until July 28, 2024

Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes approx. but closer to 3 hours (1 intermission)

www.mirvish.com

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Live and in person at the Stratford Festival, Stratford, Ont. Cymbeline playing until September 28, Romeo and Juliet plays until Oct. 26, 2024.

www.stratfordfestival.ca

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Esther Jun

Set and lighting by Echo Zhou

Costumes by Michelle Bohn

Composer, Njo Kang Kie

Sound by Olivia Wheeler

Cast: Christopher Allen

Noah Beemer

Caleigh Crow

Allison Edwards-Crewe

Jonathan Goad

Jordin Hall

Cynthia Jimenez-Hicks

Wahsontí:io Kirby

Matthew Wabwe

Josue Laboucane

Julie Lumsden

Chris Mejaki

Evan Mercer

Marcus Nance

Anthony Palermo

Lucy Peacock

Irene Poole

Jennifer Rider-Shaw

Rick Roberts

Anthony Santiago

Tyrone Savage

Tara Sky

Michael Wamara

A muscular, nuanced production that pulses with emotion and intrigue.

The Story. The programme synopsis is long. I’ll go for the shorter version. “Innogen, the only daughter of Queen Cymbeline, marries Posthumus, a worthy yet low-born ward of the court. In fury, Cymbeline banishes Posthumus. The Duke, Cymbeline’s husband, plots to wed Innogen to his only son, her stepbrother, Cloten and to rally Britain against Rome. Iachimo, a wealthy nobleman, wagers that Innogen is not as pure as Posthumus thinks.” There is lots of intrigue, trickety, subplots and complications.

The Production. Director Esther Jun has done a fine job of telling the story clearly. She establishes various plot lines with Jupiter (a courtly Marcus Nance) indicating the many players and how they are connected.

There are also a few gender-bends in casting: Cymbeline is now a Queen played by a fiery, impassioned Lucy Peacock; that means her husband is a Duke played by a quietly slippery Rick Roberts; Pisano, usually played by a man is played by Irene Poole in a nuanced, compelling performance.

The acting in the production is fine. As Innogen, Allison Edwards-Crewe is a calm and committed presence. She is naturally upset when Posthumus (Jordin Hall) is banished, but she is clear-eyed about finding him when he leaves. Allison Edwards-Crewe gives a measured performance proving the loyalty and belief of her husband.  As Posthumus, Jordin Hall is courtly in his bearing and faithful in believing Innogen is a faithful wife. Even when Iachimo (Tyrone Savage) gives ‘proof’ of Innogen’s disloyalty, Posthumus continues to trust her until the ‘proof’ is too much for Posthumus to disbelieve. Tyrone Savage moves like a dancer when he appears in Innogen’s bedroom, ready to fabricate the lie that she is untrue. Tyrone Savage is seductive, deceptive and compelling in Iachimo’s evilness.

Echo Zhou has designed an arresting set and Michelle Bohn’s costumes are evocative of an earthier, much earlier time when Britain’s people were rugged, warring and caught up in the world of impending battle.

Comment. Women often don’t get a fair break with Shakespeare. Take for example, Much Ado About Nothing written in either 1598 or 1599. At least twice during the play Hero is thought to be untrue. The villain Don John says so to Hero’s betrothed, Claudio and her father Leonato and they immediately believe him and not the chaste Hero. These guys don’t give a second thought to the source of the information—a villain. Don John says Hero is untrue and Claudio and Leonato believe him—twice. One sucks air at the stupidity.

But then in 1610, Shakespeare wrote Cymbeline and when Iachimo discredits Innogen, Posthumus continues to believe his wife is true until the information he is given about her cannot be denied (even though the information was gathered through sneaky means). What a difference 12 years in a playwright’s growth can make. Women stay the course in Shakespeare, it’s the fellahs who fail them.

Cymbeline is terrific and worth a visit.

Plays until September 28, 2024.

Running time: 3 hours (1 Intermission)

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Photo by Gemma James Smith l-r: Fiona Mongillo, Landon Doak, Jamie Mac, Geoffrey Armour, Hallie Seline

Live and in person on the Harvest Stage, Blyth Festival, Blyth, Ont. Playing until Aug. 4, 2024.

www.blythfestival.com

Written by Theatre Passe Muraille with new additions by the Company (the Blyth Company)

Directed by Gil Garratt

Set and lighting by Beth Kates

Costumes by Jenifer Triemstra-Johnson

Sound by Lyon Smith

Cast: Geoffrey Armour

Landon Doak

Jamie Mac

Fiona Mongillo

Hallie Seline

A truly once in a lifetime experience for so many reasons, not the least is seeing this iconic play in the area where it was created with many of the original creators in the audience, watching the new generation re-create it.

BACKGROUNED. In 1971, Paul Thompson went to the movies with his friend Ted Johns. The movie was about a Russian farmer who fell in love with his tractor, literally. At the time, Paul Thompson was the Artistic Director of Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto. The film gave Thompson an idea. The next year (1972) Paul Thompson and a group of Theatre Passe Muraille actors would go to farm country around Clinton and Blyth, Ont. for three months, and would interview farmers and their families etc. about the work and life of a farmer. At the time there were family farms filling that area. Sometimes the actors would do chores and work in the fields etc. of the farm for the experience of what a farmer does all day.  At the end of the day, the actors would gather their various stories and shape them into a play. Paul Thompson would direct it. The result was the celebrated Farm Show. The first performance was done in the barn of Ray Bird, one of the farmers interviewed. The original company of actors for that show were: Ann Anglin, David Fox, Al Jones, Fina MacDonell and Miles Potter.

Fast forward to 2024. This is the 50^th anniversary of the Blyth Festival, which does original Canadian plays usually focused on the area around Blyth, Clinton etc. Gil Garratt is the Artistic Director of the Blyth Festival. Gil Garratt felt it would be appropriate for the Blyth Festival to commemorate it’s 50^th anniversary with this ‘version’ of The Farm Show: Then & Now with the new cast of actors recreating  the stories as well as adding new stories to the mix.

Thrilling, moving, celebratory.

The Story. These are vignettes, interviews and re-enactments of life as a farmer in rural Ontario, around Clinton and Blyth, Ont. The stories of how the actors pitched in and ‘helped’ with the grueling work are hilarious. The stories of the work, the worry about crops, the family and the economy are sobering. The re-enactment of the animals on the farm, to the majesty of a tractor in the fields, are impressive and vivid.

The Production.  There is a warning of foul language. I assume that means liberal mentions of chickens, roosters and the like.

Beth Kates has created a set of a farm kitchen and other locations, that is spare and effective. There are two pews on either side of the playing area with a few folks watching the action, as if we all are in church. There is a map of the area with the various farms and the families who run them. They were all neighbours who knew each other and pitched in when help was needed.

Jamie Mac, says that his fellow actors will be playing actors who are playing farmers. Actors (Geoffrey Armour in particular) put their arms under their armpits, and walk exaggeratedly around the set, suggesting animals, birds, and fowl. Jamie Mac will play many characters including a spare-talking farmer who gets right to the point. He also has a monologue that references the financial/economic worry of a farmer who sees the price of his produce rise in the store but does not see it equally rise in his income. The monologue is detailed, nuanced and gives a chilling idea of the cost to the farmer it is to farm.

All five actors arrange themselves with Landon Doak on the shoulders of Jamie Mac creating a tractor traveling the fields. Majestic.

Landon Doak plays an actor named Miles Potter from the original production who has to move huge bales of hay. It’s back-breaking work and if one is not dressed properly for it, can shred one’s thighs. Apparently, Miles Potter wore shorts. Landon Doak’s performance is hilarious, sweat-inducing, and makes one cross one’s legs carefully in sympathy and the horrible shredding the hay caused to the thighs.

Fiona Mongillo plays, among others, a harried mother of seven, trying to manage all the chores with little help from her rambunctious children or her pre-occupied husband. Hallie Seline plays various characters, who are cheerful, stoical and resourceful.  

There are original songs sung and played on instruments by the cast. They are clever, funny and reflect that challenging life.

The whole wonderful production is directed with loving humour and care by Gil Garratt.

The production is dedicated to the memory of both Ray Bird and David Fox. The first production of The Farm Show was performed by the original cast in Ray Bird’s barn. David Fox was one of the original actors in the company.

Gil Garratt reached out to Miles Potter to write something for this production about David Fox. Gil Garratt read it on the opening night. It was very funny, thoughtful and moving.

If I have a quibble, it’s that we don’t need even a hint of explanation at the top of the show that says we will be required to use our imaginations; that sometimes they will use implements/props that will suggest other things. The audiences who have supported this wonderful festival for 50 years get it and know that.

This production of The Farm Show: Then & Now is glorious. It celebrates the dedicated folks who feed us—farmers. It is done in a way that also celebrates the gritty, fearless, artfully imaginative actors and their director, then and now.

Comment. Opening night of this production of The Farm Show: Then & Now was thrilling for those of us who have been around a bit to know who was there. Over there, with his magnificent white hair and beard, was Paul Thompson, the original director of The Farm Show, who also conceived of the idea. He was with his wife of many years, Ann Anglin, who was in the original production. Behind him was Ted Johns, and actor and important in those early years of Theatre Passe Muraille—who went to the movie with Paul Thompson that gave him the idea. He was with his wife of many years, Janet Amos, who was also in the original production of The Farm Show. Over there a few rows back, was a smiling Miles Potter, watching an actor play him 52 years before. This time Mr. Potter was wearing long pants. Years before, when The Farm Show played in Toronto at Theatre Passe Muraille for the first time, a high school class went to see the production. A fifteen-year-old member of that class was Seana McKenna (now one of this country’s most celebrated actors). She thought one of the actors in the company was cute. That was Miles Potter. They have been together since 1980. She was sitting with Miles Potter in that opening night audience as well, smiling.

What a privilege it was to be there.

The Blyth Festival Presents:

Playing until Aug. 4, 2024.

Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes approx. (1 intermission)

www.blythfestival.com

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At the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto, Ont. Runs until July 7, 2024.

www.soulpepper.ca

NOTE: This is a remount of the 2019 Soulpepper production with the same creatives and with a few cast changes. The review will repeat those aspects that are pertinent and expand on areas worth reflection.  

Written by Tennessee Williams

Directed by Weyni Mengesha

Set by Lorenzo Savoini

Sound by Debashis Sinha

Costumes by Rachel Forbes

Lighting by Kimberly Purtell

Cast: Divine Brown

Oliver Dennis

Shakura Dickson

Mac Fyfe

Kaleb Horn

Sebastian Marziali

Lindsay Owen Pierre

Gregory Prest

Amy Rutherford

Ordena Stephens-Thompson

A gripping production with some moments that are revelatory.

The Story. Fragile-minded, genteel Blanche DuBois comes to New Orleans to stay with her sister Stella and brother-in-law Stanley. Her nerves are frazzled. She’s been let go of her job as a teacher and she needs comfort.  She yearns for the glory days of her past when the family owned a stately plantation in Mississippi, now gone. What she finds in New Orleans is noise, confusion, the cacophony and oppression of close quarters and Stanley who doesn’t hide his contempt of her.

The Production. Director, Weyni Mengesha has envisioned a place that is alive with the noise of people living in close quarters and sometimes are short tempered about it. People bellow instead of talk. Fights break out at a simple poker game because people are impatient to win. It’s a place sticky with heat and pulsing with music. A band appears occasionally in a section of Lorenzo Savoini’s simple set. Stella (Shakura Dickson) and Stanley (Mac Fyfe) live in a tiny one bedroom apartment. A curtain separates the bedroom from the kitchen. Blanche (Amy Rutherford) will sleep on a cot in the kitchen. The bathroom is off the bedroom.  Outside Stella and Stanley’s apartment is an open space with a staircase that leads up to the second level and another apartment where Eunice (Ordena Stephens-Thompson) and her husband Steve (Lindsay Owen Pierre) live.

Playwright Tennessee Williams immediately sets up the world into which Blanche enters, which is so far and away from what she is used to. Stanley bellows Stella’s name. She tells him not to holler at her. Then he yells “Catch” and hurls a package at her saying, “Meat,” which she catches and laughs. It’s primal.

Blanche enters alone pulling her suitcase after her. She is dressed in a flowing dress and wide brimmed hat (kudos to Rachel Forbes for the costumes). The dingy, squalid surroundings appall her. She is used to a more refined, genteel world, at least in her imagination and memory. Her expectations will be challenged and diminished as the play goes on. She is there for several months, living as if Stella and Stanley are there to serve her. Blanche sneaks his liquor. She takes long baths to calm her nerves which always need calming, disrupting their routine as well. It’s to the credit of this production that we wonder how the three managed to stand each other for that long.

Sex is central to this production. As Blanche, Amy Rutherford has an almost chaste sexuality. We know she’s had a ‘past.’ never stops flirting and toying ‘innocently’ with men, especially young ones. Her voice is a southern purr. Her manner is genteel. Some men such as the innocent Mitch (a wonderful, understated performance by Gregory Prest) and the awkward Young Collector (a lovely performance by Kaleb Horn but please speak up—we need to hear you, and that goes for many others on that stage–PLEASE SPEAK UP AND SPEAK CLEARLY) are either captivated or unsettled by Blanche.

Stanley is another matter. As Stanley, Mac Fyfe plays him as he slowly boils at being toyed with and ‘played’ by Blanche. He is not captivated. He’s fed up and he’s going to teach her a lesson. Stanley is a sexual animal too but is more instinctive and predatory. Emotions have run high in that household and goes off the rails at Stanley’s poker game. He hits Stella. She runs out up the stairs to Eunice’s. Stanley stands at the bottom of the stairs and bellows Stella’s name in that most famous of scenes from the play. Over the years that bellow of “STELLA” has lost its meaning, certainly after the film of the play in which Marlon Brando played Stanley. It’s almost a joke. Until now.

Mac Fyfe bellows the name and it’s full of Stanley’s despair that he might lose her, regret that he’s gone too far and emotional pain from his guts. It sounds like an animal caught in a trap in the woods. In her turn Stella, played with lively sexuality by Shakura Dickson, comes out of Eunice’s apartment and rather than rushing down the stairs into Stanley’s arms full of forgiveness, she walks down slowly, seriously making him wait, and she leads with her hips. She’s won. She’s in control. She better than her sister, knows ‘how to play’ Stanley. That scene alone is devastating and thrilling.

Director Weyni Mengesha has tweaked the scene when Stanley and Blanche have their reconning—it’s sudden, brutish and brilliant.

Stanley and Stella can’t live without each other. But when Blanche obviously tells Stella what Stanley did to her, Stella can’t/won’t believe it. She tells Eunice she could not live with him if that is the case. But when Blanche is lead off by a Doctor and his nurse because her fragile mind has snapped it’s Stella who reacts with soul-crushing despair. Stanley holds her back, trying to comfort her. And in that wonderful directing and playing of the scene we know that Stella knows the truth of what happened.

Devastating and terrific production.

Comment. Director Weyni Mengesha has read the play through her lens. She believes that Stella left the plantation in Mississippi and all its airs and attitudes and came to New Orleans, Louisiana for a different life and outlook. She moved into the crowded, raucous, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural French Quarter with her robust, sexually driven, macho husband Stanley Kowalski. He is as far away from the imagined genteel manner of Blanche’s ideal as you can get. It’s interesting that Stella would also contend with Stanley’s occasional violence to her to be with him. For various reasons, Weyni Mengesha believes that Stella is Black and so has cast Shakura Dickson in the roll. Sounds reasonable.

Produced by Soulpepper

Opened: June 18, 2024.

Closes: July 7, 2024.

Running Time: 3 hours, 15 minutes. (1 intermission)

www.soulpepper.ca

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Live and in person in the Courtyard of the Aga Khan Museum, 77 Wynford Dr. Toronto, Ont. Produced by Modern Times Stage Company and the Aga Khan Museum in association with Theatre Artaud.

Plays until June 26.

www.moderntimesstage.com

Written by Rouvan Silogix, Rafeh Mahmud and Ahad Lakhani

Based on Rumi’s Masnavi.

Directed by Rafeh Mahmud

Scenic design, lighting and props by Waleed Ansari

Costumes designed by Niloufar Ziaee

Sound design and score by John Gzowski

Cast: Michaela Lily Davies

Rouvan Silogix

Navtej Sandhu

From the production’s program: “In the Courtyard of the Aga Khan Museum, witness a re-imagining and radical adaptation of Rumi’s “Masnavi”: The Caged Bird Sings reveals a cage within a cage as this surreal piece unfolds for audiences in the round.

An original piece written by Rouvan Silogix, Rafeh Mahmud and Ahad Lakhani, The Caged Bird Sings holds three prisoners: two star-crossed lovers and scientists, Rumi and Jin, who share a cell with Sal, a mysterious vagrant. As they navigate their new-found reality and reconcile their past lives, they are haunted by ghosts and demons of their own making. The piece explores Sufi mysticism, ideas of Fanafillah, the prisons—literal and the metaphorical—that we are put in, that we put ourselves in and that we create ourselves, and how and whether it’s possible to escape such prisons.”

From the all-knowing-Google: “Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, or simply Rumi, was a 13th-century poet, Hanafi faqih, Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian, and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran. Rumi’s works were written mostly in Persian, but occasionally he also used Turkish, Arabic and Greek in his verse.”

“The Masnavi, is an extensive poem written in Persian by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, also known as Rumi. The Masnavi is one of the most influential works of Sufism, ascribed to be like a “Quran in Persian”. The Masnavi is a series of six books of poetry that together amount to around 25,000 verses or 50,000 lines. It is a spiritual text that teaches Sufis how to reach their goal of being truly in love with God.“

Waleed Ansari has designed a beautiful set of the cell/prison that looks like a kind of birdcage. There are ornate rugs on the floor with two simple cots for sleeping. One bed has pillows that look embroidered in vibrant colours. Sal (Rouvan Silogix) sleeps on that cot. Rumi (Mikaela Lily Davies) and Jin (Navtej Sandhu) alternate with the other cot.

The text of Rouvan Silogix, Rafeh Mahmud and Ahad Lakhani is divided into three parts: Fortune, Frenzy and Fanaa. Each part is then divided into sections, eight sections for the first part, six for the second part and seven sections for the third part. A section might deal with an ancient story, some esoteric musings etc.

The basic story is that two women, Rumi and Jin, are lovers and partners in a business that sells a love potion they created. One feels it would help humanity. The other wants to make money. They seem to have a difference of opinion of what is important. Sal says that he has been in that cell for a thousand years and is a former king who fell in love with one of his slaves, which is forbidden.

As Rumi, Mikaela Lily Davies gives a nuanced, impassioned performance. As Jin, Navtej Sandhu is emotional, driven and committed. Rouvan Silogix plays Sal with deliberately ‘over-the-top’ enthusiasm. One can imagine such enthusiasm because for the first time in a thousand years of captivity, Sal has company to ease his burden. These are three fascinating performances.

The writing is a combination of contemporary colloquialisms, poetic lyricism, vivid imagery and  creative metaphors. The stories are arresting with the occasional one being impenetrable for its meaning.

Rafeh Mahmud has directed an elegant, beautifully imagined world of realism and mysticism. Mahmud has conjured a world of antiquity and one of now. It’s a wonderful exercise to discover the mysteries of the piece: what is the prison cell? Can they really escape? Why are they there? Are they prisoners of their own imagination? What an adventure to delve into poet Rumi’s world as realize by Rouvan Silogix, Rafeh Mahmud and Ahad Lakhani.

One of the notes for the production lamented the quality of translations/adaptations of Rumi, in that sometimes aspects were ‘erased’, hence the version the three co-writers created. It’s a pity that the program didn’t list any translations/adaptations the three co-writers found acceptable. Those of us who are curious would love to seek out these versions.

If you go, remember that the show is done outdoors in the courtyard of the beautiful Aha Khan Museum. Dress appropriately.

The Caged Bird Sings

Modern Times Stage Company and the Aga Khan Museum in association with Theatre Artaud, present, at 77 Wynford Dr. Toronto, Ont.

Playing until June 26, 2024.

Running time: 90 minutes (no intermission)

www.moderntimesstage.com

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Live and in person at the Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford Festival, Stratford, Ont. Playing until Sept. 28, 2024.

www.stratfordfestival.ca

Written by Henrik Ibsen

In a new version by Patrick Marber

From a literal translation by Karin and Ann Bamborough

Directed by Molly Atkinson

Set and costumes by Lorenzo Savoini

Lighting by Kaileigh Krysztofiak

Composer and sound by Mishelle Cuttler

Cast: Bola Aiyeola

Joella Crichton

Brad Hodder

Kim Horsman

Tom McCamus

Gordon S. Miller

Sara Topham

Some fine acting and scenes of inventive direction, but the overall effect is an uneven, disappointing production.

The Story. Hedda Gabler is a strong-willed woman living at a time when women had to conform to a certain code of behaviour in order to be considered respectable. She was brought up by General Gabler, who instilled in her a way to expect to live. She should marry well, have servants and would entertain in a grand house.

Hedda was attracted to wild men of questionable character, such as Judge Brack and Eilert Lovborg. But she knew a close association with them would be socially wrong. So she married the only respectable man who showed interest, Tesman, a nerdy scholar who wanted to marry her and hoped that a professorship would lead to a good living.

They have just returned from an extended honeymoon where Hedda was bored to say the least. In the meantime, Tesman went into debt to buy Hedda’s ideal house. Judge Brack worked in the background to help secure the house. Tesman’s Aunt Juliana put up her annuity to secure the furniture, which concerned Tesman when he found out. And Tesman learns that Lovborg might be vying for the same professorship now that he has written a hugely successful book. Things begin to unravel quickly and Hedda felt not only bored in this marriage, but also trapped and desperate when she realizes that her social status might be jeopardized by ‘slippery’ Judge Brack.

The Production.  Lorenzo Savoini has designed a beautiful set to suggest the grand size of the house. There is only a chaise downstage and a fireplace upstage, otherwise the stage of the Tom Patterson Theatre is bare. A lighting effect on the whole width of the stage of the theatre illuminates the shadows of two large window settings, which also give the sense of the size of the house.Bravo for this simple and effective lighting by Kaileigh Krysztofiak.

When Aunt Juliana (Bola Aiyeola) arrives to see her nephew Tesman (Gordon S. Miller) and his new bride Hedda (Sara Topham) she looks up and around the space, adding another means of suggesting the size of the place—Kudos to director Molly Atkinson. Gordon S. Miller is a lively Tesman who is passionate about his work, and eventually stands up for his rights with Hedda.

When Hedda (Sara Topham) makes her entrance she is cool, regal, haughty and in command. The emptiness of the Tom Patterson stage provides an expanse over which Hedda can rule.

Sara Topham as Hedda strides across the stage, owning it.  The problem is that too often it looks like Molly Atkinson could not stage characters to appear as if they were having ordinary conversations on such a large stage. There is often such a distance between them, as if that is how she could ‘fill up’ the space.   Interestingly Molly Atkinson is more successful in staging/directing intimate scenes that take place on the chaise between Hedda Gabler and Lovborg (Brad Hodder) a former lover. The attempt at secrecy and reliving their former seductive connection is nicely achieved.

While Sara Topham has the hauteur of Hedda Gabler, the regal bearing and arrogant condescension, it seems as if she is skimming the surface of this deeply complex woman. There is more nuance to Hedda than Topham has invested.  

As Lovborg, Brad Hodder is a combination of a man who needs to appear as if he is reformed from his previous wild reputation, but also show that that wildness is close to the surface. The audience also gets an intriguing look at Judge Brack (Tom McCamus), an elegant and outwardly charming man, who keeps his darker purpose hidden for the most part. Judge Brack is one of Hedda’s wild, inappropriate men in her past, who will tighten his grip on her (figuratively and literally), leading her to make a drastic decision about her future. Tom McCamus is both seductive and dangerous.

Joella Crichton is a good actress, as was seen last year in her performance in The Wedding Band, but in Hedda Gabler she makes Mrs. Elvsted seem flighty and light-weight. Mrs. Elvsted has more depth than that. And I got the sense that Joella Chrichton was given line readings by her director, with deliberate pauses before words, thus making the performance seem laboured and tentative.  

Patrick Marber is a wonderful playwright, director and adaptor in his own right, but I found his new version of Ibsen’s classic, problematic. Most important is that this version seems wrong for this production. Patrick Marber initially adapted Hedda Gabler for the 2016 production directed by Ivo Van Hove for the National Theatre in London. In an Ivo Van Hove production more often than not, it’s about the director and his ‘vision’ rather than the playwright’s vision of the play (an exception would be his thrilling production of A View from the Bridge).  

This version is blunt where nuance, irony and subtlety are in order. When Hedda says they will have to fire the maid because she has left an old hat on the chaise, Auntie Juliana defends herself because it’s her hat and she bought it especially to impress Hedda. As Aunt Juliana, Bola Aiyeola shows her hurt but then she says to Hedda with an edge, “Don’t be mean.” Really? In a thousand years that character would never say that to Hedda because she was always careful not to put her nephew in jeopardy with his wife. That line or even a hint of it is not in any production I’ve seen or the various adaptations I have. I reckon that Patrick Marber put that line in because Ivo Van Hove told him to—playing fast and loose with the text.

Also, there is little here to suggest that Hedda and Brack are on the same wavelength even though they toy humourously with each other at the expense of others. I think of the ‘triangle-train’ reference in other versions of the play. Brack wants to be an important part of a domestic connection to a husband and wife that will form a triangle between Hedda, Tesman and himself.  Hedda says that she longed for another person on the train besides her boring husband to amuse her. Brack suggests that he would have loved that position. He says this to Hedda when Tesman is away. When Tesman returns, Brack says quietly to Hedda something like: “The triangle is complete….” In other productions Hedda would say, (in perfect balance) “The train moves on.” This dialogue illuminates the seductive connection between Brack and Hedda—secretive and eventually dangerous. To remove it from the adaptation diminishes the connection.     

Comment. There are some good aspects of this production but the overall effect is one of disappointment.

The Stratford Festival presents:

Plays until September 28.

Running time: 1 hour, 58 minutes (1 intermission)

www.stratfordfestival.ca

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This brilliant post is from Sky Gilbert’s blog: ANOTHER BLOG THAT NOBODY READS. It’s from Sat. 2, Sept. 2023. It’s vita reading in these self-absorbed, fragile-minded, timorous, angry, fractious times, when bravery, guts, and a good dose of a sense of humour are needed to deal with the every day.

Saturday 2 September 2023

When Theatre Was Fun

(Apologies to Joe Brainard)

I remember when theatre was fun

I remember when we used to anticipate rehearsal with longing, not fear

I remember when directors were not perfect (no one was)

I remember when there were no rules about being together and rules about touching one another

I remember when actors wanted to be vulnerable

I remember when actors went into psychotherapy but they wanted to know how fucked up they were instead of being afraid of it

I remember Marylin Monroe

I remember James Dean

I remember when actors were brave and eager to confront startling issues and ‘hot topics’ and to play crazy characters (and you could say the word ‘crazy’) and it was all part of the fun

I remember when my friend David Roche used to call theatre ‘four people being rude in a room’ 

I remember ‘hump the hostess’ and ‘get the guests’ and ‘what a dump!’

I remember when people with mental health issues didn’t have to apply for their own grants in a special category but worked with us — because a lot of real artists have mental health issues anyway — and the whole theatre community understood that and welcomed people with mental health issues with open arms, as art itself was a mental health issue

I remember the imagination

I remember the subconscious

I remember dreams

I remember ‘madness’

I remember not policing language

I remember jokes

I remember real sensitivity, not when people broke the unspoken terrifying politically correct rules, but real people were sensitive to real human things in the moment

I remember when we didn’t lie except in the right way

I remember when we didn’t do lip service piously to all sorts of dogma that we didn’t really believe in — but we now think that we must — in order to continue our work

I remember when art was political, but you didn’t have to agree with the politics to do it

I remember when it was about your body and your soul and most of all your heart and not your social justice ideas

I remember when theatre was surprising and unsettling

I remember when actors and writers and directors didn’t hold artists up to impossible expectations that they.could never realize themselves

I remember when we had to learn how NOT to judge, instead of  HOW to judge

I remember when thought was free

I remember when no idea was a crime

I remember when everyone knew that a lot of artists have been criminals, and artists weren’t afraid to welcome the criminal element in their work which, after all, to quote Penny Arcade, is what separates art ‘from academia’

I remember when theatre was yeah sexy and boozy and in your face

I remember when actors used to yell at the audience directly — not religiously and passive aggressively lecture them about politically correct dogma

I remember the God DIonysus

I remember when there were awful bad people in the theatre and there were things like sexism and homophobia; but we tried to deal with it without demonizing everybody, and turning acting and directing into a terrifying nightmare in which we were all afraid to be honest with each other

I remember feeling things, as a group

I remember when theatre was a place where —  though we were often wearing a mask — we could be ourselves

I remember hiding in theatre, in a very good way

I remember catharsis

I remember seeing horrible images in rehearsal and onstage, and not turning away or asking for sensitivity training or check-in days, or crayons to do colouring

I remember laughing from the gut and not feeling guilty 

I remember when theatre was fun

Do you?

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Live and in person at the Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto, Ont. Plays until July 21, 2024.

www.mirvish.com

Music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz

Book by Winnie Holzman

Based on the novel by Gregory Maguire

Directed by Joe Mantello

Set by Eugene Lee

Costumes by Susan Hilferty

Lighting by Kenneth Posner

Sound by Tony Meola

Projections by Elaine J. McCarthy

Cast: Austen Danielle Bohmer

Aymee Garcia

Kayla Goldsberry

Blake Hammond

Erica Ito

Kingsley Leggs

Xavier McKinnon

Lauren Samuels

Wayne Schroder

Tregoney Shepherd

Mitchell Tobin

Alex Vinh

Lively, energetic, tuneful, with some strong performances. But as seems to be the norm with touring Broadway musicals, the orchestra drowns out the singers and the singers try to compensate by pushing their voices resulting in the lyrics get muddied. And the story has always been problematic.

The Story. From the Mirvish Website: “SO MUCH HAPPENED BEFORE DOROTHY DROPPED IN.

WICKED, the Broadway sensation, looks at what happened in the Land of Oz…but from a different angle. Long before Dorothy arrives, there is another young woman, born with emerald green skin—smart, fiery, misunderstood, and possessing an extraordinary talent. When she meets a bubbly blonde who is exceptionally popular, their initial rivalry turns into the unlikeliest of friendships…until the world decides to call one “good,” and the other one “wicked….The untold ‘true’ story of the Witches of Oz.”

An unhappily married woman has a one-night-stand with a ‘snake-oil-salesman’ who offers her an emerald green elixir to ‘calm her down.’ When she gives birth nine months later, she and her unsuspecting husband are horrified that the baby has emerald green skin. The child is named Elphaba. She is smart, bright and has magical powers, but nothing will get her father to love her. Elphaba is sent away to a private school where she is shunned by her classmates because of her skin colour. She is roomed with Glinda, blonde, beautiful and very popular. Glinda is not smart, wise or briming with character. She loathes Elphaba and the feeling is returned. Then a dashing, but superficial prince named Fiyero, arrives. Glinda zeroes in on him and the attention is returned. But slowly his attentions turn to Elphaba. There is also the Wizard of Oz who intrigues Elphaba because of her magic abilities. She wants to meet him and feels they would be kindred spirits. Terrible complications arise. Glinda will become ‘The Good Witch,’ and Elphaba will be known as “The Wicked Witch of the West.”

The Production and comment. Background Note. Wicked has been running on Broadway since 2003. It has garnered all sorts of Awards including Tony Awards and Grammy Awards. It has had successful runs in the West End in London and internationally. In other words, it’s a huge success.

When the orchestra strikes up, I note the word LOUD! in my programme. When the flying monkeys and other citizens of Oz scurry on bellowing that the wicked witch is dead, I write ‘ear-splitting’ in my programme. T’was ever thus with most touring Broadway musicals. The powers that be who control the sound levels feel the audience must experience an explosion of sound rather than experience a reasonable sound level that allows them to actually hear the lyrics and music clearly. This is not the fault of the theatre (and Mirvish Producitons, which is presenting this show), it’s the originating creator of sound—Tony Meola, take a bow. One complains about this recurring noise of sound that is too loud and is ignored. Perhaps the sound folks are deaf. But to continue….

Eugene Lee’s Tony Award winning set of Oz etc. is a huge neon creation of large gears and a huge clock and above the set is a forbidding red-eyed (metal?) monster of a bird-thing. The reason for the gears and monster is explained in Gregory Maguire’s book on which this musical is based, but not actually explained in Winnie Holzman’s book of the musical.

The citizens of Oz sing “No One Mourns the Wicked” in the first song, which is really the end of the story (the story will then flash back to how it all started). Glinda, the Good Witch (Austen Danielle Bohmer) is in a large bubble that floats above the folks below, smiling but looking troubled as her followers/and fans sing of how they are glad of the death of the Wicked Witch. Glinda doesn’t say anything to change their minds.  As the story does unfold we learn the truth about the so called Wicked Witch (Elphaba, played wonderfully by Lauren Samuels). Joe Mantello directs with a grand vision and attention to the breathtaking pace.

On the surface Wicked looks like it’s a story of two different women who become friends. Glinda is smiley and bubbly in attitude, attractive to everybody, and thought to be the “Good Witch.” It’s not that she’s good. Rather it’s that she’s compliant, accommodating, never challenges anyone because she wants to be liked and popular.

Elphaba is generally loathed because of her emerald green skin. She’s different and different is to be shunned. Elphaba has a conscience and lives a principled life. She has ethics. She can spot phoniness a mile off and has Glinda’s number. She believes initially Glinda is vapid and without backbone. And Elphaba’s moral fiber shows when she is furious when she learns the decree that animals can no longer teach at her school. That means that her beloved Doctor Dillamond (Kingsley Leggs), a goat, cannot teach her any longer.  Elphaba is also horrified that an Ozian Official wants to keep uncooperative animals (and humans?) in cages to calm them down.

Overtime Glinda and Elphaba became friends, sort of. Perhaps Elphaba just comes to accept Glinda’s innate silliness and Glinda comes to see Elphaba’s goodness. They have a song in Act II called “For Good” in which Glinda and Elphaba sing of their friendship in the most whimsical, philosophical leanings.  

“Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good.”

All I can say is “ohhhhh PULLLLLeeeeze!!” You wonder if composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz and writer Winnie Holzman were in the same room or if they both looked at the other’s work. It’s a very clever play on the words of ‘better’ and ‘good’ but the song is dishonest because neither character changed because of knowing the other. Glinda never developed a deepened character and Elphaba never lost her moral fiber.

On a deeper level Wicked is a metaphor for the dangers of exclusion, segregation, racism, dictatorship, Fascism, and how quickly lies can spread by blinkered, lemming-like people who are so stupid they would believe anything, as they have believed the lies about Elphaba. Fiyero (a fine performance of grace and style by Xavier McKinnon) has a wonderful line in which he wonders if people can be that stupid that they would believe the lies about Elphaba—and of course they can be that stupid, just look at ‘social’ media. Fiyero is the one whose consciousness has been raised by knowing Elphaba.

Elphaba is so fed up with people thinking her evil that she decides to play that game and act it. Lauren Samuels as Elphaba sings the rousing “Defying Gravity” in which Elphaba will live by her own rules and not others. Lauren Samuels has a stunning strong voice, and her acting chops are dandy. By contrast Austen Danielle Bohmer as Glinda is tentative in her acting and unsteady in her high notes. She fares better in duets with Lauren Samuels.

When Elphaba is planning an escape she asks Glinda to promise her that she (Glinda) will not tell the citizens the truth about her (Elphaba), that she was in fact a decent person. Glinda agrees. Here is my endless concern with this work—why does Elphaba want the citizens to believe a lie and not the truth about her? It’s never explained and Glinda (of course) never asks—always wanting to be compliant and agreeable to the end. Elphaba’s planned escape will be permanent, so why the mystery about her true nature?  

Wicked is rousing, lively and tuneful. It’s based on Gregory Maguire’s clever book of the same name and has just enough seriousness and depth of the story to make it look like it’s about something important.

Mirvish Productions presents:

Plays until July 21, 2024.

Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes (1 Intermission)

www.mirvish.com

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Live and in person at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts. Soulpepper presents the Soho Theatre and Haley McGee Production in association with Luminato Festival Toronto. Plays until June 23.

www.soulpepper.ca

Written and performed by Haley McGee

Directed by Mitchell Cushman

Scenic designer, Zoë Hurwitz

Lighting by Daniel Carter-Brennan

Sound by Robert Moutey

An exquisite piece of theatre.

Age is a Feeling is written and performed by Haley McGee who first did this at the Edinburgh Festival, where it won a Festival First Award. It then played the Soho Theatre in London, England where it was nominated for an Olivier Award.

Now Haley McGee, who is Canadian but living in London, England for the last six years, has brought her show ‘home’, to the Young Centre for the Performing Arts until June 23.

It’s the journey of a woman’s life through the years from the age of 25 until about 90 years old, when she dies. It’s about her searching for happiness, love, fulfillment, adventure, the meaning of mortality and life. It’s not necessarily autobiographical (as her previous show The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale), but parts of it could be.

According to the show’s information “Age is a Feeling celebrates the glorious and melancholy unknowability of human life. Inspired by hospices, mystics and trips to the cemetery, Age is a Feeling wrestles with our endless chances to change course while we’re alive. A covert rallying cry against cynicism and regret. A call to seize our time.”

Zoë Hurwitz has created a beautiful, calm set full of mystery and flowers. In the center of it all a bit upstage, is Haley McGee sitting in a high lifeguard chair, looking out at the audience, the world, etc. That lifeguard chair seems a fitting metaphor—the person who sits there potentially saves lives, and here McGee tells her long, vivid, complex story of a suggested life, full of incident and events. On the stage are 12 perpendicular formations of flowers in pots on which is a large sign with one word on the sign such as: egg, dog, crabapple, oyster, bus, plane etc.

Haley McGee takes some of the signs off the flowers and fans them out to the front row, so that they can’t see the word, asking an audience member to pick two of the cards. Depending on which cards the audience member picks, dog, egg etc. those are the stories Haley McGee will tell. The other stories will not be told that performance. If one does want to know the stories that were not told, one can buy Haley McGee’s book and read it for all the stories.  

For my performance Haley McGee told stories about meeting a man on the bus and chatting to him, and how they formed a relationship. Another was about wanting a dog and finally getting one and loving it intensely. Another was about planting a crabapple tree when a loved one died.

Each story was richly detailed, beautifully told, usually about searching for love, or friendship or trying to cheer up a distant person. Haley McGee’s observations on life, love, the search for fulfillment, are exquisite. There is such a depth of emotion and humour in each story and in the telling.

And she is masterful in telling them, she is never rushed, so that you are hanging on to every word as she goes through the spectrum of emotions in the story-telling.  She talks of the love between friends, between an old couple that have been together for years, the blush of young love.

It’s beautifully, sensitively directed by Mitchell Cushman.

Age is a Feeling is exquisite and will leave you feeling buoyed, exhilarated, tingling, and glad you saw it.

Soulpepper presents the Soho Theatre and Haley McGee Production in association with Luminato Festival Toronto.

Plays until June 23, 2024.

Running time: 75 minutes, (no intermission)

www.soulpepper.ca

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