Live and in person at the Studio Theater, Stratford Festival, Stratford, Ont. Plays until Oct. 29,

www.stratfordfest.ca

Written by Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan

Directed by Jani Lauzon

Set by Joanna Yu

Costumes by Asa Benally

Lighting by Louise Guinand

Composer and sound designer, Wayne Kelso

Cast: Richard Comeau

Sarah Dodd

Jacklyn Francis

Wahsonti:io Kirby

Kathleen MacLean

Mike Shara

Tara Sky

John Wamsley

A gently pointed play in which Indigenous voices give Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well an Indigenous interpretation. Terrific production.

The Story. It’s 1939 in an Anglican residential school in northern Ontario. A royal visit from George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth is anticipated and the students are being primed to present a production of Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well. Their fussy teacher Miss Sian Ap Dafyyd will direct them. Father Callum Williams will play the King of France.

As the students prepare and struggle with the British accent (of course they have to do the British accent according to Miss Ap Dafyyd), they realize that the story is really an Indigenous story and is about them and their own trials and tribulations. Helena in All’s Well That Ends Well is an orphan and has inherited her late father’s knowledge of medicine and is carrying on his traditions and knowledge. The student playing Helena is certain she is Mohawk. The student playing Parolles is certain that this character (Spanish in Shakespeare) is actually Métis. The student playing Bertram is also Indigenous. The students are committed to their interpretation even though there is opposition to the idea from Miss Ap Dafyyd.

Then the press gets wind of the production and that it will be presented as ‘authentically Canadian,’ and matters go from there.

The Production. We have all been horrified at the discovery of the unmarked graves at various residential schools across the country and the heart wrenching stories of what traumatized survivors endured at the hands of the teachers and clergy at those schools.

In 1939 co-writers Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan have taken a subtler way of dealing with what these Indigenous students and their parents etc. endured without sacrificing the power of the story.  The message is clear and resounding without being hard-hitting.     

Joanna Yu has created an intriguing, compelling set. We are in a class room with chairs on their sides on the floor. A large blackboard with “1939” written on it in chalk, stands on the stage floor and leans up against the balcony of the theatre. That is one large blackboard. Along the sides of the space, on either side of the staircases going up to the balcony level, are other blackboards.

During 1939, students write in chalk on those side blackboard areas, sometimes pleading letters (“Mamma, did you get my letter?”), sometimes just a word like “home”. As soon as the message is written and the student leaves the space, either Miss Ap Dafyyd (Sarah Dodd) or Father Callum Williams (Mike Shara) comes along and rubs out the message with a brush. It’s not done with anger or frustration. It’s just a calmly matter of fact cleaning of a blackboard. The messages are of longing, yearning and homesickness. Some of the students have been there for several years and have not been home.

At the beginning of the play a student is asked who he is and he automatically gives his number and just as quickly corrects himself and gives his name. Giving his number so automatically is a subtle ‘gut-punch’ to those who hear it. Every effort was made to remove their Indigenous language, customs and traditions and make them blend in as “Canadian.”

Every effort was made to break up siblings, but somehow Joseph Summers (Richard Comeau) and his sister Beth (Tara Sky) were there in that school and they just never told anyone they were siblings and it never came out. It was also forbidden that the boys and girls should mingle except in the class room.

We learn that if an Indigenous woman marries a white man she loses her ‘Indian’ status and is removed from the reserve. We learn from one student (named Jean Delorme in the play)  his Indigenous mother married a white man who later deserted her when she was removed from the reserve.  She prevailed on her own and was determined that her children would have an education.

These revelations are revealed carefully over the course of 1939, as the students rehearse and learn about All’s Well That Ends Well. Here is a play that takes place in Europe but these students find resonance to their own lives in Northern Ontario.

Miss Ap Dafyyd feels strongly about Shakespeare and how to do the play correctly. She insists that the students use a British accent.  She is Welsh. She is asked if when she did Shakespeare with a British accent, I believe I heard Sarah Dodd as Miss Ap Dafyyd say with a bit of irritation, “Of course not.” The irony hangs in the air. Dodd plays Miss Ap Dafyyd with conviction, an attention to detail and more a harried concern about Shakespeare than what the students are secretly feeling. Ap Dafyyd is not a mean, cruel woman. She just seems out of place in that school and frustrated as the students are as well. 

Co-writers Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan carefully reveal the developing confidence, resilience and quiet resistance of the students through Shakespeare. Evelyne Rice (Wahsonti:io Kirby) is cast as Helena and is certain she is Mohawk. Helena knows about medicines, as Evelyne does because of her Indigeneity so the connection is appropriate. As Evelyn Rice, Wahsonti:io Kirby brings out all Evelyn’s curiosity, generosity and joy in playing a character so close to herself. Evelyne is easy going, smart and tenacious in all the right ways. She quietly let’s the local newspaper know that the production of All’s Well That Ends Well will be done as ‘authentically Canadian.’ Wonderful. The students find their authentic voice through their parts.

Joseph Summer (Richard Comeau) is cast as Bertram. Richard Comeau plays Joseph with gentle grace, but he longs to return home to the reserve and proudly retain his culture. Joseph’s sister  Beth Summers (Tara Sky) is the student you want in your class—certainly as played by Tara Sky–devoted to the subject. Beth loves Shakespeare. She knows the play. She is championed by Miss Ap Dafyyd. Perhaps because of her Beth wants to be a teacher.

Jean Delorme (John Wamsley) plays Parolles and is certain he’s Métis. Parolles gives Jean validation. Jean’s mother is Indigenous and his father is white. His mother lost her ‘Indian’ because she married a white man and was then deserted by her husband.   Father Callum Williams (Mike Shara) is an awkward, ungainly, nervous man in which his nervousness is manifest in flatulence. Not a good thing when your job necessitates you do a lot of public speaking, and playing the King of France in All’s Well That Ends Well doesn’t help matters.

1939 only touches on the war looming in Europe. The bigger issue for co-writers Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan is looking at the Indigenous students in this residential school and finding a positive way of illuminating their hope, resolve, tenacity and embrace of a Shakespeare play to speak for them and help them find their true voice. Jani Lauzon has directed the play with a quiet vision and a keen way of establishing relationships. The play has a lot to say that is important to hear. The message is quietly resounding and clear.

Comment. A few years ago, the Shaw Festival programmed a production of Shakespeare’s Henry V (you read that right) interpreted as if it was being performed by a group of soldiers, hunkered down in the trenches during WWI. During the intermission the audience was invited to fill in cards with their memories of war etc. and some would be read during the beginning of the next Act. At the end of the run there was an instillation of sorts in a field near the theatre. The army boots the cast wore as soldiers during Henry V were positioned around the field and in every boot was a card that had been completed during the run of the show, noting a person’s memory of war, etc. One card stayed with me. The handwriting was perfect and elegant, the message was devastating. The writer said that her father enlisted to fight for Canada during WWII, I believe she said her father thought it was his patriotic duty. When he came back safely from fighting for Canada her father learned that because he enlisted, he was stripped of his ‘Indian’ status. Devastating. The writer was Jani Lauzon.

The Stratford Festival presents:

Runs until: Oct. 29, 2022.

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

www.stratfordfestival.ca

{ 0 comments }

Live and in person at the Studio Theater, Stratford Festival, Stratford, Ont. Plays until Oct. 29,

www.stratfordfest.ca

Written by Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan

Directed by Jani Lauzon

Set by Joanna Yu

Costumes by Asa Benally

Lighting by Louise Guinand

Composer and sound designer, Wayne Kelso

Cast: Richard Comeau

Sarah Dodd

Jacklyn Francis

Wahsonti:io Kirby

Kathleen MacLean

Mike Shara

Tara Sky

John Wamsley

A gently pointed play in which Indigenous voices give Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well an Indigenous interpretation. Terrific production.

The Story. It’s 1939 in an Anglican residential school in northern Ontario. A royal visit from George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth is anticipated and the students are being primed to present a production of Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well. Their fussy teacher Miss Sian Ap Dafyyd will direct them. Father Callum Williams will play the King of France.

As the students prepare and struggle with the British accent (of course they have to do the British accent according to Miss Ap Dafyyd), they realize that the story is really an Indigenous story and is about them and their own trials and tribulations. Helena in All’s Well That Ends Well is an orphan and has inherited her late father’s knowledge of medicine and is carrying on his traditions and knowledge. The student playing Helena is certain she is Mohawk. The student playing Parolles is certain that this character (Spanish in Shakespeare) is actually Métis. The student playing Bertram is also Indigenous. The students are committed to their interpretation even though there is opposition to the idea from Miss Ap Dafyyd.

Then the press gets wind of the production and that it will be presented as ‘authentically Canadian,’ and matters go from there.

The Production. We have all been horrified at the discovery of the unmarked graves at various residential schools across the country and the heart wrenching stories of what traumatized survivors endured at the hands of the teachers and clergy at those schools.

In 1939 co-writers Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan have taken a subtler way of dealing with what these Indigenous students and their parents etc. endured without sacrificing the power of the story.  The message is clear and resounding without being hard-hitting.     

Joanna Yu has created an intriguing, compelling set. We are in a class room with chairs on their sides on the floor. A large blackboard with “1939” written on it in chalk, stands on the stage floor and leans up against the balcony of the theatre. That is one large blackboard. Along the sides of the space, on either side of the staircases going up to the balcony level, are other blackboards.

During 1939, students write in chalk on those side blackboard areas, sometimes pleading letters (“Mamma, did you get my letter?”), sometimes just a word like “home”. As soon as the message is written and the student leaves the space, either Miss Ap Dafyyd (Sarah Dodd) or Father Callum Williams (Mike Shara) comes along and rubs out the message with a brush. It’s not done with anger or frustration. It’s just a calmly matter of fact cleaning of a blackboard. The messages are of longing, yearning and homesickness. Some of the students have been there for several years and have not been home.

At the beginning of the play a student is asked who he is and he automatically gives his number and just as quickly corrects himself and gives his name. Giving his number so automatically is a subtle ‘gut-punch’ to those who hear it. Every effort was made to remove their Indigenous language, customs and traditions and make them blend in as “Canadian.”

Every effort was made to break up siblings, but somehow Joseph Summers (Richard Comeau) and his sister Beth (Tara Sky) were there in that school and they just never told anyone they were siblings and it never came out. It was also forbidden that the boys and girls should mingle except in the class room.

We learn that if an Indigenous woman marries a white man she loses her ‘Indian’ status and is removed from the reserve. We learn from one student his Indigenous mother married a white man who later deserted her when she was removed from the reserve.  She prevailed on her own and was determined that her children would have an education.

These revelations are revealed carefully over the course of 1939, as the students rehearse and learn about All’s Well That Ends Well. Here is a play that takes place in Europe but these students find resonance to their own lives in Northern Ontario.

Miss Ap Dafyyd feels strongly about Shakespeare and how to do the play correctly. She insists that the students use a British accent.  She is Welsh. She is asked if when she did Shakespeare with a British accent, I believe I heard Sarah Dodd as Miss Ap Dafyyd say with a bit of irritation, “Of course not.” The irony hangs in the air. Dodd plays Miss Ap Dafyyd with conviction, an attention to detail and more a harried concern about Shakespeare than what the students are secretly feeling. Ap Dafyyd is not a mean, cruel woman. She just seems out of place in that school and frustrated as the students are as well.  

Co-writers Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan carefully reveal the developing confidence, resilience and quiet resistance of the students through Shakespeare. Evelyn Rice (Wahsonti:io Kirby) is cast as Helena and is certain she is Mohawk. Helena knows about medicines, as Evelyn does because of her Indigeneity so the connection is appropriate. As Evelyn Rice, Wahsonti:io Kirby brings out all Evelyn’s curiosity, generosity and joy in playing a character so close to herself. Evelyn is easy going, smart and tenacious in all the right ways. She quietly let’s the local newspaper know that the production of All’s Well That Ends Well will be done as ‘authentically Canadian.’ Wonderful. The students find their authentic voice through their parts.

Joseph Summers (Richard Comeau) plays Parolles and is certain he’s Métis. Parolles gives Joseph validation. Richard Comeau plays Joseph with gentle grace. Beth Summers (Tara Sky) is the student you want in your class—certainly as played by Tara Sky–devoted to the subject. Beth loves Shakespeare. She knows the play. She is championed by Miss Ap Dafyyd. Perhaps because of her Beth wants to be a teacher. Father Callum Williams (Mike Shara) is an awkward, ungainly, nervous man in which his nervousness is manifest in flatulence. Not a good thing when your job necessitates you do a lot of public speaking, and playing the King of France in All’s Well That Ends Well doesn’t help matters.

1939 only touches on the war looming in Europe. The bigger issue for co-writers Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan is looking at the Indigenous students in this residential school and finding a positive way of illuminating their hope, resolve, tenacity and embrace of a Shakespeare play to speak for them and help them find their true voice. Jani Lauzon has directed the play with a quiet vision and a keen way of establishing relationships. The play has a lot to say that is important to hear. The message is quietly resounding and clear.

Comment. A few years ago, the Shaw Festival programmed a production of Shakespeare’s Henry V (you read that right) interpreted as if it was being performed by a group of soldiers, hunkered down in the trenches during WWI. During the intermission the audience was invited to fill in cards with their memories of war etc. and some would be read during the beginning of the next Act. At the end of the run there was an instillation of sorts in a field near the theatre. The army boots the cast wore as soldiers during Henry V were positioned around the field and in every boot was a card that had been completed during the run of the show, noting a person’s memory of war, etc. One card stayed with me. The handwriting was perfect and elegant, the message was devastating. The writer said that her father enlisted to fight for Canada during WWII, I believe she said her father thought it was his patriotic duty. When he came back safely from fighting for Canada her father learned that because he enlisted, he was stripped of his ‘Indian’ status. Devastating. The writer was Jani Lauzon.

The Stratford Festival presents:

Runs until: Oct. 29, 2022.

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

www.stratfordfestival.ca

{ 0 comments }

Live and in person from Crow’s Theatre, at the Streetcar/Crowsnest. Plays until Oct. 2, 2022.

www.crowstheatre.com

Written by Anton Chekhov

Adapted by Liisa Repo-Martell

Directed by Chris Abraham

Set and props co-designer, Julie Fox and Josh Quinlan

Set and props co-designer, Josh Quinlan

Costumes by Ming Wong

Lighting by Kimberly Purtell

Sound by Thomas Ryder Payne

Cast: Carolyn Fe

dtaborah johnson

Ali Kazmi

Eric Peterson

Anand Rajaram

Tom Rooney

Shannon Taylor

Bahia Watson

This beautifully sensitive production and deeply felt adaptation of Uncle Vanya is like a light in the world.

The Story. Uncle Vanya was published in 1898 and first performed in Russia in 1899. While Chekhov described the play on the title page as “Scenes from Country Life in Four Acts” the play is much more than that of course. It is a look into the quietly desperate lives of people stuck and aching because of lost opportunities, unrequited love, profound unhappiness and boredom. And in Chekhov’s typical way, it’s funny.

Vanya and his niece Sonya run the country estate and send the money it makes to Alexandre, a noted scholar and professor. Alexandre’s late first wife was Sonya’s mother and Vanya’s sister. When Alexandre’s wife died, he married Yelena, a woman much younger than he was. Because the times are not as prosperous for Alexandre in the city, he’s come to the country estate with Yelena to continue his writing of essays, articles and other scholarly endeavors that occupy his time. In the process he and Yelena disrupt the whole household.

There used to be an order to the day of those on the estate. Marina, the family’s elderly servant, was used to preparing the meals at set times during the day and sleeping at normal, regular times. With the professor’s odd sleeping patterns, he got up at noon and worked usually all night. Meals were not regular. Vanya and Sonya had not attended to running the estate for fear of upsetting the timetable of Alexandre. The animosity of Vanya towards Alexandre was palpable. Vanya felt he squandered his life in the service to this pompous buffoon. Vanya also felt he had a better intellect than Alexandre. Vanya’s mother, Maria, hung on to every word written or said by Alexandre much to the chagrin of Vanya.  And to make matters worse Vanya was in love with Yelena.

Alexandre was always complaining of ill health and so Dr. Astrov was summoned to come and minister to him. When the doctor got there, Alexandre wouldn’t see him. Astrov was haunted by a young patient who died in his care. He drank, usually with Vanya. Astrov was secretly in love with Yelena as well. Rounding out this stoical longing was Sonya, who also pined for Astrov. Telegin, was an impoverished friend who helped at the estate. He tried to hold on to his dignity.    

The Production. The audience sits around the four walls of the Guloien Theatre. Kimberly Purtell’s lighting gives the sense of a faded photograph of by gone times. Set and props co-designers, Julie Fox and Josh Quinlan have captured the size and suggested former grandeur of the estate by filling the whole space as if we are in the main room of the house. The room now suggests the fortunes have fallen. The floorboards are uneven or broken; there are pockets of stones and earth poking up where boards should be. The rugs are threadbare. (Interestingly, the narrow runner rugs that lead the audience into the playing space are luxurious and deep).

Ming Wong’s costumes—well-worn for those who work the estate, and very stylish for Yelena and Maria. Alexandre is always in a suit to give off the impression of success.   There is little furniture, except for Marina’s (Carolyn Fe) overstuffed, worn chair, a small desk close to one side, and a table, bench and chair in the middle of the room where people eat and Vanya (Tom Rooney) and Sonya (Bahia Watson) work.  Memorabilia, books and lots of stuff are placed under things or around the room etc. A chandelier hangs down from the flies. Beams are above and they are large and thick. This is a huge house, now shabby. At times Thomas Ryder Payne provides a subtle hum, ‘buzz’ that underscores a speech. It’s one more aspect of something that closes in on these people as they try and endure.

Liisa Repo-Martell’s adaptation breathes a freshness into Chekhov’s timeless play, that enhances it without distorting it. For example, at the end, as Sonya is comforting Uncle Vanya, trying to buoy him and give him hope, the frequent translation is that after they dedicate their lives to work, they will find rest (in the afterlife?). In Liisa Repo-Martell’s version, Sonya says they will ‘have peace’ which I think is more profound. More comforting. Repo-Martell’s language is both of Chekhov’s time and timeless. There is an intellectual modernity to it, certainly for Vanya, and certainly when the always watchable Tom Rooney plays him. This is a performance of exquisite details and intelligence.

Director Chris Abraham has beautifully, sensitively realized the subtle bubbling of emotions in the play. Chris Abraham’s direction illuminates the ache of yearning, of disappointment and lost love.

Characters such as Astrov (a haunted, sombre Ali Kazmi) talks of how exhausted he is but can’t seem to sit down and rest (part of Chekhov’s quiet humour). Uncle Vanya is consumed with sadness and ennui but can’t stop shuffling around aimlessly as if trying to find a place of comfort, and failing. Sonya is industrious. She finds things to occupy her and she moves with a purpose, although keeping her emotions secret. As Marina the old nanny/maid, Carolyn Fe quietly sees that the family is fed, that the samovar is always on, offers motherly affection and drink to Astrov, and even when she is sitting in her chair, she’s knitting, being useful. Again, Chekhov and Chris Abraham are having a little laugh. Marina is industrious and uncomplaining.  Abraham carefully realizes each character’s heart-ache. Scenes are never rushed. They have time to breathe and be. They linger in the air compelling us to see, feel and be aware of each character’s beating heart.

The cast is sublime. As Uncle Vanya, Tom Rooney gives a masterclass of a performance. It is full of such nuance and subtly. He’s stooped, defeated by life and disappointment. He’s anxious, angry at Alexandre and in secret love with Yelena. When you expect him to declare his unhappiness loudly, he whimpers it and breaks your heart. When he rages at Alexandre it’s in a torrent of articulation and linguistic dexterity that is breathtaking. Brilliant work.

Bahia Watson illuminates Sonya’s generosity of spirit, her kindness and certainly her delicate ability to calm Vanya and give him hope. Her delirious joy when she can confide in Yelena is wonderful; her profound sadness when she learns about Astrov’s feelings squeezes the heart. Yelena is the most perceptive character in the play. She knows the secret feelings of those in the house and it’s so clear in Shannon Taylor’s playing of her. Shannon Taylor’s Yelena is like watching a breeze move, there is such grace. Conversation stops when she enters a room because characters are compelled to look at her. Taylor is watchful at everybody in the room. She listens to what they say and intuits how they feel. She knows her affect on people but is not destructive with it. She is bored, but won’t leave.

Anand Rajaram as Telegin, also known as “Waffles” because of his pocked skin, just wants to be noticed and for his name to be pronounced properly. He is impoverished but works hard to be useful. Telegin is a character who could be the focus of ridicule in that hard world. Rajaram gives him dignity. If every there was a character who was pompous, bombastic and a source of hollow pontificating, Alexandre is it and he is played with wonderful arrogance, irritation and much hilarity by Eric Peterson. While Alexandre is revered by many, he’s easily defeated in an argument by Vanya who shows the hollow phony Alexandre is. Alexandre does fool Maria, Vanya’s mother in a performance by dtaborah johnson that is quietly flamboyant and delusional.  

Director Chris Abraham also takes givens about directing and theatricality and turns them on their ear in Uncle Vanya. It’s as if he’s saying that it’s not necessary to view everything clearly.  Considering many characters are harboring secrets and not telling anyone until they just can’t help it, then keeping almost ‘secrets’ makes sense.

Many scenes take place in corners where often it’s not easy to see what is happening. Characters appear out of nowhere, from a corner, alerting us with a snore, they are there.  Sonya fixes Astrov a snack of cheese and wine at counter hidden in a corner, seen by some and not by others. She puts the snack on a tray and takes it to the table, on view to everybody.

Astrov is keenly aware of the change in vegetation in the area. He has tracked the disappearance of trees over time on several huge sheets he has kept rolled up, which he brings to show Yelena. He unrolls the sheets by laying them on the floor at the far end of the room and explaining to Yelena the changes over time. Those close to the sheets can see the changes. But for others, there is a table etc. in the way.  The placement of the sheets on the floor is deliberate, even though everybody would be able to see clearly if the sheets had been placed on the table in the centre of the room.  

At one point Sonya confides to Yelena that she loves Astrov and wonders how he feels about her. Yelena offers to sound out Astrov discreetly. When Yelena lets Sonya know the answer, they are at a side of the room (subtly illuminated), while ‘centre stage’ Alexandre is raging about something. This pulling of our focus also pulls at our hearts when we realize what Yelena is telling Sonya just with a shake of her head.

Comment. Such heart-ache. Such longing and yearning and it’s funny in a truly Chekhovian way. These characters are stuck in their misery but continue to perpetuate it. Telegin was jilted on his wedding day when his wife ran off with another man. But for 30 years he remained faithful to his wife and supported her and her lover. One wrinkles one’s eyebrows at this, yet it’s funny. Vanya displays an absolute crystal intellect and linguistic dexterity that Alexandre can’t approach and yes, Vanya has squandered his life toiling on that estate. But he never moved to do anything else. Vanya berates Alexandre for never raising his salary in all the time Vanya has been overseeing the estate. Yet Vanya never asked for a raise either. It’s as if the characters need to suffer to feel alive. And they won’t move to change it And in a Chekhovian way, that’s funny.

Stunning production, wonderful theatre all round.

Crow’s Theater Presents:

Runs until: Oct. 2, 2022.

Running Time: 2 hours, 45 minutes (1 intermission)

www.crowstheatre.com

{ 2 comments }

Live and in person from Crow’s Theatre, at the Streetcar/Crowsnest. Plays until Oct. 2, 2022.

www.crowstheatre.com

Written by Anton Chekhov

Adapted by Liisa Repo-Martell

Directed by Chris Abraham

Set and props co-designer, Julie Fox

Set and props co-designer, Josh Quinlan

Costumes by Ming Wong

Lighting by Kimberly Purtell

Sound by Thomas Ryder Payne

This beautifully sensitive production and deeply felt adaptation of Uncle Vanya is like a light in the world. Chris Abraham’s direction illuminates the ache of yearning, of disappointment and lost love. Liisa Repo-Martell’s adaptation breathes a freshness into Chekhov’s timeless play, that enhances it without distorting it.

The cast is sublime. As Uncle Vanya, Tom Rooney gives a masterclass of a performance.

Stunning theatre, all round.

Full review to follow shortly.

Crow’s Theater Presents:

Runs until: Oct. 2, 2022.

Running Time: 2 hours, 45 minutes (1 intermission)

www.crowstheatre.com

{ 0 comments }

Live and in person at the Harvest Stage, Blyth Festival, Blyth, Ont. Until Sept. 24, 2022.

www.blythfestival.com

Written by Cheryl Foggo

Director/musical director, Janelle Cooper

Set and costumes by Lindsey Zess

Lighting by Beth Kates

Sound by Adam Campbell

Original Music, Kris Demeanor and Miranda Martini

Cast: Janelle Cooper

Warona Setshwaelo

Twaine Ward

Musicians: Madeleine Eddy

Graham Hargrove

George Meanwell

A fascinating play and production that explores the vibrant life and historical importance of John Ware, a black cowboy who changed the face of farming and the sense of community when he planted his roots in Alberta in the 1800s.

The Story. John Ware was probably born a slave and became a cowboy driving a herd  of cattle to Canada where he stayed and put down roots. There was a lot of folklore about him doing herculean feats to save people, or invent new ways of farming etc. A lot of it was true. He was a natural leader of people, a loving husband and father. He had tenacity and a sense of duty that was gripping. And he was a hero to those who studied his story.

The Production. Director Janelle Cooper creates a kind of ceremony of introduction at the beginning of the play. Actors in costume are brought forward by another participant and guided around the set and up the stairs. The last to be introduced are two musicians who are also guided. The ceremony was silent.

My concern is that I have no idea who those people are or who is introducing them.  I don’t know who the actors play at this point or the point of the ceremony. I can’t assume I know who those characters are, except for John Ware.  It all comes clear when the play begins. Truth to tell, I think that initial ceremony could be cut with no damage to the production.

Joni (Warona Setshwaela) is our narrator. She gives us context and information about John Ware. Warona Setshwaela as Joni is committed and enthusiastic in her performance. I do wonder who Joni is though because at times she seems to be involved in the story but also just outside of it.

As she initially talks of John Ware, Twaine Ward as John Ware, stands at the back of the stage, posed in his long coat, work pants, shirt and boots. He is imposing with his beard and stillness. He was about 6’2” and so commanding without saying a word. He was a man of few words, so few that when he saw Mildred (Janelle Cooper) across the room, he was smitten with her but could not find the words to tell her. She, a Black woman of the community, gradually, gently got him talking enough that they went on dates and they married. Conversation poured out of him then. They had six children. At one point, Mildred gets sick and John has to travel to Calgary to get the medicine. There was a raging snowstorm. What he had to do to get to Calgary and back, his determination not to stop, is the stuff of legends.

Director Janelle Cooper has directed that scene in particular with vivid imagination, complete with snow whipping in the face of John Ware as he fights the elements to get home and save his wife. There is urgency and the build-up of tension.

As John Ware, Twaine Ward is quiet-spoken because it’s his accomplishments that do the talking. There is power in the gentleness of this imposing man, certainly as played by Twaine Ward.

As an actor, Janelle Cooper as Mildred has that grace and gentle confidence of a woman who could deal with the hard world of farming in the 1800s. She also has that independence that could/would charm John Ware and marry her.  And it was a partnership of equality, devotion and intense love.

Late in the play we learn about Joni. She is the modern Black voice of those John Ware influenced.  She was a Black kid in a predominantly white town who longed to see herself in the books she was reading. In a wonderful speech she notes that she does not see herself in “Little Women” or “Anne of Green Gables or “Harriet the Spy.”

As a youngster, Joni learns about John Ware from her older brother. She also learns about the ‘subtle’ racism of a teacher her brother had. Joni had the same teacher as well. Joni had an assignment to write about Huckleberry Finn. Joni didn’t want to. She wanted to write about John Ware and did. From the questions of the teacher, we could tell that the teacher was giving Joni a hard time, for a kid still in public school. How did she know that John Ware was Black? (Joni just did). How did she know that he did all the things he was supposed to have done. One senses the snotty teacher was not questioning so that Joni would dig deeper. The teacher was questioning to embarrass the kid because at that point in her life, she didn’t know. Joni went on to delve more deeply into John Ware’s life as she got older. Can we assume that Joni is Cheryl Foggo?

Music and songs by Miranda Martini and Kris Demeanor also enrich this production. The songs go deeply into a character’s emotions or forward the story. Often Janelle Cooper and Twaine Ward sing together. Both have beautiful, strong voices.  Madeleine Eddy, Graham Hargrove and George Meanwell provide wonderful musical accompaniment and singing as well.

While I found some glitches in the production, ultimately Janelle Cooper presented a production and direction that realized the rich life of John Ware.

Comment. Bravo to Cheryl Foggo for digging into her and John Ware’s history to create this fascinating play about this compelling man.

Interestingly, had Joni waited about 10 years after the publication of “Harriet The Spy” (Louise Fitzhugh), she could have read Louise Fitzhugh’s last book, “Nobody’s Family is Going to Change”—perhaps my most favourite kid’s book (adult book too?) She would have found people who looked like her. It’s about a Black (upper) middle class family in New York City. The father is a lawyer. The mother is accomplished. There are two children. A young boy about seven and his older sister, about 11. The boy loves to dance. He is the focus of the film, “The Tap Dance Kid”. The sister is smart, solitary and perhaps eats to compensate. She wants to be a lawyer. Her father scoffs. The girls stands her ground. Fabulous book. Joni would have found herself in that wonderful book. Interestingly, Louise Fitzhugh was white, writing about a black family in 1974. No one scoffed.

The Blyth Festival presents:

Plays until: Sept. 24, 2022.

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

 www.blythfestival.com

{ 0 comments }

Live and in person at the Here for Now Theatre, Falstaff Family Centre, Stratford, Ont. until Sept. 11, 2022.

www.herefornowtheater.com

Written and performed by Robert McQueen

Composer/musician, Laura Burton

Co-Directors, Damien Atkins and Andrew Kushnir

Lighting and sound by Stephen Degenstein

Because this is billed as a workshop production, I am just commenting and not formally ‘reviewing.’ That said, please see this special, moving, touching production. The sensitive care and detail in realizing the story of these wonderful original poems is a gift, and is presented by Here for Now Theatre, that does this kind of work as a matter of course.

Robert McQueen began to work on these poems during the lockdown. The time was there and the memories and the need to record them. The premise was simple: to write out his ‘experiences as a young queer man, living between Vancouver and New York City during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 90s.

The Real Poems is spoken witness to the joy of youth, discovery and wild adventure. It is a memorial to the lives of colleagues, lovers and friends lost.”

Robert McQueen and his composer/accompanist, Laura Burton enter the space together. He is dressed in a crisp shirt and pants and is barefoot. I love that respectful ritual of being barefoot on the stage. Laura Burton is casually/smartly dressed and sits at her piano and as always, is smiling. She is focused on Robert McQueen, listening carefully and totally to everything he says and she reacts with genuine warmth. Her music and playing underscores and supports the poems and never overpowers them. She is the consummate partner/accompanist and her joy is infectious.

Three chairs are the set. Robert McQueen  re-arranges the chairs when a new location is indicated. The co-direction of Damien Atkins and Andrew Kushnir is unobtrusive—perhaps the movement of chairs can be pared down, but I leave that to further development.  

Initially the premise is that he and his two sisters, Rose and Robin, are meeting a therapist to discuss various issues, specifically with their late mother. Robert was devoted to her and as a kid loved watching her get dressed and put on her make-up. His mother seemed to like that attention.

As the ‘therapy’ session with his sisters progresses, Robert’s attention wanders to another time.  When he was an 18-year-old gay man he moved from Vancouver to New York City to study theatre. He discovered the gay culture there and was embraced and found his place. The freedom to be in that world was heady. Robert McQueen’s face glowed when recalling the memories, the life-long friends he met. I was so taken with the sparkle of the man—his eyes twinkled (no other word for it); his smile was brilliant (I irreverently wanted to know what toothpaste the man used). He went from one adventure to another. He spoke in glowing, funny terms of his many friends along the way, all spoken through his crystal, clear poems. Elegant, graceful, joyful and eventually heartbreaking.  Occasionally his attention was drawn back to the therapy session but then it wandered again to his time in New York.

And then came the scourge of AIDS. McQueen delves deeply into the valiant struggle of friends to live with the disease, the physical ravaging it caused; the emotional upheaval of a mother who rejected her dying son; the kindness of friends to get on a plane to hold the hand of a friend in hospice. McQueen’s sensitivity in dealing with these gut-punches is delicate and heart-squeezing. If one is lucky one lives to a ripe, old age and looses friends gradually. McQueen was losing friends in clumps in their and his prime of life. He bears witness to that time and gives his friends life again. We are the beneficiaries of that gift.

I hope The Real Poems has another life and that McQueen publishes his poems.   

Here for Now Theatre presents:

Plays until: Sept. 11, 2022.

Running Time: 90 minutes (no intermission)

www.herefornowtheatre.com

{ 0 comments }

Live and in person at the 1000 Islands Playhouse, Gananoque, Ont. Plays until Sept. 18, 2022.

www.1000islandssplayhouse.com

Written by Ins Choi

Directed by Esther Jun

Set and costumes by Julia Kim

Lighting by Jareth Li

Sound designer and composer, Maddie Bautista

Cast: Frank Chung

Cameron Grant

Jane Luk

Kelly Seo

James Yi

Background. Kim’s Convenience is Ins Choi’s first play. He began writing it in 2005 as part of the Fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company Playwrights’ Unit and continued to develop it over the next several years. In 2010 Ins Choi sent the play to various Toronto theatres that rejected it. He submitted the play for the 2011 Toronto Fringe Festival and won the New Play Contest. From there it was remounted by Soulpepper, toured the country and was made into a television series of the CBC. There have been awards along the way.

The play is a bittersweet immigrant story; of trying to fit in to a new life but still honouring the traditions of one’s culture; and of forgiveness.

Mr. Kim (‘Appa’ in the program which means ‘Father’ in Korean) has owned and operated his convenience store for 30 years. He is thinking of passing it on to his daughter Janet (Kelly Seo) to run. She has helped often in the store, while also going to school to be an artist. That is where her heart is—to be an artist.

There is a son, Jung (Frank Chung) but he’s estranged from his father and they haven’t talked in months. Jung talks to his mother, (‘Umma’ in Korean), often going to church with her. He regrets the rift with his father and longs to come home and finally does.  

Mr. Kim has a polite, but distant relationship with his customers, all played with careful variation and detail by Cameron Grant. Mr. Kim also has a rather prickly, commanding relationship with Janet. He expects her to be a dutiful, obedient daughter, and she balks at his obstreperousness. She also would like to be paid for her time working in the store. There is dandy exchange between father and daughter about the actual economics of the situation.

Julia Kim has designed a set (and the costumes) that reminds us of every convenience store we have ever been in, because there is a set design and layout to these stores. Because Mr. Kim is meticulous, the shelves are stocked and neat.

James Yi as Appa is agile, a bit stooped from age and wear but a man who is in charge. His timing is impeccable; his gruffness is part of his humour as is his watchfulness. He seems to have a keen sense of who is shoplifting from his store. The banter between James Yi as Appa and Kelly Seo as Janet is particularly bracing. They lob insults and stand their ground with grace and finesse.

Jane Luk as Umma plays the quiet peace-maker in the family. She is burdened with the rift between her husband and her son. She is aware of the prickliness between her daughter and husband. She has to keep the peace for all of them.

As Jung, Frank Chung has a sweetness mixed with the guilt of what he did to cause the rift. He is trying to make amends. When he comes home, he makes suggestions to his father about the store. Suddenly new possibilities arise for Mr. Kim and the future of the store.

Esther Jun has directed this with efficiency and a sensitivity that doesn’t over play scenes. Each character is well drawn and nicely played. While Ins Choi has created a family drama with all sorts of complications, he solves each one neatly, but not too neatly.

Kim’s Convenience is Ins Choi’s first play so we cut him some slack.  The play is partially autobiographical in that Ins Choi came to Canada with his family from Korea and his parents earned a living by working in an uncle’s convenience store. We all recognize our own family dramas in the Kim’s family drama.

I also loved the fact that the land acknowledgement was given in Korean and English by Jane Luk and Frank Chung before the show began. Very moving.  

Thousand Islands Playhouse presents:

Plays until: Oct. 18, 2022.

Running Time: 80 minutes (no intermission)

www.1000islandsplayhouse.com

{ 0 comments }

Live and in person at the Stratford Festival, Tom Patterson Theater, Stratford, Ont. Until Oct. 29, 2022.

www.stratfordfestival.ca

Written by Wole Soyinka

Directed by Tawiah M’Carthy

Set by Rachel Forbes

Costumes by Sarah Uwadiae

Lighting by Christopher Dennis

Sound by Debashis Sinha

Music director/composer, Adékúnlé Olórundáre (Kunle)

Choreography by Jaz ‘Fairy J’ Simone

Cast: Graham Abbey

Kwaku Adu-Poku

Celia Aloma

Akosua Amo-Adem

Bola Aiyeola

isi bhakhomen

Maev Beaty

Déjah Dixon-Green

Ijeoma Emesowum

Rachel Jones

Matthew Kabwe

Kevin Kruchkywich

Josue Labourcane

Pulga Muchochoma

Ngabo Nabea

Andrea Rankin

Anthony Santiago

Tyrone Savage

Espoir Segbeaya

Amaka Umeh

Norman Yeung

Onstage Musicians/Yoruba Drums:

Amado Dedeu Garcia

Adékúnlé Olórundáre (Kunle)

Erik Samuel

Oluwakayode Sodunke

Death and the King’s Horseman is brisling with drama, poetry, ceremony, tradition and racism. The production is stunning.

The Story. Death and the King’s Horseman is a Nigerian classic that premiered in 1975. The play takes place in Nigeria during WWII when it was under British colonial rule.

A Yoruba King has died the month before. The tradition dictates that the King’s Horseman, Elesin, is required to accompany him into the afterlife. That means he has to commit suicide.

But this sacred ritual is interrupted when the ruling British overseers stop the tradition—they think it barbaric– resulting in an unforeseen tragedy.  Based on actual events in British-occupied Nigeria, Wole Soyinka’s play shares the story of a community striving to uphold its culture in the face of colonial power.  If the process is interrupted then the spirit of the dead king roams the earth and can wreak havoc on the people because of his disturbed spirit. The success of crops and the economy are also affected.

Elesin considered this tradition an honour to fulfill. He is a hugely confident man, totally aware of his stature in the community because of this honour and he was going to play it to the hilt. Here is a wonderful speech he gives: “In all my life as a horseman of the King, the juiciest fruit on every tree was mine. I saw. I touched, I wooed. Rarely was the answer no. The honour of my place; the veneration I received in the eye of man or woman prospered my suit, played havoc with my sleeping hours, and they tell me my eyes were always in perpetual hunger.”

Glorious. The language and rhythms of Nigeria as exemplified in Soyinka’s play are seductive, evocative and gleaming. When I say he played his part to the hilt, he also got greedy.

Elesin planned to marry the most beautiful young woman in the village, have the wedding night and do his husbandly duties, thus carrying on his line, then follow the King into the afterlife soon after. But the women of the village take him to task for his hubris: first in the person of Olohun-iyo a praise singer, and then Iyaloja, Mother of the Market. Those women of the market were fiercely independent and could and did stand up to the revered King’s Horseman.

To make matters even trickier, Elesin’s chosen bride was actually betrothed to a young man who was the son of Iyaloja, Mother of the Market. But tradition dictates that what the Horseman wants before he goes on his ‘final’ journey, he gets.  

Elesin has an obvious verve for life and determination to have as much pleasure before he has to give up his life. Elesin knows and believes in the importance of the tradition, but the women are fearless in letting him know that his humility and sense of entitlement leave a lot to be desired.  

With the British in Nigeria Soyinka addresses the difference in cultures and how one treats the other. It’s one of the many beauties of the play. The arrogance and contempt of the British, exemplified in Simon Pilkings and others, for the traditions of the people of the village are obvious. Pilkings represents the quintessential overpowering culture who has no reason to learn anything about the place or people whom he is colonizing. Pilkings was going to stop the fulfilling of the tradition because he didn’t agree with suicide. He didn’t care about the ramifications and consequences.

The Production. It’s terrific. Director Tawiah M’Carthy has directed a production full of the music, drama, throbbing beat and heart of the play. He got a head start when he also directed the audio version of this play as part of the Around the World in 80 Plays series, produced by Soulpepper June 2021, where I heard it and love it too.

His direction of the play for the Stratford Festival, is assured, confident, all embracing of the audience and carefully measured for the maximum effect. When the people of the market are on their own, there is an ease and confidence in their body language, expressions, singing and joy. When they come under the watchful, judging gaze of the British there is a stiffness a reticence.

This is certainly realized when trouble starts to brew during the visit of a royal party from Britain to the area. There are references that native Nigerians became Christians during Pilkings’ stay, so one can assume pressure was put on them to convert. The Pilkings want to put on a good show and want everything to be uneventful for the royal visit. They organize a costume party for the occasion in which Mr. and Mrs. Pilkings (Graham Abbey and Maev Beaty) wear a sacred mask as part of the costume, completely oblivious of their disrespect to the Yoruba culture.

Added to this are Elesin’s (Anthony Santiago) intended suicide and the preliminary ceremonies before that. He has delayed the inevitable for so long with his own celebrations—earning the wrath of Iyaloja and the other women of the market—that it gives Pilkings the needed time to intervene and try and stop the ceremony. What Pilkings hadn’t considered is Elesin’s son, Olunde (Kwaku Adu-Poku).

Years before, against his father’s will and with the encouragement of Mr. and Mrs. Pilkings, Olunde was sent to England to be educated. He then trained to be a doctor. But with the death of the king, he knew that his father would soon traditionally follow his king to the afterlife. Olunde came home to bury his father.

Kwaku Adu-Poku as Olunde, every inch a formidable presence. Calm, confident, poised in a beautifully tailored brown suit, tie and shoes, the effects of a British way of life are clear. But Olunde is also a man of his people and he knows how to navigate both worlds. When he confronts Mrs. Pilkings in her Nigerian costume, he is polite but eventually pointed.  

He says to her: “You have no respect for what you don’t understand.” And he says of the costume party. ”…that is the good cause for which you desecrate an ancestral mask.” Again, rather than see her cultural blunder and apologize Mrs. Pilkings says to him, “So you returned with a chip on your shoulder.”

The play was written in the 1970s and I think it’s as timely today as it was then.  You don’t get the sense that attitudes have changed toward other cultures. And it’s interesting to note that Wole Soyinka was so observant about the differences in British and Nigerian culture.  (He wrote the play at Cambridge).

Mr. Pilkings didn’t share anything important about his work with his wife—no need for her to know. She was not treated as an equal in that marriage or was considered important in her husband’s work. She was someone to be a cordial hostess to the British upper classes, without learning about the people for whom the British were acting as ‘protectors.’

But in Nigeria those women of the market were fiercely independent and could and did stand up to the revered King’s Horseman and anyone else who challenged their way of life. I loved that juxtaposition.

For the Stratford production Tawiah M’Carthy and his creative team fill the Tom Patterson stage with the colour of the costumes (Sarah Uwadiae) and the bustle and energy of the market place–complete with mounds of spices, fruits, vegetables, music and dance. Kudos to Rachel Forbes for her set of the market place etc. that put the audience right in the centre of that energy.  

Before we hear the language of the play, which is dense and poetic, we hear the throb of the drumming. The subtle drumming is the heart-beat of the play; the conscience of the people. No less important in the cast of characters is the almost constant presence of drumming, composed by Adékúnlé Olórundáre (Kunle) and played by him and his fellow musicians.

The rhythms are so particular in the language of the play and the cast nails them. The cadence, pace and emotion just grip you. You get the sense of bursting life and pride in Elesin by Anthony Santiago’s performance. There is confidence, verve and a bristling energy in his delivery and an arrogance in his pride of place.

There is impish joy and beautiful singing by Amaka Umeh as Olohun-iyo—the Praise Singer. Umeh’s movement is as agile as her singing.

Akosua Amo-Adem plays Iyaloja-Mother of the Market and she is astonishing. There is power in her stillness as she stares down Elesin or anyone she thinks gets in her way to carrying out tradition or standing up for her culture. She quietly takes Elesin to task for his hubris and other ills. Formidable.  

Graham Abbey as Simon Pilkings has that haughty, distracted air about him when dealing with people he feels are lesser. And there is also a sense of worry that this new trouble might be something he can’t control with arrogance. And Maev Beaty as Jane Pilkings has that arrogance as well although in a subtler version.

Comment. Death and the King’s Horseman might be an odd choice of a play for the Stratford Festival,  but here is an effort to acknowledge classics of another culture, in this case the Yaruba culture of Nigeria, and this play by Wole Soyinka, a Nobel Prize winning author. The Stratford Festival was a partner with Soulpepper in producing the audio version a year ago June.

Rather than look at a play from ‘our’ culture and our point of view and how it compares to us, Death and the King’s Horseman makes us look at it fresh, anew, from the Nigerian point of view. Their people, culture and traditions were being ‘managed’ by the colonizing British and the Nigerian’s were standing up and ‘pushing’ back to protect their culture.

Something happened during the opening that was wonderful in experiencing the play with a definite mixed audience in which many people were in traditional Nigerian dress. We all experience a play and production in our own, different way, and it’s important to embrace that difference as a learning, educational experience. Often when a character took the British to task with a truth, many in the audience murmured and snapped their fingers in approval.  We all need to hear that and learn about another way of experiencing the play.

At one point Pilkings demands that this ritual suicide be explained to him and a quiet voice in the audience asked, “Why?” Part of the audience also murmured quiet approval of that question. We all need to hear that comment and learn about another way of experiencing the play.

That can’t happen if we are separated into segregated audiences, which happens occasionally with some productions. This bracing experience of listening to another way of appreciating the play, proves it’s best when we are all together in a room, as a community, experiencing a play in many different, respectful ways.  

Loved this production.

The Stratford Festival presents:

Plays until: Oct. 29, 2022.

Running Time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.

www.stratfordfestival.ca

{ 0 comments }

Live and in person at the Shaw Festival, Festival Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. Until Oct. 8.

www.shawfest.com

Written by Bernard Shaw

Adapted by Diana Donnelly

Directed by Diana Donnelly

Set by Gillian Gallow

Costumes by Rachel Forbes

Lighting by Michelle Ramsay

Sound by Ryan deSouza

Cast: David Adams

Jason Cadieux

Sharry Flett

Katherine Gauthier

Alexis Gordon

Nathanael Judah

Claire Jullien

Allan Louis

Michael Man

Johnathan Sousa

Sanjay Talwar

A bold, even daring interpretation of Shaw’s play, reflecting our quickly changing times dealing with medical issues that affect us all. At times the design—both set and costumes– muddy the interpretation.

Background. Bernard Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma premiered in 1906 at the Royal Court Theatre in London, England. Director Diana Donnelly has updated the play to reflect our world of 2022. She has cut a character, amalgamated dialogue of another and changed the gender of the character of Sir Patrick Cullen who is now Dr. Patricia Cullen. She has also changed Dr. Colenso Ridgeon from just having been knighted to having received the Nobel Prize, because she has moved the play out of England to the ‘here and now.’ (Being knighted and getting the Nobel Prize have both occasionally come with their own questionable baggage).  The language has also been updated. With all the changes, Diana Donnelly is firm that she has served the spirit of Shaw in his play.

The Story. If you were a doctor with a new cure for a disease but were only able to take on a limited number of patients on whom to give the cure, how would you decide what patient to select for the cure?  Would you choose a gifted artist who, alas, is a lying, cheating, womanizer, or would you choose a poor hard-working doctor who caters to the downtrodden, but is unremarkable except for his devotion to his patients? Such a dilemma is facing Dr. Colenzo Ridgeon when Jennifer Dubedat comes to plead the case of her ill husband, artist, Louis Dubedat. Dr. Ridgeon is struck by Mrs. Dubedat’s conviction and her husband’s talent. To make matters more complicated Ridgeon has fallen in love with Mrs. Dubedat. Dr. Ridgeon meets Louis Dubedat. Ridgeon finds Dubedat to be arrogant, pompous, a cheater and a thief. His art work is impressive but Dubedat is horrible. What does Dr. Ridgeon do?

The Production. Director Diana Donnelly has adapted the play to include modern references and place the play in the “here and now.” She has made Dr. Colenzo Ridgeon’s (Sanjay Talwar) honour the Nobel Prize and not a knighthood in order to shift the play away from England and make it more universal. Sanjay Talwar plays Dr. Ridgeon with a lovely sense of himself, but is not arrogant about it. Talwar gives a lovely performance.  

Designer Gillian Gallow has created a sleek setting to suggest the modernity of the vision. Act I takes place in Dr. Colenso Ridgeon’s condo (and not his consulting room as per Shaw’s stage directions). There is a long, bluish backdrop window? Screen? Spare furnishings that don’t look too comfortable or conducive to welcoming company.

Dubedat’s studio in Act III in the program is listed as “The Dubedat’s studio/loft. Now that can’t be right because the studio here is down a flight of rickety stairs, past two small windows high on a wall, to the basement and the actual area for painting is away from any useful light around a corner and over there. There seems to be a bedroom or some kind of room off from this. So the Dubedat’s live in a basement? Louis Dubedat (Johnathan Sousa) paints in a basement with little light? I don’t think so. A bit of an eyebrow knitter there. A working (?) toilet is under the stairs. The walls are full of lashings of paint, unreadable printing on the walls—the light is terrible, on purpose—(Michelle Ramsay does the lighting). There is a throne-like-chair up in an alcove presumably where Louis paints. Gillian Gallow is a wonderful designer. This design of the studio makes no sense.

Rachel Forbes costumes are at times arresting and other times, odd. Dr. Colenzo Ridgeon is conservatively dressed in shirt, jacket and pants and smart shoes. Sanjay Talwar as Dr. Colenzo Ridgeon is both humbled with his new honour—all sorts of friends come to congratulate him—and a bit harried. His housekeeper Emmy (Claire Jullien) wants him to see a woman about her sick husband and Ridgeon refuses.

Emmy is a long-time employee. She has worked for Ridgeon for years and treats him like a young son to be bossed. But the costumes for the character confuse the issue. Claire Jullien as Emmy notes the character is old, but she’s dressed in jeans, a work shirt and high-top sneakers. The dress and the dialogue don’t go together. Claire Jullien plays her like an irreverent teen. Whether it’s a director’s decision or an actor’s choice, it’s interesting but ultimately doesn’t work to clarify the point.

As Dr. Patricia Cullen, Sharry Flett is sleek, stylish, and always watchable. I loved that director Diana Donnelly felt that in the “here and now” one of the doctors should be a woman and that she chose that Dr. Cullen should be changed from being a male character to a woman. Dr. Cullen is the smartest, most intelligent most knowing character in the play. She knows ‘bs’ when she hears it, and Sharry Flett never leaves in doubt how Dr. Patricia Cullen feels about anything.

As the other characters arrive and spout about their ‘discoveries’ there is Dr. Cullen watchful and slightly critical at the stupidity and blinkered ideas of her colleagues. Sharry Flett is always understated, never obvious or overplayed, but always compelling. Dr. Cullen had seen it all before, knows her history and how these ‘discoveries’ were always coming back to embarrass the newest ‘discoverer’, who obviously didn’t know their medical history or what came before them.

I found the juxtaposition of Dr. Cullen’s frequent references to how old she was and the way that Rachel Forbes costumed the character to be interesting, but at odds—modern skinny pants, trendy shoes, an elegant top and fashionable hair cut with the natural hair colour of the actor. It was as if the character’s fashion sense and Shaw’s words some how had a slight disconnect. 

Dr. Cutler Walpole (Allan Louis) enters next. He is supremely confident about his abilities—he believes if anyone is sick it’s because of blood-poisoning and the nuciform sac should be removed at once. No matter the symptoms, for Dr. Walpole the cause is always blood-poisoning and the solution is to remove that (non-existent) nuciform sac.

Rachel Forbes dresses Allan Louis in a vibrant red suit, shirt, and tie and equally striking shoes. The suit says “Look at me!” It accentuates the arrogance of this blinkered doctor. Dr. Ralph Bloomfield Bonnington (David Adams) arrives next to congratulate Ridgeon and to expound on his theories. In this case Dr. Bloomfield Bonnington believes that the cure for all disease is to stimulate the phagocytes and they will do the rest. In this case Rachel Forbes dresses Dr. Bloomfield Bonnington in a light blue suit that has a wild pattern of what looks like clouds or something as attention grabbing but just as improbable. In both cases, the costumes indicate in neon that these two doctors are blowhards and dangerous. Ok, but I thought that was laying it on with a trowel. Surely the audience can figure out these doctors without the neon focus? Nice acting from both Allan Louis and David Adams.

Matters ratchet up when Jennifer Dubedat (Alexis Gordon) arrives to plead her husband, Louis’, case to be saved by Dr. Ridgeon. Alexis Gordon as Jennifer Dubedat is impassioned, determined and singled-minded when trying to convince Dr. Ridgeon to save her husband Louis Dubedat. She extols his virtues, his keen intelligence and his brilliant artistry. By the end of her pleading Ridgeon, Walpole and Bloomfield Bonnington are affected. Even Dr. Cullen is touched. Ridgeon has ulterior motives regarding Dubedat—he’s smitten by Jennifer and if Dubedat dies, Ridgeon can move in. He thinks.

When we meet Louis Dubedat (Johnathan Sousa) one does one’s own assessing of the importance of art, the creation of beauty and living a good, helpful if unremarkable life, and what is more important.

Louis Dubedat is a self-absorbed, narcissistic scoundrel. He is a womanizer—there is a wronged-wife who appears unbeknownst to Jennifer. Louis and his wife are invited to a dinner party hosted by the doctors, and valuables begin to go missing and Louis is the culprit.

Johnathan Sousa plays Louis Dubedat like a preening, impish spoiled teenager. He knows how to work a crowd, charm people and not show he cares what people think in the least. He creates art and that is the most important thing to him. His facility with arguing and proving his point is both impressive and frustrating—he will never ever admit that he might be wrong or a louse.

In her effort to make the play more modern and timely, Diana Donnelly gives Louis Dubedat a showy scene in which Sousa riffs on the contradictions that are Shaw. He is a feminist, a vegetarian and an anti-vaxxer! The verve in which Sousa gives this speech is impressive, but truth to tell, I think it really goes off topic—interesting thoughts though.  

Comment. Diana Donnelly has made the segue from terrific actor to compelling, fascinating director. In the productions I have seen her direct, she has a clear vision of the heart of the plays she works on. Her sense of imagination is vivid and how to tell the story in an inventive way is impressive. Her ideas for The Doctor’s Dilemma are bold, arresting, indicate a keen intelligence and a solid confidence. I do agree gladly with some of her decisions and disagree with some of her conclusions and the presentation, but her work is always so full of imagination and brains, and that includes this production too. The fun is listening to Shaw’s bristling play and in seeing what works and what doesn’t in Diana Donnelly’s production and why.

The Shaw Festival Presents:

Plays until: Oct. 8, 2022

Running time: 3 hours (1 intermission)

www.shawfest.com

{ 0 comments }