Until this summer, we had never visited The Stratford Festival. It is unlikely we shall return anytime soon.
I thought The Stratford Festival was a mirror image of The Guthrie: both are major theatrical enterprises that have fundamentally lost their ways. In both enterprises, one-half of the attention is devoted to producing popular fare (for which no state subsidy—in theory—is warranted) and one-half of the attention is devoted to classic repertory. In both enterprises, popular repertory is presented with more conviction and flair than classic repertory, where productions are inept—if not infuriating—as often as not.
The international reputation of The Stratford Festival peaked in the 1970s, a decade during which The Stratford Festival served as the summer home for actors and directors from New York and London. The glory days for Stratford were short-lived: since 1980 or thereabouts, Stratford has served primarily as a venue for Canadian actors and directors. The result is that the Festival is now largely a provincial affair.
I was amazed, reading actor and director biographies in the Stratford program booklet, how few Stratford actors and directors had ever enjoyed a single professional appearance outside Canada. There was only a handful of New York or London credits to be counted in the lengthy Stratford cast lists and director lists.
The Festival’s practice of employing Canadians, and only Canadians, is a major mistake. Casting offices should be opened in New York and London in order to raise the quality of Festival casting. (I said much the same thing last year when discussing The Shaw Festival.) Until that occurs, The Stratford Festival will remain a big-budget yet insular institution, unworthy of international attention and respect.
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Tyrone Guthrie probably did not stay at Stratford long enough to give the Festival the deep roots it needed, artistically, to thrive long-term. Having helped found the Festival in 1953, Guthrie left Stratford in 1955.
Much the same thing happened in Minneapolis: having helped found The Guthrie (which opened in 1963), Guthrie left Minneapolis in 1966.
It strikes me as odd that a man of genius would work tirelessly to establish a new enterprise, only to walk away before a firm foundation had been put into place to secure that genius’s long-term vision.
Would George Balanchine have walked away from New York City Ballet in 1949?
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Tyrone Guthrie’s fondness for thrust stages may be seen, not only in Stratford and Minneapolis, but also in Chichester and London: Chichester Festival Theatre and the Olivier Theatre at The National Theatre employ thrust stages.
The era of thrust stages coincided perfectly with the period of Guthrie’s influence. As Guthrie’s influence waned, so did the construction of theaters with thrust stages.
I prefer proscenium theaters above all others, and I hold a slight preference for theater-in-the-round stages over thrust stages (the modern advent of theater-in-the-round stages occurred precisely at the same time as the modern advent of thrust stages; both were contemporaneous—and short-lived—phenomena). Too many design compromises and too many directorial compromises arise when productions are mounted on thrust stages. Only genius directors are capable of surmounting the obstacles; other directors carry on as if directing on a conventional proscenium stage—which more or less negates the supposed strengths and advantages of a thrust stage.
The Guthrie long ago figured out how to design for a thrust stage. Based upon what we observed this summer at Stratford, The Stratford Festival has yet to figure out how to design for a thrust stage. We were dumbfounded at the poor stage design we encountered at Stratford, production after production after production.
Stage design at last year’s Shaw Festival had been of the highest standard.
Stage design at this year’s Stratford Festival was so bad, it became depressing.
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There was nothing for us to do in Stratford other than attend theater performances.
Stratford, as a town, has the allure and charm of Mankato. Shorn of its theater festival, Stratford would be visited by no one.
Niagara-On-The-Lake, home of The Shaw Festival, had been much more festival-like and much more visitor-friendly. Niagara-On-The-Lake possessed countless fine restaurants, and many charming shops, and much old architecture—and historic Fort George was nearby, as was Niagara Falls.
We had enjoyed Niagara-On-The-Lake immensely. For us, The Shaw Festival truly had been a festival.
The Stratford Festival, in contrast, provided nothing more than a theater excursion.
We arrived, attended eight performances in four days, and departed.
(At Stratford, huge numbers of attendees are day-trippers from Toronto, who arrive by chartered bus, attend a single performance, and depart by chartered bus.)
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For the first quarter-century of The Stratford Festival, music was an important component of the program. Many of the finest musicians of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s appeared at The Stratford Festival, often on multiple occasions.
Glenn Gould, in recital, inaugurated the music program at Stratford in 1953. Gould was to return to the Festival often until retiring from the concert stage.
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf appeared at the Festival three times in a single week in 1955, twice in recital and once in concert—and was to return to Stratford for a recital in 1969.
Claudio Arrau was in residence at the Festival in 1956, appearing in recital and in concert throughout the summer; Arrau was to return frequently in later seasons.
Among the many artists that graced The Stratford Festival: Pierre Bernac; Julian Bream; Benjamin Britten; Aaron Copland; Rudolf Firkušný; Maureen Forrester; Lynn Harrell; Eugene Istomin; Peter Pears; Itzhak Perlman; Jacqueline du Pré; Jean-Pierre Rampal; Pepe Romero; Leonard Rose; Mstislav Rostropovich; Peter Serkin; Rudolf Serkin; Gérard Souzay; János Starker; Isaac Stern; Paul Tortelier; Barry Tuckwell; Van Cliburn; Shirley Verrett; and Jon Vickers.
Among ensembles that appeared at The Stratford Festival: the Guarneri Quartet; the English Chamber Orchestra; the New York Philharmonic; and the Chicago Symphony.
The music program at The Stratford Festival ended in 1978, a likely victim of finances. Louis Quilico and Gino Quilico, father-and-son opera singers (and both Canadian), gave the final Stratford recital in the late summer of that year.
Showing posts with label Stratford Festival 2013. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stratford Festival 2013. Show all posts
Saturday, October 05, 2013
Thursday, October 03, 2013
“All For One, One For All”
On our final evening in Stratford, we attended a performance of “The Three Musketeers”, a stage adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas novel by Peter Raby, one-time dramaturge at The Stratford Festival.
Raby’s adaptation, from 1968, is not good, and I cannot imagine why The Stratford Festival continues to revive the adaptation from time to time (Raby’s “Three Musketeers” had earlier been revived in 1988 and 2000).
Act I, which goes on forever, is mostly exposition, while Act II, which also goes on forever, is an attempt to cover Dumas’s themes (such as they are).
“The Three Musketeers” has integrity only if presented as pure adventure yarn (the Richard Lester movies, in my opinion, captured the necessary tone to perfection). If a writer tries to make sense of the plot, or attempts to lend “depth” to the proceedings by presenting the story in political terms, the enterprise is doomed to fail.
Raby’s adaptation assiduously—and unsuccessfully—attempts to explain the background of the conflict between Britain and France that led to the siege of La Rochelle, on which much of the plot hinges. Far too much attention is devoted to the presentation of “back-story” and other pseudo-historic incidentals, such as explanations for the significance of Anne Of Austria’s diamonds, while far too little attention is paid to the motivations of key personages, such as Cardinal Richelieu. Scene by scene, Richelieu is portrayed as dark villain one moment and noble saint the next, surely a confusing state of affairs for anyone unfamiliar with the story—and much the same goes for the other figures borrowed from history. Theatergoers entering the auditorium without advance knowledge of the plot would have been unable to make sense of the complications and contradictions, and would have thrown their hands up in despair only minutes into the action.
Raby’s adaptation is so poor that I cannot imagine a competent stage director agreeing to touch the thing—and it was clear, five minutes into the performance, that The Stratford Festival in fact had not managed to engage a competent director. The blocking was poor (of the “line ‘em up side-by-side and have ‘em face the audience” school), the casting was bizarre (the Louis XIII and Anne Of Austria had to be seen to be believed), and the “acting” was execrable (total ineptitude coupled with what I would call “vamping”, a peculiarly-unpleasant combination). The Stratford “Three Musketeers” was one of the worse things I have ever seen.
Approximately one-third of the audience failed to return after intermission. We would have departed, too, but we had nowhere to go other than to return to our hotel—so we sat through the whole thing, trying for three hours to figure out why The Stratford Festival had not pulled the plug on this deplorable production early in the rehearsal period.
“The Three Musketeers” had been intended to provide a boost to the Festival’s box office this season, but we were told—accurately or no—that the production had not been bringing in the customers as expected. Apparently word-of-mouth about the production has been negative, in Canada and in the U.S., and prospective audience members have been warned off or scared off.
For us, “The Three Musketeers” provided a disappointing conclusion to the Festival. We had not expected much from “The Three Musketeers”—but we HAD expected something minimally competent and minimally enjoyable. Neither competence nor enjoyment was delivered.
One thing I can predict with some confidence: the Raby adaptation will never again be revived at Stratford.
Raby’s adaptation, from 1968, is not good, and I cannot imagine why The Stratford Festival continues to revive the adaptation from time to time (Raby’s “Three Musketeers” had earlier been revived in 1988 and 2000).
Act I, which goes on forever, is mostly exposition, while Act II, which also goes on forever, is an attempt to cover Dumas’s themes (such as they are).
“The Three Musketeers” has integrity only if presented as pure adventure yarn (the Richard Lester movies, in my opinion, captured the necessary tone to perfection). If a writer tries to make sense of the plot, or attempts to lend “depth” to the proceedings by presenting the story in political terms, the enterprise is doomed to fail.
Raby’s adaptation assiduously—and unsuccessfully—attempts to explain the background of the conflict between Britain and France that led to the siege of La Rochelle, on which much of the plot hinges. Far too much attention is devoted to the presentation of “back-story” and other pseudo-historic incidentals, such as explanations for the significance of Anne Of Austria’s diamonds, while far too little attention is paid to the motivations of key personages, such as Cardinal Richelieu. Scene by scene, Richelieu is portrayed as dark villain one moment and noble saint the next, surely a confusing state of affairs for anyone unfamiliar with the story—and much the same goes for the other figures borrowed from history. Theatergoers entering the auditorium without advance knowledge of the plot would have been unable to make sense of the complications and contradictions, and would have thrown their hands up in despair only minutes into the action.
Raby’s adaptation is so poor that I cannot imagine a competent stage director agreeing to touch the thing—and it was clear, five minutes into the performance, that The Stratford Festival in fact had not managed to engage a competent director. The blocking was poor (of the “line ‘em up side-by-side and have ‘em face the audience” school), the casting was bizarre (the Louis XIII and Anne Of Austria had to be seen to be believed), and the “acting” was execrable (total ineptitude coupled with what I would call “vamping”, a peculiarly-unpleasant combination). The Stratford “Three Musketeers” was one of the worse things I have ever seen.
Approximately one-third of the audience failed to return after intermission. We would have departed, too, but we had nowhere to go other than to return to our hotel—so we sat through the whole thing, trying for three hours to figure out why The Stratford Festival had not pulled the plug on this deplorable production early in the rehearsal period.
“The Three Musketeers” had been intended to provide a boost to the Festival’s box office this season, but we were told—accurately or no—that the production had not been bringing in the customers as expected. Apparently word-of-mouth about the production has been negative, in Canada and in the U.S., and prospective audience members have been warned off or scared off.
For us, “The Three Musketeers” provided a disappointing conclusion to the Festival. We had not expected much from “The Three Musketeers”—but we HAD expected something minimally competent and minimally enjoyable. Neither competence nor enjoyment was delivered.
One thing I can predict with some confidence: the Raby adaptation will never again be revived at Stratford.
Monday, September 23, 2013
More Fight Scenes
There were countless fight scenes in the Stratford “Three Musketeers”—according to the program booklet, there were fifteen fight scenes in Act I alone—and by the third fight scene I was already growing weary.
I was not alone. The audience appeared to be bored out of its mind—and, by my estimation, approximately one-third of the audience failed to return to the auditorium after intermission.
For us, Saturday, August 10, 2013, will go down as the day we experienced a lifetime’s dosage of fight scenes: innumerable fight scenes in an afternoon “Romeo And Juliet”, followed by a mind-numbing tally of fight scenes in an evening “Three Musketeers”.
Friday, September 20, 2013
A Deathlike Sleep
The Romeo and the Juliet in The Stratford Festival “Romeo And Juliet”.
The Juliet was old enough to be the mother of the Romeo.
To my astonishment, the production cut both the Prologue and the Epilogue.
The fight scenes—if nothing else—were good.
If nothing else, The Stratford Festival does fight scenes to a high standard.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
“For Never Was A Story Of More Woe . . .”
On our fourth day at The Stratford Festival, we attended a matinee performance of William Shakespeare’s “Romeo And Juliet”.
As a practical matter, the production was dead in the water, upfront, because the actor and actress portraying the title characters were so poor. The young man playing Romeo looked the part, but could not act his way out of a cardboard box. The middle-aged woman playing Juliet was more than one generation too old for the part, and her portrayal was arch and insincere (as well as insufferable).
We were told by a Stratford resident that the actor playing Romeo had engaged in vicious rows with the play’s director during the rehearsal period—the actor had accused the director of trying to destroy his career—and that the Juliet had been cast only because she is a favored pet of the Festival’s Artistic Director.
Whatever the root causes of such fatal miscasting, the audience was required to block out the title characters in order to endure the performance.
The Stratford Festival had mounted an “original practices” production of “Romeo And Juliet”. The house lights were kept up throughout the performance—which meant, in a thrust theater, that other audience members were as visible as the actors onstage. The lighting plan was fixed and unvaried; night scenes looked exactly like day scenes. The stage was bare, other than an occasional prop. The costuming was pure Elizabethan—and the costuming was cumbersome, and unattractive, and supremely unflattering to everyone onstage.
There were no pauses between scenes; actors would rush on for a new scene before actors from the previous scene had departed the stage. Several times during the course of the performance, this practice created unintended comedy.
The text was delivered as verse, not as prose. There was a pause at the end of each line; fifth and tenth syllables were emphasized, irrespective of context or sense. “Rigid, metrical delivery” was how my mother described the cast’s handling of iambic pentameter. The program booklet claimed that “singsong” utterances of Shakespeare’s text had been standard practice well into the 19th Century, and that such utterances must be replicated in an “original practices” production.
Monologues were always delivered directly to the audience. Much interplay between cast and audience was invited—but, as always in North America, the audience was reluctant to play along, preferring that the invisible barrier between stage and audience remain in place.
A quartet of musicians—lute, violin, recorder, drum—played music during much of the play (the musicians also played before the performance, and during the single intermission). The production featured endless dancing. The numerous fight scenes went on forever.
The man responsible for this hash was British director Tim Carroll. Between 1999 and 2005, Carroll had staged “original practices” summer productions at London’s Globe Theatre. Since 2005, Carroll has been trying to pick up work elsewhere. In 2008, we had encountered Carroll’s thoroughly incompetent Royal Shakespeare Company production of “The Merchant Of Venice” at Stratford-Upon-Avon.
In that 2008 “Merchant Of Venice”, it had been painfully obvious that Carroll was no director of actors. Last month’s “Romeo And Juliet” only reinforced, ponderously, that particular skill deficiency. In both Carroll productions, everyone onstage floundered; there was no sense of ensemble, no unified acting style, no emotional resonance.
In Carroll’s “Romeo And Juliet”, there was much broad—and unsightly—overplaying (by contrast, in Carroll’s “Merchant Of Venice”, the cast had appeared to have abandoned all interest in the proceedings). So over-the-top were the “Romeo And Juliet” performances, I wanted—for three hours—to leap onstage and slap numerous cast members, starting with Paris, Mercutio and the nurse.
There was much laughter during the performance, all of it uncomfortable. If Shakespeare’s tragedy had been properly registering with the audience, there would—a couple of early scenes apart—have been no laughter at all.
To my amazement, there was laughter even during the tomb scene—which, I grant, was abjectly mis-staged and misplayed.
At the conclusion of the tomb scene, Romeo and Juliet promptly leapt to their feet and joined the rest of the company in a hearty closing jig—which did not destroy the mood created by the end of the play, no one having been moved by the deaths of Romeo and Juliet in the first place. The jig, somehow, was a fitting conclusion to a production that was wrong-headed in every way.
With reference to the jig, my father wryly noted: “Well, that was one solution to the problem: how to get the bodies offstage so that the audience can leave the theater.”
Given such a tone-deaf production, I predict that Carroll, who has never had a U.S. career, will not be invited back to Stratford—nor will he find it necessary to remain near his phone, waiting for a call from The Guthrie.
As a practical matter, the production was dead in the water, upfront, because the actor and actress portraying the title characters were so poor. The young man playing Romeo looked the part, but could not act his way out of a cardboard box. The middle-aged woman playing Juliet was more than one generation too old for the part, and her portrayal was arch and insincere (as well as insufferable).
We were told by a Stratford resident that the actor playing Romeo had engaged in vicious rows with the play’s director during the rehearsal period—the actor had accused the director of trying to destroy his career—and that the Juliet had been cast only because she is a favored pet of the Festival’s Artistic Director.
Whatever the root causes of such fatal miscasting, the audience was required to block out the title characters in order to endure the performance.
The Stratford Festival had mounted an “original practices” production of “Romeo And Juliet”. The house lights were kept up throughout the performance—which meant, in a thrust theater, that other audience members were as visible as the actors onstage. The lighting plan was fixed and unvaried; night scenes looked exactly like day scenes. The stage was bare, other than an occasional prop. The costuming was pure Elizabethan—and the costuming was cumbersome, and unattractive, and supremely unflattering to everyone onstage.
There were no pauses between scenes; actors would rush on for a new scene before actors from the previous scene had departed the stage. Several times during the course of the performance, this practice created unintended comedy.
The text was delivered as verse, not as prose. There was a pause at the end of each line; fifth and tenth syllables were emphasized, irrespective of context or sense. “Rigid, metrical delivery” was how my mother described the cast’s handling of iambic pentameter. The program booklet claimed that “singsong” utterances of Shakespeare’s text had been standard practice well into the 19th Century, and that such utterances must be replicated in an “original practices” production.
Monologues were always delivered directly to the audience. Much interplay between cast and audience was invited—but, as always in North America, the audience was reluctant to play along, preferring that the invisible barrier between stage and audience remain in place.
A quartet of musicians—lute, violin, recorder, drum—played music during much of the play (the musicians also played before the performance, and during the single intermission). The production featured endless dancing. The numerous fight scenes went on forever.
The man responsible for this hash was British director Tim Carroll. Between 1999 and 2005, Carroll had staged “original practices” summer productions at London’s Globe Theatre. Since 2005, Carroll has been trying to pick up work elsewhere. In 2008, we had encountered Carroll’s thoroughly incompetent Royal Shakespeare Company production of “The Merchant Of Venice” at Stratford-Upon-Avon.
In that 2008 “Merchant Of Venice”, it had been painfully obvious that Carroll was no director of actors. Last month’s “Romeo And Juliet” only reinforced, ponderously, that particular skill deficiency. In both Carroll productions, everyone onstage floundered; there was no sense of ensemble, no unified acting style, no emotional resonance.
In Carroll’s “Romeo And Juliet”, there was much broad—and unsightly—overplaying (by contrast, in Carroll’s “Merchant Of Venice”, the cast had appeared to have abandoned all interest in the proceedings). So over-the-top were the “Romeo And Juliet” performances, I wanted—for three hours—to leap onstage and slap numerous cast members, starting with Paris, Mercutio and the nurse.
There was much laughter during the performance, all of it uncomfortable. If Shakespeare’s tragedy had been properly registering with the audience, there would—a couple of early scenes apart—have been no laughter at all.
To my amazement, there was laughter even during the tomb scene—which, I grant, was abjectly mis-staged and misplayed.
At the conclusion of the tomb scene, Romeo and Juliet promptly leapt to their feet and joined the rest of the company in a hearty closing jig—which did not destroy the mood created by the end of the play, no one having been moved by the deaths of Romeo and Juliet in the first place. The jig, somehow, was a fitting conclusion to a production that was wrong-headed in every way.
With reference to the jig, my father wryly noted: “Well, that was one solution to the problem: how to get the bodies offstage so that the audience can leave the theater.”
Given such a tone-deaf production, I predict that Carroll, who has never had a U.S. career, will not be invited back to Stratford—nor will he find it necessary to remain near his phone, waiting for a call from The Guthrie.
Friday, September 13, 2013
“Fiddler On The Roof”
On our third day at The Stratford Festival, we attended an evening performance of the Jerry Bock-Sheldon Harnick-Joseph Stein musical, “Fiddler On The Roof”.
I had not anticipated being captivated by such over-familiar material, but the Stratford “Fiddler On The Roof” proved to be the finest—by far—of the eight Stratford productions we caught. I never expect to see a finer presentation of “Fiddler On The Roof”.
The production was exceedingly well-cast and meticulously rehearsed, and the cast members gave fresh, vital, committed performances. The energy onstage was infectious, yet there was no playing to the crowd.
The Tevye was Scott Wentworth, who had played Shylock that same afternoon on the very same stage. Wentworth’s Tevye was admirable, serious and controlled, full of gravitas, underplaying the comedy. His Tevye was tough as nails, yet also poetic—and it was easy to accept that he was a commanding, even overwhelming, figure in his family and community. Had it been necessary, Wentworth might have held the show together all by himself (which is what he had been required to do in “The Merchant Of Venice”). Wentworth is an exceptional actor—and this season’s Stratford Festival has turned him into a star in Canada.
The rest of the cast acquitted itself with honor—even the smallest parts came alive—although the Golde might have been stronger (we had seen the actress playing Golde in two roles at last year’s Shaw Festival, and she had been distinctly unimpressive at Niagara-On-The-Lake, too).
The production was a conservative, traditional one, probably much like the original Broadway production (the Stratford design team had even taken its cues from Chagall). There was no attempt to do anything new or unusual with the material. The director must have decided that the show virtually plays itself if staged in a clear, straightforward manner.
Strictures exist when staging “Fiddler On The Roof”. The Jerome Robbins choreography must be recreated, without excisions and without emendations. (I assume licensing requirements for the choreography are somewhat relaxed for high school and amateur performance.) Very little leeway is granted in terms of performing the musical numbers or the book. The setting of the show may not be altered, and the stage design and costume design must remain within specified parameters.
Licensing demands did not hamper the Stratford production. There was no want of imagination, no evidence that “originality” was the missing ingredient. Every scene worked to perfection, every musical number came off, which says much about the skill of the creators of the show.
The audience was enthralled for three hours. I cannot recall the last time I experienced an audience so attentive and so responsive to what was happening onstage.
In many ways, it is ironic that a company that bills itself as “North America’s finest classical repertory theater” was at its best in an American musical. The Schiller/Shakespeare productions we attended were nowhere near as fine—or as confident—as the “Fiddler On The Roof”. Somehow I doubt this is what Tyrone Guthrie had in mind when he founded The Stratford Festival (of course, Guthrie’s other child, The Guthrie Theater, has also lost its way over time).
Nonetheless, it was the Stratford “Fiddler On The Roof” that most of all made our trip to Canada worthwhile. The production remains in my memory. It was so remarkable, I don’t think I want to go near the show again for a very long time.
I had not anticipated being captivated by such over-familiar material, but the Stratford “Fiddler On The Roof” proved to be the finest—by far—of the eight Stratford productions we caught. I never expect to see a finer presentation of “Fiddler On The Roof”.
The production was exceedingly well-cast and meticulously rehearsed, and the cast members gave fresh, vital, committed performances. The energy onstage was infectious, yet there was no playing to the crowd.
The Tevye was Scott Wentworth, who had played Shylock that same afternoon on the very same stage. Wentworth’s Tevye was admirable, serious and controlled, full of gravitas, underplaying the comedy. His Tevye was tough as nails, yet also poetic—and it was easy to accept that he was a commanding, even overwhelming, figure in his family and community. Had it been necessary, Wentworth might have held the show together all by himself (which is what he had been required to do in “The Merchant Of Venice”). Wentworth is an exceptional actor—and this season’s Stratford Festival has turned him into a star in Canada.
The rest of the cast acquitted itself with honor—even the smallest parts came alive—although the Golde might have been stronger (we had seen the actress playing Golde in two roles at last year’s Shaw Festival, and she had been distinctly unimpressive at Niagara-On-The-Lake, too).
The production was a conservative, traditional one, probably much like the original Broadway production (the Stratford design team had even taken its cues from Chagall). There was no attempt to do anything new or unusual with the material. The director must have decided that the show virtually plays itself if staged in a clear, straightforward manner.
Strictures exist when staging “Fiddler On The Roof”. The Jerome Robbins choreography must be recreated, without excisions and without emendations. (I assume licensing requirements for the choreography are somewhat relaxed for high school and amateur performance.) Very little leeway is granted in terms of performing the musical numbers or the book. The setting of the show may not be altered, and the stage design and costume design must remain within specified parameters.
Licensing demands did not hamper the Stratford production. There was no want of imagination, no evidence that “originality” was the missing ingredient. Every scene worked to perfection, every musical number came off, which says much about the skill of the creators of the show.
The audience was enthralled for three hours. I cannot recall the last time I experienced an audience so attentive and so responsive to what was happening onstage.
In many ways, it is ironic that a company that bills itself as “North America’s finest classical repertory theater” was at its best in an American musical. The Schiller/Shakespeare productions we attended were nowhere near as fine—or as confident—as the “Fiddler On The Roof”. Somehow I doubt this is what Tyrone Guthrie had in mind when he founded The Stratford Festival (of course, Guthrie’s other child, The Guthrie Theater, has also lost its way over time).
Nonetheless, it was the Stratford “Fiddler On The Roof” that most of all made our trip to Canada worthwhile. The production remains in my memory. It was so remarkable, I don’t think I want to go near the show again for a very long time.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
“Merchant”: The Courtroom Scene
The pivotal courtroom scene in The Stratford Festival production of William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant Of Venice”.
Shakespeare’s “Merchant”
On our third day at The Stratford Festival, we attended a matinee performance of William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant Of Venice”.
The performance we attended was, in effect, a preview performance; the production was not to have an official opening for another week.
“The Merchant Of Venice” had originally been scheduled for a July opening, but The Stratford Festival had postponed the opening until mid-August—a sure sign of production troubles. When we had acquired our tickets in June, we had acquired tickets for a performance during the official run; we were, in consequence, disappointed that we ended up being handed a preview performance.
I thought the production, on the whole, was a good one. It was certainly the finest “Merchant Of Venice” I have ever encountered.
At its center was a great Shylock, Canadian actor Scott Wentworth, who gave a riveting performance. Wentworth played Shylock as a wounded man, withdrawn from society—and, as a result, lacking some measure of self-awareness—because of society’s mistreatment of a religious minority. Wentworth’s interpretation was an interesting one, well-considered and well-played, and it worked in terms of the production.
The director, Antoni Cimolino, set the play in the late 1930s, a time at which Benito Mussolini was at the height of his power—and a time at which Mussolini first introduced anti-Jewish legislation, a fall-out of Italy’s new alliance with Germany. Until Mussolini began currying favor with Hitler, Italy had never contemplated an anti-Jewish agenda—but, from 1938 on, Italy adopted much of the same anti-Jewish legal framework that had been employed in Germany since 1933.
In Cimolino’s staging, there was much taunting of Shylock by children and policemen. Most characters in the play treated Shylock with open contempt (including Portia, which was a major error). Shylock’s daughter sought marriage not for love but in order to find refuge within Gentile society. Shylock, in response to these changing circumstances, retreated within himself and became a remote, isolated figure.
I found Cimolino’s interpretation of the play intriguing—although I can well understand why others were put off.
In many ways, Cimolino had offered a one-dimensional “Merchant Of Venice”. Many of Shylock’s lines had been excised—all unpleasant self-examination, all negative character revelations, all admissions against interest had been cut from the playing text—with the result that Shylock became more acted-upon than actor in his own fate. Cimolino’s interpretation unbalanced the play, and robbed it of much of its richness and complexity. Shylock, after all, was not written as an admirable character; one of Shakespeare’s themes was that even an odious man must be accorded a measure of dignity and respect. Pruning the text in order to turn Shylock into an innocent Holocaust victim, waiting to be sent to the camps, involved a serious rewriting of Shakespeare.
The supporting cast was very, very poor. The Portia was dreadful—all the women onstage were dreadful—although the Portia managed to offer a passable courtroom scene. In that respect, the Portia reminded me of a soprano that marks time in a Donizetti opera until springing to life in the mad scene. A couple of the male actors grossly overplayed their parts, to ridiculous excess; the rest were borderline competent.
Yet with a great Shylock at the center of the play, none of this made any difference. Wentworth’s Shylock single-handedly carried the production, and rendered everything else irrelevant.
A pastiche 1930s movie score had been composed for the production. Audio clips of Hitler speeches and Mussolini speeches played in the background—until, at the end of the play, such speeches played in the foreground.
The performance we attended was, in effect, a preview performance; the production was not to have an official opening for another week.
“The Merchant Of Venice” had originally been scheduled for a July opening, but The Stratford Festival had postponed the opening until mid-August—a sure sign of production troubles. When we had acquired our tickets in June, we had acquired tickets for a performance during the official run; we were, in consequence, disappointed that we ended up being handed a preview performance.
I thought the production, on the whole, was a good one. It was certainly the finest “Merchant Of Venice” I have ever encountered.
At its center was a great Shylock, Canadian actor Scott Wentworth, who gave a riveting performance. Wentworth played Shylock as a wounded man, withdrawn from society—and, as a result, lacking some measure of self-awareness—because of society’s mistreatment of a religious minority. Wentworth’s interpretation was an interesting one, well-considered and well-played, and it worked in terms of the production.
The director, Antoni Cimolino, set the play in the late 1930s, a time at which Benito Mussolini was at the height of his power—and a time at which Mussolini first introduced anti-Jewish legislation, a fall-out of Italy’s new alliance with Germany. Until Mussolini began currying favor with Hitler, Italy had never contemplated an anti-Jewish agenda—but, from 1938 on, Italy adopted much of the same anti-Jewish legal framework that had been employed in Germany since 1933.
In Cimolino’s staging, there was much taunting of Shylock by children and policemen. Most characters in the play treated Shylock with open contempt (including Portia, which was a major error). Shylock’s daughter sought marriage not for love but in order to find refuge within Gentile society. Shylock, in response to these changing circumstances, retreated within himself and became a remote, isolated figure.
I found Cimolino’s interpretation of the play intriguing—although I can well understand why others were put off.
In many ways, Cimolino had offered a one-dimensional “Merchant Of Venice”. Many of Shylock’s lines had been excised—all unpleasant self-examination, all negative character revelations, all admissions against interest had been cut from the playing text—with the result that Shylock became more acted-upon than actor in his own fate. Cimolino’s interpretation unbalanced the play, and robbed it of much of its richness and complexity. Shylock, after all, was not written as an admirable character; one of Shakespeare’s themes was that even an odious man must be accorded a measure of dignity and respect. Pruning the text in order to turn Shylock into an innocent Holocaust victim, waiting to be sent to the camps, involved a serious rewriting of Shakespeare.
The supporting cast was very, very poor. The Portia was dreadful—all the women onstage were dreadful—although the Portia managed to offer a passable courtroom scene. In that respect, the Portia reminded me of a soprano that marks time in a Donizetti opera until springing to life in the mad scene. A couple of the male actors grossly overplayed their parts, to ridiculous excess; the rest were borderline competent.
Yet with a great Shylock at the center of the play, none of this made any difference. Wentworth’s Shylock single-handedly carried the production, and rendered everything else irrelevant.
A pastiche 1930s movie score had been composed for the production. Audio clips of Hitler speeches and Mussolini speeches played in the background—until, at the end of the play, such speeches played in the foreground.
Sunday, September 08, 2013
Shylock
Scott Wentworth in the role of Shylock in The Stratford Festival production of Shakespeare’s “The Merchant Of Venice”.
I thought Wentworth’s Shylock was the performance of the Festival.
Saturday, September 07, 2013
The Festival Theatre, Stratford
The Festival Theatre opened in 1957. It accommodates 1826 patrons.
Stratford Festival productions expected to be most popular at the box office are presented at the Festival Theatre. We saw “The Merchant Of Venice”, “Fiddler On The Roof”, “Romeo And Juliet” and “The Three Musketeers” at the Festival Theatre.
The Festival Theatre is too large for all but the most gargantuan of productions (such as big musicals). In the last half-century, the scale of theaters has been significantly reduced—rightly, in my opinion. If the Festival Theatre were to be recreated today, it would undoubtedly be one-third smaller. As it is, the Festival Theatre is far from an ideal playing space: it is somewhat barn-like and antiseptic, aesthetically arid and in no way inviting.
Wednesday, September 04, 2013
Stratford’s “Mary Stuart”, Again
All reviewers had offered a uniform interpretation of the play—its theme, they claimed, was religious zealotry—and such nonsense suggested two things: they had never read Schiller’s play; and they had relied upon a Stratford Festival press kit proffered to reviewers in order to interpret the play.
The reviewers had praised the direction of Antoni Cimolino. Cimolino had assumed the leadership of The Stratford Festival this season, and “Mary Stuart” had been his first production as Artistic Director. I suspect the reviewers had been hesitant to offer meaningful and accurate assessments of Cimolino’s work—Cimolino’s work was not good—because “Mary Stuart” was Cimolino’s inaugural production.
Perhaps attempts to reintroduce the works of Schiller to English-speaking audiences should be abandoned. Every time I have seen a Schiller production in North America or the U.K., the effort has been manhandled by directors and actors both.
English-language critics have proven themselves to be equally clueless on the subject of Schiller. Ben Brantley’s New York Times review of the 2005 Donmar Warehouse production of “Mary Stuart”, staged on Broadway in 2009, had to be seen to be believed. A Kenneth Tynan review of a 1958 Old Vic production of “Mary Stuart” described the play as “a Spanish tragedy composed of themes borrowed from Hamlet and Phèdre”—words that trailed Tynan to his grave.
And the issue of the ridiculous runway thrust at Stratford remains. Mercifully, we saw only two productions at the venue with the runway thrust—“Measure For Measure” and “Mary Stuart”—and I doubt I shall ever again be enticed into such an unsatisfactory playing space. Watching the awkward placements of actors around the large and impractical arena—first a scene over here, then a scene over there—made it hard for us to take anything seriously.
To our amusement, my brother proved amazingly accurate in predicting where each succeeding formation of actors would occur. (He is, after all, an engineer.)
My mother said that watching “Mary Stuart” was akin to watching grade school pupils being shepherded around a gymnasium during some peculiar elementary-school pageant.
Joshua said the whole thing reminded him of marching band practice in high school.
My father said the arena should be flooded and used for the presentation of mock naval battles.
Myself, I would refuse to work in such a space, as director or actor. So many compromises are involved—scenic compromises, lighting compromises, blocking compromises—that any production other than a spectacle is destined to fail.
In such an unsatisfying venue, in any given scene, roughly 75 per cent of the audience is frozen out of the action—in which case I say: “Why bother?”
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Sunk Without A Trace
Friedrich Schiller was a philosopher—a philosopher who happened, on occasion, to write dramas.
Schiller was deeply concerned with aesthetics (in its pure definition), and Schiller was a profound observer of realpolitik. Schiller knew on a personal basis, or corresponded with, virtually all the great minds of his time—and he discussed with those persons virtually all the great issues of the day, and incorporated much of this discourse into his plays.
Schiller’s dramas are de facto treatises on aesthetics and realpolitik—a circumstance that makes Schiller’s dramas very hard to present today, as audiences no longer are interested in hearing such matters addressed in the theater.
In 2013, the real Schiller may be encountered only on the printed page. When Schiller’s dramas are staged, they are so heavily cut and so heavily adapted that they are in effect the work of another author.
This regrettable practice is especially prevalent in English-speaking countries, where Schiller plays are both cut to the bone and dumbed-down, leaving the plots intact while removing all philosophical richness and all elevated language and thought.
On our second day at The Stratford Festival, we attended an evening performance of Schiller’s “Mary Stuart”. Roughly ninety minutes of Schiller’s text had been excised from the staging. I do not understand, given the lethal amputations, why The Stratford Festival even bothered with the remaining segments. Surely everyone—audiences, actors, members of the stage crew, groundskeepers—would have been happier with screenings of the 1971 Charles Jarrott film, “Mary, Queen Of Scots”, with Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson. The film is not very distinguished, but at least the performances are colorful . . .
Which is more than may be said of the Stratford performances, which were dull, plodding and unsubtle.
Lack of color, however, was an issue of relative unimportance at Stratford, since it was the lack of competence that was the far more serious concern. I cannot recall the last time I saw so many actors on the same stage playing material so far above their heads.
The actress portraying Elizabeth I had been Madame Arcati in the previous day’s “Blithe Spirit”. Poor as had been her Madame Arcati, this woman’s Elizabeth I was worse.
But not worse than the Mary Stuart of the actress onstage alongside her, who was impossibly—even laughably—bad. It was all we could do to keep from giggling and snickering whenever she had a speech.
The three male leads—Burleigh, Leicester and Shrewsbury—were no better, although we were able to observe that Brian Dennehy, in the role of Shrewsbury, is one giant of a man, upwards of 6’5”, I would guess. From his screen appearances, I had somehow assumed—wrongly—that Dennehy was short.
It was left to the supporting cast to offer a performance or two of merit. Finest of all was the young actor playing Mortimer, who managed to be passionate, poetic and winning in his appearances. He came close to stealing the show. His name is Ian Lake.
Unacceptable as was the acting company, the true villainy in this “Mary Stuart” production did not come from the persons onstage. The true villainy came from the director, Antoni Cimolino, who first selected a corrupt adaptation of “Mary Stuart” and then staged it with breathtaking ineptitude.
The Peter Oswald adaptation was used, the same adaptation used by Donmar Warehouse a few years back in a production that was to end up on Broadway. Oswald’s adaptation is hackwork, compiled with scissors and scotch tape. It has three immediate strikes against it: it renders Schiller’s original unrecognizable; it is not “playable”; and it eliminates Schiller’s themes. I am bewildered that any self-respecting theater company would touch the Oswald adaptation with a ten-foot pole.
Trying to stage the thing on Stratford’s awkward runway thrust stage, Cimolino was utterly at sea. He had not a clue what to do. We found it amusing to watch the actors as they clumsily but dutifully moved about the stage, trying to give the illusion that their movements had some purpose—when everyone in the theater understood that the constant shifting of people around the giant platform, forming first one clump here and then another clump there, was to allow everyone in the theater an opportunity to witness at least one scene close at hand. Several times during the performance, we were beside ourselves, watching the preposterous maneuvers being played out before our eyes.
Amid all this foolishness, Schiller and “Mary Stuart” had no chance whatsoever.
Both sank without a trace.
Schiller was deeply concerned with aesthetics (in its pure definition), and Schiller was a profound observer of realpolitik. Schiller knew on a personal basis, or corresponded with, virtually all the great minds of his time—and he discussed with those persons virtually all the great issues of the day, and incorporated much of this discourse into his plays.
Schiller’s dramas are de facto treatises on aesthetics and realpolitik—a circumstance that makes Schiller’s dramas very hard to present today, as audiences no longer are interested in hearing such matters addressed in the theater.
In 2013, the real Schiller may be encountered only on the printed page. When Schiller’s dramas are staged, they are so heavily cut and so heavily adapted that they are in effect the work of another author.
This regrettable practice is especially prevalent in English-speaking countries, where Schiller plays are both cut to the bone and dumbed-down, leaving the plots intact while removing all philosophical richness and all elevated language and thought.
On our second day at The Stratford Festival, we attended an evening performance of Schiller’s “Mary Stuart”. Roughly ninety minutes of Schiller’s text had been excised from the staging. I do not understand, given the lethal amputations, why The Stratford Festival even bothered with the remaining segments. Surely everyone—audiences, actors, members of the stage crew, groundskeepers—would have been happier with screenings of the 1971 Charles Jarrott film, “Mary, Queen Of Scots”, with Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson. The film is not very distinguished, but at least the performances are colorful . . .
Which is more than may be said of the Stratford performances, which were dull, plodding and unsubtle.
Lack of color, however, was an issue of relative unimportance at Stratford, since it was the lack of competence that was the far more serious concern. I cannot recall the last time I saw so many actors on the same stage playing material so far above their heads.
The actress portraying Elizabeth I had been Madame Arcati in the previous day’s “Blithe Spirit”. Poor as had been her Madame Arcati, this woman’s Elizabeth I was worse.
But not worse than the Mary Stuart of the actress onstage alongside her, who was impossibly—even laughably—bad. It was all we could do to keep from giggling and snickering whenever she had a speech.
The three male leads—Burleigh, Leicester and Shrewsbury—were no better, although we were able to observe that Brian Dennehy, in the role of Shrewsbury, is one giant of a man, upwards of 6’5”, I would guess. From his screen appearances, I had somehow assumed—wrongly—that Dennehy was short.
It was left to the supporting cast to offer a performance or two of merit. Finest of all was the young actor playing Mortimer, who managed to be passionate, poetic and winning in his appearances. He came close to stealing the show. His name is Ian Lake.
Unacceptable as was the acting company, the true villainy in this “Mary Stuart” production did not come from the persons onstage. The true villainy came from the director, Antoni Cimolino, who first selected a corrupt adaptation of “Mary Stuart” and then staged it with breathtaking ineptitude.
The Peter Oswald adaptation was used, the same adaptation used by Donmar Warehouse a few years back in a production that was to end up on Broadway. Oswald’s adaptation is hackwork, compiled with scissors and scotch tape. It has three immediate strikes against it: it renders Schiller’s original unrecognizable; it is not “playable”; and it eliminates Schiller’s themes. I am bewildered that any self-respecting theater company would touch the Oswald adaptation with a ten-foot pole.
Trying to stage the thing on Stratford’s awkward runway thrust stage, Cimolino was utterly at sea. He had not a clue what to do. We found it amusing to watch the actors as they clumsily but dutifully moved about the stage, trying to give the illusion that their movements had some purpose—when everyone in the theater understood that the constant shifting of people around the giant platform, forming first one clump here and then another clump there, was to allow everyone in the theater an opportunity to witness at least one scene close at hand. Several times during the performance, we were beside ourselves, watching the preposterous maneuvers being played out before our eyes.
Amid all this foolishness, Schiller and “Mary Stuart” had no chance whatsoever.
Both sank without a trace.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Stratford’s Studio Theatre
The Studio Theatre opened in 2002. It seats 260 patrons.
It was at the Studio Theatre that we saw John Murrell’s “Taking Shakespeare”.
Not Festival Fare
On our second day at The Stratford Festival, we attended a matinee performance of a new play, “Taking Shakespeare”, by Canadian playwright John Murrell. In a four-decade career, Murrell has never seen his work win advocacy outside Canada.
“Taking Shakespeare” is a two-hour, two-character play whose duo themes are the nature of education and the continued relevance of the works of William Shakespeare.
The plot is simple. An aging professor of literature at a small, third-rate college is asked to offer private instruction to a college student in peril of flunking a freshman course in Shakespeare. Tension is added to the scenario by the circumstance that the college student’s mother is a dean at the college—and by the circumstance that the college is considering terminating the employment of the aging professor of literature, who no longer gets along with her students or her peers.
“Taking Shakespeare” has been written before—a thousand times by a thousand playwrights in a thousand languages. Murrell brings nothing new to the overused premise; Murrell offers no unfamiliar twists to freshen the stale formula.
The Stratford Festival commissioned the play for actress Martha Henry, who first appeared at Stratford in 1962. Over the last fifty-one years, Henry has played all the classic roles at Stratford; it was exhausting merely to skim the list of Henry’s Stratford credits in the program booklet.
Henry is a fine actress. She easily held my attention all afternoon. Whether Henry is a great actress, I cannot say. Any actress might have played the part in “Taking Shakespeare”—the part demands no virtuosity and no range—and succeeded as well as Henry.
The young actor playing the student in need of tutoring overdid the overwhelmed college freshman bit in the early scenes. Only once the script moved beyond the student’s laundry-list recitations of popular culture—all designed to show the audience that young persons respond only to junk—was the actor free to begin to offer a genuine performance.
There is nothing wrong with small-scale, unchallenging plays if well-staged and well-acted. “Taking Shakespeare” provided a pleasant afternoon pastime . . . but nothing beyond that.
Whatever the play’s merits (and I believe they are few), the play certainly is not festival fare.
________________________________________________
It was at last year’s Shaw Festival that we first heard people talk about Martha Henry.
Henry had been the director of Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler” at the 2012 Shaw Festival, but Henry had not appeared onstage last year in Niagara-On-The-Lake.
Several Canadians told us last summer that Henry was Canada’s finest actress. We were, in consequence, keen to see her in action.
Having now seen Henry onstage, I cannot say we were disappointed—yet I cannot say we were particularly impressed.
Henry’s career has been almost exclusively a Canadian one. For eighteen months, in 1971 and 1972, Henry was a member of the short-lived Repertory Theatre Of Lincoln Center—but otherwise Henry has not worked in New York. As for London, I can locate no West End, NT or RSC credits for her.
Oddly, Henry was born and raised in Michigan. Henry attended Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh at the very time Carnegie-Mellon’s acting program was the finest in North America. And yet Henry has never had a U.S. career; since the 1950s, Henry has lived and worked in Canada.
I asked my parents how Henry compared to the great actresses they have seen onstage. My mother and father responded, instantaneously and simultaneously: “Jessica Tandy”.
My parents’ response was both a great compliment and a not-so-great compliment. My parents have stated, for years, that they have seen many, many exceptional actresses, but only three genuinely great ones: Constance Cummings, Rosemary Harris and Irene Worth. My parents, I know, have never considered Jessica Tandy to be among the very finest actresses they have seen; when recalling memorable performers, my parents always rattle off thirty or so names before “Jessica Tandy” pops up.
“Taking Shakespeare” is a two-hour, two-character play whose duo themes are the nature of education and the continued relevance of the works of William Shakespeare.
The plot is simple. An aging professor of literature at a small, third-rate college is asked to offer private instruction to a college student in peril of flunking a freshman course in Shakespeare. Tension is added to the scenario by the circumstance that the college student’s mother is a dean at the college—and by the circumstance that the college is considering terminating the employment of the aging professor of literature, who no longer gets along with her students or her peers.
“Taking Shakespeare” has been written before—a thousand times by a thousand playwrights in a thousand languages. Murrell brings nothing new to the overused premise; Murrell offers no unfamiliar twists to freshen the stale formula.
The Stratford Festival commissioned the play for actress Martha Henry, who first appeared at Stratford in 1962. Over the last fifty-one years, Henry has played all the classic roles at Stratford; it was exhausting merely to skim the list of Henry’s Stratford credits in the program booklet.
Henry is a fine actress. She easily held my attention all afternoon. Whether Henry is a great actress, I cannot say. Any actress might have played the part in “Taking Shakespeare”—the part demands no virtuosity and no range—and succeeded as well as Henry.
The young actor playing the student in need of tutoring overdid the overwhelmed college freshman bit in the early scenes. Only once the script moved beyond the student’s laundry-list recitations of popular culture—all designed to show the audience that young persons respond only to junk—was the actor free to begin to offer a genuine performance.
There is nothing wrong with small-scale, unchallenging plays if well-staged and well-acted. “Taking Shakespeare” provided a pleasant afternoon pastime . . . but nothing beyond that.
Whatever the play’s merits (and I believe they are few), the play certainly is not festival fare.
________________________________________________
It was at last year’s Shaw Festival that we first heard people talk about Martha Henry.
Henry had been the director of Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler” at the 2012 Shaw Festival, but Henry had not appeared onstage last year in Niagara-On-The-Lake.
Several Canadians told us last summer that Henry was Canada’s finest actress. We were, in consequence, keen to see her in action.
Having now seen Henry onstage, I cannot say we were disappointed—yet I cannot say we were particularly impressed.
Henry’s career has been almost exclusively a Canadian one. For eighteen months, in 1971 and 1972, Henry was a member of the short-lived Repertory Theatre Of Lincoln Center—but otherwise Henry has not worked in New York. As for London, I can locate no West End, NT or RSC credits for her.
Oddly, Henry was born and raised in Michigan. Henry attended Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh at the very time Carnegie-Mellon’s acting program was the finest in North America. And yet Henry has never had a U.S. career; since the 1950s, Henry has lived and worked in Canada.
I asked my parents how Henry compared to the great actresses they have seen onstage. My mother and father responded, instantaneously and simultaneously: “Jessica Tandy”.
My parents’ response was both a great compliment and a not-so-great compliment. My parents have stated, for years, that they have seen many, many exceptional actresses, but only three genuinely great ones: Constance Cummings, Rosemary Harris and Irene Worth. My parents, I know, have never considered Jessica Tandy to be among the very finest actresses they have seen; when recalling memorable performers, my parents always rattle off thirty or so names before “Jessica Tandy” pops up.
Friday, August 23, 2013
Runway Thrust
Three of four theaters in use at The Stratford Festival utilize thrust stages. “Measure For Measure” was presented in the mid-size theater with a thrust stage (housed in a former sport club), a space that accommodates 496 patrons.
The mid-size theater has a very unique design: it utilizes what is called a “runway thrust”, similar to what is used for fashion shows in Milan and Paris.
Entering the theater, I thought the playing space absurd—but “Measure For Measure” director Martha Henry proved me wrong. Henry, having performed on that runway thrust herself for forty years, knew how to handle the space. In fact, Henry made better use of this unique performing configuration than the Stratford Festival’s Artistic Director, whose work we were to experience in the same theater the following evening.
I was amazed at the visual variety Henry and her designers were able to introduce on a runway thrust. Elaborate props and an elaborate lighting scheme, and the constant redefinition of playing space, gave the illusion that something of visual interest was always occurring.
Shakespeare set “Measure For Measure” in Vienna, and Henry kept Shakespeare’s setting—but Henry changed the period of the play, moving the action forward to 1949. Placing “Measure For Measure” in the immediate post-war period did the play no harm—one of Shakespeare’s themes is the use of subterfuge and deception by a populace under duress—and Henry’s choice probably made the play more accessible to contemporary audiences.
The program booklet made frequent reference to a “signature” Stratford Festival production of “Measure For Measure” in 1975, a production in which Henry apparently had been a sensation as Isabella.
We were to see Henry as actress the following afternoon, in a new play written for her.
The mid-size theater has a very unique design: it utilizes what is called a “runway thrust”, similar to what is used for fashion shows in Milan and Paris.
I was amazed at the visual variety Henry and her designers were able to introduce on a runway thrust. Elaborate props and an elaborate lighting scheme, and the constant redefinition of playing space, gave the illusion that something of visual interest was always occurring.
Shakespeare set “Measure For Measure” in Vienna, and Henry kept Shakespeare’s setting—but Henry changed the period of the play, moving the action forward to 1949. Placing “Measure For Measure” in the immediate post-war period did the play no harm—one of Shakespeare’s themes is the use of subterfuge and deception by a populace under duress—and Henry’s choice probably made the play more accessible to contemporary audiences.
The program booklet made frequent reference to a “signature” Stratford Festival production of “Measure For Measure” in 1975, a production in which Henry apparently had been a sensation as Isabella.
We were to see Henry as actress the following afternoon, in a new play written for her.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
“Some Rise By Sin, And Some By Virtue Fall”
On our first day at The Stratford Festival, we attended an evening performance of William Shakespeare’s “Measure For Measure”. It was my first exposure to “Measure For Measure”; the play is very seldom staged in the United States.
I was riveted by the onstage proceedings for three hours; my attention never waned. Scene by scene, I could hardly wait to see what would happen next. However, my fascination may have had more to do with an encounter with new material than with the production itself.
The plot of “Measure For Measure” is very complicated, filled with comedy, cruelty, deception, intrigue—and death. The audience laughs at the wickedness of the characters one moment, and is appalled by the wickedness of the characters the next. There is a great deal of low comedy in “Measure For Measure”, yet there is a great deal of tragedy, too, despite the contrived and unconvincing “happy” ending, surely the weakest part of the play (and probably the reason for the play’s relative neglect). I suspect it may be near-impossible for a director to capture the right tone of the work.
In some ways, the production was unquestionably a success.
First, the production was beautifully designed—indeed, it was the only design success of the eight Stratford productions we attended. The stage design, the costume design, the lighting design: all were exceptional. Moreover, the production had its own unique “look”, a quality I believe to be a prerequisite of successful stage design.
Second, the story was very lucidly presented—which cannot have been easy, given the contorted plot provided by Shakespeare. As pure traffic cop, the director did a fine job with the plot strands, keeping everything moving and heading in the right direction, the main artery always flowing, yet with ample opportunity for ingress and egress from secondary pathways.
Third, the character acting, by and large, was vivid and colorful. “Measure For Measure” requires an enormous cast of actors, most in small roles, and much of the character acting in the Stratford “Measure For Measure” was exceptional, even memorable.
Other aspects of the production were less admirable.
Accents were all over the place. Primary cast members were very uneven. Comic scenes, as a general rule, were overplayed; tragic scenes, as a general rule, were underplayed.
And then there was that matter of tone . . .
The production, simply put, lacked a clear and consistent tone. It was as if the company were performing two Shakespeare plays at once, alternating scenes from a Shakespeare comedy with scenes from a Shakespeare tragedy.
The director was Martha Henry, one of Canada’s most acclaimed stage actresses. Henry enjoys a near-legendary stature in Canada, a stature akin to that enjoyed by Julie Harris or Rosemary Harris in the U.S.
Last summer, we had seen Henry’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler” at The Shaw Festival. In that production, the idealism of Ibsen’s characters had been removed, a stratagem that had sharply constricted the depth and range and appeal of the play.
I believe something similar was at work in Henry’s “Measure For Measure”: an accentuation of the negative.
The nobility of Isabella failed to register, which turned her into a hectoring, indecisive bore. The finer qualities of the Duke were de-emphasized, which gave him a far more disreputable rub than Shakespeare surely intended. Angelo, Claudio and Lucio were fundamentally portrayed as sleazes, rendering their characters far less complex (and far less sympathetic) than the text warranted.
At the end of the play, when multiple marriages are arranged, the viewer is not supposed to mutter to himself, “I cannot believe ANYONE would agree to marry ANY of these individuals”—yet such was precisely my thought as the final nuptial merry-go-round was played out onstage.
It is possible there is no one alive capable of directing “Measure For Measure” to a high standard. It is a rich, fascinating play, but it remains a play that does not cohere—and the final scene seems tacked on from a lesser author’s work. I suspect even Tyrone Guthrie, were he alive, would find “Measure For Measure” beyond his talents.
The Stratford Festival gave the material a good shot—so good, in fact, that “Measure For Measure” was the sole Stratford production we attended that I wish I had been able to see a second time.
I was riveted by the onstage proceedings for three hours; my attention never waned. Scene by scene, I could hardly wait to see what would happen next. However, my fascination may have had more to do with an encounter with new material than with the production itself.
The plot of “Measure For Measure” is very complicated, filled with comedy, cruelty, deception, intrigue—and death. The audience laughs at the wickedness of the characters one moment, and is appalled by the wickedness of the characters the next. There is a great deal of low comedy in “Measure For Measure”, yet there is a great deal of tragedy, too, despite the contrived and unconvincing “happy” ending, surely the weakest part of the play (and probably the reason for the play’s relative neglect). I suspect it may be near-impossible for a director to capture the right tone of the work.
In some ways, the production was unquestionably a success.
First, the production was beautifully designed—indeed, it was the only design success of the eight Stratford productions we attended. The stage design, the costume design, the lighting design: all were exceptional. Moreover, the production had its own unique “look”, a quality I believe to be a prerequisite of successful stage design.
Second, the story was very lucidly presented—which cannot have been easy, given the contorted plot provided by Shakespeare. As pure traffic cop, the director did a fine job with the plot strands, keeping everything moving and heading in the right direction, the main artery always flowing, yet with ample opportunity for ingress and egress from secondary pathways.
Third, the character acting, by and large, was vivid and colorful. “Measure For Measure” requires an enormous cast of actors, most in small roles, and much of the character acting in the Stratford “Measure For Measure” was exceptional, even memorable.
Other aspects of the production were less admirable.
Accents were all over the place. Primary cast members were very uneven. Comic scenes, as a general rule, were overplayed; tragic scenes, as a general rule, were underplayed.
And then there was that matter of tone . . .
The production, simply put, lacked a clear and consistent tone. It was as if the company were performing two Shakespeare plays at once, alternating scenes from a Shakespeare comedy with scenes from a Shakespeare tragedy.
The director was Martha Henry, one of Canada’s most acclaimed stage actresses. Henry enjoys a near-legendary stature in Canada, a stature akin to that enjoyed by Julie Harris or Rosemary Harris in the U.S.
Last summer, we had seen Henry’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler” at The Shaw Festival. In that production, the idealism of Ibsen’s characters had been removed, a stratagem that had sharply constricted the depth and range and appeal of the play.
I believe something similar was at work in Henry’s “Measure For Measure”: an accentuation of the negative.
The nobility of Isabella failed to register, which turned her into a hectoring, indecisive bore. The finer qualities of the Duke were de-emphasized, which gave him a far more disreputable rub than Shakespeare surely intended. Angelo, Claudio and Lucio were fundamentally portrayed as sleazes, rendering their characters far less complex (and far less sympathetic) than the text warranted.
At the end of the play, when multiple marriages are arranged, the viewer is not supposed to mutter to himself, “I cannot believe ANYONE would agree to marry ANY of these individuals”—yet such was precisely my thought as the final nuptial merry-go-round was played out onstage.
It is possible there is no one alive capable of directing “Measure For Measure” to a high standard. It is a rich, fascinating play, but it remains a play that does not cohere—and the final scene seems tacked on from a lesser author’s work. I suspect even Tyrone Guthrie, were he alive, would find “Measure For Measure” beyond his talents.
The Stratford Festival gave the material a good shot—so good, in fact, that “Measure For Measure” was the sole Stratford production we attended that I wish I had been able to see a second time.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Avon Theatre, Stratford
The Avon Theatre is the only traditional proscenium theater used by The Stratford Festival.
The theater opened in 1901 as a vaudeville house. Upon the death of vaudeville, it became a movie house.
The theater was acquired by The Stratford Festival in 1963, and given its current name (the theater had operated under at least three other names during its first six decades of existence).
In 2002, the theater was extensively remodeled, and given a new—and very displeasing—exterior (the original façade, in late Victorian style, had been constructed of red brick).
The Avon Theatre seats 1090 patrons, and is roughly the size of a Broadway drama house.
A Send-Up Of Margaret Atwood
On our first day at The Stratford Festival, we attended a matinee performance of Noel Coward’s Blitz-era comedy, “Blithe Spirit”.
I believe “Blithe Spirit” is revived too often. The three central characters—the jaundiced author, his second wife and the ghost of his first wife summoned unexpectedly during a séance—are neither interesting nor amusing. All the fun in the play comes from the medium, Madame Arcati, whose first séance causes the disastrous appearance of the ghost of the first wife. It is in watching Madame Arcati, as she tries to set things straight through further séances, all equally disastrous, that the viewer finds whatever amusement may be found in “Blithe Spirit”.
The role of Madame Arcati is a coveted one for an actress “of a certain age”. The widest range of interpretation is possible: Madame Arcati may be played as highly intelligent or as totally obtuse; as conniving or as guileless; as a charming, irresistible old lady or as a no-nonsense, take-charge busybody; as a dangerous charlatan or as a thorough professional who believes passionately in the value of her skills and services; as a woman crazy as a coot or as the most sane person in the play. I have never seen an actress fail in the part.
At The Stratford Festival, the actress playing Madame Arcati portrayed the character as pure ditz, as someone perpetually out-to-lunch. I thought the portrayal lacked color, and shade, and charm.
However, at the first intermission, my mother, who had been laughing throughout the entire first act, explained: “She’s doing a deliberate send-up of Margaret Atwood.”
And my mother was right. The hair, the clothes, the mannerisms, the odd cadences, the loopy delivery of lines, the overwhelming aura of abject daffiness: all were modeled upon Margaret Atwood. What we were witnessing was a Margaret Atwood impersonation—and it was not a flattering one.
Why the director, Brian Bedford, had wanted or allowed a send-up of Margaret Atwood, I do not know—perhaps he believed Madame Arcati as Margaret Atwood was a witty stroke of genius—but, once we were in on the joke, we were able to enjoy the deliciousness of it. Nonetheless, “Blithe Spirit” does not exist in order to mock Margaret Atwood; presenting the play in such a manner reduced it to a one-dimensional, unending inside joke.
The audience laughed itself silly all afternoon. It was as if the audience, largely Canadian, had entered the theater primed to enjoy a skewering of one of its more bizarre countryman.
________________________________________________
We were to see the actress playing Madame Arcati the following evening, playing Elizabeth I in Schiller’s “Mary Stuart”. The actress has a long and distinguished history of Canadian stage credits, but there are no New York or London credits on her resume.
The rest of the cast members, a couple of small roles aside, were very unimpressive. The production, if transferred to Broadway or the West End, would close within a week.
The actor playing Doctor Bradman has appeared at The Guthrie (but not in a production I attended). The actress playing Mrs. Bradman had been part of the acting company at last year’s Shaw Festival, where we had seen her in two productions. Joshua and I had seen the actress playing Sara once before, on Broadway in 2011, in Bedford’s production of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance Of Being Earnest”.
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Josh and I had last seen “Blithe Spirit” in 2010, in a very poor production by Boston’s Lyric Stage Company. My brother had last seen “Blithe Spirit” in a West End production in 2005, when he and I saw British television actress Stephanie Cole appear in the role of Madame Arcati. My parents last saw “Blithe Spirit” in the early 1980s.
________________________________________________
“Blithe Spirit” was staged in the Avon Theatre, the only Stratford Festival theater that features a traditional proscenium. The other three theaters used by The Stratford Festival have thrust stages.
“Blithe Spirit” was the only play we were to see all week in a traditional proscenium theater. Everything else we attended was at a theater with a thrust stage.
Two other Stratford Festival productions were staged at the Avon Theatre: the musical, “Tommy”; and Shakespeare’s “Othello”. We had no interest in “Tommy”. Since we were to see three other Shakespeare plays in short succession, we had decided to give a fourth, “Othello”, a pass.
________________________________________________
A British stage designer had been called in for “Blithe Spirit”. I have seen his work before; he is not very good.
The same designer had designed Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead”, which we had seen in the West End in 2011; Ronald Harwood’s “Taking Sides” and Somerset Maugham’s “The Circle”, both of which we had seen at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2008; Harwood’s “The Dresser”, which my brother and I had seen in the West End in 2005; and the production of “Blithe Spirit” my brother and I had attended in the West End in 2005.
________________________________________________
We were very disappointed in the design standard we witnessed at The Stratford Festival.
The design standard on Broadway is higher. The design standard at The Guthrie is higher. The design standard at The Shaw Festival is higher.
Everything we saw last summer at The Shaw Festival—and we saw everything on the bill—was designed to the very highest standard.
Nothing we saw this summer at The Stratford Festival was, from a design perspective, impressive in the least.
I believe “Blithe Spirit” is revived too often. The three central characters—the jaundiced author, his second wife and the ghost of his first wife summoned unexpectedly during a séance—are neither interesting nor amusing. All the fun in the play comes from the medium, Madame Arcati, whose first séance causes the disastrous appearance of the ghost of the first wife. It is in watching Madame Arcati, as she tries to set things straight through further séances, all equally disastrous, that the viewer finds whatever amusement may be found in “Blithe Spirit”.
The role of Madame Arcati is a coveted one for an actress “of a certain age”. The widest range of interpretation is possible: Madame Arcati may be played as highly intelligent or as totally obtuse; as conniving or as guileless; as a charming, irresistible old lady or as a no-nonsense, take-charge busybody; as a dangerous charlatan or as a thorough professional who believes passionately in the value of her skills and services; as a woman crazy as a coot or as the most sane person in the play. I have never seen an actress fail in the part.
At The Stratford Festival, the actress playing Madame Arcati portrayed the character as pure ditz, as someone perpetually out-to-lunch. I thought the portrayal lacked color, and shade, and charm.
However, at the first intermission, my mother, who had been laughing throughout the entire first act, explained: “She’s doing a deliberate send-up of Margaret Atwood.”
And my mother was right. The hair, the clothes, the mannerisms, the odd cadences, the loopy delivery of lines, the overwhelming aura of abject daffiness: all were modeled upon Margaret Atwood. What we were witnessing was a Margaret Atwood impersonation—and it was not a flattering one.
Why the director, Brian Bedford, had wanted or allowed a send-up of Margaret Atwood, I do not know—perhaps he believed Madame Arcati as Margaret Atwood was a witty stroke of genius—but, once we were in on the joke, we were able to enjoy the deliciousness of it. Nonetheless, “Blithe Spirit” does not exist in order to mock Margaret Atwood; presenting the play in such a manner reduced it to a one-dimensional, unending inside joke.
The audience laughed itself silly all afternoon. It was as if the audience, largely Canadian, had entered the theater primed to enjoy a skewering of one of its more bizarre countryman.
________________________________________________
We were to see the actress playing Madame Arcati the following evening, playing Elizabeth I in Schiller’s “Mary Stuart”. The actress has a long and distinguished history of Canadian stage credits, but there are no New York or London credits on her resume.
The rest of the cast members, a couple of small roles aside, were very unimpressive. The production, if transferred to Broadway or the West End, would close within a week.
The actor playing Doctor Bradman has appeared at The Guthrie (but not in a production I attended). The actress playing Mrs. Bradman had been part of the acting company at last year’s Shaw Festival, where we had seen her in two productions. Joshua and I had seen the actress playing Sara once before, on Broadway in 2011, in Bedford’s production of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance Of Being Earnest”.
________________________________________________
Josh and I had last seen “Blithe Spirit” in 2010, in a very poor production by Boston’s Lyric Stage Company. My brother had last seen “Blithe Spirit” in a West End production in 2005, when he and I saw British television actress Stephanie Cole appear in the role of Madame Arcati. My parents last saw “Blithe Spirit” in the early 1980s.
________________________________________________
“Blithe Spirit” was staged in the Avon Theatre, the only Stratford Festival theater that features a traditional proscenium. The other three theaters used by The Stratford Festival have thrust stages.
“Blithe Spirit” was the only play we were to see all week in a traditional proscenium theater. Everything else we attended was at a theater with a thrust stage.
Two other Stratford Festival productions were staged at the Avon Theatre: the musical, “Tommy”; and Shakespeare’s “Othello”. We had no interest in “Tommy”. Since we were to see three other Shakespeare plays in short succession, we had decided to give a fourth, “Othello”, a pass.
________________________________________________
A British stage designer had been called in for “Blithe Spirit”. I have seen his work before; he is not very good.
The same designer had designed Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead”, which we had seen in the West End in 2011; Ronald Harwood’s “Taking Sides” and Somerset Maugham’s “The Circle”, both of which we had seen at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2008; Harwood’s “The Dresser”, which my brother and I had seen in the West End in 2005; and the production of “Blithe Spirit” my brother and I had attended in the West End in 2005.
________________________________________________
We were very disappointed in the design standard we witnessed at The Stratford Festival.
The design standard on Broadway is higher. The design standard at The Guthrie is higher. The design standard at The Shaw Festival is higher.
Everything we saw last summer at The Shaw Festival—and we saw everything on the bill—was designed to the very highest standard.
Nothing we saw this summer at The Stratford Festival was, from a design perspective, impressive in the least.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Today’s Matinee At 2:00
Photograph courtesy of The Stratford Festival.