me and the Stratford Festival
My usual Stratford companion, C, and I disagreed in the car on Sunday about a couple of points in our shared history -- specifically, whether she had been with me when I saw The Two Noble Kinsmen (I said yes, she said no) and whether I had ever seen Titus Andronicus (she said yes, I said no). So this evening I looked in the Archival Box O Programs to research the matter -- I was right on both questions, as it happens, but she claims the hormones associated with being seven months pregnant are addling her mind, so she can be excused. :-) Anyway, though, for a giggle I wrote down what I'd seen up there each year so next time I wonder I can answer the question with keystrokes rather than aging original documents.
Understand that I grew up with videos (in many cases recorded from the CBC, back when we still got the CBC as far from Canada as I grew up) of the Stratford productions of The Mikado (1982), The Gondoliers (1983), Iolanthe (1984), The Pirates of Penzance (1985), and As You Like It (also early 80's some time), so for a long time I kept after my parents to take us up there so we could see some stuff live. They'd gone a number of times before I was born, so they were happy to resume when they judged us old enough. In 1990 my brother was ten and that was good enough for them.
1990
- The Merry Wives of Windsor - with Colm Feore as Frank Ford, and you might be surprised to learn that I remember him; there was a bit where Ford takes a flying leap at the wicker basket where he thinks Falstaff is hiding, and physical comedy is always funny, right? So there you go. I don't remember a lot else about this production. I thought it was William Hutt as Falstaff, but the program tells me it was James Blendick.
- Julius Caesar - with Colm Feore as Cassius, as it happens, and Brian Bedford as Brutus. My father is a big ol' Brian Bedford fanboy, and I remember that he was really looking forward to this performance, and found it something of a letdown. Bedford seemed to stumble over a lot of his lines, and I suspect it was not a character choice. Ah well. This production had a great deal of really sloppy stage blood, so the smearing-up of their hands was particularly gory. (We went to a post-show discussion or some such thing where they talked about the laundry difficulties of that production.) And then when Scott Wentworth as Antony came in and shook all their hands, and did that left-hand clasp thing with each of them as well, he ended up with his right arm bloody all the way up to the elbow. It was very effective.
- As You Like It - with Lucy Peacock as Rosalind, in a very beautiful production that sets Arden more or less in the woodier parts of Quebec.
- Guys and Dolls - I remember this being not too bad. Big expensive showy production, I'm sure it looked fantastic and was technically unimpeachable but not all that exciting. Certainly not so memorable, is what. :-)
- Romeo and Juliet - with Megan Follows as Juliet, Antoni Cimolino (now General Director of the Festival) as Romeo, Colm Feore - these were the Colm Feore years - as Mercutio, and Barbara Bryne as the Nurse, whom I can still hear screaming "scurvy knave!" This production was very beautiful, set in Italy in the 20's, with lots of white silk flowing about the place. It's available on DVD, and one of these days I might have to buy it.
- HMS Pinafore - This I remember being good, but not great, not up to the level that the 80's productions had been. It was musically sound and the dancing was good, but somehow it wasn't the same. In retrospect, this is because by the early 90's the spark had gone out of everyone's affair with Gilbert and Sullivan, but I wouldn't recognize this for a few more years. Stay tuned.
- Gypsy - This I remember being good. Good Rose, good Herbie, good Louise, good dancers. I don't know if I've ever seen a weak production of this show, actually, but let's not make the mistake of thinking the show is foolproof. (That'd be Guys and Dolls, above. [g])
- The Mikado - this was a remount of the 1982 production, which would not in itself be a bad thing, but it had some of the same people in the same roles, which, ack. Actually the same woman reprising her Pitti-Sing was fine, because she still had it, but the same woman reprising her Katisha, ack, she'd gained about forty pounds which wouldn't have been a thing except that she had no air left. She was singing at a volume an order of magnitude below everyone else. Disappointing. See above re: spark, G&S, 90's. But did we learn?
- A Midsummer Night's Dream - with Colm Feore as Oberon and Lucy Peacock as Titania. I remember the fairy costumes involved a lot of swirly-colored spandex, and Puck had (unsurprisingly) wild hair, and almost nothing else about the production except that it was good. I'd seen the play once before, at the RSC when I was eleven, so I had something to compare this to, at least, and I liked this one better. (The RSC one had a bicycle hanging from a tree, and at least one character (other than the young lovers, on whom it might have made sense) in pajamas, but it did include a moment I still remember where Puck has put the nectar on Demetrius' eyes and Demetrius wakes up and seems about to turn toward Lysander instead of Helena, and Puck has to strain with all his magical might to make sure he hasn't fucked it all up again. Good stuff. But anyway, that was the RSC in 1988.)
- The Importance of Being Earnest - was this the first time I'd ever seen this play? Might have been. Colm Feore as Jack Worthing and Lucy Peacock as Gwendolyn, and wtf, the two of them were everywhere in those days.
- The Pirates of Penzance - this was a very fun production of the sort where there's a company putting on Pirates and then some snobbish English types come in and make their production better, a framing device, I guess, not quite a play-within-a-play, and it was very good, exactly what everyone's affair with G&S needed (though as it turned out it was more of a last hurrah than any recharging or anything). Colm Feore as the Pirate King, and this is getting silly.
- Alice Through the Looking Glass - Sarah Polley was very big at the time on account of being on some Avonlea-related TV show, I guess?, so they put this on for her. It was good. Helps to like the Carroll stories, I guess. :-) Lots of fun costuming and over-the-top stuff, because, well.
- The Comedy of Errors - Stephen Ouimette and Tom McCamus as the Dromii, and manalive, what a pair those two are. Also, Adriana was pregnant. (Apparently she had no understudy, as this was one of the smaller productions, and along about the end of the season she had the baby earlier than she'd expected and some small number of weeks' worth of tickets had to be refunded. I learned this from the bios in the following year's programs. Always hire an understudy!)
- The School for Husbands/The Imaginary Cuckold - ... about which I remember nothing.
- The Gondoliers - this was a remount of the 1983 production, and again had one or two of the same people; I think maybe only the Duke and Duchess of Plaza-Toro, and they were still funny?, but they were more than ten years older, I mean, dude, and so even though there weren't the same kind of gasping problems there'd been in The Mikado, it just wasn't the same. We finally learned our lesson. Fortunately, so did they; there hasn't been another G&S on the playbill since, I don't think.
- The Boy Friend - the show that made Julie Andrews! It was fine. Fine singing, very good dancing. Frothy.
- Amadeus - with Stephen Ouimette as Mozart and Brian Bedford as Salieri, and oh my god, it was brilliant. Brilliant. I can't, it was all those years ago, and I can still see Bedford throwing the blanket off his shoulders and standing up out of the wheelchair, and he was awesome, awesome, and do you guys even know how good Stephen Ouimette is?, I mean, of course you do, because you've seen Slings & Arrows, and gah. Gah. Brilliant.
- The Country Wife - ... about which I remember nothing.
- Macbeth - Scott Wentworth and Seana McKenna as the Macbeths, and they were good, but what I really remember from this is the Macduff family; Wayne Best as Macduff, who when he got the news that his family was gone put his hand over his mouth and stood frozen for probably a full minute, which is a long damn time when nothing else is happening; and the family, which, oh my god. In addition to Lady Macduff and Young Macduff, who are in the text, there were two more children, a boy and a girl, who (obviously) didn't speak. And the four of them are together when the murderers come, and of course it's terrible, the murderers kill the older boy and rape Lady Macduff and kill her and break the younger boy's neck and through all of this, the fighting and the yelling, the little girl has been down at the front of the stage clutching her rag doll and watching the whole thing in mute terror, and the murderers don't notice her. And they've killed the mother and the two boys and they're leaving, and the little girl turns her back to the scene, i.e. turns to face the audience, and whimpers, and the murderers stop and look at her and look at each other and look back at her and step towards her and blackout. OH MY GOD YOU GUYS, that was the first time I can remember hearing a whole audience wibble all at the same time. Not that I had the word "wibble" in my lexicon at that time, but that's exactly what we all did. Listen to me, it was fourteen years ago and I have goosebumps again from describing it to you.
- The Merchant of Venice - what I remember about this production was the end of the trial scene. Portia has done her lawyer thing and persecuted Shylock, and everyone else has cleared out, and just as she's leaving two guys in black shirts come on and notice her and stop on their way through the square to applaud her. And her face absolutely falls - the actress did a nice non-verbal "oh, shit" before she ran off. (They always seem to exit running, don't they.)
- As You Like It - Jonathan Crombie as Orlando, and I believe the formerly-pregnant Adriana as Rosalind, who did the best job I think I've seen with the epilogue. Also this production had a much younger Jaques than usual, contemporary with Orlando and Oliver, which makes Jaques a whole different guy, doesn't it.
- King Lear - with William Hutt as Lear; need I say more? But I will: this had a very young Fool, which I didn't know was unusual, but wow, was he good, and in any other production he'd have got whoops and hollers, but he was opposite William Hutt, so, you know. And when that man came out for his curtain call, everyone in the building -- and it was a full house, because this was at the height of the exact opposite of a recession and it was William fucking Hutt as King Lear -- was on their feet between one clap of your hands and the next. It was nuts.
- The Music Man - with a Harold Hill who could sing, who knew you could do that? Dude sang and danced the hell out of the part, and the whole thing looked and sounded and was fantastic. Hurrah!
- Romeo and Juliet - with Jonathan Crombie as Romeo (several years after Megan Follows played Juliet, that's right [g]), and he was very good; the rest of the production wasn't as good as the previous one, except that the death scene was excellent. Romeo takes the poison, right, believing Juliet is dead, and he says how quick the drug is working, and he starts to slide to the floor, and then Juliet stirs, and the audience gasps (again, unanimously), and of course it's too late for him, and he's looking like oh god and helplessly finish his collapse as she comes around, facing the other way so she doesn't even see him there at first. (I later learned that something not unlike this occurred in the death scene in Baz Luhrmann's R&J? Except she woke up in time and they had an eyes-meeting oh-shit moment before he died? I still haven't seen it, and I'm not sure which I'd prefer, but not having seen that before I saw this, I was utterly shocked and thought it was a brilliant, brilliant choice and awfully well executed. Goosebumps, I've got, though not of Macduff-murder-scene proportions.)
- Richard III - Stephen Ouimette as Richard, in a small, odd production. I don't remember a ton about it. There was a good bit with Richard dragging a cape out of the way, which had been covering the whole stage, so that a flunky of some kind could approach where he was reclining without stepping on it.
- The Taming of the Shrew - Lucy Peacock as Katherine. There was some on-stage business with raw eggs, which I remember being funny. They solved the massive problems of the play by adding a bit after the end where Petruchio, having won the bet, splits the winnings with Katherine, according to what were obviously the terms of their deal.
- Oedipus Rex - done in the classical style, with big ol' robes and face masks; hey, they've got a place that's more or less an indoor amphitheatre, why not? What I remember in particular is that Oedipus had a terrific gold mask and headdress and robe when he was king, and then after his fall the next time he appeared it was all more or less mustard-colored, right, the luster had literally gone out of it. Also lower platform sandals and smaller shoulder-frames than he'd had before. Ah, the platforms; everyone was on platform sandals of pretty impressive height, so that a) Oedipus could literally be lowered, like I said, and also b) the two daughters at the end, who were on plain flat sandals and in robes with no infrastructure, would line up next to everyone else like children. Their last line was (in unison) "The dead are free from pain." (Goosebumps!) And there was no curtain call; the Chorus leader came out and gave a nod and that was it. One imagines everyone else was completely exhausted, and plus it wouldn't fit with the period concept, I guess.
- Camelot - it was in a curtain speech by the actress about to play Guinevere that I learned Princess Diana had died. (She said something about "the accident in Paris last night", and while everyone was applauding politely I turned to the complete stranger next to me - C doesn't care for musicals, so she was amusing herself elsewhere - and asked what had happened in Paris the night before; I'd made it all the way to the theatre without seeing a headline anywhere, apparently.) Gave a different spin to the show, is what. Tom McCamus as King Arthur, and they dressed him in tunics a little too big in the shoulder and a little too long, while the dude playing Lancelot had costumes a little too snug and a little too short, which nicely emphasized the difference in their sizes and relative bulk, and made Arthur overwhelmed and Lancelot all big and strong and heroic.
- Waiting for Godot - Stephen Ouimette and Tom McCamus as the tramps, and the whole thing was awesome. See above re: the pair of them.
- Dracula - a chamber musical, which was meh.
- Julius Caesar - ah, these were the Benedict Campbell years, I remember now. He'd played Oedipus and done a hell of a job, and I believe he was Brutus here, and okay, sure, the production was fine, but in this case for the besmearing-their-hands they all reached into a hidden pouch on the upstage side of Caesar's costume and pulled out handfuls of purply-red string, for entrails or something, and my gracious, it didn't work at all.
- A Man for All Seasons - Ben Campbell again, as Henry, and he was exactly right in the part, and I believe it was a very good More (but who could be as good as Paul Scofield?), but I really remember Brad Rudy as Everyman, a character missing from the film, and wow, was he good. With a bit of a northern accent, as I recall, which, if I'm right about that, was a nice touch. His last line: "If we should bump into one another - recognize me." Goosebumps again!
- The Winter's Tale - a charming small production. Loved it.
- Man of La Mancha - a big good-looking production, with a dynamite Sancho Panza (Bruce Dow, who was playing Pseudolus in Forum this year until he was injured).
- A Midsummer Night's Dream - from the pictures it looks like there was a lot of spandex in these fairy costumes, too. Huh. Also a dynamite cast - Seana McKenna as Titania, Brian Bedford as Bottom, and the young guy who'd been Lear's terrific Fool as Puck, none of which I had recalled. What I remember about this production was that Peter Quince was a young guy who was just about beside himself during the play, and eventually couldn't stand it, you could see him losing his shit by the second. ("Ninus' Tomb!") And also that Oberon got pretty snarky with Puck when giving him the fixing-the-mess-you've-made instructions. Pronounced "Lysander" very slowly and carefully. Big laugh line. :-)
- West Side Story - I remember it being very good, but I don't remember anything about it in particular.
- Fiddler on the Roof - with Brent Carver as an unusually quiet Tevye. A very good production, but it doesn't hurt that I love this show.
- As You Like It - Lucy Peacock as Rosalind again, and you're reading that right, yes, ten years later. Ah well, I don't remember anything especial about this production, but if it's the third-strongest As You Like It they've done at Stratford in ten years, well, it's still an awfully good show.
- Medea - Seana McKenna as Medea, and damn. She was good, and the three women of the chorus were tremendous. There's a moment between when she goes in for the last time and when they realize what she's about to do in there, omg frozen horror, and then they all fling themselves at the door screaming, and they must have given themselves bruises night after night.
- The Importance of Being Earnest - the four-act version. Apparently Oscar wrote this four-act play with more depth and, well, earnestness than the one we're accustomed to, and the producer convinced him to cut the third of the four acts, and based on the reception of the three-act version, said "Well? Wasn't I right?" ... He was. :-P
- The Three Musketeers - ... about which I remember nothing. (From the program, it seems that this was a family-type production - there's a kid with a storybook in the poster shot, and the three - actually four, of course - musketeers behind him. Seems to be Ben Campbell as ... Porthos, probably, but it could be any of them, I suppose.
- Hamlet - with Paul Gross, not that I had the faintest idea who he was at the time. Ben Campbell as Claudius, incidentally. The performances were solid, but the production was odd. Hamlet was given to tantrums, which didn't seem to line up with what I'd have thought would be described as 'melancholy'. And it tried to make Claudius more sympathetic than usual, which is an interesting idea, but turned out to remove most of the conflict since they didn't take the additional step of giving him a good reason for his actions - Hamlet was temperamental but not dangerous. (I understand that the recent David Tennant ~ Patrick Stewart version handled this concept better. Those TV stars and their Hamlets, I tell you what.)
- it was this year that my friend saw Titus Andronicus, by the way, while I was at either Fiddler or Musketeers. Hee.
- Threepenny Opera - I'm not as bonkers about this show as (a) my friend is and (b) I am about some others, but I like it fine. (It's Brecht. He and I have never really gotten along very well.) This production was good. The performances were solid, even if the singing was (to be honest) weak, except for Lucy Brown -- she nailed that "Sorry" number right between the eyes, yes she did. Part of the trouble is that the opening number is (obviously) "Mack the Knife," and (equally obviously) it's not Bobby Darin singing it, ever, which is a thing for me -- in my mind, there's no other way to do that song. So from the very beginning, I always feel like the show is misguided, even when it's nothing of the sort.
- King Lear - I. Love. This. Play. Thing is I won't ever forget the standing O for William Hutt. This production had less of that, I'm afraid, but I don't know how many people in the audience were making the comparison, because this one had Christopher Plummer as Lear. He got a round of applause at the beginning of the show, which I'm afraid always irritates me. (It's not his fault, of course; it was the audience I found irksome.) He was good; he might even have been great. But he wasn't William Hutt; he didn't make the hair on your arms stand on end. The Fool was good. The daughters, the bad ones, were good. The sons-in-law were fine. The Gloucester family was fine -- Edmund was a little better, and Edgar was a little annoying. Cordelia, unfortunately, was entirely unsympathetic. She came off, to us at least, as very smug -- which is all, all wrong. All wrong. I'll tell you who was really good, was Benedict Campbell as Kent. Kent's a good part anyway (one of Shakespeare's pantheon, headed by Horatio, of Awfully Nice Guys), but in Campbell's hands it became freakin' terrific. My friend lists him among those who can Do No Wrong.
- Henry VI, part A - I say part A because it was the first of two parts, rather than the first of three. Henry VI is long and (in large part) dreary, so this director did a good deal of slicing and dicing and, mercifully, removing of Re-Expository Monologues (which, as some of you know, I loathe). This thing was subtitled "Revenge in France," which is a shame, but what can you do. It was uniformly excellent. Whole bunch of characters in these histories, and to the extent that we needed to keep track of who was who, I felt like we were able to do so. Plus, Michael Therriault (as Henry VI) and Seana McKenna (as Queen Margaret) can Do No Wrong, and Thom Marriott (as Richard, Duke of York) seems to be headed in that direction. We saw McKenna as Medea two years ago, and that production left me ragged and drained; I saw her as Lady Macbeth some time before that, and it was similarly impressive. Therriault is younger, but I've never seen him give a bad performance -- bleedin' fantastic. All in all, the fact that the girl who played Joan of Arc drives my friend right up the wall was a minor point.
- Henry VI, part B - Every bit as good as the first part. Better, in a lot of ways. A marathon of Shakespeare histories, though -- damn.
- The Scarlet Pimpernel - Not the musical that was nominated for some Tonys a few years back; this is a different play altogether, although there is music in it. We decided at the last minute to see this one, on the recommendation of my friend's parents, and couldn't think why they'd been so all over it. It was inoffensive, but about as substantial as candy-glass. Not that we minded seeing it, but we could probably each have found other things to do with the money we spent on the tickets -- and the folks around us were ... well. I admit I can be unforgiving when it comes to behavior in a live theatre. It's one area in which I'm afraid I'm quite conservative. I don't mind comments to one's neighbor, but if anyone else can hear so much as a whisper, it's too loud. Paper-rustling is right out. I get annoyed when people cough, okay, which I know they can't always help. But there's always another change-of-scene coming up, where there's no dialogue for people to miss -- that's when to make whatever noises people need to make, you know? :-) And don't get me started on cell phones. So. Around us was a bunch of especially lively people. In particular, the woman next to my friend was very chatty with her own friend, seated on her other side, and didn't even bother to whisper until the whole balcony shushed her at once; meanwhile, behind me was a girl who must, I swear, have been drunk, if her goofed-out laughter was anything to go by. Don't get me wrong: I think people ought to laugh when they find things funny. This is not one of the Proscribed Noises. :-) But, I mean, damn.
- Richard III - The conclusion, thank god, of the Wars of the Roses series. Last year, they did Henry IV (parts 1 and 2) and Henry V; the year before, I think, they'd done Richard II. So this was really a wrap-up of biggish dimensions. The concept wasn't too weird, and the performances were solid here; it was a little distracting to have Seana McKenna (see above) as Queen Elizabeth, since Queen Margaret also appears in this play, but she's compelling enough that it wasn't an issue. As Richard, we had Tom McCamus, who can Do No Wrong (and who Due South fans may remember as the head bad guy in The Gift of the Wheelman). He was tremendous -- it's a great part, of course, but he was especially good in it. Very satisfying -- especially since the last time they did Richard III up there, also with a dynamite cast, it was weird and nonsensical, and ultimately only pretty good.
- The Two Noble Kinsmen (C was totally there, and once I reminded her, she remembered [g]) - On the fence about this one for a long time -- but we finally pointed out to ourselves that we weren't likely to get another chance to see this play performed for an awfully long time, and it was unlikely to suck, so we went ahead and saw it. And let me tell you how glad we were. The play was fine -- it's the Knight's Tale, is what it is, with the addition of a subplot by Shakespeare's co-writer -- but the performances were terrific. My friend could spot the differences between Shakespeare's language and Fletcher's from sixty paces, but I was sufficiently drawn in to the play that I didn't even notice, which is really satisfying. Plus, they played a little with sexuality, which I'm always glad to see. The two noble kinsmen, right, are both in love with the same girl, Emilia, who's devoted to Diana, goddess of chastity. So there's some discussion in the dialogue about her assurance that she'll never love a man -- but a couple of scenes later, she has a conversation with a servant girl, and the vibe between them was a little on the romantic side. Very nice. (Also adds depth to the character, in my opinion, which never hurts.) As well, the duke's lieutenant has some lines about the fineness of form of one of the kinsmen, and spent a couple of scenes looking quite appreciatively at the guy; add this to the moment when he joins the two women (Emilia and her sister, the duke's bride) in begging the duke for mercy on the kinsmen's behalf, and you have just enough subtext where it's really only subtext for those audience members who really have to remain in denial of such things. I was entirely pleased.
- Quiet in the Land - excellent. Like Fiddler on the Roof, only no Jews. Lights went down for Act 2, music came up, said to K, "Hey, there was no harmony in the Act 1 music - getting More Complex," and then a character mentioned this in an argument later. Go me! Cast uniformly ace - leads utterly fantastic. (S. Russell & whoever played the deacon; M. Therriault continues to Do No Wrong.) K identified her mother-in-law in 2nd female lead, the girl's mother. Good line: "Those are things to want on the outside. A church is on the inside." Better line: "You don't get back lost sheep by yelling at the ones who stayed put." A play to look into keeping on the shelf.
- The Birds - a total acid trip. Concept, cohesive; plot, insane. Apparently the rest of Aristophanes' plays are even crazier. Whatever. Costumes looked good. Singing & dancing v. good. Lost a lot of people during intermission - not sure what they were expecting, but that wasn't it. B. Hopkins v. entertaining as E_____ (greek name) - apparently Liverpool accent = comedy. Poss. equivalent of Jersey (Joisey) or Am. South, but then what would be equivalent of Geordie/Newcastle? Anyway, B.H. absent from curtain call - appeared in Act 1, but only first couple minutes of Act 2, so presumably went home.
- Antony and Cleopatra - fabulous. D. D'Aquila continues to Do No Wrong. K very impressed by B. Hopkins, who gave excellent performance w/ almost no lines. W. Best did v. nice job w/ speech about perfume on riverboat, etc.
- No Exit - FUCKING AWESOME. This was the show I was here to see, and it didn't disappoint. S. Ouimette DNW. C. Jullien v. good -- yay! C. Reid superb. Superb. Practically stole the show. (Impossible to completely steal shows from S. Ouimette, otherwise would likely have done so.)
- Pericles, Prince of Tyre - excellent. First act sort of trippy, but second act v. good. J. Goad in aged-grieving-Pericles makeup & hair looked alarmingly like L. Neeson in Episode 1.
- A Midsummer Night's Dream - we are now in the Jonathan Goad years, is what we're in. He was Pericles in 2003 and both Theseus and Oberon here. I see from the program that there was a lot of color accomplished with gels on the lights, which, okay; leaves and feathers and beads and things in the fairy costumes - they were going for a sort of jungle thing - and, you know, okay. I don't remember that so much. I remember that the mechanicals were a bit much, as is often the case, and the Athenians were unusually good. Also, a moment during the play where a cell phone went off, and just as the audience was looking around for whom to glare at, Demetrius goes omg and pulls out his phone and struggles to turn it off, while Nick Bottom looks absolute daggers at him. A nice bit.
- Noises Off - a thing about this play is that for two of the three acts it's the funniest thing you've ever seen, and then in the third act it kind of all falls apart, doesn't it? It's better in the movie, where the play within a play finally comes together, instead of the way it is in the play, where it (the play within a play) is just a complete disaster. That's what happened here. They did it well, but it's only two-thirds of it that's worth doing.
- King John - I would have bet money that I'd never seen this play. And I'd have lost! That's what C should have disagreed with me about. Now that I see the program, though - hurrah for documentary evidence! - it's coming back to me. Stephen Ouimette as King John, and of course he was very good. I seem to remember three women being very good as well. Intrigue and vile doings, that sort of thing. The sort of play you go see when you have a chance, because how often do such chances come - I should have written up the 2004 trip at the time, clearly, because now the next time I get a chance to see King John I'll have to go see it again. :-)
- A Midsummer Night's Dream - Fine, solid, B-plus production. The black leather and spike heels were, well, a choice a person makes when it's Dream for the nine millionth time and you have to think of something. Best Nick Bottom I've seen. An absurd curtain call; line-dancing? But fun nevertheless.
- Phèdre - I give the performances an A and the script a B-minus. That Racine does go on, doesn't he. And this is a translation that preserves a lot of the French interpretation of the classical language, okay, so lots of epithets, no problem; but it also preserves a certain amount of the French language style, so there were places where I thought, huh, I'd have had that sentence with all those words in it but in a different order; and then there were a fair number of times when a sort of modern English turn of phrase crept in and was really jarring.
- Julius Caesar - A-minus. Best Brutus I've seen, and I've seen some good ones.
- Bartholomew Fair - Very silly. Good fun. I'd had some wine with dinner, which seemed to be exactly the way to see this play. :-)
- Cyrano de Bergerac - A+++ would see again. The translation kept a lot of the original French, which I suppose would have been tiresome to audience members who didn't understand French. Sure enough, I wanted to smack Roxane and Cyrano upside the head, but I loved them anyway. Ragueneau the baker broke my heart, which surprised me, as I tend to forget that character is even there. Colm Feore as Cyrano got a standing ovation I haven't seen equalled in enthusiasm and unanimity since William Hutt played King Lear. I was totally right to plan the weekend so this play was last. :-)
posted by mkf @ 00:36
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