Calme Fiore as King Lear. Photo: David Hou.

STRATFORD, Ont. — It’s one of the most horrendous scenes in dramatic literature — perhaps the most appalling Shakespeare ever wrote.

So if you know King Lear, you know you have to brace yourself for the sequence where those who have become his adversaries blind the Earl of Gloucester.

The Stratford Festival’s new production is merciless when the moment arrives. As the horror proceeds, it’s as though the participants are seized by an uncontrollable frenzy. There’s a whimpering Scott Wentworth as the wounded Gloucester who, having already lost one eye, is crawling pathetically away from his tormenters. And there’s the excellent Mike Shara, a demonically driven Duke of Cornwall, pouncing on him to complete the job.   Meanwhile, looking on, we have Liisa Repo-Martell’s Regan whose fascinated revulsion seems fixed in amber.

In Antoni Cimolino’s production, the scene has an emotional intimacy that makes what’s happening all the more unsettling. These are people who have known each other in better, more settled lives. But a vicious canker has taken over their world. What unleashed its poison?
The answer, of course, is found at the very beginning of the play when Colm Feore’s aging Lear totters onto the Festival Theatre stage and proceeds to open the gates of hell with his cockeyed plan to portion his kingdom among daughters Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. Gaunt, wispy-bearded, voice sometimes quavering, his body language at times uncertain, this Lear may seem a relic, but his vanity and sense of entitlement still burn within him, even though even his aura of decisiveness soon reveals itself as an old man’s terrible foolishness.

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PHoto. David Hou

STRATFORD — There’s no denying that Tom McCamus is delivering a fascinating portrayal of “something” at the Stratford Festival this summer.
Yet, it’s easy to be left with the feeling that it makes little sense, that this seasoned actor is resorting to a mere grab bag of emotions and mannerisms. But yet again, perhaps that’s all to the good.
After all McCamus is playing King John — or rather doing riffs on Shakespeare’s take on one of the more dubious monarchs to rule England. So if John emerges as something of a mess in McCamus’s interpretation, so be it. That’s one way of salvaging a character that often seems to lack definition in Shakespeare’s actual text.

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Kate Besworth as Raine Petkoff. Photo by  Emily Cooper

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ont. —The Shaw Festival’s latest production of Arms And The Man is definitely pint-sized — a shorter version with at least 30 minutes of its normal running time chopped out.

Purists, who relish the play’s philosophical musings about the absurdities of militarism and the follies of romantic illusion, may well take offence at being short-changed in this way — seeing the 2014 season’s opening show less as an act of streamlining than as an act of dumbing-down: in other words, let’s just laugh and enjoy the liveliness of character and situation — but for heaven’s sake, let’s not be forced to think too hard about what’s really on playwright Bernard Shaw’s mind.

But let’s keep things in perspective. The Shaw Festival may be the only organization in the world dedicated to the theatre of Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries, but it’s never been the kind of sacred shrine that treats the master’s works like holy writ. There’s also an important place at Niagara for exploration and experimentation — witness the audacity with which it has revisited Saint Joan over the years — and that’s one of the happiest aspects of the festival’s mandate.

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Photo. Cylla Von Tiedemann

STRATFORD — You find yourself worrying about the Stratford Festival’s bungled revival of Noel Coward’s Hay Fever even before the performance begins.

‘That’s because a glance at the printed program notes reveals that director Alisa Palmer, a Shaw Festival veteran who really ought to know better, has decided to impose some kind of trendy feminist agenda on Coward’s 1925 comedy. Hence, among other things, Hay Fever actually deals with a mother-daughter power struggle: Coward’s memorable creation, veteran actress Judith Bliss, is suffering a mid-life identity crisis, while daughter Sorel is merely doing what a young woman must do, which is to break free of her family and become independent.

Or so Palmer claims.

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Kevin Hanchard as Martin Luther King.  Photo: David Cooper

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ont. — We’re in a run-down motel room in Memphis. It’s the night of April 3, 1968, and we’re watching Martin Luther King, a few hours after he has delivered his “we’ve been to the mountaintop” speech and has reaffirmed his vision of the promised land.

It’s also a few hours before he will be assassinated on the motel balcony.

The Shaw Festival’s tiny Studio Theatre provides the venue for its gripping production of Katori Hall’s award-winning play, The Mountaintop, and it helps contribute to a sense of claustrophobia and containment. There’s a startling moment when King, beautifully portrayed by Kevin Hanchard, attempts to leave the room — but when he throws open the door, he finds his way blocked by a monstrous snowdrift. Are we getting a dose here of the magic realism that encircles Hall’s brilliant re-imagining of the events leading up to a real-life tragedy? Perhaps. On the other hand, as Alana Hibbert’s cheerfully resilient chambermaid reminds King, Tennessee is prone to snowfalls, even in April.

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