Jamie Portman, Author at Capital Critics' Circle / Le cercle des critiques de la capitale

Stratford’s A Little Night Music Could Use More Restraint

By Jamie Portman | June 24, 2016

Photo: David Hou. Yanna McIntosh and Ben Carlson.

There’s an undeniable air of confidence in the Stratford Festival’s new production of A Little Night Music. It’s there in the sumptuous look of the show. It’s there in the assurance with which the performers meet the complex demands of Stephen Sondheim’s music and lyrics and in the sublime work of the orchestra under the baton of Franklin Brasz. And it’s there in the way the show is staged by Gary Griffin, a director who knows exactly what he wants.

But has Griffin really brought this fabled musical about mismatched relations and tangled passions to the right place, creatively and emotionally? That seems debatable, but the production now at the Avon Theatre nevertheless provides moments that do qualify for the memory books.

As always, Send In The Clowns is the song that everybody is waiting to hear. It’s very familiarity provides a comfort zone for theatre goers, especially those who are less than total cheerleaders when it comes Sondheim’s work. But how often does this song grasp us by the throat and force us to confront what Sondheim is really saying in those sad, rueful lyrics?

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Ottawa Fringe 2016: Best Picture is a Treat for Oscar Buffs

By Jamie Portman | June 20, 2016

 
Best Picture is a cheeky romp through more than 80 years of Academy
Award winners. The script emanates from the nimble brain of Kurt
Patrick who also shares the stage with the versatile Rachel Kent and
the hilarious Jon Paterson in zipping entertainingly through decades
of Oscar history in only 60 minutes.
A warning, however: this show will work best for film buffs, Without
some knowledge of the movies themselves, you'll miss a lot of the
witty allusions. But this show from Vancouver's RibbitRePublic is
smartly conceived: it knows that even the most savvy filmgoer is
likely to know nothing about such forgotten winners as Wings or
Cavalcade, yet it's still creative enough to find ways to get them
into the mix.
With Jeff Culbert directing, the  tone is one of witty irreverence —
but these people do have the good sense to show respect for
Schindler's List and they also tip-toe cautiously when it comes to
Gentlemen's Agreement. Some of the spoofing does fizzle, but in a show
like this there's always the promise of redemption seconds later —
that's how quickly it moves. So its pleasures are substantial, and
include hilarious send-ups of The Silence Of  The Lambs and The King's
Speech, a mischievous pairing of the Oscar-winning Going My Way with
the horrors of The Exorcist, and a caustically funny reminder that
Marlon Brando was frequently incomprehensible in his Oscar-winning
performance The Godfather.
 
(Best Picture: Studio Leonard-Beaulne to June 25)

Miss Bruce’s War is One of a Kind.

By Jamie Portman | June 20, 2016

 Miss Bruce's War is not your normal Fringe entertainment. It's a new
piece by 93-year-old Jean Duce Palmer and based on her own experience
of teaching in a one-room school in Alberta's Cypress Hills region
during the Second World War. It's also a student production that comes
to the Fringe from Ottawa's Elmwood School.
This is a memory play rather than a traditionally constructed drama.
It's only real conflict rests in what happens when a young and
inexperienced teacher is thrust into an alien culture and faces the
classroom challenge of dealing with German-Canadian youngsters in a
time of war. Yet it remains an affecting piece of theatre because of
the quiet integrity of the script, and the evocative power of the
playwright's memories, coupled with the responsive work of a group of
talented youngsters under the direction of Angela Boychuk.

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Ottawa Fringe 2016 : Fugee Is A Show That Deserves Attention

By Jamie Portman | June 20, 2016

British playwright Abi Morgan has always sought to strike a connection between the political and the personal — and her influences come from the left. She reveres the thorny lack of compromise shown over the years by a radical filmmaker like Ken Loach, and she makes no apologies about injecting unabashed polemic into her own work. But she is also so good at her craft that producers were ready to entrust her with the screenplay for The Iron Lady, a portrait of a major political figure, Margaret Thatcher, that she and her family hated.

Morgan is, in brief, a writer worthy of attention, and Ottawa’s Third Wall Academy deserves our warmest thanks for introducing Fringe audiences to Fugee, a lacerating account of how the system is failing refugee children. In her 2008 script, Morgan was zeroing in on the British situation, but with its sense of emotional horror and hopelessness, the play’s implications occupy a wider canvas.

The central character, Kojo, is a child from the Ivory Coast, an innocent whose once idyllic existence was brutally changed forever on his 11th birthday. When he first meet him, he has seemingly made it to safety and a new life. But he has no English and no passport, and his age is in question. Even within the security of a children’s refugee centre, the system is about to start tearing him apart — be it through latent prejudice, outright hostility, or bureaucratic indifference. And we keep being pulled back to the play’s first horrific image — of Kojo fatally knifing another youth on the street. And we keep asking why that tragedy happened.

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Naked Boys Singing Struts Its Stuff at Live On Elgin

By Jamie Portman | June 19, 2016

Naked Boys Singing Conceived by Robert Shrock , directed by Sean Toohey, musical Director: Gordon Johnston

Would you believe there’s even a moment of fugal joy in Naked Boys Singing?

It surfaces in an ensemble number with the title of Members Only — and yes, there’s no doubt about the subject matter. But as you listen to the performers moving nimbly through the contrapuntal intricacies of an amusing song, you’re again conscious of the wit and imagination that have gone into the preparation of this musical revue.

You’re also conscious of the affection. There’s no doubt of the primary audience for Naked Boys Singing, but this a show that seems ready to extend its embrace to anyone who goes to see it. And its long runs in major cities suggest that, in its own disarming, sweet-natured way, it is knocking down more than a few barriers.

There are ample displays of naked flesh on view at Live On Elgin. But there is no narcissism. These seven guys are definitely not aspiring to a Chippendales gig. There is a bit of philosophizing about nakedness being a window to the soul, but it’s leavened by moments of self-deprecation. Similar philosophies about nudity were expressed in Hair more than 40 years ago, but Naked Boys Singing seems blessedly immune from the self-referential nonsense of that grossly overpraised musical.

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Arthur Miller’s All My Sons Triumphs at Stratford

By Jamie Portman | June 16, 2016

Photo: David Hou.Lucy Peacock as Kate Keller and Joseph Ziegler as Joe Keller.

There was a time when Arthur Miller’s 1947 play, All My Sons, was undervalued, its reputation eclipsed by the
subsequent triumphs of Death Of A Salesman and The Crucible.

Perhaps today’s troubled times have contributed to its renewed stature. Or perhaps its simply benefiting from a more aware perception of what it’s really about. One strength of Martha Henry’s marvellous new production at the Stratford Festival rests in its subtle power in examining the often elusive nature of guilt. This sterling revival provides a textbook example of how to realize the dramatic potential of the familiar theme of the sins of the father being visited on future generations. But Henry and her cast are also going for something particularly unsettling here — the conundrum of the once decent human being who commits a terrible act.

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Stratford’s Self-Indulgent As You Like It is More Newfoundland Hoedown than Shakespeare

By Jamie Portman | June 14, 2016

 Photo  David Hou

  When Rosalind dons a pair of jeans to make like a
man, the Stratford Festival's costume department even ensures that the
 legs are fashionably provided with holes.
 
But that apparently isn't  enough, particularly if you want to
emphasize the ludicrousness of Rosalind's bogus masculinity rather
than the fact that she's one of the most divine creations in the
Shakespeare canon.
 
So in the Stratford Festival's new modernized take on As You Like it,
you also have Rosalind  fussing over the rolled-up sock she's stuffed
in the crotch of her jeans. Yes, it's that kind of show.

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Shakespeare In Love is Fun — But Should It Be Happening at Stratford?

By Jamie Portman | June 9, 2016

Photo: David Hou. Luke Humphrey (left) as Will Shakespeare and Stephen Ouimette as Henslowe

The first point to be made about the stage version of Shakespeare In Love is that will give a great deal of legitimate satisfaction to a great many theatregoers.

The second point is that any claim to its being a true Stratford Festival “production” seems dubious.

It may be a sound money-making move to include this shamelessly commercial stage adaption of the Oscar-winning movie in a festival season. It also may seem a little crass and opportunistic — especially given that this is a 400th anniversary year that should surely be taken seriously by an organization of Stratford’s international prestige.

At the same time, it would be unfair to dismiss Lee Hall’s stage adaptation of the original screenplay by Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman as some kind of hack job. Hall is a respected British dramatist, a former writer-in-residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company, with a solid output that includes the 2008 stage success, The Pitmen Painters, and the award-winning book for Billy Elliott: The Musical.

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Narnia Comes To Enchanting Life at Stratford

By Jamie Portman | June 5, 2016

Photo: David Hou .

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Inspired by the C.S.Lewis cycle of Narnia stories. Directed by Tim Carroll, Sets by Douglas Parashuk. Lighting by Kevin Fraser,Projections by Brad Peterson, Sound by Todd Charlton, Costumes by Dana Osburne and Puppetry by Alexis Milligan.

There is no high-tech exhibitionism in the Stratford
Festival’s new production of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe.
Lavish computerized effects, the kind that can dwarf  a story into
mush, have been banished from the stage of the Avon Theatre.

Director Tim Carroll is confident enough to believe that more
traditional stagecraft can engage a child’s attention and unleash a
young viewer’s powers of imagination. To be sure, modern theatrical
devices are employed — back projections and a seductive soundscape are important elements here.

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Stratford’s Chorus Line: Stunning Dancing in a Problematic Space

By Jamie Portman | June 4, 2016

Photo: David Hou

Stratford’s Chorus Line, Musical by Michael Bennett, directd and choregraphed

by Donna Feore. 
 
The opening moments are riveting. Some two dozen
raggle-taggle dancers are gearing up for a  key audition sequence,
some bubbling with lithe, high-stepping confidence, others nervous and
not quite ready. We’re being plunged into a moment of high drama: we
can sense the adrenalin and with it the self-assurance, some of it
excessive, but also the anxiety — the terrifying anxiety. The stakes,
we realize, are high. After all, these hopefuls are hoping to win a
place in a new Broadway musical. And some of them won’t make it
The run-through ends. A more decisive testing is imminent. The words —
“let’s take it from the top” — ring out through Stratford’s Festival
Theatre. High above the stage, composer Marvin Hamlisch’s brassy
fanfare sounds, courtesy of an unseen orchestra. And the explosion of
dance begins — an exuberant, brassy outburst of synchronized talent.
The first big test of any production of A Chorus Line is the way it
begins. And at the Stratford Festival it’s in the experienced and
capable hands of Donna Feore, a director and choreographer who holds
both the material and the people she’s working with in obvious
affection. So, as her production moves sleekly into action, the
excitement is palpable.

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