Category: Theatre in Canada

The Shaw Festival opens with an outstanding Saint Joan

The Shaw Festival opens with an outstanding Saint Joan

By |
Photo: David Cooper

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ont. — Critic Kenneth Tynan once observed that Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan was the first work to show the beginnings of the playwright’s senility.

Tynan reveled in this kind of attention-grabbing judgment. But on this occasion, it could also be seen as a diversionary tactic to quell the discomfort Tynan himself might well be feeling over the readiness of Shaw to take a serious look at matters spiritual in this play. And Tynan — like Shaw, a non-believer — ultimately did yield to its strange power. After hammering the play and dismissing Joan of Arc as “a divinely illuminated simpleton,” Tynan went on to confess that he was moved to tears by the conclusion of the performance he was reviewing. …

Read More Read More

The Shaw Festival ventures into Canadian history with 1837

The Shaw Festival ventures into Canadian history with 1837

By |
Photo: David Cooper

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ont. —  There’s a certain fascination in the experience of sitting in Niagara-on-the-Lake’s historic Court House and watching an adroit company of Shaw Festival actors relive events that actually happened in the vicinity 180 years ago.

But it was also intriguing to note the scowls on the faces of some board heavyweights the other afternoon when 1837: The Farmers Revolt landed firmly — even defiantly — on the Court House Theatre stage. This festival constitutes a curious anomaly in the theatrical world: The playwright who gave the festival its name was an unrepentant Socialist, yet its destiny rests in the hands of a board of impeccable Establishment credentials. …

Read More Read More

Me And My Girl: a winner for the Shaw Festival

Me And My Girl: a winner for the Shaw Festival

By |
Photo: David Cooper

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ont. — The Shaw Festival’s main stage was alive with joy and laughter the other night thanks to a sterling revival of an 80-year-old British musical that brought a capacity audience to its feet at the close and clamoring for more

Me And My Girl, which has to do with a chirpy Cockney lad who inherits a title, a place in the House of Lords, and a vast fortune, may seem no more like a piece of piffle at first glance. But it’s catnip for the Downton Abbey crowd. Furthermore, when done with the inventiveness and energy shown by the Shaw in this superb production, its high spirits prove infectious. …

Read More Read More

Actor Tom McCamus in the Shaw Festival’s Madness Of George lll

Actor Tom McCamus in the Shaw Festival’s Madness Of George lll

By |
Photo: David Cooper

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ont. — Rumors are afloat that the new regime at the Shaw Festival plans to move even further away from this illustrious theatre’s central mandate of honoring the plays of George Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries.

That could be a risky proposition — depriving the festival of its distinctiveness and uniqueness within the international theatre community. On the other hand, that hallowed mandate has evolved over the years and already shows more flexibility than anyone might have imagined at the time of the festival’s modest birth more than half a century ago. Furthermore, the debut playbill of its new artistic director, Tim Carroll, features seven items that do, in fact, fulfill the wider mandate reflected in more recent seasons. …

Read More Read More

1979: An amusing play, not a satire

1979: An amusing play, not a satire

By |

 

Photo by Andrew Alexander

The year is 1979 and the Canadian political scene is in upheaval. The Conservative government has just replaced Trudeau’s Liberals, and the new Prime Minister, Joe Clark, is trying to govern the country on the principles of honesty, truthfulness, and adherence to his high ideals. During his short period in the cabinet, he meets with much stronger adversaries than the opposition party – human greed and corrupt nature. While he stays true to himself and to Canadians, he, as a political misfit, ultimately looses the battle. …

Read More Read More

1979: A clear demonstration of the entertainment value of Canadian politics

1979: A clear demonstration of the entertainment value of Canadian politics

By |

1979 by Michael Healey GCTC/Shaw Festival co-production  Directed by Eric Coates

Principles are just part of the equation on the road to success in political life. Also pertinent are viable policies, cunning, surface charm and a willingness to change course, step away from principles, promises and even integrity to stay in power. (The old dictum of the Ins wanting to stay in and the Outs wanting to get in by almost any means has not changed much over the centuries.)

But, to Joe Clark, Canada’s 16th and youngest Prime Minister, principle and integrity were more important than power. Therefore, he remained in the PM’s chair for just nine months. …

Read More Read More

8: Production addresses pressing issues and fears of today

8: Production addresses pressing issues and fears of today

By |

Guest Critic: Yana Meerzon

Photo: David Ospina

On November 8, 2016, America elected its 45th President, Donald Trump, whose political forays, populist statements and neo-nationalist decrees, as well as Twitter type of communication, evoke the Russian poet –futurist Vladimir Mayakovsky’s manifesto “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste” (1917). By slapping  public taste, however, Mayakovsky aimed to change the role of arts in society, while Trump aims to change society itself. Trump’s aggressive and dangerous practices also bring into question  the role performing arts can play in resisting this type of political discourse and law-making.

Mani Soleymanlou, a Québécois artist of Iranian origin, and his company Orange Noyée, ask a similar question. With their new production 8 they inquire: what can theatre artists and intellectuals, socially and politically engaged individuals, do to resist the phantasmagoria of the Trump-lead era of history? What devices of political performance can make true social impact, in a  time when peoples’ political opinions and politics itself are formed over social media, through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram? …

Read More Read More

“…our own reality, like Kemeid’s text, remains ambiguous and undecided.” Aeneid at Stratford.

“…our own reality, like Kemeid’s text, remains ambiguous and undecided.” Aeneid at Stratford.

By |

First published in alt.theatre, September 13,  2016. http://alttheatre.ca/2016/09/13/yana-meerzon-reviews-the-aeneid-at-stratford-until-oct-4/

In today’s political, economic and social climate, with mass migration turning into a new norm, it is impossible not to think of Olivier Kemeid’s dramaturgy as farsighted and foretelling. The Quebecois playwright published L’Eneide, his dramatic adaptation of Virgil’s poem, in 2008 before the current migration crisis. Yet with its tenacious questioning of the potential impact of the presence of new immigrants on the rapidly changing western world, Kemeid’s adaption of Virgil’s The Aeneid becomes tremendously urgent. Through its poetic language, stylized movement and surrealist imagery, both Kemeid’s text and director Keira Loughran’s production speak of migration in historical and philosophical terms, aiming for a deeper understanding of the encounter between ordinary people (migrants) and nation-states.

…

Read More Read More

John Gabriel Borkman: two stellar acting performances highlight Stratford’s Ibsen revival

John Gabriel Borkman: two stellar acting performances highlight Stratford’s Ibsen revival

By |

review-borkman24rv3

Photo: David Hou

STRATFORD, Ont. —  Henrik Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman can be a tricky play to bring off.

We might assume that its main focus is the title character — a disgraced banker who has gone to prison for his misdeeds and later, in the confinement of his house, endlessly paces his upper-floor retreat while consoling himself with futile dreams of a return to public favour. But we assume wrong. Borkman’s plight may seem to be an attention-getting dramatic  situation — but not when it’s trumped by the powerhouse roles that  Ibsen has written for two women.

One is Borkman’s long-suffering wife, Gunhild, played with soured intensity by Lucy Peacock. The other is her formidable twin sister, Ella. She is Borkman’s ex-mistress, and she’s dying of a terminal illness. Yet, in Seana McKenna’s gripping performance, she is displaying her own steely fortitude and determination.

…

Read More Read More