Stratford. — It’s only fair to emphasize that the Stratford Festival’s world premiere of Bronte: The World Without is at least partially salvaged by three sterling performances.
So kudos are in order for the collective effort of Beryl Bain, Jessica B. Hill and Andrea Rankin in trying to draw us into the 19th Century world of the three Bronte sisters — Charlotte, Emily and Anne. …
STRATFORD, Ont. — It didn’t seem such a great idea 11 years ago when the Stratford Festival first put To Kill A Mockingbird on stage. Back then,Christopher Sergel’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s beloved 1960 novel seemed serviceable and little more — and the festival’s 2018 remounting gives no reason for altering that verdict.
The script’s Hallmark Playhouse efficiency scarcely justifies its presence in a playbill that should be driven by higher standards. As with many of the festival’s previous involvements with mediocre stage versions of popular novels, its necessity seems questionable. …
Perhaps it was novelist Henry James’ own frustrated playwriting ambitions that were jealously at play when he attended a peformance of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband more that 120 year ago and delivered an appalled verdict. The ever-fastidious James considered Wilde’s new stage piece “so helpless, so crude, so bad, so clumsy, so feeble, so vulgar” that he couldn’t imagine any audience enjoying it. …