November: One of the season’s best productions!
Director John P.Kelly. Photo: David Pasho
Anyone who cares about about good theatre should keep an eye on what’s happening at the Gladstone, a venue with a growing track record for eclectic, adventurous programming and generally high production values. Unfortunately, it tends to be overshadowed by the more prominent presences of the National Arts Centre and GCTC — and this could be dangerous to the Gladstone’s long-term financial health. It’s a place that merits our support.
> All of which is a preamble to saying that this Gladstone Avenue venue is currently housing SevenThirty Productions’ outrageously funny take on David Mamet’s scathing political satire, November, and that it deserves to be playing to sell-out houses. It’s highlighted by Todd Duckworth’s hilarious performance as the dim-witted president of the United States — and if this bumbling narcissist reminds you of George W. Bush, it’s not likely that either Duckworth or director John P. Kelly will quarrel with you.
> Mamet’s play unashamedly embraces cartoonry and blunt-edged caricature in the course of his zany account of one chaotic day in an Oval Office neatly re-imagined for the Gladstone stage by set designer David Magladry. It’s a day which sees the foul-mouthed and self-absorbed President Charles Smith working himself into a lather over the probability of being ousted from office by the electorate. He’s further obsessed over the probability of not having the money to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors by setting up a presidential library in his name. Smith revealingly keeps mispronouncing this institution of his dreams, referring to it as his “libary” — and that’s scarcely surprising given that this whining cretin doesn’t appear to have ever read a book in his life.