the Company of Fools misses its mark in the park!!

the Company of Fools misses its mark in the park!!

 

Photo. Andrew Alexander. Kate McArthur, Mary Ellis.

Twelfth Night based on Shakespeare. A production of the Company of Fools directed by Bronwyn Steinberg.

No  need to  outline the plot here for this  pleasant evening in Strathcona Park played out on Brian Smith’s  colourful set  glowing with contemporary forms but perfectly adapted to this fantasy of overseas voyages, shipwrecks, disguises, impersonation,  and  shifting genders.  It prepares us  for a rollicking adventure in an imaginary land where strange puppets speak their mind or   pop out from behind the greenery with their funny screechy little voices.

Shakespeare’s great comic creations such as Sir Toby Belch, and Andrew Aguecheek,  and  Fabian transformed into a chattering little hairy  puppet, as well as the sly fun-loving Maria ( Olivia’s servant) played by Kate McArthur who  took on other  roles alongside a  cast of professional actors with much experience and magnificent costumes designed  by the very talented Vanessa Imeson. All  this   created  great expectations for an  excellent evening of fun.  .

However, apart from several moments that worked fairly well because the actors involved  projected  high  verbal and corporeal  energy ,  there is no doubt that the Company of Fools  has lost a lot of its  spirit this summer. Something happened   to give us the impression we were watching a student production  that could not always  attain  the traditional “Fools” mode of speech .  Such was the case with many  of these excellent actors whose performances  were almost neutralized by a lack of strong direction so that the  staging appeared to work  against the performers’ instincts.

We have seen how  theater companies  do change, especially if they are working on a specific   acting tradition or esthetic which was their trademark at the beginning.  Take The  Odyssey theatre  which began its summer life in Strathcona Park as a tightly trained team of actors inspired by the masked theatre of the Commedia dell’arte .  Their work has been  evolving over time and is now at a point where it is experimenting with various versions of masked theatre and rewritings of plays that are not necessarily suited to masked performances at all. Thus , much thought is given to the mixture of performance styles, to  the way the script suits the acting form (and sometimes they don’t fit perfectly)   and how best to interpret the essence of the play while allowing each actor to give vent to his or her own talents .   This kind of mixture needs a director like Andy Massingham  or even Al  Connors  and actors such as Katie Ryerson, Scott Florence, Margo MacDonald and many more who have  gone on to greater glory since their  Fools days  but who were trained  specifically to capture the style of the fools which did not come that easily.  Nowadays, such a  background is necessary to capture the  ins and outs of masked performance while being  able to take advantage of the talents of each actor to assure that  he/she never  misses  the bounding rhythms of  these corporeal  styles that flow through the spoken word  just  as  much as through the moving body,  sweeping  the spectators and participants  forward into moments of great delight.

Here such encounters were rare.  The actors seemed trapped in the text.  They did not try to create an interesting encounter between the words ,  the characters and the rhythms embedded in Shakespeare’s writing.  There were long moments of monotony, of  sliding over  the text as though it did  not  exist. In the past, that   was one of the great strengths of the company, the way it played with Shakespeare’s writing in a most sharp and witty way.   More use might have been made of the music with a better sound system  to bring out  more of the  atmosphere of a public fair, where certain characters  transformed  themselves into strange puppets and  suffering lovers without ever conveying any of the emotion  we hoped for;  a  mischievous Garret Quirk  slipped between aristocracy and  a debauched  and mumbling drunken noble  without making his transformations  strong enough;  Olivia( Kate Smith) had her moments as a  saucy Madonna  who eventually worked it all out as the cheeky Andrew Aguecheek ; then there was Viola  (Catherine Rainville) a rather bland lovesick  young lady disguised as a man, nothing more transpired!   The  encounters with all the characters portrayed by Kate McArthur shot out  great sparks that lit up the stage and drew us back to the  original Fools. When  she came on stage as Viola’s lost brother  Sebastian  or  as Maria (Olivia’s servant), the   energy soared  up to the trees, even when she barely moved .  Of course Shakespeare’s plot is wonderful and carries it all along, especially when he has  poor Malvolia  tortured  by Maria’s cruel joke.. Nevertheless the proof was there.    Malvolia ( the  exquisite Mary Ellis) emerged  a crushed creature who evaporated in her text because she  seemed  miscast.

If the Company of Fools is to find its past glory it will have to find artists who have  experience with masked theatre or at least corporeal theatre of all sorts so that a new concoction of performance styles might eventually  emerge.  It  just  doesn’t  happen by accident. It can’t just be willed by strong convictions.  It has to be sought out  and studied. Laurie Stevens trained her actors as did  Massingham and he experimented with various styles as well,  but he left Ottawa.  Such a shame for us.

Im convinced there are  still   artists/directors  – male and female,  who could certainly follow in the  footsteps of these founding people. .   Let’s see what happens next year.

Twelfth Night  directed by Bromwyn  Steinberg. Produced by a Company of Fools.  Check the timetable as the performances take place in parks across the city:

http://fools.ca/2018/03/30/twelfth-night-july-2nd-august-18th-2018/

see the schedule across the city   JULY 2 to August 18.

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