Distinguished
alumni continue to return to the Stratford Festival to make its 50th
anniversary season stellar indeed.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Alumnus Brent Carver, a Tony
Award-winner for Kiss of the Spider Woman,
returns to Stratford in the world premiere of Timothy Findley’s play, Shadows. Findley, an actor in the first
1953 company at Stratford, later became a well-known author and contributed
such splendid plays to Stratford’s repertory as The Stillborn Lover (1995) and Elizabeth
Rex (2000); tragically, he died on June 20.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Christopher Plummer, perhaps
Stratford’s most famous alumnus with more than 100 films and multiple Tony and
Emmy Awards to his credit, returns in his first King Lear at Stratford.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย And taking over from Colm Feore as
Higgins in My Fair Lady,Geraint Wyn Davies was greeted by a
contingent from the international fan clubs he has won with television stardom
in shows like “Forever Knight.”
Triumphant as Stratford Artistic
Director Richard Monette’s My Fair Ladyhas been from the first, it is now warmer, richer, and even more
crowd-pleasing with Wyn Davies’ sparkling performance as Professor Higgins and
his romantic interaction with Cynthia Dale’s exquisite Eliza Doolittle. It was
therefore a great pleasure to see the show again.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย I haven’t seen Wyn Davies since his
dashing Henry V at Stratford in 1989.
He remains handsome and charismatic, and his potent vocal technique gets a
workout and showcase in Do Not Go Gentle,
a play about fellow Welshman, poet Dylan Thomas, written by fellow Stratford
acting alumnus Leon Pownall.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Unfortunately, Davis was able to
squeeze only three evenings of this play into the current season. But I’m told
that he has traveled widely, performing it in various cities, so it’s certainly
worth looking for any of his performances you might catch. And you can see him
in My Fair Lady through September 14,
after which director Richard Monette, no less, takes the role until November
24.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย The two new Canadian plays added
last weekend are Celia McBride’s Walk
Right Up and the aforementioned Shadows.
Walk Right Up introduces us to a family
which is working hard to move up to dysfunctional. Millar Ruskin, the
demanding, wheelchair-bound father (played by Paul Soles) has evidently had a
stroke, talks out of the side of his rigid mouth, and can’t walk. His wife Lily
(Elizabeth Shepherd) is insufferably controlling but also seems to be suffering
occasional Alzheimer’s-like total losses of control.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Their
caregiver daughter, Poet (nicknamed — properly — “Pill”), is leaving to
take an acting job. Kimwun Perehinec plays Poet/Pill perhaps too accurately.
Their other daughter, a designer named Ella (Brenda Robins), is scheduled to
take over their care but tries to pay her brother, a dope-addicted loser named
Brilliant, to replace her as caretaker. Brilliant, played by young
actor/playwright Damien Atkins, is pitiable but likable. I found all the other
characters to be much in need of bashing with a two by four, but the actors did
all they could to make them sympathetic.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย
Shadowsis
much more polished and complex, but it eventually drowns in its own cleverness.
A first-rate cast — Carver and Perehinec, Stephen Ouimette, Gordon Rand,
Chick Reid, Brenda Robins, and Karen Robinson — play out a series of
derivative “truth games” at a dinner party mostly attended by theater types.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Then we
find out that they aren’t playing for real, but are all would-be playwrights
pretending and dredging up a whole lot of well-known lines and moments from
other plays as examples of stories they’ve invented. Then they say that these
inventions are their true lives. There are self-conscious references to good
plays, but … aren’t you already getting tired of reading this account of the
thing?
Director Jonathan Miller has a tendency to
reinterpret classics, usually in the opposite direction from their creators’
intentions — like his willfully static and unfunny The Taming of the Shrew seen as a study of Puritanism in
Elizabethan England. He’s got some political ideas in his King Lear, but
fortunately plays it fairly straight and spares us a funny, relaxed version.
Nonetheless, with the exception of Barry MacGregor’s mincing, unintelligible
Cockney Fool, the play’s emotions do seem to be understated.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย You can get a knockout illustration
of versatility in repertory playing by seeing James Blendick’s romp through the
role of Doolittle in My Fair Lady and
then his dignified, tragic Gloucester in this Lear. But somehow, even with Gloucester’s faithful son Edgar and
treacherous bastard son Edmund played rather lumpishly by Evan Buliung and
Maurice Godin, respectively, I’d expect Blendick to be more moving in the role.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Even Christopher Plummer’s
passionate Lear isn’t especially affecting. True, the key to the King’s
emotional play in this drama is his relationship with his daughter Cordelia,
and Sarah McVie is not only emotionally inadequate as Cordelia; she’s not yet learned
to make her character even interesting.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Benedict
Campbell’s well-spoken Kent and Stephen Russell’s commanding, hot-tempered
Cornwall are effective. Brian Tree makes the slimy Oswald more memorable than
larger roles. And both Domini Blythe as Goneril and Lucy Peacock as Regan play
Lear’s daughters as grasping, scary, and evil, yet maintain a queenly
femininity.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย But it is
Lear who must justify this often rambling and mechanical tragedy as a
compelling portrait of manly and kingly power in decline. Plummer certainly has
the King’s requisite stature, the vocal power in his anger and rants, the
gorgeously expressive face — a picture of haggard frustration and despair,
and a suppliant posture that can alternate with flashing rage, his aristocratic
head held high. But Lear’s defiant howls against the storm, his fury and his
despair seem too controlled and almost pulled back. With Plummer’s talent and
physical gifts, I want more from him and suspect that later audiences will get
more.
Stratford
Festival: Alan J. Lerner & Frederick Loewe’s My Fair Lady at the Festival Theatreto November 24; Celia McBride’s Walk Right Up and Timothy Findley’s Shadows at the Studio Theatre to Sept. 15; Shakespeare’s King Lear at the Festival Theatre to
November 3. www.stratfordfestival.ca 1-800-567-1600.
This article appears in Sep 4-10, 2002.
