Find entertainment in singing and clowning

Yes, it’s our leading classical
theater company, but the openings at Stratford Festival also include lighter
fare: two major musicals, an updated Shakespeare comedy, and a silly sex farce.

          Michael
Stewart & Jerry Herman’s Hello Dolly stars Lucy Peacock and
Peter Donaldson, last year’s Lady Macbeth and Timon of Athens, in a brassy
comic musical. Peacock’s small voice is barely adequate, but she brings glamour
and charm to matchmaker Dolly Levi. Dolly’s interfering manipulations actually
become appealing behavior, and Peacock delivers Dolly’s delicious addresses to
her late husband affectingly.

          Donaldson’s
bossy, penny-pinching merchant Horace Vandergelder is so well sung and invested
with wry comic personality that what can be a stereotype emerges as a genuine
character who finally makes the whole happy ending work.

          Unlike
their previous Stratford successes, director Susan H. Schulman’s and
choreographer Michael Lichtefeld’s work is disappointing. Schulman directs on
autopilot, giving several attractive performers little else to do but play the
characters’ obvious outlines. Laird Mackintosh, who demonstrated charisma and a
gorgeous voice in three previous Stratford musicals, unaccountably plays the
comic-romantic lead Cornelius Hackl mechanically, like a robotic chorus boy.
The waiters all do split-leaps and turns showily, but Lichtefeld’s cliche
choreography is without character or dramatic purpose.

          Patrick
Clark’s designs are bright and colorful; Kevin Fraser’s lighting lends drama
where the direction doesn’t; and Berthold Carriere’s musical direction makes
the music sound better than it is. The cast of versatile actors performs very
well indeed. It’s a fun show, but not one of Stratford’s best.

          I’ve
a reversed reaction to Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods at
Stratford. I understand the show’s appeal but don’t much like it, especially
Act 2, which I think tiresome. But those who love this musical will be amazed
at how originally director Peter Hinton and designer Dany Lyne have reconceived
it visually and how engagingly the cast presents it. I admit I got caught up in
it much of the time.

          Peter
Donaldson is authoritative as the Narrator and Mysterious Man. Dayna Tekatch is
a nervously animated Cinderella, Kyle Blair is a fairly frantic Jack (of
beanstalk fame), and Bruce Dow (unnoticeable as Stanley in Dolly) steals his scenes as the Baker. Here they all show up as
memorable characters who move well and sing wonderfully. So do virtually all
the cast, most notably Susan Gilmour as the Witch, Amy Walsh as Rapunzel, and
Thom Allison as both Cinderella’s Prince and Red Ridinghood’s Wolf.

          Lyne’s
bizarre decor includes huge blood-red and black leaves overhead, one tall red
leaf-shaped thing, and a white gown for Rapunzel whose skirt of maybe 14 feet
is her tower, which the witch — who looks like a griffin made of green, red,
and gold vegetables — climbs up, holding onto Rapunzel’s blonde hair (I’d say
18 to 20 feet long). Grungy realism it’s not, but it keeps you watching. Robert
Thomson’s lighting is stunning. Berthold Carriere’s musical direction is ideal,
as always.

          Antoni
Cimolino’s revival of Shakespeare’s As You Like It is practically a
musical. The comedy is full of songs, and Cimolino had the inspired idea to ask
Canadian superstars Barenaked Ladies to compose and arrange music for them.
Cimolino matches the Ladies’ folksy musical style with designs set in 1960s
style for the rebellious outcasts in the Forest of Arden.

          Since
the funky, free-flowing costumes, clear plastic umbrellas overhead for the
forest, and plastic ladders serving as trees and as palace furniture are all
created by Santo Loquasto, a master of gorgeous designs, their simplicity and
lack of showy opulence must be intentional. But I miss elegant show-off
trappings for the finale’s weddings. The comedy ends with multiple weddings
because it is all about coupling, love, and sexual role-playing.

          Rosalind,
originally played by a boy in Shakespeare’s theater, is a girl who pretends to
be a boy pretending to be a girl; and the actor has to display all those
changing levels of role-playing. Unfortunately, this beautifully wrought
production has a far too little-girlish Rosalind, whose shrieks, squeals, and
chirps have nothing to do with the poetic music of her dialogue. Otherwise, the
comedy is a well-cast treat of accomplished actors performing with great skill
and appeal.

          Noel
Coward’s Fallen Angels is directed by Brian Bedford, a master actor,
director, and friend of Coward’s and an authority on Coward’s style. It is
designed by Susan Benson and lit by Michael J. Whitfield; they are perhaps my
favorite set and costume designer and lighting designer at Stratford. And its
cast includes Seanna McKenna, Keith Dinicol, Joyce Campion, and Lucy Peacock,
all familiar stars at Stratford. So I thought I knew what to expect: a very
sophisticated comedy of manners played with suave comic stylishness in a
great-looking production.

          Well,
it’s a really silly play, thin and without substance. Two overprivileged
English wives hear that a Frenchman they each had a fling with before marrying
is coming to visit. They fantasize about dallying with him, get hopelessly
drunk, embarrass each other and their husbands, and wind up laughing about it
all when their debonair friend finally shows up. That’s it. Benson’s set is a knockout, but the women’s outfits
start out coquettishly overdone and get comically disordered.

          Joyce
Campion is hilarious as the far-too-knowing maid. Keith Dinicol and David Kirby
play the husbands with polished restraint, and Maurice Duclos is offbeat and
funny as the overly charming French former suitor. But Seanna McKenna and Lucy
Peacock ham it up in their drunk scene and even later, building in exaggerated
comedy to show just how far over the top an expert comic actress can go without
losing control, perfect timing, or glamour.

          You won’t be awestruck by the wit or
stylishness. But Fallen Angels is
very funny and an unchallenging good time in the theater.

You should go if

you’re looking for the
lighter side of a theater festival of “great playwrights” — comedy, musicals,
clowning, and farce.

Stratford
Festival of Canada, Stratford, Ontario: Hello Dolly,
at the Festival Theatre to November 6; Into
the Woods, at the Avon Theatre to October 30; As You Like It, at the Festival Theatre to October 30; Fallen Angels at the Avon Theatreto October 29. $23.65 to $114.39
($18.85 to $91.16 US dollars). “Play On” tickets
(aged under 30) $20 Canadian ($15.94 US dollars). 800-567-1600,
www.stratfordfestival.ca

Memorial
note

Those
us who knew Tom Patterson will miss him. A kind, modest man, he alone imagined
and then planned, worked, and fought to create the Stratford Festival. Tom died
at 84 in Toronto on February 24. Stratford has the theater and an island named
for him, but Tom’s monument is beyond most men’s dreams, the finest theater
center in this hemisphere.

This article appears in Jun 22-28, 2005.