This 51st season of Canada’s Stratford Festival is dedicated
to the recently deceased great international designer Tanya Moiseiwitsch. She
set the Festival’s incomparable design standards for many years, and invented
Stratford’s much-imitated combination Elizabethan/ancient Greek/modern thrust
stage. I don’t know what the outspoken Ms. Moiseiwitsch would say about the
peculiar mishmash of spectacles in Stratford’s opening week, but I wish she had
designed them. Certainly, The Shrew would have been less silly.
           Modern
sensibilities cringe at the plot of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew: A husband brainwashes his shrewish bride
by starving her, terrorizing and confusing her, permitting her no sleep, and
demeaning her in every way. It’s not a favorite of most feminists.
           But Miles
Potter directs his wife, the vibrant Seana McKenna, to remain sharpwitted
throughout and “tamed” by her own clear decision to accept
Petruchio’s crude taming devices. She seems to be restraining a genuine
attraction to him, and to welcome his offer of freedom from the family
constraints that clearly infuriate her. Some of the “taming” dialogue
is cut.
           And
handsome Graham Abbey’s empathetic Petruchio meekly takes his lumps from her
without fighting back, just doggedly insisting that she must marry him. The two
play the impossible final scene with such shared emotion that Katherina’s
groveling “I am ashamed that women are so simple” speech is almost
acceptable.
           The pity of
Potter’s direction is that he’s got the difficult relationship between two
principals nearly perfect, then ruins all their fine work with a lame notion of
a Wild West setting. I’ve seen a delightful Shrew at Stratford set in the ’60s and three others that worked fairly well in modern
settings, but this ill-conceived mess panders to the lowest level of
entertainment without being amusing or entertaining.
           Some of
Patrick Clark’s designs are attractive, but several get jokey and inconsistent.
Fine actors get lost in messy imitations of ill-chosen stereotypes. Wayne Best
plays Petruchio’s “sidekick.” He’s got up to look like Roy Rogers’ old sidekick
Gabby Hayes, but is clearly too young for the whiskers and tongue lolling. Like
several others, his ludicrous attempts at an accent simply ensure that we’ll
never know what dialogue Shakespeare gave these characters.
           Deborah Hay
is often unclear, playing Bianca as Minnie Mouse. Her shrill squeaks would
scare me off faster than the shrew’s abuse. Jonathan Goad’s “Mexican”
accent has many variations, waxing and waning, but is mostly garbled and very
irritating. So is Brad Rudy as Gremio, Bianca’s older suitor. And most of the
singing and dancing is embarrassing.
There’s nothing wrong with Stratford’s revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I.Musical Director Berthold Carriere
brings the luscious score to rich, splendorous life. Deborah Hanson’s showy
sets include some monstrous pieces all in dazzling gold. Add all known bright
colors and Roger Kirk’s splendid costumes, beautifully lit by Kevin Fraser, and
the resulting celebratory production looks expensive and pretty, if a bit gaudy.
Helen Yu plays the Crown Prince’s mother, Lady Thiang, with some authority. And
her operatic mezzo-soprano gives the lovely song, “Something
Wonderful” a luster I wish were achieved by other singers in the cast.
           Still, Lucy
Peacock as Anna, Victor Talmadge as the King, Charles Azulay as Lun Tha, and
others sing well enough to present the songs effectively. Ann Marie Ramos
produces notes as Tuptim, but conveys no meaning in her songs. She needs
work on acting. Peacock is charming and very pretty as Anna. Talmadge is mostly
commanding and whimsical as the King, but occasionally loses concentration and
energy. Their big scenes together play well. And I’ve never understood the
comments about a sexual tension between Anna and the King anyway. I’ve never
noticed any, and don’t think there should be any.
           Susan H.
Schulman keeps the action lively and bright, and Michael Lichtefeld
choreographs smartly when not reproducing Jerome Robbins’ original choreography
in famed set pieces like “The Small House of Uncle Thomas.” I miss
Brian Macdonald’s genius for making Stratford’s actors really look like
dancers, though. The ending is sad, but this is generally a feel-good musical,
and likely to be a great hit at Stratford.
Martha Henry directs a fairly sound Antony and Cleopatra, but
I found Allan Wilbee’s designs rather drab. The metal structure that serves as
the basic stage set has no particular symbolic or imagistic resonance; it’s
just a big triangle with steps at its base. A few big pieces are brought in to
give us oars for ships and weapons; and the Roman scenes work clearly enough.
Some of the fancy togas look very rich. But this is bargain basement Egyptian
luxury with a queen whose entourage is worth looking at only for an occasional
big, golden fan.
           Peter
Donaldson is such a tragic old Antony that it’s hard to imagine his past heroic
image. But he plays with affecting passion. Diane D’Aquila is a compelling
Cleopatra who believably persuades Antony to follow her advice and desires. But
she’s hardly an alluring femme fatale — more Lady Macbeth than Siren.
           I liked
several supporting players, especially Bernard Hopkins as the clever Egyptian
eunuch Mardian and Wayne Best as a harshly realistic Enobarbus. I don’t know
why Ms. Henry wanted to cast boyish, light-voiced Paul Dunn as Octavius Caesar
and then have him dressed in dignified silver robes with a silver wig. But
though he doesn’t quite work, he does create interest in what this peculiar
Caesar is saying.
           I’ve yet to
see an Antony and Cleopatra that I’ve
found powerful and moving. It’s an almost-remote tragedy with wordy climactic
speeches. So the death of Timothy Askew’s Eros — the boy who cannot bear to
kill his beloved master Antony as instructed and, instead, stabs himself
fatally — moved me more than Antony’s or Cleopatra’s death. I don’t think
it’s supposed to.
           Simpson reviews Stratford’s “Gigi,” “The
Hunchback of Notre Dame,” and “The Adventures of Pericles” in next week’s
issue.
Stratford Festival: Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew,at the
Festival Theatre to November 1; Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s The King and I, at the Festival Theatre
to November 9; Shakespeare’s Antony and
Cleopatra, at the Tom Patterson Theatre to September 27.
           Call
1-800-567-1600 for information, special events and tours, accommodations, and
tickets from $20.70 to $105.40 Canadian dollars (approximately $15.11 to $76.96
US dollars). orders@stratfordfestival.ca,
www.stratfordfestival.ca
This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2003.
