Shaw Festival’s 2004 season got off
to an early and rollicking start with three effervescent comedies. Two more
plays conclude the opening “week” at the end of May. Seven more productions
will follow and play into December.
These
first three set the bar high. First, Artistic Director Jackie Maxwell directs
G. B. Shaw’s classic Pygmalion in a knockout revival.
Returning to the original text and avoiding past adaptations of the film and
musical versions’ romantic, sentimental ending, Maxwell allows the play’s
battle of the sexes to reach Shaw’s intended equal stasis. An indomitable Eliza
wins Higgins’ admiration, comes to friendly terms with him, but walks out on
him to marry her adoring Freddie.
The
final confrontation between the two principals therefore crackles with wit and
contradictory ideas and does not seem a silly contest with a foregone
conclusion. Instead, it makes the delighted audience follow from one argument
to another, turning our heads back and forth like spectators at a tennis match.
Tara
Rosling is a charming Eliza, handling the transformations from crude flower
girl to elegant lady with verbal skill and generally persuasive physicality.
Her very feminine understatement nicely sets off Jim Mezon’s broad, stentorian
Professor Higgins, who seems less appealing. But he is both amusingly immature
in his tantrums and formidable in his assertions and criticisms.
Simon
Bradbury is genuinely funny as the fiercely independent-minded dustman, Alfred
Doolittle, playing him as a scrappy bantam eccentric whose every syllable is
impossible to ignore. Lorne Kennedy’s Colonel Pickering and Patricia Hamilton’s
Mrs. Higgins offer expectedly fine support. But though popular,
larger-than-life character-actress Nora McLellan unsurprisingly dominates her
scenes as the housekeeper Mrs. Pearce, she does so with a surprisingly
dignified, controlled delivery, strong and wonderfully judged.
Although
some characters speak Shaw’s stage directions aloud, Maxwell allows her
beautifully blocked, handsome production to work without imposed directorial
flourishes. Sue LePage’s beautiful, rich designs include intricately realistic
details in suggestive outlines. Marc Desormeaux’s sound designs are also
dramatically helpful while his original music is attractively atmospheric. And
I seem to always find Kevin Lamotte’s lighting a pleasure.
No
less sparkling is former Artistic Director Christopher Newton’s revival of
Oscar Wilde’s witfest, The Importance of Being Earnest.
With probably the wittiest dialogue of any play in English, Earnest is almost a wind-up toy, sure to
amuse once it gets started, if the lines are simply clearly delivered. On the
other hand, it is so artificial, stylized, and — perilously — familiar that
it requires a brilliantly polished ensemble production in matched unison style.
You
can relax and just enjoy this production. Newton’s staging, timing, and comic
inventions are impeccable, and his great-looking cast — while not setting any
new standards — is a pleasure. Judith Bowden’s stylized designs are smart
looking and provide splendid acting areas and sometimes funny costumes. Little
roles are burnished with overqualified casting, like masterful Robert Benson as
Lane, Algernon’s butler.
David
Leyshon is typically handsome, languid, and entirely self-absorbed as the
popinjay Algernon. Evan Buliung is more natural, masculine, and hearty than the
typical Jack Worthing, and perhaps therefore more unexpectedly funny.
Similarly, Diana Donnelly seems unusually mature, sensual, and glamorous as
Jack’s innocent 18 year-old ward, “Little Cecily,” so her decidedly coltish
young girl wins chuckles.
And
Brigitte Robinson seems an oddly girlish old governess for Cecily, which
brightens her giggle-making flirtation with Bernard Behrens’ pricelessly fussy
old Reverend Chasuble. Fiona Byrne’s Gwendolen is a beautiful, perfectly
calibrated portrait of an impossibly spoiled belle.
This
comedy is often dominated by Gwendolen’s mother, Lady Bracknell. Usually played
as a harridan, “a monster without being a myth,” as Jack complains, Bracknell
has some of the most dazzling put-downs in English. But though Goldie Semple
plays her as formidable, she is also prettier and more quietly ladylike than
any other Bracknell I’ve seen. This is a dragon with glamor, and thus funny,
but in an unsettling way. It’s pleasing to see a first-class Importance of Being Earnest that alters
expectations while satisfying them.
Don’t
worry about ideas or intellectual stimulation from Three Men on a Horse,
John Cecil Holm’s ridiculous comedy made into a classic silly crowd-pleaser by
the master of fast-moving Broadway comedies, George Abbott. It is mostly gags
built upon gags.
If
there is a worthwhile bit of physical schtick that has been omitted from this
production, director Jim Mezon would be sad to hear of it. But I doubt that
there’s anything much good that he hasn’t thrown in. Matching goofy sight gags
to the play’s outlandish plot and characters, Mezon offers constant physical
comedy without any point other than to amuse.
Even
the curtain and scene changes are funny. Cameron Porteous’s delicious designs
evoke Depression-era New York City, but are more specifically created for
clever comment and to facilitate the slapstick. Louise Guinand’s lighting is
also attuned to Mezon’s jokey staging. In fact, Al Kozlik delights the audience
in little supporting roles, not because he has anything much to say, but
because his pantomime gags are a hoot.
For
what it’s worth, the plot involves Erwin, a meek, put-upon writer of
greeting-card verses, whose wife buys clothes he can’t afford and fills his
days with whines and ruses. His brother-in-law bullies him. His boss works him
too hard, for lousy pay.
But
Erwin escapes into a fantasy game guessing which horses will win at the local
track. And he’s always right. Of course, he runs into manipulative thugs who do
nothing but bet on horses. They get him drunk and try to keep him as their
personal ticket to riches. So his wife, boss, and even brother-in-law miss him,
and the plot gets no more inventive or surprising.
But
you’ll laugh throughout the play. Catherine McGregor as Erwin’s wife, Douglas
E. Hughes as his stupid brother-in-law, Peter Millard as the bartender, and
Anthony Bekenn as Erwin’s apoplectic boss are all very adept and amusing. Kevin
Bundy brings an old-fashioned nerdy comic star-turn to the hapless Erwin, as
well as some hilarious spasms when possessed by the creative poetic urge.
The
“three men” are Charlie, Frankie, and Patsy. Charlie is a Damon Runyon-type
lowlife who might aspire to be a gangster if he had the energy. Peter Hutt
fleshes him out to be a memorable laugh-getter. Frankie is a dense, young
errand boy, played with lanky, awkward likability by Jeff Lillico. And Patsy is
one of those “Little Caesar” types who somehow bosses everyone around like a
mean toy Manchester terrier intimidating big retrievers. Simon Bradbury runs
with the role, almost stealing the play.
Glynis
Ranney, unrecognizable in a blonde wig as Mabel, Patsy’s girlfriend, adopts a
squeaky, Adelaide from Guys and Dolls voice and performs a hysterically funny dance number, showing what she once did
in “The Follies.” In a play full of nothing but clowning, hers is the most
sidesplitting performance. Predictably, director Mezon doesn’t give up even at
the curtain calls, which are all jokes.
Shaw Festival,
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario: Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, at the Festival Theatre through November 27; Oscar
Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest,at the Royal George Theatre through
December 4; George Abbott and John Cecil Holm’s Three Men on a Horse,at
the Festival Theatrethrough
October 29. Tix: $20 to $77 Canadian
($14.41 to $55.48 US dollars). 800-511-7429,
www.shawfest.com.
This article appears in May 26 – Jun 1, 2004.
