A former editor said that we need to recognize that an arts
community is made up of individuals. Shipping Dock’s performances are making it
hard not to. Their current work is a beauty; but I’ll
remember it as a harrowing example of an artist’s overdoing the idea that the
show must go on.

All this bravery and heroism at Shipping Dock Theatre is
getting to sound like an unlikely play. Last production opened starring Fred
Nuernberg, who quickly took over superbly from an
actor who had sudden surgery. Now, in another work by the late Canadian
playwright Timothy Findley, you can see an actress taking over for one who
opened the production superbly minutes after having a heart attack.

On April 16, an almost full house
was privileged to see a very impressive opening performance of Findley’s Elizabeth Rex. Patricia Lewis gave a
memorably strong, moving portrayal of the difficult title role. (She and her
husband are close friends.) The cast and crew were partying exultingly in the
lobby after the play knowing of nothing wrong, but I was told that Patti wasn’t
feeling well. I was led backstage to find her looking pale and weak, from heat
exhaustion she thought; and I offered to drive her home to Geneseo, where we
both live. Sunday, her husband phoned to tell me that she was in the hospital.
She is now at home, recovering.

Starting this past weekend, Maureen Mines took over as Queen
Elizabeth. Mines played the Bear opening night, hidden in the wonderful big
costume from the original production at the Stratford Festival. I saw its
premiere there and bought the DVD of the televised version, because this is my
favorite Findley play.

Mines (who additionally has the task of handling Shipping
Dock’s press releases) has received very favorable reviews for her acting in
other plays, and I was not surprised to hear that she is also an asset to this
excellent version of Elizabeth Rex.

But the play is more about theater
itself than royalty. We know that Elizabeth I really did command Shakespeare’s
troupe to perform for her on the night before her favorite, Lord Essex, was
executed for treason. Shakespeare’s patron, Lord Southampton, was also
imprisoned in the Tower of London with Essex. This play has the actors gathered
after playing Shakespeare’s Much Ado
About Nothing in a barn where the Queen joins them, distressed and seeking
distraction.

You’ll note that the title means
“Elizabeth the King”; Elizabeth Regina would mean Queen Elizabeth. To serve as her antagonist, Findley invents Ned
Lowenscroft, a brilliant actor who plays adult women in Shakespeare’s company
and is dying of “the pox.” Resigned to dying before he can play Cleopatra,
which Shakespeare is writing with him in mind, Ned is unafraid to confront the
Queen. After baiting one another, they agree to a challenge: He will teach her
how to grieve like a woman, if she will show him how to die like a man.

A large cast fills in the drama,
but it centers on this duel. Patricia Lewis was mercurial, touching, regal,
vulnerable, and powerful as the distraught monarch. I hope to see Mines’ take
on the Queen. David Jason Kyle’s Ned is equally nuanced, alternately pathetic
and grand as the expressive actor obviously able to portray women without
artificiality or affectation. This unlikely duo carries the drama,
fascinatingly taking it to unexpected places.

Standouts among the many others
are Vicki Casarett as the old wardrobe lady, and Ken Klamm as Jack Edmond, the
virile Irish leading man. James Bligh is touching as the pretty young actor who
plays girls onstage and cares for Ned (in both senses of the phrase). Billy
DeMetsenaere is amusing as the elderly clown who started as a boy actor playing
girls. And S. Michael Smith is disconcertingly powerful as the crafty Lord
Robert Cecil. Handsome young Peter Cayer isn’t quite authoritative-seeming as
Will Shakespeare.

Since the opening night
performance went so well, I expect Elizabeth
Rex to be a great success for Shipping Dock. Kerry Young’s direction keeps
it constantly involving and exciting. P. Gibson Ralph, Kate Sweeney, and Leah
Maxwell’s sets, lighting, and costumes, respectively, make it one of this
theater’s best-looking productions. But my former editor is right: It is most
remarkable as an individual human-interest story.

Elizabeth Rex, by Timothy Findley, directed by Kerry Young, plays at
Shipping Dock Theatre in the Visual Studies Workshop building, 31 Prince
Street, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, through May 8.
Tickets $20 to $22; $12 students. 232-2250,
www.shippingdocktheatre.org

This article appears in Apr 27 – May 3, 2005.