CurtainUp
The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features,
Annotated Listings
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CurtainUp The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features,
Annotated Listings |
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A CurtainUp Feature
The Stratford Festival 2016
Don't cry for me when I say I was only able to see eight of the thirteen productions that are and/or will be appearing on the stages of the Festival's four main theatres during the season that begins each year in May and continues into early November. The first thing you need to know is that the plays of Shakespeare make up only four of the total productions this season, excluding the North American premiere of Shakespeare in Love a dramatization based on the award-winning 1998 film. Using as its theme for this season After the Victory, all the productions have been picked to consider the triumph of the spirit over defeat be it in war or in personal terms. Audiences with a thirst for more than simply seeing the play may also attend morning Forums in which writers, directors and performers come together to dissect and discuss the productions. Since the establishment of the Festival in 1953, Stratford has remained visitor-welcoming and friendly with its Avon River coursing lazily through the town. Visitors have no difficulty finding excellent shopping and fine restaurants. Also home to the largest resident swan population on the continent, you are almost obliged to scatter handfuls of corn kernels to them as they rest and meander along the river's bank. I would need another article to list all the superb restaurants that made this visit extraordinary. However, I can give a shout-out to the Forest Motel & Woodland Retreat for the gracious hospitality and splendid accommodations I was afforded. I hope the short reviews below will help give you taste of the shows that I saw. As most of the extraordinarily talented resident performers appear in two more of the shows, I have decided to not single anyone out. As You Like It - One of Shakespeare's more convoluted comedies, its many romantic trysts and tribulations have been staged to pay an amusing homage to Newfoundland in 1980. With local references and inside jokes aside, the play has been staged with a spirited zest that will certainly appeal to family audiences, especially those with young children. Various props have been filled into large bags that are picked up at the top of the aisle by each ticket holder, each item to be taken out and used as directed during the performance. Up to 16 children may also sign up to dance on stage (to include a one-hour pre-show rehearsal) during the finale featuring a Newfoundland set dance "Running the Goat. Great fun if you give in, as I did, to child-dom. A Chorus Line -This classic American musical has been defining the heartbeat and the heartache of a dancer's life for over forty years. Despite its indigenously Broadway roots and its slightly dated perspective, this show has a universality and an emotional core of personal stories that audiences continue to embrace. This superbly danced production at the 1800 seat Festival Theatre is the first ever to be staged on a thrust stage. Yes, concessions are made by director/choreographer Donna Feore with regard to originator Michael Bennett's linear vision but the result is a triumph. Purists may nit-pick, but I savored every moment. A Little Night Music - This is certainly the most stunning and also provocative production of Stephen Sondheim's musical I have seen since the original. Aside from the breathtaking costumes, fine acting and rapturous singing, especially from the wittily assigned a cappella quintet, the romantic story (based on the film Smiles of a Summer Night ) has been cleverly enriched with purposefully color-blind casting. This adds a surprisingly credible dimension to the delightful dalliances of its amorous characters. Shakespeare in Love - This is the London production that is also headed for Broadway although it has been brilliantly cast with the resident company. Lee Halls adaptation of the screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard is crammed with funny lines and outrageous situations that Bardologists will recognize as having finally ending up somewhere in his future plays. And what better theatre than the lovely Avon Theatre to see this witty and farcical consideration of the budding playwright as he butts heads with the comical actors, agents, and producers, all the while wending his way through a series of romantic misadventures. The standing ovation for the performers and the production was warranted. I can't wait to see it again on Broadway. Macbeth - The dark and dense atmospherics are as much the backbone as are the bristling sex and bloody mayhem in the fore in this famously bludgeoning murder-will-out Scottish play. Your eyes will quickly become accustomed to the torch-lit craggy terrain that serves as background for the scary prognostications of the weird sisters as well as for the lustful embraces of the tortured Thane and his scheming Lady. As far as one can imagine from a roamin' in the gloamin', this most eerie of Shakespeare's plays is acted with a visceral passion that is barely contained within its spectacularly supernatural frame. Breath of Kings - These are the conjoined but concisely edited history plays comprising Richard II and Henry IV Part I that are seen in two three-hour productions. Performed at the lakeside Tom Patterson Theatre, both productions were thrilling in their breath and scope beyond my expectations and confirmed my feeling that this company is able to do everything and brilliantly. Not one to gush, I was simply awed by the inventive staging of these plays in the round and on a huge oval platform on which huge blocks like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle were loosened, raised, rearranged and positioned for both interior and exterior locales, even as treacherous looking trenches for the battle scenes. Doubling and tripling in roles, the nineteen member company deserve the ovations they are receiving in this never-a-dull moment production. All My Sons - Arthur Miller's gripping play about a mid-western family plagued by a scandal that involves them in the death of 21 airline pilots during World War II is also presented in the round space of the Tom Patterson Theatre. While some may take umbrage at the color-blind casting of the neighbors as not likely for the time and place, it actually gives additional weight to the neighborhood's general hostility toward the Keller family. It also brings to the fore certain aspects to the relationships that will undoubtedly spark discussions about this emotionally searing, thought-provoking drama. At the end of my week's stay, I was left with the memory of seeing eight superbly acted and beautifully staged shows back to back. . . quite a feat but perhaps not all that unexpected by the thousands of theater lovers who flock each year to this extraordinary festival in an idyllic setting. I am already planning to return next year as it will mark the 150th anniversary of Canada's birth as a nation. This is a neighbor we can be glad lives right next door. |
Search CurtainUp in the box below INFORMATION ABOUT THE FESTIVAL Here is the complete list of the season's plays with closing dates. A Little Night Music - 10/21 Breath of Kings - 9/24 Shakespeare in Love - 10/16 As You Like It - 10/22 All My Sons - 10/02 A Chorus Line - 10/30 Lion Witch, and the Wardrobe - 11/05 Macbeth - 11/05 Bunny - 09/24 The Hypocondriac - 10/14 John Gabriel Borkman - 11/23 Adult tickets range from $25.00 to $151.25. Children $39.00 with an adult ticket. For those who don't want to drive or rent a car, there is a $25 bus service from downtown Toronto direct to Stratford. For more information, check out the the official site: ttps://www.stratfordfestival.ca/Visit |
