A Scattering

Sunday morning at Southside Park, Woodstock Ontario

2013-06-09T11:34:00.000-04:00

Thames River, St. Mary's, Ontario

2013-06-08T13:45:00.001-04:00

Saturday morning in St. Mary's, Ontario. Can you see the Great Blue Heron making a getaway?

Sunday afternoon drive

2013-06-03T20:07:00.000-04:00

The view from a Sunday afternoon latte stop at Coffee Culture in Ingersoll.

Sights and Sounds of Stratford Festival 2013

2013-06-03T10:29:00.001-04:00

Please visit Geoff's blog for his wrap up of Opening Week 2013 at the Stratford Festival.

The Three Musketeers promise but hardly deliver

2013-06-02T18:22:00.000-04:00

The Three Musketeers
Stratford Festival
Written by Peter Raby
Adapted from the Alexandre Dumas novel
Directed by Miles Potter
Festival Theatre
Runs until October 19
Approximate running time: 2 hours and 55 minutes (with one 20-minute interval)
Tickets: 1-800-567-1600 or online www.stratfordfestival.ca

Review by Geoff Dale : an Oxford County theatre reviewer and freelance writer/photographer.

The opening sequence featuring some wonderful no-holds-barred swordplay between a boisterous young D’Artagnan (Luke Humphrey) and his well-skilled father (played by Wayne Best) gives one the impression this could be a swashbuckler for the ages.

Sadly, such is not the case.

The story proceeds at an often tedious pace, revealing this as a production that could have been great but rapidly becomes victim to some genuinely off-putting performances, snail-like delivery of action sequences and unnecessary comic banter between the principles, much of it unfunny and uninspired.

That’s a shame because the four leads are up to the task of providing the feeling of camaraderie essential in fuelling the now famous motto “all for one and one for all”.

Humphrey brings youthful swagger to his D’Artagnan. A well-padded Jonathan Goad is well cast as the fun-seeking Porthos. Graham Abbey is a thoughtful Athos, while Mike Shara handles Aramis’ shifts from his penchant for rabble-rousing to his desire to add substance to his life through religion, with ease.

Given the fact that the quartet is so well-suited to their respective characters and Alexandre Dumas’ text provides ample opportunities to provide excitement and non-stop action, you’d thought playwright Peter Raby and director Miles Potter would have had enough literary ammunition to figuratively explode onto the stage.

It doesn’t happen because there’s far too much humorous chit-chat and far too little of the swordplay and leaping from scene-to-scene that made the first scene such an exciting beginning.

How can one miss with the exploits of D’Artagnan and his three new-found friends in the compelling and complex court of the devious Cardinal Richelieu (Steven Sutcliffe), his chief henchman The Comte de Rochefort (Michael Blake) and the devious Milady de Winter (Deborah Hay)?

Well, therein lies another one major problem for the production. Sutcliffe’s Richelieu is an unqualified bore, barely able to serve up even the minimal required taste of evil. He’s simply reading the lines and rarely with any discernible emotion. He should have been stirring up the true hatred one normally feels for an evil villain of the Cardinal’s ilk. Instead you’re left contemplating a rather ho-hum realization of the man.

Blake, while an imposing figure, offers far-too few samples of The Comte de Rochefort’s villainy. His confrontations with D’Artagnan are abrupt, lacklustre and fail to suggest there will be a substantive conclusion or resolution to their conflict any time soon.

Meanwhile, Hay does her best as the arch-villainess Milady but that amounts to little more than a few snarly, hissy moments, certainly not tantamount to the kind of emotions you would expect from a devious woman of her stature.

Then there’s Keith Dinicol bizarre characterization of Louis XIII, who at times sounds and even looks eerily like Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz, huffing, puffing and prancing about, looking all-the-world like a court clown, the farthest thing from a genuine regal figure.

The first act, long as it was, at least had a modicum of action and even those moments of comedy helped move the pace along at a passable rate. The second act was another story. Painfully slow, even the four musketeers appeared to be bogged down from time in time in a sort of theatrical quick sand.

Fight director John Stead, set designer Douglas Paraschuk and costume designer Gillian Gallow get high marks for their contributions but Potter needs to do some rethinking on how to add some spark to what turned out to be a drawn out mixed bag of goodies, long on talk and short on action.

The Three Musketeers take home **1/2 out of four stars.

This review was originally seen online at The Beat Magazine.

Photo by Don Dixon: l-r Jonathan Goad, Luke Humphrey, Graham Abbey and Mike Shara.

Blithe Spirit a delightful quirky drawing room romp

2013-06-02T18:18:00.000-04:00

Blithe Spirit
Stratford Festival
Written by Noel Coward
Directed by Brian Bedford
Avon Theatre
Runs until October 20
Running time: 2 hours and 25 minutes (with two intervals of 15 and 10 minutes)
Tickets: 1-800-567-1600 or online www.stratfordfestival.ca

Review by Geoff Dale

So what can you say about a play that’s been produced by countless theatre troupes around the globe for the past 72 years, won an Oscar for best cinematic special effects in 1945 and ended up as Noel Coward’s most popular work, despite the fact it only took him six days to write?

We’re guessing not very much – considering it appears yet again to be making the theatrical rounds all around the world. This latest batch includes a delightful outing at the Stratford Festival, a wonderfully amusing effort directed in grand style by the venerable Brian Bedford and starring the incomparable Seana McKenna.

So why the seven decade long interest in a drawing room work that is lightweight by any standards? Coward’s own words, when describing the play, are curious yet might explain why: “There’s no heart in the play,” he said. “If there was a heart, it would be a sad story.”

So it’s a happy but quirky play, an unlikely farce about life and love in the here-and-now and the hereafter. The focus is on a rather suave, genteel author, Charles Condomine (Ben Carlson), presumably fashioned much in the vein of Coward himself.

Thanks to the other-worldly activities of invited guest Madame Arcati (Seana McKenna), an annoying local bike-riding crackpot, author and psychic, who takes herself very seriously, poor Charles finds himself haunted by his morally loose first wife Elvira (Michelle Giroux).

That in itself presents a moral dilemma for the man, still very much married to his current and more staid spouse Ruth (Sara Topham). What it does for the storyline is provide all the laughs generated from what could be best described as a bizarre ménage à trois, of which no-one wishes to be part.

McKenna, who excels as Queen Elizabeth in the current Festival production of Mary Stuart, demonstrates here she is also a master of comedy. She can trade quips and barbs with the best of them and knows exactly how and when to milk laughs from the occasional pratfall, miscue and the oddly entrancing movements of the village’s rhythmically challenged medium.

Carlson does real justice to the role, showing all of us the author’s obvious disdain for the animalistic elements of passion, long-lasting relationships like marriage and morally questionable behavior, both from women and men.

Proving to be quite the heel at times, he can also be quite ruthless and even cruelly hurtful in his interaction with his current wife:

“If you’re trying to compile an inventory of my sex life, I feel it only fair to warn that you’ve omitted several episodes. I shall consult my diary and give you a complete list after lunch.”

Topham is a wonderfully nagging wife while Giroux is a “spirited” addition to the less-than-happy household, getting under her husband’s skin at the most inappropriate times, leading to some of the play’s most entertaining and prickly encounters between the three.

If there’s a downside side to the levity, it may simply be that Coward appears to have little time for women, portraying Elvira as loose, Ruth as a constant nag, Arcati clearly not in full possession or her faculties and the maid Edith as a bumbler of the highest order.

With that in mind, it’s no shocker to suggest there is never any real sense that Charles does or will ever miss either one of his two wives.

James Blendick and Wendy Thatcher add nice supporting roles as Dr. and Mrs. Bradham, guests at the initial séance, while Susie Burnett rounds out the cast as the oft-times incoherent Edith.

Blithe Spirit is a fairly gentle, humorous way to end the first week of Festival debuts, thanks to the fine work of McKenna, Carlson and company. Director Brian Bedford knows the drawing room by heart – both in and outside of this world – resulting in three out of **** stars.

This review was originally seen online at The Beat Magazine.

Photo by Don Dixon: top Michelle Giroux bottom l-r Sara Topham, Seana McKenna, Ben Carlson

Tommy - a largely successfuly assault on the senses

2013-06-02T18:16:00.001-04:00

Tommy
Stratford Festival
Music and lyrics by Pete Townshend
Book by Pete Townshend and Des McAnuff
Additional music and lyrics by John Entwistle and Keith Moon
Directed by Des McAnuff
Avon Theatre
Runs until October 19
Approximate running time: 2 hours and five minutes (with one interval)
Tickets: 1-800-567-1600 or online www.stratfordfestival.ca

Review by Geoff Dale: an Oxford County theatre reviewer and freelance writer/photographer

Arguably there are three ground-breaking musical events that marked a dramatic shift in the tone of rock music: Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone (1965); the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and the Who’s Tommy (1969), the latter acknowledged by most as the prototype rock opera.

Lest quibbling facts get in the way, let’s first acknowledge that Tommy was not the first rock opera, although the most famous of the Swingin’ Sixties. It was predated by the group’s own A Quick One While He’s Away, a nine-minute thematic suite from the 1966 album A Quick One; the little known The Story of Simon Simopath by a band called Nirvana (not the Kurt Cobain-led group of a decade later) and The Pretty Things’ S.F. Sorrow of 1968.

Annoying history notes aside, suffice it to say Tommy took its rightful place as the most influential of the early rock operas, being transformed into a delightfully gaudy flick by director Ken Russell (landing both Townshend and Ann-Margaret Oscar nominations) and lastly Des McAnuff’s wildly successful Tony-award winning Broadway hit of 1993.

So there was one simple double-barreled question overshadowing the grand opening of the revisited classic at the Stratford Festival this past week: Does Townshend’s work still maintain its status as a power-punching raucous pop music entity, aided and abetted by McAnuff’s well-documented love of flare and theatrical pyrotechnics or is it merely a dusty old relic of the past, suited only to the tastes of aging hipsters with ill-fitting rugs and giggly youngsters curious about dear old mom and dad’s penchant for the absurd?

The first part of the inquiry may be more to the point, albeit with a reservation or two. The story of the deaf, dumb and blind kid Tommy, in search of salvation via his mastery of the light-flashing, flipper-rattling pinball machine (paying homage to the wasted youth of our late 60s and early 70s), still holds real power.

Even in this annoying prefabricated age of instant celebrity (thank you reality TV), the story of a young child of World War Two, traumatized by his father’s murder of his mother’s love is still fascinating. He descends into total sensory deprivation to become an international superstar merely because of his mastery of an arcade game. He does so without the aid of sight, sound and real perception.

And Townshend’s songs still pack that proverbial punch, particularly the still-haunting "See Me, Feel Me", the rousing anthem-like "Pinball Wizard" and the manically frenetic "The Acid Queen", a blistering ode to hallucinogenic therapy sought out as a cure by Tommy’s parents. Jewelle Blackman does justice to the Tina Turner version in the Russell flick, competing both for vocal screaming rights and perhaps even the longest legs on stage. Yet watching her slink gracelessly after the number ends, into the murky shadows clutching the tools of a heroin addict is both painful and terribly sad.

There are many positives to be showered upon Tommy 2013, largely because the energy of the original text is intact, thanks to a tireless company of actors, dancers and musicians who never seem to sit still for a moment. They get the message out in full volume, leaving the audience presumably bathed in sweat but cheering for more.

Yet one has to wonder if the production would have been even more successful had McAnuff reigned in just a bit of his desire to swamp his creations with never-ending eye-popping effects that takes us all on a video-enhanced journey from the Second World War right through to the ‘60s, accompanied all the while by ear-piercing elements of pure sound and fury.

All of this is admittedly cleverly staged, with both McAnuff and a superior technical crew deserving highest marks for figuratively lifting the roof and walls of the Avon Theatre from its very foundations. But there are moments when one wishes the director’s passion for technical wizardry would give way, at least momentarily, for some solitary scenes of reflection without the aid of all those high priced bells and whistles.

That may be too much to ask and one has to wonder out loud whether McAnuff, Townshend and company are eying another shot along the Great White Way in the Big Apple, proving there is still plenty of room to stage a blockbuster revival.

The cast is certainly first rate. Robert Markus is an intriguing Tommy with a good set of pipes for handling the intricacies of Townshend’s track. Kira Guloien and Jeremy Kushnier are nicely matched as his troubled parents endlessly seeking reasons and ultimately a cure.

Depending on which night it is, either Arden Couturier or Adrienne Ennis will be onboard to tackle the role of the four-year-old Tommy while Conor Bergauer and Joshua Buchwald take turns at playing the lead character as a 10-year-old.

Paul Nolan achieves the unthinkable with brilliance, transforming the thuggish cousin Kevin from a simple brute into a viciously engaging sound and dance man, leading his equally nasty cohorts through some wonderfully engaging moments choreographed by Wayne Cilento.

The only really disconcerting aspect of the production – not just this version but also the album, movie and Broadway presentations – can be found in these lyrics sung in wickedly sleazy fashion by Steve Ross as Uncle Ernie:

I'm your wicked Uncle Ernie
I'm glad you won't see or hear me
As I fiddle about
Fiddle about
Fiddle about !

In the movie the late Who drummer Keith Moon played the role with such intense depravity, there was simply no way one could find a redeeming quality of the character. Yet here he is now, strutting about in comically burlesque fashion, almost becoming a tragic figure of sorts.

Ross is simply brilliant. While a somewhat larger fellow, he moves about with grace, dancing with real authority and singing with unabashed glee (Tommy’s Holiday Camp). But when was a slavishly drunken pedophile like this ever really a symbol of pity or vaudevillian humour?

Wildly different interpretations noted – Moon’s sadistic monster or Ross’ marginally more sympathetic uncle – the troubling mystery of how to treat such a role remains unanswered for some of us.

Certainly not a perfect production, the four curtain calls this particular night demonstrated more than adequately that Tommy will be a seasonal cash cow for the good folk at the Festival and could be back in New York City, before you can score a million points on your personal pinball at home.

Townshend and McAnuff have a winner on their hands – warts and all. Give the kid ***1/2 out of 4 stars.

This review was originally seen online at The Beat Magazine

Photo by Don Dixon: Robert Markus is pictured with Joshua Buchwald in the foreground.

2013-05-31T23:26:00.000-04:00

Mary Stuart

Stratford Festival
Written by Friedrich Schiller
In a new version by Peter Oswald
Directed by Antoni Cimolino
Tom Patterson Theatre
Playing to September 21
Running time: two hours, 47 minutes (with one interval)
Tickets: 1-800-567-1600 or online www.stratfordfestival.ca

Review by Geoff Dale

One key element in Friedrich Schiller’s play, skillfully updated by Peter Oswald, is that the storyline is historically correct in many details, except for one intriguing “what if” scene – the meeting of Queen Elizabeth 1 and her imprisoned cousin Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland.

While this work is clearly not the alternative history associated with present-day author Harry Turtledove (Hitler’s War) in which largely fictitious means dictate a complete reversal of the real ending, it is still the powerful and totally imagined scene between the two regal rivals that drives this play along emotional and intellectual journeys.

Equally important is that casting for Mary Stuart be without question or second thoughts. It requires top-flight performers known for flexibility of presentation, able to convey sincerity and compassion at all times through the nearly three-hour play.

Fortunately Lucy Peacock (Mary Stuart) and Seana McKenna (Elizabeth), two of the finest stage actors to be found anywhere in the theatrical world, landed the lead roles. Both exceed reasonable expectations, delivering spell-binding performances that reveal the complexities, power and even frailties of the regal cousins.

The imagined meeting of the two is simply chilling.

Peacock’s Mary Stuart is mesmerizing. As her cousin’s prisoner, she is deprived of her physical freedom but also tormented by her guilty conscience arising from her supposed role in the death of her husband Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.

She is also at the mercy of several plots, engineered by the free-spirited Mortimer (played with delightful rage by Ian Lake) and the two-faced Earl of Leicester (portrayed with uncomfortable nastiness by Geraint Wyn Davies). Peacock is at the top of her game, delivering to the audience a conflicted soul, a misunderstood figure and clearly seen by the author as the personification of tragedy.

Yet McKenna is equally successful capturing Elizabeth’s different sides, as a strong-minded woman who is nonetheless trapped in her own metaphysical dilemma. Surrounded, seemingly on all sides, by a host of benign court sycophants and self-serving deviants, she is strangely isolated as a leader wielding ultimate power, yet still victimized by her own inner turmoil. The queen, while in control, is nevertheless a symbol of despair and at times out-of-control.

Each actress is afforded ample opportunities to demonstrate the contradictory nature of their characters and both, with the steady and masterful guidance from director Antoni Cimolino, succeed admirably.

Mary’s scenes with her handmaiden Hannah Kennedy (a gentle, touching portrait from Patricia Collins), her jailer Sir Amias Paulet (nicely underplayed with sense of honour by the always reliable James Blendick) and her confessor Melvil (Brian Tree making the necessary shift here from his usual comic persona to drama) are simply riveting.

Meanwhile, as she ponders her cousin’s ultimate fate in front of her royal advisors, McKenna’s stone-faced Elizabeth is electrifying. One just has to sit back and marvel as she contends with the potential consequences of executing another monarch, an unthinkable act for the times.

When she and Mary finally meet, their fictional confrontation becomes a multi-layered and glorious tour-de-force of fury-infused acting by the two leads.

Meanwhile, Brian Dennehy is a gracious, dignified and thoughtful Earl of Shrewsbury, begging his queen to act with humanity, not simply respond impulsively to the deafening screams of the crowds milling about, just outside her royal doors. He pleads with her to deal with her dilemma with caution rather than a knee-jerk reaction to unreasoned mob rage.

Blendick’s Paulet, caught perilously between two worlds, remains respectful to both queens but is nonetheless determined to honour his role as Mary’s protector as long as she lives.

Ben Carlson is an unyielding, bloodthirsty Lord Burleigh with no apparent signs of real passion or humanity– a beautifully crafted villain of the highest order. The audience is never left in doubt as to where his motivations lie, contrary to Wyn Davies’s sly vision of the slithering, ever-changing charmer Leicester.

Hats off to Peacock, McKenna, Cimolino and the full company for a ****out of 4 stars night at the theatre.

Geoff Dale is an Oxford County theatre reviewer and freelance writer/photographer, this review is also posted in the Theatre Review section of The Beat Magazine and on Geoff's blog Freelance and Fiction. Geoff Dale also happens to be my better half ;- }

Photo by: Don Dixon. Pictured from left, Seana McKenna and Lucy Peacock.

New on the blogging scene

2013-05-31T15:50:00.000-04:00

Geoff aka "my better half", aka "The Writer" now has a blog. Geoff is a freelance writer, theatre and movie critic and my own personal chef ;-} . You can find his blog, Freelance and Fiction, here, pop by and check it out!

Measure for Measure a delightfully ambiguous production

2013-05-30T14:54:00.003-04:00

Measure for Measure
Stratford Festival
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Martha Henry
Tom Patterson Theatre
Runs until September 21
Approximate running time: 3 hours (with one interval)
Tickets: 1-800-567-1600 or online www.stratfordfestival.ca

Review by Geoff Dale

The late Roger Ebert once wisely observed that, "No movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad."

For the purposes of reviewing this and other Stratford Festival productions, let’s rephrase that somewhat to read, “No play with Brian Tree in any kind of role should be missed.”

So audiences are being warned well in advance – if they pass on catching a glimpse of Tree’s comic genius, the complex ambiguities of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure and a bravado performance by Geraint Why Davies, they do so at their own peril.

While Tree’s role as the militantly fastidious, by-the-book constable Elbow is in support of the main characters, it nonetheless provides plenty of opportunities to revel in his well-honed comedic skills, both in the physical and auditory senses.

Besides, it is palpable evidence that one of the Bard’s so-called problem plays is indeed a comedy, despite its largely tragic overtones.

Whatever the description, it is excellent fare with a company of actors offering up a delightful range of characterizations; a bonus when one considers the play’s three hour length. In addition to her well-paced and thoughtful direction, Martha Henry also made a wise choice in setting the story in 1949 Vienna, although one could also envision it taking place in 2013, given the duplicitous nature of one of the lead characters Angelo (Tom Rooney) – an unyielding authority figure with a secretive penchant for naughtiness on the side.

It is a juicy story that one can sink his or her teeth into and a theme that is simply ageless. But there is much more to relish in this production.

Just knowing designer John Pennoyer was inspired by such 1940s classic film noir outings as Carol Reed’s marvelously eerie The Third Man, makes the look of this particular version of Measure for Measure a real treat – a visually compelling adaptation.

Henry directs with controlled assuredness, doing justice to the rich text, ensuring the audience understands the ambiguity of its central characters, not simply Rooney’s undeniably creepy Angelo. Even though Geraint Wyn-Davies’ Duke Vincentio is seen largely as a man of goodness and order, he too suggests traces of all-too-human weaknesses like moral corruption and indecisiveness.

Wyn-Davies gives a powerful performance that never falters, both as the Duke and in his disguise as a friar. Although the facial features remain the same, albeit framed by glasses, this is no hokey Clark Kent/Superman transformation. He is convincing in both roles, delivering his lines as two distinctly different individuals, with touches of drama and wit.

Stephen Quimette as yet another two-faced villain is superb and as a fraud, liar and turncoat, offers some of the most delightful dialogue with gusto:

Behold, behold. where Madam Mitigation comes! I
have purchased as many diseases under her roof as come to—

As Pompey, a man claiming to be merely a barman but clearly more of a “bawd”, Randy Hughson tosses his lines about with wild abandon in another delightful comic performance:

O, the better, sir; for he that drinks all night,
and is hanged betimes in the morning, may sleep the
sounder all the next day.

The tragedy of the work is best exemplified by Carmen Grant’s religiously devout Isabella, sister to the doomed Claudio (Christopher Prentice), sentenced to beheading by the draconian Angelo for his promiscuous behavior. Grant is up to the challenge.

At three hours, it is indeed a long production but well worth the time spent, if not simply for the pleasure of deciphering whether this, in the hands of a skilled director like Henry, is a comedy or a tragedy.

And, of course, who in their right mind would pass up on another chance to watch the master Brian Tree ply his wonderful comic trade.

(Out of 4 Stars)

Photo by Don Dixon: l-r Geraint Wyn Davies, Tom Rooney and Carmen Grant

2013-05-29T18:12:00.002-04:00

Fiddler on the Roof
Stratford Festival
Book by Joseph Stein
Music by Jerry Block
Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick
Directed and choreographed by Donna Feore
Festival Theatre
Runs until October 20
Approximate running time: 3 hours (with one interval)
Tickets: 1-800-567-1600 or online www.stratfordfestival.ca

Review by Geoff Dale

[Photo: Scott Wentworth as Tevye with members of the company in Fiddler on the Roof. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann]

Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, Theodore Bikel, and Chaim Topol. Now quickly add the name of Scott Wentworth to that list of fine stage actors who have played Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.

In the Stratford Festival’s 2013 version, Wentworth is simply brilliant in the title role of Tevye, a decent man caught between the two suddenly colliding worlds of Jewish traditions and a new social order trumpeted by the younger generation – one that ultimately leads to the exodus from Czarist Russia to the brave new frontier in the United States.

It is an intriguing and beautifully etched portrayal of an earnest hard-working man, poor in worldly goods but rich in spirit, a good-hearted soul who finds himself, not a witness, but a participant in a rapidly changing world. Wentworth captures every essence of Tevye, with humour, grace and warmth.

What is truly remarkable about the latest Fiddler, that opened Tuesday night to sustained, thunderous and much-deserved applause, is that it is virtually flawless, beautifully acted by all cast members with superbly energetic dance numbers and lively wonderfully executed songs, by singers, dancers along with musicians directed with style by Shelly Hanson.

Whether it’s Wentworth breathing life back into classic tunes like Tradition or If I Were a Rich Man or the audience marveling at the mind-boggling sure-footedness of the bottle dancers Matt Alfano, Gabriel Antonacci, Stephen Cota and Julius Sermonia, this production is top notch and truly mesmerizing for a full glorious three hours.

Director-choreographer Donna Feore, in a triumphant return to the Festival, is unrivalled in her mastery of musical spectacles, creating what is guaranteed to be a surefire hit to the end of the production’s run on October 20.

For those unfamiliar with the history, the musical's title comes from the painting The Fiddler by Marc Chagall (born in Russia as Moishe Segal). It is one of many paintings he created of Eastern European Jewish life. The Fiddler is a metaphor for survival in the uncertain life under the Czar.

For Feore’s Fiddler, set designer Allen Moyer cleverly incorporates a dark sky populated by surrealistic angels, devils, fish and fowl straight out of a Chagall painting, set against miniature homes below. Perched on one roof is the Fiddler, played by Anna Atkinson. For the proper mood, Michael Walton adds just the right applications of lighting, some brilliant and others subdued.

With the play structured to give virtually every cast member his or her moment in the spotlight, this talented cast takes every opportunity to show off their individual skills. Gabrielle Jones is delightfully annoying as the ever present busybody Yente. Jennifer Stewart, a gifted actor/singer is a winning Tzeitel, the elder daughter who marries the not-so-worldly tailor Mendel, played to perfection by Andre Morin.

Kate Hennig is both touching and boisterously funny as Tevye’s take-control wife Golde and is a delight when she shares the stage with Wentworth in the very moving Do You Love Me?Mike Nadajewski projects a very real sense of the changing world with his humanistic portrayal of Perchik, the suitor and ultimate mate to Hodel (Jacqueline French) and Steve Ross is at his blustery best as the loser-in-love, the butcher Lazar Wolf.

Without giving any details away, the Dream sequence is startling.

Not a moment is wasted in this eye-catching, pulse-racing production, an awe-inspiring tribute to Wentworth, Feore and a first-rate company of actors, singers, dancers and musicians that keep the audience spell-bound. The Stratford Festival retains its preeminence in the production of quality musical theatre.

An unforgettable presentation that shows live theatre at its finest and richly deserves **** out of 4 stars.

(Out of 4 Stars)

Geoff Dale is an Oxford County theatre reviewer and freelance writer/photographer, this review is also posted on his blog Freelance and Fiction and in the Theatre Review section of The Beat Magazine . Geoff Dale also happens to be my better half ;- }

Photo: Scott Wentworth as Tevye with members of the company in Fiddler on the Roof. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann]

Stratford's Romeo and Juliet a lacklustre production

2013-05-29T08:37:00.000-04:00

Romeo and Juliet
Stratford Festival
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Tim Carroll
Festival Theatre
Runs until October 19
Approximate running time: two hours and 50 minutes (with one interval)
Tickets: 1-800-567-1600 (toll-free) or 519-273-1600
orders@stratfordfestival.ca
groups@stratfordfestival.ca
specialorders@stratfordfestival.ca

Review by Geoff Dale

If nothing else, this particular Romeo and Juliet may be remembered as one of the strangest versions to make its way to Stratford, not because it tampered in any real way with the basic story but largely due to its incredibly odd ending and some less than spectacular acting.

With all due respect, there is no need for a spoiler alert here, rather a cautionary warning. Yes, both our tragic ill-fated prepubescent lovers die but much to our amazement, they are resurrected just in time to take part in a rousing song and dance number that would make the producers of TV’s cloying Glee recoil in embarrassment and horror.

Whether this bizarre conclusion to the nearly three-hour production was the idea of director Tim Carroll or perhaps one of the music directors, Franklin Brasz or Rick Fox, really doesn’t matter. It was so comically out of place.

Hats off to the efforts of the quartet of talented musicians in other spots but their participation at this particular moment was for another time, another place and certainly not the concluding scene of Shakespeare’s tragic last scene.

Sadly it was difficult to pick out the worthy elements of this production, beginning with the cast. On the positive side, Sara Topham took a gallant and largely successful stab at the 14-year-old Juliet of the Capulets. She exuded passion, sincerity and was believable capturing both the innocence and awakening desires of someone so young.

Jonathan Goad, while clearly hamming it up rather mercilessly as Romeo’s boisterous hot-headed young friend, delivered his lines with exuberance, showing he had learned his rudimentary fencing skills well. His portrayal may not sit well with some purists but it was particularly sad when he is dispatched by the nasty Tybalt (Tyrone Savage) in such short order because it meant the end of one of the play’s more palatable, if not delightfully over-the-top, characters.

Tom McCamus was an effective Friar Laurence, playing the role earnestly and with a much-appreciated helping of wit and Savage was appropriately vile to the core. Those were very decent performances that deserved to be in another more vibrant production, one that didn’t appear much of the time to be absolutely sleep-inducing.

While some cast members seemed downright disinterested, others were simply unbearable. First there was Antoine Yared’s Paris, who was such an annoying fop, one kept wishing he would meet his maker much sooner. Alas the bard’s text does not allow for such wholesale tampering. So he remained to the bitter end, in time to join the vaudevillian chorus line of mourners and the dead.

Unfortunately the least appealing performance of the night came from the apparently miscast Daniel Brière, whose lifeless Romeo was simply wooden, oddly comparable in some ways to Laurence Harvey’s cold-as-ice standoffish juvenile hero in the 1954 flick.

Lastly, the Montagues and Capulets played out their hatred on one of most barren dimly-lit sets to be seen at the Festival in recent times, apparently the director’s nod to what an afternoon show in an Elizabethan playhouse would have looked that. Such minimalism is a key element for plays like Waiting for Godot but Carroll’s grasp at authenticity didn’t work here.

Not a terribly auspicious start to the 2013 Festival. Romeo and Juliet gets only ** out of 4 stars.

2 stars out of 4

Geoff Dale is an Oxford County theatre reviewer and freelance writer/photographer, this review is also posted on his blog Freelance and Fiction and in the Theatre Review section of The Beat Magazine. Geoff Dale also happens to be my better half ;- }

Photo: Daniel Brière as Romeo is pictured with Sara Topham in the role of Juliet. Photo by Cylla von Riedemann.

Fleeting glimpse of a Song Sparrow

2013-05-28T13:31:00.000-04:00

Sunday evening I caught a fleeting glimpse of this Song Sparrow grabbing a munch of vegetation before it disappeared.

Bird woes

2013-05-27T08:48:00.000-04:00

After teasing us for one brief morning at the beginning of the month, the darned Mourning Doves set up their nest next door again. They have another pair of chicks about to fledge soon.

We have had a Robin's nest behind the crook of a downspout on the back of the house and we've watched the parents comings and goings. Last night our neighbour witnessed a squirrel shimmy up the downspout and the rat with good PR knocked the two babies out of the nest and they fell two stories to the grass. I did see one of the parents feed a baby on the grass but didn't see any sign of the second one. I doubt they made it through the cool weather overnight. I know this is all part of what critters do but I still hate to see it.

On the bright side, our resident chipmunk (Adrian) is thriving and stuffs his fat little face at the bird feeder multiple times each day. And last night just as it was getting dark, Geoff spied two fat toads in The Secret Garden. So all's not doom and gloom.

Happy Monday, everyone.

Evening light and life on the trail

2013-05-26T21:02:00.001-04:00

Bliss and a Baltimore Oriole. Have a great week!

This morning on the trail

2013-05-20T10:42:00.004-04:00

Lilac time in our garden

2013-05-19T17:26:00.002-04:00

This morning on the trail

2013-05-19T17:18:00.000-04:00

Ground level, down by the forest floor was interesting.

But looking waaaay up proved just as interesting.

As did looking up and across - a Turkey Vulture just hangin'

Today on the trail

2013-05-17T18:48:00.000-04:00

The leave are really starting to fill in so its becoming more of a challenge to see the perching birds. I was lucky enough to spot this Gray Catbird in the open.

This family outing was a little unusual in my experience. Canada Geese generally lay a clutch of 2-8 eggs, but it appears that this pair only has one gosling.

That which doesn't kill you....

2013-05-12T16:13:00.002-04:00

I've just spent and hour with The Writer, helping him start his blog - and we didn't kill each other! Good thing as we're coming up to our 30th wedding anniversary on Tuesday and it would be a pity to miss that milestone.

Oxford Studio Tour 2013

2013-05-04T17:43:00.001-04:00

Today has been a glorious spring day. I started with a walk in the woods. Then I met my friend, Ronalee, at Louie's Restaurant for a delicious breakfast and we followed it up with a stop at location #11 on the Oxford Studio Tour.

We met three of the artisans and I wanted to share some of their work with you.

Crystal McMaster creates lovely jewellery and I bought myself a pretty little ring. Here are some of Crystal's necklaces and rings.

Maggie Robinson creates fibre art, beaded jewellery and totes. I bought a sweet birds nest brooch from Maggie. Here's a whimsical, but practical piece of her fibre art.

Ronalee purchased a stunning necklace from Tracy Reesor of Two Cats Studio. This is a shot of some of Tracy's other pieces, aren't they great?!

The Oxford Studio Tour continues tomorrow. If you're in the area, check it out!

This morning on the trail

2013-05-04T17:42:00.000-04:00

It was a beautiful fresh morning on the trail.

The Trilliums are starting to bloom. There will be hundreds, if not thousands.

I think this might be a Barn Swallow but couldn't get a good enough view of the face and neck. I was getting the cold shoulder.

And this was one ornery, bossy Canada Goose.

shhhhhhh.........they're back......

2013-05-03T09:55:00.003-04:00

We're not going to get too excited - yet. But when we came downstairs this morning we were greeted with this sight. This is a transom window above our front door and what you're looking at is a Mourning Dove in a nesting position.

From 2008 - 2011 we had a successful run of nests and chicks over our front door. Last year they appeared to move to our neighbours doorway but there was one successful nest in the tree on our front lawn. So, we're hoping we have doves that will stay again this year. We enjoy their presence so much - and I can't begin to tell you how entertaining they are for our cat, Gray.

For information about previous seasons and chicks, check out the individual year links under Mourning Dove Nest History on the right sidebar.

Here's a view from outside our front door this morning..

Renewal

2013-05-01T08:13:00.002-04:00

This little Trout Lily might not look like much, but it's like a ray of sunshine to me. It means that I was able to walk on my favorite trail - the Youth Start Trail - on Monday evening for the first time since the end of September. The City had closed this trail and one other to deal with the issue of the Emerald Ash Borer in a significant number of trees. Over the winter a contractor removed the Ash trees from the two trails and the Youth Start Trail is finally open - yippee!! Just in time to capture early spring blooms for my blog.

Migration of Tundra Swans

2013-03-31T21:39:00.000-04:00

Each spring thousands of Tundra Swans migrate north across south west Ontario on route to their summer home in the high tundra.

The last time I posted about the migration we had visited the viewing area at the Aylmer Wildlife Management Area in March 2010 where there is ample opportunity to see large numbers of swans and large numbers of people who are there to see swans.

Yesterday we saw swans and had the view all to ourselves. Granted we weren't as close to the majestic birds as we would be at the Aylmer site but it was nice to admire them all by ourselves. We spotted them in a pond at the corner of Highway 2 and Hunt Road.