STRATFORD SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL

As You Like It Kiss Me Kate
The Tempest
Dangerous Liaisons Evita Peter Pan
The Winter's Tale
For The Pleasure of Seeing Her Again
Do Not Go Gently King of Thieves
Jaques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris

For theatre tickets and full season brochures, please phone the Stratford Festival box office at 1-800-567-1600. Brochures and tickets may also be ordered through the website at www.stratfordshakespearefestival.com

REVIEWS
Previews of all shows follows Reviews.

The Tempest| Evita|The Winter's Tale| Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris|
Do Not Go Gentle|For The Pleasure of Seeing Her Again| The Two Gentlemen of Verona|

The Tempest

There’s magic in the air in Des McAnuff’s production of The Tempest, though it has less to do with magic than special effects. McAnuff’s spectacular production on the Festival stage has a Prospero who is so spontaneous with his divine gift, you never know what he's going to do next. In one of the earlier scenes his glittering magic coat suddenly flies up to the rafters as he changes from being a sorcerer's apprentice to that of an ordinary islander.

Photo: by David Hou. Julyana Soelistyo as Ariel and Christopher Plummer as Prospero in The Tempest.

One thing that's certain is that he’s behind a ferocious storm at sea at the show’s opening, a perfect storm superbly orchestrated from the Festival Stage by an outstanding technical crew that brings us as close to the thunder, lightning and storm clouds we’d ever want to be. Fortunately, we’re safe and dry in our seats, but the collection of royalty on board which includes a king, along with the more seaworthy, will be swept to their death or onto Prospero’s shores, part of his plan to bring his enemies, who usurped his dukedom back in Milan and send him and his baby daughter in exile to this remote and distant island, to their knees.

There are two sides to Prospero: the wily magician who learned the craft of sorcery from Ariel, and who now rules fairly but sternly this exotic New World of an island and its inhabitants save for the and the other Prospero, the father who watches over his tomboy daughter Miranda, strictly but with affection.

It isn’t much different than his relationship with Ariel, his sprite, his servant, his sorcerer, and his eyes and ears. Ariel is almost treated like a son, and like Miranda, strictly, but with affection. It is Ariel who carries out Prospero’s wishes and for his good work will be rewarded with freedom. So, too will Miranda, when she finally finds her true love among the shipwrecked royalty and Prospero must decide between forgiveness and revenge to decide her future.

Kindness, cruelty, cunning and love, the rectangular force that seems to touch every one on the remote island one way or another, with Christopher Plummer’s Prospero a master of  this small universe who can glide from rage to humor to and make it all look and sound so plausible. His servant Arial is a delight, though hardly the effete sprite of some versions but a tiny volcano here who can turn somersaults in the air, sweep up to the sky, and give pronouncements of his magic like a confident school master who is waiting for a promotion.

Julyana Soelistyo, dressed in a blue and white skin suit with  shaved head like an extra terrestrial from a science fiction film, is a rare sight even on this island, but no less so than the half human half serpent Caliban, played by Dion Johnstone, who hungers after Prospero's daughter Miranda, and whose faithfulness to Prospero only leads to his being further humiliated by him. His loyalty to him can turn on a dime,  and does .

Like strangers on the shore, the three main groups of  The Tempest, Alonso, the King of Naples and his entourage including the usurping Duke of Milan, the king's jester and butler, and the solo wanderer Prince Ferdinand, son of King Alonso who thinks he has drowned, are unaware that anyone else exists. Completely apart yet each living in their own world, their worlds will merge at the end of this tale, all for the better. But in the meantime, each has a different agenda.

Gareth Potter's Ferdinand has come upon Miranda or vice versa, and they fall in love. No surprise there except this Miranda played by Trish Lindstrom, is such a stalwart lass with a hearty laugh that might not be out of line at the pub but is a bit off putting as Miranda, whose very name conjures someone who must be admired, though one guesses that in time it will be she who must be obeyed.  Dressed in tatters as if she was just washed up on shore herself and not having lived on the island for 16 years, she is charmed by this heavenly vision, this young man (Oh brave new world!) who seems as lusty as she does, and now Prospero has another problem.

Meanwhile,  King Alonso (Peter Hutt) is grieving for his son, Ferdinand, while Antonio, the usurping Duke of Milan (John Vickery)  tries to convince the king's brother Sebastian (Timothy D. Stickney)  to kill Alonso and capture the throne for himself. It's a scheme that will not work out - thanks to Ariel - but even a lackluster kill-the-king plot has one good thing, and here it's James Blendick's wise Gonzalo, an old counsillor to the king whose very kindness seems a balm to the rancid schemes of the two men.

But there is another fantasy of sorts taking place elsewhere between Trinculo, the king's jester, Stephano the king's Butler, and Caliban who has stumbled upon the two, thinking that he has found a god in Stephano, and most certainly has discovered  in liquor. One expects Shakespeare's clowns to be funny as if it were written into the contract,  but Geraint Wyn Davies as the drunken Stephano and Bruce Dow's burlesqued Trinculo, are a matched pair of comedians from the golden age of Hollywood silent films,  Chaplin, Keaton and the Marx Brothers rolled into two.  Except they talk.

Caliban it seems, will never be the object of anyone's affection, having tried to rape Miranda, and regretting it was he who taught Prospero the ways of the island when the latter first came. Here is a true native of the new world with his unfamiliar, unusual customs,  his muddy skin, and his country taken over by a foreigner whose power is stronger.

But there is no thought of his dark presence when Miranda and Ferdinand are married by 20-feet tall unintelligible goddesses gorgeously dressed by Paul Tazewell - another larger than life effect in a stage production which seems to have been made for the films. Ariel comes down from the skies at one point with lustrous wide wings - our own Angel in America - and rides off into the mist after gaining his freedom  in a boat that looks as if it came from the underground canal of the Phantom of the Opera, and Ferdinand spars with Prospero in a Harry Potter like sword fight. Once can be seduced so easily by the production's imagery, certainly a tribute to Set Designer Robert Brill and  Michael Walton for his impeccable lighting.

In the end, forgiveness reins of course, and Plummer's silence as he weighs the decision to forgive his brother his sins, is golden. One of those times that silence can fill the stage as no words ever will. It is an actor's paradise, and it is Plummer's moment. The Tempest plays in repertoire at the Festival Theatre until Sept. 12.
(Reviewed by Jeniva Berger)

Evita

Eva (Evita) Perón was a mere thirty-three years old when she died in 1952 of ovarian cancer. The wife of Argentina's President, Juan Perón, Evita had been called many things, saint, prostitute, self proclaimed savior of her poor descamisados, take your pick. British composers Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber were obviously fascinated with the woman as the rest of the world has come to be, though Evita made her debut on a concept album where the events that surrounded her short but highly dramatic life were left to our imagination. It made it easy to forgive the lapses in character development that are more noticeable in the live theatre version.
Photo: by David Hou. Juan Chioran and Chilina Kennedy in Evita.

Transferred to the stage in 1973 with some slight modifications, particularly in the character of Che who was originally conceived as an exterminator selling insecticide  - a metaphor which was thankfully changed - Evita finally became the fully staged spectacle it was meant to be, and its success, especially its trophy song Don’t Cry for Me Agentina, was overwhelming.

The Stratford Festival production under Gary Griffin’s direction, has placed the emphasis squarely on the spectacle of Evita’s life and death, with videos and enormous soundless sliding screens that permit us to enter into the bedrooms and government offices of the Peróns or the streets of Argentina as if we were being admitted to secret chambers of the CIA. Set Designer Douglas Paraschuk and Lighting Designer Kevin Fraser, certainly had a major coup in creating the ostentatious world of the Peróns without totally resorting to all that glitters.

Most of the glitter in this production has been given to Evita herself through Mara Bluemenfeld’s  stunning costumes as Evita attained the nivanic plateau of First Lady of Argentina. Chilina Kennedy as Evita doesn’t really hit her stride until that point.

Our first meeting with Evita in the shabby country café where she’s gathered with her family and friends to listen to a second hand troubadour named Migaldi (Vince Saltari) is disappointing, with Kennedy and company looking as if they came out of Kansas with Dorothy and Auntie Em. Kennedy especially, prim and proper in a neat cotton dress looks as if the prospect of having sex with the oily Migaldi in order to to worm her way out of her poverty in rural Argentina and into the high life of Buenos Aires, would be beyond her comprehension. Evita was never an innocent youg woman, and what the script omits Kennedy misses out on by not given us some inkling of the driving ambition and determination that propelled this extraordinary woman to fame and fortune.

Before you know it, Evita is in Buenos Aires, the big apple (and you thought it  stood for New York) using her body and brains and exchanging man after man on her way up the ladder to radio and film work. Her first meeting with Juan Perón is at a charitable fund raiser and from then on in, it’s as smooth as jello with Evita kicking out Perón’s teenaged mistress. Josie Marasco has a very short part as Peron's live-in but a very good song to make up for it with the wistful and well sung, Another Suitcase, Another Hall.  

As Juan Perón, Juan Chioran doesn’t get much of a chance to give the character real dimension though what he does have is regal presence, something that the real Perón lacked. Powerful and popular with the unions due to Evita's uncanny rapport with the masses, Chioran's Perón is a commanding figure head who knows that it's Evita who keeps him and his generals where they are and is smart enough to acknowledge it.  

Evita is the central figure in the musical, and by the time she's embarked on the semi-successful Rainbow Tour to woo the rest of Europe, Chilina Kennedy has successfully melded the Argentine Rose with the steely First Lady. In her final major number, Evita and Che's Waltz, Kennedy even elicits some well earned sympathy as a dying Evita who confronts the activist Che with some hard facts about human frailties.

There's no question that Evita and Che share affinities; in the musical both have powerful personalities  -  there is even a hint of sexual attraction between the two - and both have definitive ideas about the working classes.

But in this production, it's Che who takes hold of the musical as the narrator/observer and runs with it. Josh Young is marvelous as Che with a powerful voice and a charisma that matches the appeal that Mandy Patinkin had in the original production. While other numbers in the musical have been longer lasting on the pop chart, it's Che who has the two best ones, the ironic "Oh What a Circus," which ends the Requiem for Evita on a sardonic note,  and "The Money Kept Rolling in (and Out)", Che's wry comment on Evita's charitable foundation.  

The character of Che is a fascinating component of Evita. The character is based on the Argentine born revolutionary fighter in Cuba, Che Guevara, though in real life the two never met.  Che was only 17 years old when  the Peróns came to power though he was strongly opposed to the Perónist regime.

There have been many versions of  Evita's story from the back roads of Argentina to the balcony of the Casa Rosada, but none has lasted as long as Evita which has played every country in the world except Anarctica. While it has its flaws, no one can argue with its success or perhaps its excess, and a hit song that became a standard. The real Evita couldn't have imagined how much power she actually had. Evita plays in repertoire at the Avon Theatre until Nov. 6.
(Reviewed by Jeniva Berger)

The Winter's Tale
Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris

The Tom Patterson Theatre is a unique performance space in the quartet of Stratford Festival Theatres. Once the home of the Stratford Badminton Club, and part of the Kiwanis Community Centre Complex, the elongated ‘runway’ theatre space which actually looks as if a piper cub could taxi down the stage, is a challenge for both directors and performers. With few exceptions, the challenge was more than met in two of the best productions of the season openers, Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale and the musical Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris.

Photo: L to R: Ben Carlson, Seana McKenna, Ian Lake in The Winter's Tale.

The Winter’s Tale offers a wealth of emotions to stir the pot: jealousy, anger, forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation, plus a noble woman whose stature is so far above rubies that she's close to being angelic. Add to those, the peripatetic Shakespearian shipwreck, a dose of the supernatural, and some gorgeous costuming by John Pennoyer that makes these middle aged kingdoms of Sicilia and Bohemia a riot of color.

The jealousy that overtakes Leontes, the King of Sicilia, however, is as green eyed  as Othello’s, and no one does it better than Ben Carlson who spends most of the first act in a rage and the rest of the play in genuine remorse. His close friend, Polixenes, the King of Bohemia (Dan Chameroy) has been with him for a lengthy visit and is anxious to return home to his own family and kingdom despite the entreaties of  Leontes. But when Leontes’ Queen, Hermione, appears to use a friendlier persuasion to convince Polixenes to stay longer, Leontes interprets it as a sign of her infidelity and condemns her to prison.

While it is one of the stranger aspects of the play that Leontes can assume so much with so little proof and be so consumed with the kind of jealousy that destroys everything in its path, director Marti Maraden lets the text speak for itself. And so we watch, shocked at the swift happening of events which progresses in a series of deadly decisions. Polixines is ordered to be killed by Leontes’ trusted advisor Camillio (Sean Arbuckle) but instead both flee to safety leaving the Bohemian kingdom behind them. The pregnant Queen is jailed and gives birth to a daughter, in prison. Leontes, sure that the child isn’t his, orders his trusted courtier Antigonus to abandon the child in a faraway place.

Then like Job, Leontes loses everyone close to him. His young son dies of melancholy after his mother is taken from him, his new born baby daughter has been taken by Antigonus on his orders to be left somewhere unsheltered, open to the elements, and the queen has been imprisoned. When Leontes finally awaits word from the Oracle of Delphi whether Hermione and Polixines are guilty of adultery as charged,  and it is a resounding no to their guilt and yes to their innocence, it is too late to save the grief stricken Hermione who has died.

If there are any bright spots in the first part of this production, it is Yanna McIntosh’s dignified Queen of Sicilia, regal in the face of injustice and  proudly standing above her humiliation, Seana McKenna’s voluble, outspoken Paulina with a steadfast devotion to Hermione and belief in her innocence, and Randy Hughson's plucky Antigonus who has taken the unlucky newborn to a distant shore and against the king's orders set it down in a safer spot in the woods after weathering one of those inevitable Shakespearean storms at sea, and then has the misfortune to be eaten by a bear in a ludicrous turn of events.

Then, in a flash, it is sixteen years later and our attention will shift between Bohemia and Silicia. Both kings are now greying (Maraden has her aging royalty not only acting older but looking older ). Unfortunately, they're not always wiser, though it is Polixines this time who behaves badly when he discover that his son Prince Florizel (Ian Lake) has fallen in love with the comely daughter of a shepherd. This is no ordinary foundling.  Her name is Perdita, translated as the lost one, and yes it’s the same baby abandoned by Antigonus but found by the lucky shepherd Archidimus who gladly takes the baby home along with the treasure trove found with her.

As Archidimus, the resourceful Brian Tree is a no nonsense shepherd who loves his adopted daughter but very pleased with the gold and jewels that accompanied her. All is well in this rustic part of Bohemia and the second part of A Winter’s Tale is pure summer, light and joyous (Mike Shara is a wonderfully dippy son of Archidimus who has a good heart if no street smarts), filled with the beauty of Perdita and Florizel's love, not to mention those exotic eye-popping costumes worn by the Bohemians which are reminiscent of the technicolor costume films of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

One of the more memorable characters from the Bohemian side of a Winter's Tale is Tom Rooney's astutely envisioned Autolycus, an extraordinary thief with immeasurable talents for transforming himself to fit the occasion - once again a tribute to Pennoyer's costumes which are also outlandishly comical. Autolycus uses his gift for higher purposes when he helps Prince Florizel, denounced by Polixines, to run away with Perdita to Sicilia where they eventually find forgiveness and the love of Leontes for a daughter he thought had been lost forever.

Cara Ricketts who plays Perdita seems little more than a pretty face at first impression in Bohemia. In Sicilia she becomes a king's daughter and a woman who discovers that the love for her mother has never died, and in this case neither has the mother. Even as a living statue, Yanna McIntosh proves that once a queen always a queen.

The Winter's Tale is not always easy going with its complicated plot and unending turn of events, but its appeal lies in its passion and its theme that forgiveness, like love, is divine. In that respect The Winter's Tale is one of the jewels of the summer.  It plays in repertoire at the Tom Patterson Theatre until Sept. 29.

The unique Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (It's a completely textless musical where each individual song tells its own story) might well be called the Musical and the Man, so seamlessly are the songs and the personality of Brel himself woven together and brought to life in this marvelous evening directed by Stafford Arima.

Photo: by David Hou. L to R: Mike Nadajewski and Brent Carver in Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris.

The Belgium born Brel, who considered himself a francophone Fleming, wrote his songs mostly in French, all of which were superbly translated into English by Eric Blau and Mort Shuman, the latter who co-starred in the original production of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well which included his wife Elly Stone, Alice Whitfield and Shawn Elliott. It premiered off Broadway at the Village Gate in 1968 and played for four years. It's still considered the quintessential musical based on the songs of Jacques Brel, but for American audiences it was the first time that they had ever heard the songs of Brel whose works in North America were pretty obscure up until then. After that, Brel's influence spread from pop to folk and artists like Leonard Cohen to Barbra Streisand to David Bowie.

The Stratford production under Armina's direction, has included two songs that weren't part of the original 1968 musical, and one from the 1975 film of the musical. But anyone familiar with the original musical will be hard put to single out the newcomers to this "re-explored" production. What they will find is a quartet of performers who are rarely out of step and always in command of the material, even giving the songs some new definition. This is especially true of Brent Carver who is such a consummate actor without music, that in a song like Amsterdam which has little movement, you feel the irony - and anger - of a bitter old sailor who had too many whores but never found love.

Mike Nadajewski, one of Stratford's brilliant young actors on the rise, has a supreme moment with Next, a powerful memory song about a young man has never been able to make love to anyone without the nightmare recollection of his introduction to sex is in a brothel where every sailor in a long line awaited his turn with the jarring "Next".

Brel was a man very much influenced by his time. Born in 1929 on the eve of the Great Depression, he lived through the German occupation in his native Brussels but nonetheless paid tribute to his native city in the lively music hall style song about the pre-war days "when Brussels was king" sung here by the sexy Jewelle Blackman and company.

Though Brel came from an established family which co-owned a cardboard factory, his musical inclinations led him to turn down a chance to become part of the family's business. Instead he become a cabaret performer in Brussels, and eventually moved to Paris where he continued to write music and sing in the city's cabarets and music halls.

In Jacques Brel is Alive and Well, the lighter side of Brel - who was always interested in the aspirations and dreams of the average person - is delightful in songs like Timid Frieda, sung in he show by the very versatile Nathalie Nadon as a wistful but determined girl who has left her stifling home where they feed her "little lessons and platitude in cans." This Frieda turns out to be more plucky than anyone imagined with a scatological finger to the neighborhood cops. Nadon also has one of the best numbers in the show (I Loved) and the only number that has a true twist at the end as a woman recalls a man whom she loved madly and who jilted her.

So, too, Carver and Nadajewski give us a couple of upwardly mobile young bucks thumbing their noses at the Middle Class, until they become part of the middle class themselves.

While Brel could deliver the clever music hall songs about men who dreamed they'd be great bullfighters or great lovers and the women who finally came out of their shell or finally learned that love wasn't necessarily forever, he turned to darker songs about love, death, and the struggles that everyone has with life.

The war turned his genius to the magnificent Sons of, a melancholy, poetic and a sadly familiar song about all the young men, all our sons, who have died so needlessly in war; his own reflections about lost love in Le Moribund (which turned into a major hit for singer Terry Jacks in his English language version called Seasons in the Sun), the mega romantic classic Ne Me Quitte Pas (If You Should Go Away), the torment of a man who is in hell because of his love for a worthless woman who is coming back to him (Mathilde), given a powerful rendition by Mike Nadajewsky.

The only minor glitch in the show is Jewelle Blackman singing the plaintive You're Not Alone sitting on a step facing one part of the audience with her back to two thirds of the house. It's one number that didn't stand a chance among 25 that gave us every emotion in the book: love, happiness, despair, sorrow, pain, delight and hope.

Edif Piaf once said of Brel, "Through his singing he expresses his reason for living and each line hits you in the face and leaves you dazed." You'll feel much of the same sentiment at the end of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. Brel died in at the age of 49 with lung cancer, but his spirit lives on in his songs. Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris plays in repertoire at the Tom Patterson Theatre until Oct. 3.
(Reviewed by Jeniva Berger).

Do Not Go Gentle

A troubled marriage late in his life led Actor Leon Pownall to assemble a one-man play about a troubled Welsh poet.  “Do Not Go Gentle” is a biographical study of the hard-drinking Welsh writer Dylan Thomas.  When Pownall brought it to the stage, he selected Welsh Canadian actor Geraint Wyn Davies to portray Thomas and the selection was perfect.  Since the time it was mounted, Wyn Davies has taken this show to many locales and Pownall has died leaving this stage legacy to the nation’s theatrical canon.

Photo: by David Hou. Geraint Wyn Davies in Do Not Go Gentle

The show, which is having a short run at Stratford’s Studio Theatre, shows that the actor who wowed Stratford audiences with a dynamic Henry V has not lost a stitch of that stage mastery.  The set offers little distraction beyond a table, chair, stool, lectern and a quickly vanishing bottle of Johnny Walker Red.

The story outlines the loneliness of the poet and the solitary times he needs for his art.  It is contrasted with his boyish fascination with sexual satisfaction, either with many adoring women or practiced in solitude, all by himself.  His immaturity is mixed and his drinks are straight.  Once in a while, he talks to his absent wife Caitlin, who long before gave up on a marriage that gave them three children.

When he died in New York City of “an insult to the brain”, Caitlin came over for his body and in Pownall’s vision, Thomas came back to life to tell this story.  He claims his father read all of Shakespeare’s works to him as a child.  The spectre of the Bard hangs heavily in the work because, try as he might, the talented poet can not approach the brilliance of Shakespeare and he is haunted by this failure for his entire creative existence.

Watching Geraint Wyn Davies perform is a delight.  He moves through the work with skill, concentration and communication, with language that stimulates and challenges the audience to sink into phrases that soothe and lap with equal intensity.  When it is ended less than two hours later, the audience is on its feet with strong applause for an artist at his peak. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night plays at the Studio Theatre until Sept. 11.
(Reviewed by Ric Wellwood, a London, Ontario based freelance theatre critic).

For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again

There is something special about the works of Michel Tremblay.  They deal mostly with a host of Montreal characters, many of them family and all distinctly written.  There is pain and a great deal of laughter in Tremblay’s works and For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again is one of his best and most powerful works.  It deals with his early development as a writer and the testy but loving relationship with his mother, his greatest critic and his strongest supporter.

Photo: by David Hou. Tom Rooney, Lucy Peacock in For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again.

The production is at the Tom Patterson Theatre and is directed by Chris Abraham in his debut at the Festival.  A Montreal-born director from the Toronto theatre scene, he brings a keen understanding of Tremblay to what may be Stratford’s best little production of the season.  With Tom Rooney playing the Narrator and Lucy Peacock playing the Mother, the show steams along with wit and a definite flavour of French Canada, but without the accents.  Rooney and Peacock capture the rhythm of the language and turn it into smiles without fail.  There is a chemistry on that stage that lifts the audience into another dimension with the firm belief that they are watching a mother and son work through their differences.  It also happens to be one of Miss Peacock’s best performances ever.

The play covers many years, from the time he is a ten-year-old until he talks to his mother on the last day of her life.  Even though there are loads of laughs in this show, you may want to bring a hanky, because it is one of those rare comedies that can bring a tear to your eye. For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again plays in repertoire at the Tom Patterson Theare until Oct. 2.
(Reviewed by Ric Wellwood, a London, Ontario based freelance theatre critic.)

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Even with three added performances, it may be tough to get tickets for Stratford’s production of Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona.  This marks the first Shakespeare ever performed at the new Studio Theatre and it is a rich evening of theatre indeed.

Photo: by David Hou. Dion Johnstone and Claire Lautier in The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

The show is directed by Dean Gabourie with a bassett hound as assistant director.  The dog, Otto, is owned by actor Robert Perischini and does pretty much as he pleases in any of his scenes.  He even does what a dog is able to do when tending to ablutions and it brings the house down.  As Crab, he lolls about the stage and the actors follow his direction with straight faces.  Otto and Robert Perischini join Bruce Dow for some of the play’s best comic moments.

The main love story centres around two best friends who are in competition for the same woman while a perfectly acceptable girl waits in the wings for one or both of them to exhibit some common sense.  Dion Johnstone and Gareth Potter are the Gentlemen, while their love interests are portrayed by Claire Lautier and Sophia Walker.  Johnstone and Lautier are particularly effective in their handling of Shakespeare’s text, and the design is very good, particularly Tamara Marie Kutcheran’s costumes.

The Studio Theatre is located behind the Avon Theatre in downtown Stratford and it is an intimate performing space where no seat is far removed from the action.  I have come to appreciate the Studio as a place where some risk productions are done and they provide an additional edge to the traditional material that plays at Stratford’s other three stages.  If you can get there this summer, you may find yourself wishing to return regularly. The Two Gentlemen of Verona plays at the Studio Theatre until Sept. 19.
(Reviewed by Ric Wellwood, a London, Ontario based freelance theatre critic).

PREVIEWS

FESTIVAL THEATRE

As You Like It by William Shakespeare. Directed by Des McAnuff. April 30 to Oct 31. Opens Jun. 7 Banished by her usurping uncle, Rosalind seeks refuge in the Forest of Arden, where her father, Duke Senior, holds court with his followers. There, disguised as a young squire, she instructs Orlando, the man she secretly loves, in the ways of a woman’s heart – only to acquire a new and unexpected admirer. Content Advisory: Content Advisory Suitable for all ages. The opening scenes in the court of the usurping Duke Frederick are dark in tone, evoking the atmosphere of a fascist regime. The production uses smoke effects, strobe lighting and gunshots. A herbal cigarette is smoked during the performance.With Ben Carlson, Brent Carver, Paul Nolan, Andrea Runge, Lucy Peacock, Cara Ricketts, Tom Rooney and Mike Shara.
Photo: by David Hou. L to R: Cara Ricketts, Andrea Runge

Dangerous Liaisons by Christopher Hampton. Directed by Ethan Mc Sweeney. Aug. 3 to Oct. 30. Opens Aug. 12. In pre-Revolutionary France, the Marquise de Merteuil and her sometime lover the Vicomte de Valmont amuse themselves by plotting the seduction of two women of virtue: the virginal Cécile Volanges and the respectably married Mme de Tourvel. But as their cynical game proceeds, the players’ motives grow deeper – and more deadly. This Olivier Award-winning drama is based on a sensationally popular novel so scandalous that it was banned in the 19th century as an outrage to public morality. Content Advisory: Mature content, centring on the seduction of two women: one young and innocent, the other respectably married. Some nudity is anticipated. Best suited to later teens and up. With Martha Henry, Tom McCamus, Seana McKenna, Sara Topham, Bethany Jillard and Yanna McIntosh.
Photo: by Andrew Eccles. L to R: Sara Topham, Tom McCamus, Seana McKenna.

Kiss Me, Kate. Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter. Book by Sam and Bella Spewack. Directed by John Doyle. April 10 to Nov. 6. Opens Jun 8.  As backstage bickering between the co-stars of a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew threatens to sabotage opening night, along come a couple of gangsters with a gambling debt to collect. The result is hilarity on and off the stage – all punctuated by Cole Porter’s unforgettable melodies and wickedly witty lyrics. With such hits as “So In Love” and “Too Darn Hot,” this classic from the golden age of musical theatre is a fun-filled way to “Brush Up Your Shakespeare.” Content Advisory: Suitable for all ages. The production uses haze, flashing lights and the sound of a gunshot.With Juan Chioran, Monique Lund, Mike Jackson and Chilina Kennedy.
Photo: by David Hou. Juan Chioran, Monique Lund.

The Tempest by William Shakespeare. Directed by Des McAnuff. Jun 11 to Sept 12. Opens Jun 25. Marooned on a distant island with his daughter Miranda, Prospero has spent twelve years perfecting his magic arts. Now, with the help of the spirit Ariel, he raises a storm at sea, bringing within his grasp the enemies who robbed him of his dukedom. But what vengeance does he propose to take? This culminating masterpiece of Shakespeare’s career pits the desire for revenge against the demands of love and asks if man is capable of creating a brave new world. Content Advisory: Suitable for all ages, but may not be of interest to pre-teenage children. The production evokes the Jacobean era in which the play was written. Starring Christopher Plummer, with James Blendick, Bruce Dow, Peter Hutt Dion Johnstone, Trish Lindstrom, Gareth Potter, Timothy D. Stickney, John Vickery and Geraint Wyn Davies.
Photo: by Andrew Eccles. Christopher Plummer as Prospero.

AVON THEATRE

Evita. Lyrics by Tim Rice. Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Directed by Gary Griffin. May 28 to Oct Nov. 6. Opens: Jun 10. As ambitious as she is charismatic, Eva Duarte rises from poverty in rural Argentina to become first the mistress and then the wildly popular wife of President Juan Perón. Blending the personal with the political, this landmark of the modern musical theatre paints a dazzling portrait of a woman who helped shape history.
 Exuberant Latin, rock and jazz rhythms pulse through the score of a show that took the world by storm, winning Tony, Drama Desk and Olivier Awards for best musical. Content Advisory: Suitable for all ages, but the show’s political elements may not be of interest to pre-teenage children. Starring Juan Chioran and Chilina Kennedy with Josh Young, Josie Marasco and Vince Staltari.
Photo: by Andrew Eccles. L to R: Juan Chioran, Chilina Kennedy.

Peter Pan. by J. M. Barrie. Directed by Tim Carroll. April 16 to Oct 31. Opens: Jun 12. A strange visitor flies in through the Darling children’s nursery window and whisks Wendy, Michael and John away to a magical land – where fairies and mermaids mingle with warrior maidens, and the boy who refuses to grow up must face his arch enemy, the fearsome Captain Hook. Rediscover one of the great adventures of all time, a spectacular journey into the world of childhood that will capture the hearts and imaginations of all ages. Content Advisory: Suitable for ages four and up. Appealing on many levels, this play will interest adults as well as children. The production uses fog effects, startling sounds and pyrotechnic effects.With Seán Cullen, Tom McCamus, Michael Therriault, Paul Dunn, Stacie Steadman, Sara Sopham, Oliver ABecker, Laura Condlin, Bruce Godfree, Sanjay Talway and Brigit Wilson.
Photo: by David Hou. Tom McCamus, Seán Cullen.

TOM PATTERSON THEATRE

The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare. Directed by Marti Maraden. May 27 to Sept 29. Opens Jun 9. Obsessed by suspicions of infidelity, King Leontes puts his pregnant wife, Hermione, on trial for her life – coming to his senses only when his actions have cost him both wife and children. But true love can work miracles, and anguish in one generation can unexpectedly lead to happiness in the next.A bittersweet drama of wrath and regret – culminating in one of the most poignant reunions in all of Shakespeare.Content Advisory. Suitable for most ages, but may not be of interest to pre-teenage children. The plot turns on an unfounded allegation of adultery, and one character is pursued and killed offstage by a bear; however, we do not anticipate graphic representations of violence or sexuality. With Ben Carlson, Yanna McIntosh, Seana McKenna, Sean Arbuckle, Dan Chameroy, Ian Lake, Cara Ricketts, Tom Rooney and Mike Shara.
Photo: by Andrew Eccles. Ben Carlson as Leontes.

Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. Production Conception, English Lyrics and Additonal Material by Eric Blau and Mort Shuman. Based on Jacques Brel's Lyrics and Commentary. Music by Jacques Brel. Directed by Stafford Arima. May 14 to Oct. 3. Opens Jun 11. Often haunting, sometimes humorous, always vividly dramatic, the songs of Belgian troubadour Jacques Brel have been recorded by countless artists throughout the world. Encompassing themes of joy and sorrow, love and loss, life and death, this compilation of Brel’s finest work celebrates the diverse complexity of the human heart.The poetic imagination of the man often hailed as Europe’s answer to Bob Dylan infuses one of the world’s most enduringly popular musical revues. Content Advisory: Suitable for all ages, but Brel’s sophisticated, cabaret-style songs, often tinged with melancholy, may not hold particular appeal for pre-teenage children. With Jewelle Blackman, Breant Carver, Mike Nadajewski, Nathalie Nadon.
Photo: by Andrew Eccles.

For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again by Michel Tremblay. Translated by Linda Gaboriau. Directed by Chris Abraham. Jul 27 to Octf. 2. Opens Aug 11. This hilarious and heartrending tribute to his mother, Canada’s Michel Tremblay has created one of the great female characters of our time. A born storyteller with a love of exaggeration and invention, Nana often exasperates the son she so fiercely loves – yet proves an inspiration for his art. A stunning theatrical exploration of that most primal and complex of human bonds: the often turbulent relationship between mother and child. Content Advisory: Suitable for all ages, but may not be of interest for young children. One or two mild expletives are uttered, and one brief passage, expressed in the language of childhood, alludes humorously to bodily functions. Starring Lucy Peacock and Tom Rooney.
Photo: by Andrew Eccles. Lucy Peacock and Tom Rooney.

STUDIO THEATRE

Do Not Go Gentle by Leon Pownall. As directed by Leon Pownall. Realized by Dean Gabourie. Jul 2 to Sept 11. Opens Jul 13. Finding himself in unaccustomed circumstances, poet Dylan Thomas reviews a life as deeply steeped in whisky as in the intoxicating power of words. Summoning memories of his childhood in Wales, his many amorous encounters and his one true love, Thomas measures his talent against that of the greatest writer of them all: William Shakespeare. A feast of gorgeous language, this one-man tour-de-force paints an intimate portrait of an artist whose ribaldry and wry wit do nothing to disguise the depths of his passion. Content Advisory: Suitable for teens and up. Mature content includes discussion of sexuality and death. The sole character smokes on stage and consumes liberal amounts of alcohol. Starring Geraint Wyn Davies.
Photo: of Geraine Wyn Davies by Andrew Eccles

The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare. Directed by Dean Gabourie. Jul 30 to Sept 19 Opens Aug 10. Proteus and Valentine are the best of friends until Proteus also falls for the new object of Valentine’s affections – Silvia. Forsaking his own betrothed, Julia, Proteus sets out to betray his unsuspecting friend, only to find that both Silvia and Julia have a thing or two to teach him about loyalty and love. A young man’s folly drives the action in what may have been Shakespeare’s first comedy: a madcap romp that bubbles over with the playwright’s own youthful energy. Content Advisory: Suitable for all ages. The production will have elements of vaudeville comedy. With Dion Johnstone, Claire Lautier, Gareth Potter, Sophia Walker, Bruce Dow and Robert Persichini.
Photo: by Andrew Eccles. Top left: Bruce Dow & Robert Persichini. L to R: Gareth Potter, Sophia Walker.

King of Thieves by George F. Walker. Directed by Jennifer Tarver. Jul 18 to Sept 18. Opens Aug 12. Master thief Mac and his equally crooked father-in-law, Peachum, are coerced by the FBI into mounting a sting operation against a cadre of corrupt bankers. Instead, they soon hatch schemes of their own. A nightclub cabaret in 1928 New York is the setting for this musical tale of deception, double-cross and sudden demise.
 Inspired by the 18th-century classic The Beggar’s Opera, this trenchantly satirical new play with songs exposes a world of corporate crime that’s all too familiar today. Content Advisory: Suitable for teens and up. There is some depiction of violence and sexuality and occasional coarse language. With Evan Buliung, Seán Cullen and Laura Condlin.
Photo: by Andrew Eccles. Evan Buliung as Mac.

For theatre tickets and full season brochures, please phone the Stratford Festival box office at 1-800-567-1600. Brochures and tickets may also be ordered through the website at www.stratfordshakespearefestival.com

BEYOND THE STAGE

As well as the dozen productions the Stratford Festival offers this season, visitors can take advantage of a number of program and events that go beyond the stage.

Stageside Chats (free admission) include Meet the Festival, Talking Theatre and Post Performance Discussions. The Celebrated Writers Series are held in the mornings, July 10 (Elizabetgh Strout); Aug. 7 (Mystery Writers: Giles Blunt and Louise Penney); Playwrights' Panel on Aug. 12 with Judith Thompson and Michel Tremblay; Germaine Greer on Aug. 15.

Night Music is held on selected Mondays in June, Jul and August from 7:30 to 9:30pm; Table Talk is held on selected dates in July and August at 11:30am and combines a buffet lunch in the Festival Theatre's Paul D. Fleck Marquee with a lecture on one of the season's productions; Pre-Shaw Lectures are held on selected dates in July and August from 6:30pm to 7:15pm in the Paul D. Fleck Marquee; Festival Tours include Backstage Tours, Costume and Props Warehouse Tours, Garden Tours and the new Archives Tour.

Lobby Talks are held on selected weekedays in July and August. For all of these plus the Beyond the Stage Education courses for teachers and students please see stratfordshakespearefestival.com. for complete description, cost and registrations.