Henry V a passably interesting production

Tom Rooney as Ensign Pistol and Aaron Krohn as King Henry V in Henry V. Photography by David Hou.

Henry V
Stratford Shakespeare Festival
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Des McAnuff
Set design by Robert Brill
Festival Theatre

Written by Geoff Dale

You know there’s a bit of a problem when much of the praise – deservedly so here – is heaped upon one of the play’s secondary characters instead of the lead. But that’s exactly what happens in director Des McAnuff’s impressively noisy but rather tepid vision of Henry V.

Whenever Tom Rooney is centre stage, literally wringing every possible laugh and grimace out of the wonderfully sinister but comic figure of Ensign Pistol – an old drinking crony of a dying Falstaff – he literally steals the show from the pivotal characters.

It’s most noticeable when, not realizing he is talking with and down to King Henry V (Aaron Krohn), he unknowingly spars with and denigrates the disguised monarch. Krohn for some odd reason just seems to be blandly reading his lines in response – reducing Shakespeare’s powerful battlefield leader to an almost disengaged bystander.

On the plus side, there are no real deviations from the essential plot nor is the action magically transported to 19th Century Morocco. The Archbishop of Canterbury (James Blendick) sets the action in motion with his claim to the king that certain French lands in reality belong to England. Financial support is then offered to wage a war against King Charles V1 (Richard Binsley).

In one of the first act’s few genuinely moving scenes, three leaders of a rebellion are executed by Henry, who then moves on to France, ultimately to do battle on the fields of Agincourt with a superior French army that outnumbers the English, seemingly by the thousands.

Set designer Robert Brill offers up solid sets that make this an often eye-catching production while fight director Steve Rankin recreates moments of battle in fine fashion, ensuring act two moves at a much quicker pace than the often sluggish first 90 minutes.

And there are plenty of cannon blasts and airborne arrows along with the odd flash of lightning and occasional round of thunder to make the three-hour play an awesome demonstration of sound and fury that befits a battleground where thousands of men are dying in rapid succession.

Sadly those special effects at times threaten to overwhelm some the activity of the actors. Fortunately some like Rooney, Juan Chioran as the French ambassador Montjoy, Lucy Peacock in the minor but beautifully acted-role of Pistol’s wife Hostess and Tyrone Savage as the Duke of Gloucester ultimately win out.

But the same cannot be said for Krohn who seems to lack the passion and vigour one might expect from a man leading his army onto the battlefields against overwhelming odds. The emotion – whether sadness, joy or anger – never really materializes to a satisfactory level.

Henry V is one of Shakespeare’s most fascinating works – a drama, with touches of sly humour that delves into the very heart of warfare. The playwright presents the conflicting philosophies – right or wrong – then lays out the scenes of bloody carnage but leaves the decision making to the audience.

For some reason, this particular production doesn’t strike enough gut-wrenching humanistic notes, just trotting out scenes of pyrotechnic wizardry, piling up the dead bodies and then moving on in an almost matter-of-fact manner.

It’s neither a triumph nor failure for the departing McAnuff. Entertaining in parts with a few standouts in the company but ultimately, at three hours, Henry V is a tad tedious and a little detached.

For what it’s worth, the opening sequence in Henry V bears similarities to the beginning of Norman Jewison’s 1973 cinematic treatment of the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar.

Henry V starts with a troupe of actors dressed in contemporary costumes moving about the set, explaining what is about to unfold, then retreat and return in more recognizable Shakespearean clothing.

In Jewison’s treatment of the Broadway classic, a bus load of actors hop off their vehicle in the desert, disrobe and then reappear in Biblical robes and sandals to retell the story of Christ’s last six days on earth.

Both have their moments but just not enough of them.


For McAnuff and company, Henry V fights for **1/2 stars out of four.

This review can also be found online at: the beat magazine


Runs until September 29
Approximate running time: 3 hours
Tickets: 1-800-567-1600 or online www.stratfordfestival.ca

Dove update

The latest news is that there was 1 chick in the nest in our tree and as of today, it has fledged.  Well, it has moved out of the nest on to another branch of the same tree.  

Here's a family portrait of Mom, Dad and Junior (the small one on the right).

Things aren't always what they appear

We've been missing our nesting Mourning Doves this year.  They appeared briefly above our front door in the spring but promptly left us and nested above our neighbour's door instead.  They raised two chicks that fledged successfully but that was the end of the nesting so we've been feeling a bit abandoned.

As I was coming up the front walk after work today I looked down and saw tell tale signs (dove poop) that there must be doves hanging about.  

So, I paused and looked straight up at this.  Hmmm, looks like a nest.

Yes, I'll be darned, it is a nest in the tree on our lawn.

On closer inspection, I thought "that's an odd feather pattern at the front...

.....down right strange, in fact"

Okay, that explains it - there's at least one chick in this precarious nest.  I suspect this nest has been successful because we've has so little rain. No big storms to shake it loose.  Doves are not the best engineers and builders - they need all the luck they can get.

So, I was smugly thinking our Doves had come back to us after all.  Until I turned around and noticed that there's a nest on our neighbour's window sill again.

 So the Doves in our tree are either our old doves or brand new ones.  Either way, we're happy they're here.

Nashman captures the troubled genius of John Hirsch

Alon Nashman is pictured as John Hirsch in Hirsch. Photo is by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Hirsch
World premiere
Stratford Shakespeare Festival
Co-created and performed by Alon Nashman
Co-created and directed by Paul Thompson
Designed by Gillian Gallow
Light design by Itai Erdal
Sound design by Verne Good
Written by Geoff Dale

Alon Nashman’s gut-wrenching and emotionally charged one-man show Hirsch serves a dual purpose of equal importance.

The 90-minute production brings back to life the oft-time controversial Stratford Shakespeare Festival artistic director (1981-85) John Hirsch, warts and all, to an audience that already knows of the troubled genius and to a new crowd being educated on the man’s intricacies for the first time.

It is also provides the golden opportunity to watch a tour-de-force acting clinic by Nashman, an actor and writer of immeasurable talents. This is a performance – mercifully abandoning the perfunctory intermission – that, without interruption, touches the soul, boldly reaches out to the spirit and reminds all of just how powerful theatre of this nature can be.

Thanks to the personal recollections from more than 60 theatrical artisans from Martha Henry, Brian Bedford and Gordon Pinsent to Marilyn Lightstone, Des McAnuff and Moses Znaimer, the show is a broad-based portrayal of his life that covers both the latter years and his tormented time as an orphaned Jewish boy in Hungary during and after The Second World War.

For those familiar with newspaper headlines, Hirsch was the co-founder of Canada’s first regional theatre, the Manitoba Theatre Company, head of the CBC’s drama department throughout the 1970s, an associate director at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival from 1967-69 and its artistic director from 1981-1985.

He died from AIDS in 1989.

While wildly accepted as a theatrical genius, he was also known to be man of wildly shifting moods and often a director prone to dictatorial tactics, referenced throughout the production. The bearded and lean Nashman looks the part, bringing to the role both aspects of childlike whimsy and uncontrollable adult passion.

Hirsch pulls no punches, offers no apologies and never glosses over the man’s imperfections but, thanks to co-creators Nashman and Paul Thompson (also the director), speaks straight from the heart, with Nashman literally hurling the narrative straight at the audience with authority and with a good measure of physical dexterity thrown in for good measure.

If you’re looking for references to the great productions – The Tempest, King Lear and The Cherry Orchard – they and many more are all there. Tantalizing recollections of fellow actors and a miserable stay in New York City are also part of the mix and there is Hirsch’s delightfully didactic explanation as to what theatre is really all about – and it has nothing to do with either balancing the books or making a profit.

Hirsch is simply magnificent. A production that will mesmerize those both familiar and unfamiliar with the man, it is a stunning triumph for Alon Nashman. Audiences can catch it until September 14.

Hirsch rates **** out of four stars.

You can also find this review online at: the beat magazine


Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission
Studio Theatre
Tickets: 1-800-567-1600 or online http://www.stratfordfestival.ca/
Runs until September 14

Pictured is Tom Rooney (centre) as Robert Service with members of the company in Wanderlust. (Photo by David Hou)

Wanderlust
World Premiere
Stratford Shakespeare Festival
Directed by Morris Panych
Book by Morris Panych
Music by Marek Norman
With additional lyrics by Morris Panych
Based on the poems of Robert Service


Written by Geoff Dale

Service magic lost in a tired Wanderlust

Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God's sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.
- The Call of the Wild


It sounds inconceivable that a full-scale musical rendering of  Robert Service’s wonderfully imaginative poetry could be lame, bland and quite tiresome – all at the same time.

But those are some of the words that come to mind when describing Morris Panych’s Wanderlust – a fictionalized account of the British born Service, who spent much of his life toiling in both English and Canadian banking institutions.

It was in his adopted homeland of Canada, where the beleaguered daily ledger clerk fantasized and scribbled poems – or as he called them verses – about the mysteries of the frigid North and its rugged inhabitants searching for gold and even the meaning of life.

The problem is not so much with Panych’s writing, which presents a rather enjoyable vision of the young Service as he labored in anonymity in tedious employment to earn a living but strove to explore his poetic soul in his off hours. Even though the characterization is somewhat at odds with historic depictions of the man, it’s a persona that audiences nonetheless gobble up gleefully.

In the titular role, Tom Rooney is accessible and charming, singing and dancing with both style and vigour while shooting off one-liners like a well-polished nightclub stand-up comic. He’s also believable as the man responsible for the above poem and classics like The Shooting of Dan McGrew.

Panych’s direction is solid with a couple of other cast members – Randy Hughson as Service’s amusingly gruffy, stuffy boss Mr. McGee and Lucy Peacock delightfully camping it up as the love-starved landlady/madame Mrs. Munsch – chewing up the scenery in fine fashion.

Where the production falls apart, descending into sheer tedium is when the musical numbers of Marek Norman take over centre stage. With the exception of the rousing The Cremation of Sam McGee, the tunes in this two-act offering are almost indistinguishable from one and other.

Whether melancholy and/or peppy, the musical interludes - instead of complementing the spoken words – offer up a kind of boring melodic sameness that has you wishing for the main characters to stop dancing about, cut the lyrics short and get back to the action at hand.

Usually the wonderfully intimate Tom Patterson Theatre is an ideal venue for Festival productions but here it appears to be inhibiting the dancers, making the choreography at times look clunky, with its principles searching in vain for more space to exhibit the quite unique dance numbers from choreographer Diana Coatsworth.

While the concept of a musical cabaret honouring Canada’s most popular and, for those times, most profitable poet may have appeared pure gold at the time, it’s that very element that holds the whole production back. It comes off almost as a work-in-progress – at the mercy of some very ordinary theatrical music that adds nothing to the mystique of the man that yearned to explore those places unseen.

The only failing in terms of plot is the love triangle played out between Service, his nemesis Dan McGree (Dan Chameroy) and the engaging, talented but here sadly wasted Robin Hutton as Louise Montgomery. It just doesn’t click on any level.

A remedy – try more workshops with the goal of upping the level of intrigue, drama and mystery while downgrading or dropping entirely the musical elements.

The production barely scrapes by with ** out of four stars.

You can also find this review online at: the beat magazine


Approximate running time: 2 hours and 15 minutes
Tom Patterson Theatre
Runs until September 28

Harvey leaves audiences hopping with laughter

We recently spent a weekend in New York City and had the privilege of seeing Jim Parsons in Harvey -  here's Geoff's review.

                                                                                     image credit:  Joan Marcus

By GEOFF DALE

NEW YORK CITY – Credit Jim Parsons for his unquestionable bravery in tackling the lead role in Mary Chase’s amiable comic fantasy Harvey.

Not that the work is considered to be a literary masterpiece – even though it inexplicably beat out Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie for the 1945 Pulitzer Prize. More to the point is that the 1950 film version nabbed Josephine Hull an Oscar for best supporting actress while James Stewart got a nomination for best actor.

The simple reality is that the character of Elwood P. Wood has been inexorably linked to Stewart for the past 62 years and deservedly so because of his wonderfully mild-mannered and delightfully eccentric performance that just lit up the silver screen.

Yet Parsons, the affable young star and two-time Emmy winner from the TV comic smash The Big Bang Theory, clearly felt it was a worth a shot, at least if nothing else to prove that he is not simply the oddball physicist Dr. Sheldon Cooper he plays on television.

He proves that and much more, serving up a nicely-paced performance that swaps the oft times nerdy swagger of his TV alter-ego Cooper for the more refined and simple charm of Dowd. While the character may be an alcoholic tippler to the extraordinaire, Parsons nonetheless projects equal measures of civility and extreme small-town politeness.

Much like Stewart, he succeeds in extolling the virtues of simply being nice.

The Roundabout Theatre Co. production, while not re-inventing the play, offers up a well-acted modern day update of the classic tale of a man and his invisible rabbit.

So who exactly is Elwood P. Dowd?

He’s a middle-aged, overly pleasant individual whose best friend is an invisible six foot three inch tall white rabbit named Harvey. The creature, seen only by Dowd, is a pooka – a harmless but mischievous mythical being from Celtic mythology that seems to gravitate towards odd folk, like Dowd.

Why the name Harvey?

One doctor asks Dowd - “Wasn’t there someone, somewhere, sometime, whom you knew—by the name of Harvey?”

Dowd explains with convoluted logic: “No, Doctor. No-one. Maybe that’s why I always had such hope for it.”

Handing out his business card to everyone he happens upon, as if he were dishing out candies to little children, Dowd is a kindly gent who simply can’t say to anyone. Witness the phone call from a saleswoman, urging him to join the Ladies Home Journal magazine club. He doesn’t just buy one for himself but one for his invisible friend.

He even invites the caller to a party being hosted that very moment by his long suffering sister Vera (played by Jessica Hecht with elements of both constraint and frustration).

Ultimately Veta attempts to have her brother committed at the local sanatorium but as expected – certainly by audience members – the doctors instead imprison her. This is the first key sequence in a series of scenes highlighted by chaotic nonsense, mistaken identities, chases, a rather lame romantic subplot and even a few moments during which doors open and book pages turn by some unseen force.

For Parsons – whose first Broadway debut was last year in The Normal Heart – it’s a triumph with plenty of well-timed physical gags and enough brisk one-liners to keep even the most jaded New York’s theatregoers happy during the course of the evening.

Stewart’s Dowd will never be forgotten but Parsons has cultivated an enjoyable theatrical patch in the Harvey tradition.

Backing him are several Broadway veterans, including the aforementioned Tony-nominated Hecht, Larry Bryggman and Carol Kane, whose single scene almost steals the show. The energetic Hecht, who also shines in AMC’s dark TV series Breaking Bad, also gets one of the best lines, wearily revealing to one doctor, “I’m going to tell you something that I’ve never told anyone in the world before. Every ... once in a while ... I see that great big white rabbit ... myself.”

Tony nominee Charles Kimbrough (Company, Sunday in the Park With George and the TV series Murphy Brown) has great fun hamming it up as William R. Chumley, M.D., head of the sanitarium known as Chumley's Rest, adding nice touches of frustration, fear, bewilderment and an assortment of lunatic characteristics that would seemingly belie the basic principles of psychiatry.

Harvey is at Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St., through Aug. 5. Tickets ($37-$127) can be bought through Roundabout Ticket Services at 212-719-1300 or online at roundabouttheatre.org. Performances are at 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, with a 2 p.m. matinee on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday.

Harvey garners ***1/2 stars out of four.


You can also find this review online at: the beat magazine

War was never so tragic or funny

Pictured from left: Mac Fyfe, Jacob James, Greg Campbell, Richard Clarkin, Richard Alan Campbell, Linda Prystawska, Michaela Washburn and Anand Rajaram. (Photo by Michael Cooper)

The War of 1812

Stratford Shakespeare Festival
Written and directed by Michael Hollingsworth
Studio Theatre Annex
Runs until August 12


Review by Geoff Dale

Those who have seen any of Michael Hollingsworth’s award winning comedy-of-manners series The History of the Village of the Small Huts clearly have an advantage of sorts when taking in The War of 1812, a startlingly original repertory performance being showcased by the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

Yet it should be stressed clearly from the onset that any previous knowledge of Hollingsworth’s VideoCabaret work is just that – an advantage – certainly not a carved-in-stone perquisite to seeing The War of 1812. A visually stunning, fast-paced and starkly mounted work that is both outlandishly humorous and painfully tragic; it is a satiric entity onto itself that can stand alone on its merits.

As one segment of Hollingsworth’s cycle outlining satirizing Canada’s period of colonialism, the production is a brilliant way of marking the 200th anniversary of a conflict that, in his view, ultimately resulted in no significant changes for either the Americans or the British but decidedly shattered the people of the First Nations.

The war between the US and England (in Canada), with the latter’s native allies, is presented in a series of rapid-fire vignettes. On the brilliantly lit stage within a compact intimate pitch black theatre, the production comes off as a bizarre yet wonderfully effective mix of opera, puppetry, vaudevillian slapstick and cutting-edge theatre that marries a stylized view of traditional history with a smattering of modern-day cliques and sensibilities thrown in for good measure.

If you spot snippets of popular culture courtesy of the famed Goon Show, Saturday Night Live or even Theatre Passe Muraille rubbing shoulders with reinvented visions of Canadiana, you have discovered one of the hidden joys of VideoCabaret. You might even stumble upon at least one general who sounds and looks eerily like Tim Curry’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter (albeit missing some of the transsexual trappings) from the 1975 cult cinematic classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

And if you find yourself inexplicably humming the infamous And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for, from Country Joe McDonald’s 1965 classic anti-war Fixin' To Die Rag, then you’ve also been tuned in to Hollingsworth’s view of the futility and shameless waste of war.

The gifted company tackles an astonishingly wide range of characters in almost a blink of an eye from the minuscule but pompous James Madison and his politically brash wife Dolly to the malevolent cowardly General Proctor and, one of the production’s truly majestic figures, Anand Rajaram’s noble but tragic Tecumseh.

This is not the history Canadians will remember from the tattered pages of their dreary school text books that more often than not reduced such historic episodes to a series of disinterested military characters battling it out in border skirmishes, recounting deaths as if they were merely scores in a sporting event.

While our authors and historians have clearly but possibly unwittingly manufactured a Canadian identity – both past and present – that is benign and crushingly boring – Hollingsworth has literally redefined and revisualized many of our traditional views with broad and vigorously applied theatric strokes. Apparently our history doesn’t have to be viewed as an unlicensed sleep aid anymore.

The American and British adversaries are simply other worldly creatures grotesque and nauseating, their faces contorted in an array of shockingly funny expressions. Their soliloquies and monologues are the stuff of historical nonsense, played out by military stand-up comics in an imaginary nightclub setting peopled by figures, each one more ludicrous than the other.

The costuming, makeup, lighting, sound and the whole concept of the black-box theatre make the presentation a grand visceral happening, more so than just than a perfunctory night of recognizing fine stage performances. Powerfully evocative music – in the seven minute introduction and throughout the two-act production – draws from Celtic and native sources, with a suggested hint of hypnotic Vangelis-like influences (Blade Runner).

This satirical historical drama pushes the envelope with delightful abandon, often leaving the audience in a bewildered state, wondering whether to laugh out loud or recoil in horror from the tragic realities of the play’s moments of true pathos.

Festival organizers are to be commended for their bold move – the opening of one of the Studio Theatre’s rehearsal halls that accommodates an audience of less than 100 but is perfectly designed for the special staging techniques utilized so effectively by VideoCabaret. The intimate setting makes it seem like the actors are appearing on film, up close and in your face, exposing their every nuance, gesticulation and manic facial gestures.

The cast comprised of Greg Campbell, Richard Alan Campbell, Richard Clarkin, Mac Fyfe, Jacob James, Linda Prystawska, Anand Rajaram and Michaela Washburn is uniformly brilliant, flawlessly flashing through a list of more than 40 historic figures with mind-numbing speed.

Hollingsworth and his talented technique crew, including the likes of set and lighting designer Andy Moro, costume designer Astrid Janson, sound designers Jake Blackwood and Brent Snyder (also the composer) and stage manager Andrew Dollar have made this one of the true highlights of the Festival’s 60th anniversary celebrations.

Without question, The War of 1812 garners an enthusiastic four **** out of four.

You can also find this review online at: the beat magazine 

Approximate running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Tickets: 1-800-567-1600 or online www.stratfordfestival.ca

Sunday drive-by ipod shots

 Using ipod Touch 4, Camera+ app and Clarify and HDR effects

Using ipod Touch 4, Camera+ app and Clarify and Sharpen

Last Sunday I was at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC and my friend 'bccmee' was sweet enough to hold my water bottle and my hat whilst I took a few photos.  This Sunday's assistant?  Geoff was driving while I took these photos.  Thanks peeps!

Happy Independence Day to all of my American blogging friends!  I hope you have a wonderful July 4th. 

It's in the details.....

Geoff and I spent this past weekend in New York City - his third visit, my first.  We had a wonderful time in spite of the outrageous heat and humidity.  We saw Jim Parsons, of The Big Bang Theory, in Harvey a Roundabout Theatre production at Studio 54 - great show.  We did the Uptown and Downtown loops on the Gray Line hop on hop off buses.  We visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art - once for Geoff, twice for me. We stayed at the Intercontinental Barclay on 48th - a beautiful old hotel.  A huge highlight for me was meeting my blogging friend "bccmee" - we met at Grand Central Station and she ended up giving me her perspective on the Monets at the MMA and we got an interesting perspective on the NYC skyline from the roof of the Museum - it was a lot of fun.

So, I want to share New York City with you through lots of photos and very few words - it's in the details.  You'll figure out quickly that I'm a bit of an architecture geek.  But before we get to the first of many building details and other odds and ends, I want to show you the highlight of our trip for Geoff - visiting the Strawberry Fields memorial to John Lennon in Central Park.

A game of checkers curbside in Harlem

The Guggenheim Museum

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (heaven on earth!)

Such a wonderful, interactive space

Carved details on a harp in the Musical Instrument collection.

Help, I've fallen and I can't get up...

The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer (Degas, 1922)

And her sweetly upturned face.

Looking over Central Park from the roof of the MMA

It was an honour to be able to watch this gentleman draw.

Macy`s flagship store.

The Empire State Building rising above it`s neighbours

The Flatiron Building

Roof top water towers - I couldn`t believe how many we saw!

Four zs above David Z. 

Lovin`the stairs

What the heck....

The Chrysler Building peeking through the trees.

Some of NYC`s most famous residents.

The sublime lobby of The Intercontinental Barclay, how could you not have a good time here....