Emotion packed Elektra a regal festival winner

Yanna McIntosh as pictured as Elektra with members of the company in Elektra. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Elektra

Stratford Shakespeare Festival
Written by Sophokles
Translated by Anne Carson
Directed by Thomas Moschopoulos
Choreography by Amalia Bennett
Tom Patterson Theatre

Written by Geoff Dale
This review can also be found online at: the beat magazine

Rhythmic, pulsating, percussive and hard-wired are hardly the words that would jump to mind when describing the standard university study of any Greek tragedy – even the powerful Elektra.

Yet that’s the way one has to view the riveting production of this rendering of Elektra currently on stage at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s Tom Patterson Theatre. Translated by Anne Carson in a sometimes earthy yet profoundly poetic manner and authoritatively directed by Thomas Moschopoulos, the last production unveiled for the 60th season is arguably one of the most fascinating.

Anyone the least bit acquainted with Greek mythology could trot out the perfunctory details of what playwright Sophokles is saying in a sentence or two. Elektra (Yanna McIntosh) has been incessantly mourning the murder of her father Agamemnon at the hands of her treacherous social-climbing stepmother Clytemestra (Seanna McKenna) and her lover Aigisthos (Graham Abbey).

Although close to terminal despair, she still holds out a glimmer of hope that her brother Orestes (Ian Lake) will come home to help her avenge their father’s death. Unknown to her, he has indeed arrived back from Phocis, where he was raised by King Strophius. An Old Man (Peter Hutt) appears on the scene and, as part of a plot to kill the queen, tells all that Orestes was killed in a chariot race.

That’s the plot.

The beauty of this production is the spellbinding manner in which it is presented, culminating in a tasty feast for the eyes and ears.

The marvelously talented McIntosh, with her uncanny ability to switch at will from spoken word to song, brings enormous energy and heart-rending passion to the lead role, appearing almost as a force-of-nature. McKenna is delightfully snarly as the ultimate regal bitch, accompanied in fine form by her posing partner-in-crime Abbey.

Hutt delivers powerful speeches with elegance and grace and, like many of his theatrical counterparts, has a keen sense of the beat that drives this production.

In spite of what the uniformly excellent acting company offers up, the real delight of the production is watching and listening to the contributions of the gifted chorus of women, the collective intermediary – between the on-stage characters and the audience – that plays out its role in Greek mythology with haunting chants and mesmerizing rhythms periodically beaten on the tables and ground.

Forgiving the odd misplaced beat or so, the chorus of seven actresses is in many instances the entity keeping the audience transfixed, figuratively glued to the words and deeds of the main characters and the plot pitting wronged siblings, Elektra, Orestes and Chrysothemis (Laura Conklin) against the personification of pure evil Clytemestra and Aigisthos.

One can see such a tantalizing translation of a traditional Greek myth like this being greeted with open arms back in the free-spirited, anything-goes atmosphere of the Swingin’ 60s but this is a full four decades later and a somewhat more conservative time. What a marvelous breath of fresh air Elektra is to both actors and audiences alike.

Elektra provides 95-minutes of interrupted theatrical magic, earning a full four of four ****.

Runs until September 29
Approximate running time: 1 hour 45 minutes (no intermission)
Tickets: 1-800-567-1600 or online www.stratfordfestival.ca


Drive-by Saturday evening

Enroute to Stratford for the final Opening of the season for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.  

A peekaboo bale of hay. 

Will post Geoff's review of Elektra tomorrow.

Flying around the world..........

Tonight I've been flying by the seat of my pants, more or less.

I've been very lax with my blogging of late and, probably as a direct consequence, I've also been lax at visiting blogs I follow.  Our summer weather set in for the first time in March - seriously - and that was way too early.  We had a brief reprieve to cooler, more "walkable" weather but that was only a hiccup and since then we've had week after week of hot humid weather.  Having a red-heads colouring, I don't do well with heat and humidity - hence I've taken a lot less photos than usual and posted to my blog a lot less than usual.

Tonight I set aside some time and visited a few favorite blogs around the globe.  You might enjoy them as well so here's a list to click and travel, enjoy!

Pauline Writes From The Paddock (New Zealand)
Bitstop (Newfoundland, Canada)
By the Sea (New Brunswick, Canada)
Patty Hancock photography (Crisfield, Maryland, USA)
Rambles from my Chair (Cheshire, United Kingdom)

I visit lots of other wonderful destinations and will post links to more of them another day.

Cheers everyone!

Plummer offers so much more than a word or two

Cutline: Christopher Plummer in A Word or Two. Photo by David Hou.

A Word or Two

Stratford Shakespeare Festival

Written, arranged and performed by Christopher Plummer

Directed by Des McAnuff

Set design by Robert Brill

Avon Theatre

Written by Geoff Dale

Of all the productions at the 60^th anniversary of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Christopher Plummer’s A Word or Two is arguably the most fascinating and satisfying entry.

That’s not because the 82-year-old Plummer is returning after finally nabbing his first Oscar for his supporting role in the indy film Beginners last year or that curiosity pulls the audience in simply to see if this is nothing more than a vanity project.

On the last count – it is not.

What is intriguing about this superbly entertaining 90 minute one-man performance is its subject – the actor’s heartfelt celebration of language which, in his own words, he describes as seeming to be “fast vanishing from our midst.”

In the works for many years, the resulting production is simply spell-binding. Whether he’s exuberantly echoing the words of Shakespeare, W.H. Auden or George Bernard Shaw or just recalling the time when his mother dragged him out from under the snows of Montreal, after succumbing to the effects of too much booze, this is a production that captures you and won’t release you until you’ve left your seat.

Given the fact that he’s only months from birthday number 83, the walk through his eight decades seems rather quick but it is nonetheless packed with emotion – whether it those wondrous moments when he’s singing one of the lovely Quebecois tunes like A La Claire Fontaine in picture perfect French or musing over his youthful interpretation of the Trinity as only having to attend church three times a year.

He pokes fun at himself, and digs deeps into his past, recalling delightful little moments like the time when Gershwin friend and fellow pianist Oscar Levant, in the midst of  one of his two weddings, whispered into the ear of the justice-of-the peace questioning whether he was doing the right thing.

The pub-crawling Welsh poet Dylan Thomas is brought back to life; Robert Frost’s words are hauntingly revisited one more time and Shakespeare, Marlowe and so many more persons of the written and spoken word are given their due by the Oscar-winning Plummer.

Director Des McAnuff is at the top of his game here, skillfully guiding Plummer along his theatrically short but rich journey. Robert Brill’s set is simplistic – a jagged spiral to the heavens composed of books, with trees to one side and the occasional video aid projected to the back. Video designer Sean Nieuwenhuis’ elegant visual work matches the presenter word for word.

From sun glasses, cane and hand fan to an assortment of chairs, props are few but very much essential to the production.

Then there’s that old man – seen only by Plummer – waiting in the wings or perhaps even in the audience. Words are powerful, mesmerizing and ultimately what we are all about. Let’s hope for many more nights like this and that Christopher Plummer is around for years to come to remind us of the power of language.

And lest we forget, he casually alludes to the likes of Stephen Harper, the late Gord Vidal and even Justin Beiber but thankfully, there is a nary a mention of The Sound of Music or, as media types love to unrelentingly remind us, his renaming of the award-winning film as The Sound of Mucous.

We thank you Christopher for that merciful omission.

Giving A Word or Two five stars is a bit too gimmicky so let’s settle for **** out of four stars. This is a must-see for all Plummer fans and, of course, the spoken word.

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

Runs until August 26

Approximate running time: 1 hour 25 minutes (no intermission)

Tickets: 1-800-567-1600 or online www.stratfordfestival.ca