Dramatic Contrasts

Two more plays at the Shaw Festival this week, two plays that could hardly be more different from each other if they tried!

In the afternoon, Ibsen's masterpiece Hedda Gabler.  Ibsen has a reputation as a very dark, gloomy writer, but this production didn't go all the way down that road.  The stage was set in a heavy style that evoked the Victorian era without duplicating all the massive layers and piles of ornamentation that were typical of well-to-do homes in that time.  But it was brightly lit, and there was more bright light streaming in through the rear wall that was a scrim rather than a solid wall.

Nor did the performance decline into gloom and doom.  The play ends there, yes, but there was plenty of life and energy along the way, with sparks flying in many scenes -- literal sparks as Hedda burned the manuscript.  All the actors contributed plenty of zip and go to the proceedings.  If anything, Patrick McManus as George Tesman was perhaps too bright, positive, energetic for the ineffectual husband that helps to drive Hedda to desperation.  Jim Mezon contributed an powerfully creepy performance as Judge Brack.  But all were dominated, and rightly, by the powerful, nuanced performance of Moya O'Connell as Hedda.

Thanks to the subtle, thoughtful direction of Martha Henry, Hedda often placed herself at a distance from the other characters, emphasizing her emotional distance from the people around her.  The general brightness of O'Connell's manner as Hedda conveyed an impression that she was mad, and becoming more and more insane as the play went on.  I'm not sure this is what was intended by director and actor, because it does effectively change the whole dramatic viewpoint of the playwright.  But it made for a fascinating, powerful performance.

Then, in the evening, Present Laughter by Noel Coward.  This comedy is one of the most typical of Coward's popular work, and one of the most effective.  It's generally agreed, and was once confirmed by Coward himself, that the hero (Garry Essendine) is Noel Coward.  For sure, Essendine gets all the best drama-queen moments in the show (or almost all) and therefore gets a fair share of the laughs.  But it's really important to remember that this is very much an ensemble piece, and that many of the laughs depend on the others scoring points off Garry.

With one exception, all of the company played together very effectively as an ensemble, and everyone got his or her fair share of the laughs.  Especially effective was the deadpan comic timing of Mary Haney's comebacks as Garry's secretary, Monica.  Corrine Koslo as Miss Erikson (the housekeeper) was a bit hard to understand (due to her very realistic Scandinavian accent) but her facial expressions and body language more than made up for it.  Claire Jullien as Liz, Garry's estranged wife, also did a splendid job of neatly shooting holes in Garry's pretensions and trimming him down a notch at a time with surgical precision.

In that pivotal central role of Garry, Steven Sutcliffe gave a magnificent account of the aging matinee idol whose every moment is lived so stagily that he has totally lost his grasp on reality.  Sutcliffe was always just one notch below "too much", a distinction which many other actors have failed to observe in this role.

The exception: somewhere between director David Schurmann and actor Jonathan Tan, the decision was made for Tan to play the aspiring playwright, Roland Maule, as a maniacal dervish running nonstop at approximately 500 rpm.  Some of the confrontational nature of the interviews between Roland and Garry was substantially altered as Garry was no longer trying to rid himself of an accusing voice of conscience but merely to escape unharmed from a pre-homicidal lunatic.  It created a certain amount of fun for the audience, but quickly became tiresome, and I don't feel it served the rest of the company well.

The art-deco set was magnificent, and so were the costumes -- half the fun of this play is to see all the different dressing gowns the designer can put Garry into!

So there you have: one intense drama, with a fair number of comic moments, and one zany comedy with a few serious moments.  Both effectively directed, both finely acted, and both definitely classics of twentieth century theatre.  Gotta love the Shaw Festival!