Toronto Symphony 2018-2019 # 1: Finished Unfinished Business

This is even worse than the lacuna in theatre-going to which I referred last month.  It's only this week that I have finally gotten to my first Toronto Symphony concert of the 2018-2019 season!  Reasons: I exchanged one concert that didn't appeal to me, missed one because I was out of the country, and missed another one due to a misconnected flight in Chicago.  That last one was especially galling because it could be a long time before another opportunity arises to hear a live performance of Britten's intensely moving War Requiem.

Despite these obstacles, I finally made it this week, and the event was worth the wait.  German maestro Gunther Herbig, who was the TSO's Music Director from 1988 to 1994 returned for a long-overdue reappearance in Roy Thomson Hall.  During his tenure as head of the orchestra, Herbig brought his signature understated podium presence to the central works of the19th-century German-Austrian repertoire which were the heart and soul of his musical personality.  This focus on one particular area of repertoire was counted as a weakness by many, but when he took the stage for the works of such composers as Beethoven or Brahms, his performances were authoritative, thoughtful and deeply-felt.  I recall in particular an intensely moving Brahms German Requiem.

This week's programme brought a pairing of works firmly in that central line, works which both were left incomplete at their creators' deaths: the Unfinished Symphony of Franz Schubert and the equally incomplete Ninth Symphony of Anton Bruckner.  Schubert abandoned his work without finishing it, although there are sketches of a scherzo, and the B minor Entracte from the incidental music for Rosamunde has been cited as a possible candidate for the honour of being the symphony's finale -- dramatic, intense, and in the classically correct key.  Exactly why Schubert left this glorious music unfinished will never be known for certain.

Bruckner's final symphony continued to occupy him until his death, but he was unable to complete the last movement.  It's known that Bruckner suggested his Te Deum could be used instead as a choral finale.  Although the C major key centre of the Te Deum is completely different from the D minor of the symphony, it's likely that he thought of it because so many of his sketches for the finale are dominated by the plunging tonic-dominant-tonic figurations already heard in that majestic cantata.

Hans-Hubert Schönzeler's moving assessment of the three completed movements in Bruckner's Ninth -- "so utterly complete in their incompletion" -- applies equally well to Schubert's surviving pair of movements.

Herbig's performance of the Schubert was marked by great clarity.  Tempi were brisk but not rushed, a desirable point with this symphony.  The repeated syncopations in the strings remained distinct and crisp at the chosen speeds.  The first movement was taken in a single continuous sweep (with the exposition repeat not observed -- pity), and only the slightest nudging of tempo at key points in the structure altered the flow.  The second movement had a little more flex and give to it, and the gentle slowdown in the final cadence was all one could ask.  In both movements, Herbig gave great emphasis to the sudden changes in dynamics which generate so much of this music's power and drama.

In the Bruckner, Herbig's reading was both powerful and thoughtful, a performance which highlighted equally the beauties and the agonies of this remarkable score.  Felicitous examples abounded throughout of Bruckner's terraced dynamics and block orchestration (similar to the registration changes on an organ).  Extremes and contrasts of loud and soft were pinpoint-sharp.  The many moments of dissonance and chromaticism were all allowed to tell, with no attempt made to beautify the raw clashes of sound.

Speeds in all three movements were near to ideal.  If the tricky accelerando in the scherzo found the ensemble less than unified, it was the only notable trouble spot.  All the other examples of Bruckner's requests for tempo changes were handled with care and precision.  The performance culminated in a shattering, apocalyptic final climax in the Adagio. So gripping was this climax that not even a cough disturbed the long silent pause before we were enveloped in the celestial balm of the quiet coda.

Maestro Herbig gave a performance of these two masterpieces that will, I think, be long remembered by those who were present as an exemplar of how these works ought to be performed.

WODL Festival 2019 # 5: Nervy, Incisive Theatre Piece

The Western Ontario Drama League (WODL) Festival is an annual 

celebration of community theatre in South-western Ontario.  

This year's Festival is co-hosted by the Guelph Little Theatre

and the Elmira Theatre Company.

The adjudicator for the Festival is Maja Ardal.

GIRLS LIKE THAT

by Evan Placey
Directed by Henri Canino
Presented by Theatre Sarnia

For sheer chutzpah and energy, there's never been a production remotely like this at any theatre festival I've ever attended.

Girls Like That was commissioned as a piece which could be readily performed in simple environments like school gymnasiums.  Director Henri Canino has re-visioned the piece as a stunning circus of contemporary technical wizardry, a high-energy show with production values such as one might expect to see in a million-dollar production at a top-flight professional theatre.

Nor is all this technical flash a substitute for solid dramatic values.  Indeed, it heightens the power of the play with gripping aptness to the worlds of the characters.

The set consisted of a dozen or so wooden boxes of varying heights and sizes, easily moved around, and a solid backdrop.  The backdrop presented a plain white or off-white surface, with slight protruding sections on the top and side segments which appeared like bricks.  The central flatter section proved to house a set of six school lockers, which had interiors of six different colours.  Around the proscenium and in the ceiling of the auditorium were hung a series of square chrome-metal cages (like pet cages), cube-shaped, each suspended by one corner.

The lighting design was paramount to the feel of the show, with brilliantly-coloured LED lights shining downwards through a smoke haze, making the stage look for all the world like the stage at a rock festival.  The back wall became a projection screen for flashing horizontal bars of coloured light, changing second by second, and looking like the effect of a streaming video that's jammed up.  Some of these strobing projections were powerful enough to induce discomfort in some audience members. 

All of the cast used cheek microphones, highlighting the tech-wise, rock-concert vibe of the show.  So did the ear-covering headphones which all of them pulled on during the scene changes, and a few other passages of the play, drawing attention to the isolation which technology often induces in us.

The ensemble work in this show was every bit as stunning as the visual aspect.  The critical aspect of ensemble was highlighted in the programme with a simple list of actors' names -- and no mention at all of any character names.  Chloe Brescia, Julie Cushman, Tayler Hartwick, Kyra Knight, Hala Miller, Cassandra Lynn Smith, and Emma Van Barneveld formed a powerhouse team.  All seven contributed equally to the power and energy of the show, and the strong sense of teamwork among them was palpable to the audience.

The language consists of many short speeches, longer choral or intercut passages, phrase fragments tossed from one actor to another, and the like.  The directorial concept of "snapping up cues" takes on incredible importance in this kind of script, and the cast came through in spades.

The story focuses on a group of girls who are admitted, at age 5, to an exclusive school called St. Helen's, which takes in just 20 students and keeps them in the same class with each other throughout their school years.  Although the main action takes place in their teenage years, earlier scenes where they announce in unison, "We are ____ years old" are intercut from time to time.  So are other scenes from much earlier historic periods, showing women coping with male perceptions of them and their roles, and the relevance of these scenes is revealed only at the end.

The dramatic trigger is the day when a nude photo of one of the group is posted on social media, and rapidly shared throughout the entire school and beyond.  The girl, not accidentally called "Scarlett," has always been a bit of an outsider in the group.  Complete ostracism is swift and unrelenting.  From here on, the group dynamics escalate the pressure on Scarlett, even though each girl has moments in which she expresses uneasiness at the maltreatment or says "I didn't do it."  

All these shades of age, emotions, private fears and public agreements, are vividly brought to life in six very different ways by the six actors portraying the "in" group.  

The actor portraying the ostracized Scarlett has to demonstrate her anguish through long periods of silence and stillness, and occasional speeches as brief as a single word.  While the other six busily chattered away, she created her own powerful character portrait through the most minimal means.

The dramatic turning point comes when Scarlett vanishes, and after two days a body is found in the river.  As gripping as the group dramatics had been, the company makes the unravelling of the group in the face of this crisis more fascinating still -- as a group of six became six individuals, pulling away from each other, with each one desperately seeking some kind of absolution for herself.

But Scarlett reappears (the body in the river was not hers), with her completed report on her family's female ancestry.  We now learn that the older stories we saw depicted happened to her great-grandmother, her grandmother, and her mother in turn.  With devastating power and disarming simplicity of language, Scarlett sums up the entirety of her report by stating that the terrible ways men used for so long to judge and demean women are now being used by women to judge and demean each other.  She then tells her erstwhile "friends" with cold scorn that she looks forward to ignoring them at their reunion years in the future, and says that she will forget them but they will always remember her.

After this scene, I felt that the remaining portion of the script became overly repetitive.  The play's energy began to flag a bit as a result of this script weakness.  The reunion finally came, though, and sure enough, the girls were all wondering if "she" would come.  Scarlett's prophecy that they would remember her was fulfilled with a vengeance.

Right before the curtain, there was one unclear moment.  The actor who exclusively portrayed Scarlett throughout the show dashed in with a big grin on her face to join her classmates in a final group hug.  Had she remembered and/or forgiven them?  Was she representing someone else now?  Was this just a setup for a lively curtain call (which did follow shortly)?  I couldn't tell.

This play was an incredible experience -- from the technical mastery and dazzling effects to the wonderful esprit de corps of the company and the terrific energy maintained throughout, it was spectacular.

But what really made it incredible for me was the nonstop series of tangential thoughts and ideas and reflections that the show kept triggering in my mind for almost the entire length -- reflections on what it means to be part of a group, what it means to be an individual, what it takes to drive people to treat others with such incredible disdain and disregard, and what it feels like to separate yourself from the mob and realize that you, as an individual, have to bear your share of the guilt.  I'll be remembering this performance for a long time indeed.

WODL Festival 2019 # 4: Beach Blanket Bingo or Who Drops the First Towel

The Western Ontario Drama League (WODL) Festival is an annual 

celebration of community theatre in South-western Ontario.  

This year's Festival is co-hosted by the Guelph Little Theatre

and the Elmira Theatre Company.

The adjudicator for the Festival is Maja Ardal.

BARE BEAR BONES

by Michael Grant
Directed by Terri-Lynn Graham
Presented by Paris Performers Theatre

Sometimes, the best comedy arises from taking a simple wrong turn and then pushing it right to its logical, hysterical conclusion.

Such is the premise of Michael Grant's Bare Bear Bones, in which a couple seek to rekindle the magic in their marriage by returning to the campground where it all began -- only to find that said campground has in the interim become a naturist camp (nudist, if you prefer).

The first scene shows Norman and Ruth's late-night arrival, including inability to check in because the office is closed.  The second scene, the next morning, gives the audience the delicious fun of watching other inmates of the camp prancing by behind a wall of sheets and blankets on Ruth's clothesline, as we wonder just how long it will take before the awful truth finally dawns on Norman and Ruth.  Then it does -- hilariously -- and the real fun begins.

But Grant has much more up his sleeve than this promising situation, and in the second act, a late-night campfire visit evolves into a deeper examination of the nature of human relationships, and just what it is that makes them keep moving and growing.  There's a good deal more in this play than meets the eye, and by the end it's apparent that the (at first glance) risible title actually points the way just as much to the more serious issues in the second act.

Without question, Paris Performers Theatre have mounted the most purely beautiful set we have seen this week.  The campsite is surrounded by evergreen trees, and more evergreen branches and logs are arranged across the front lip of the stage -- although you'd have to be near the front of the audience to see them.  The tent trailer is tucked neatly into one corner of the stage, visible but not consuming too much room.  A rustic signboard on the other side balances it.  Other necessities of camp life, from the small barbecue to the picnic table, the camp chairs, and so on, are moved around as needed.  That all-important clothesline is strung across upstage centre, although the signboard and a convenient clump of shrubbery allow for actors to appear in other places as well.

The daytime lighting definitely gave the sense of a sunny morning in the country, while the night scenes were lit enough to see the actors and their faces without looking like a spotlight was tucked up in the trees.

Ensemble is of critical importance in a show of this kind, with the comic repartee spread around the entire company.  Timing is also crucial in nailing the many, many laughs.  Director Terri-Lynn Graham has steered a carefully-aimed course between "not enough" and "over the top," with very few moments in the show either failing to register or going so far as to provoke head-shaking sighs -- at least from me.  The company has gone right along with her in the tight teamwork and ideal timing of the ripostes.  Kudos to this team as well for the clarity, projection and diction of all the actors throughout the entire show -- I don't think I missed a single line except when I laughed too loudly.

The most critical teamwork came, as it had to, from the duo of Alex Graham as Ruth and Alex Riker as Norman.  Instantly it was apparent that here was a long-lived marriage in which sniping had become second nature.  Yet, at the same time, there was also a definite comfort zone here, a strong sense that both of them felt quite at home with the status quo.  Is there anyone who has not encountered a relationship like this at one time or another?

When the "big reveal" of the nature of the campground occurred, both of them freaked out most believably -- but it was Ruth who was inspired to exalted, hysterical flights of prudishness.  Who could forget the sight of her trying to walk to the community washroom with a paper bag over her head while Norm shouted directions from the safety of their campsite?

As this prudishness played out throughout the first act, the humour turned -- predictably -- to every possible sexual innuendo in the book.  I thought I knew them all after 32 years of high school teaching, but I learned some new ones tonight!

In the campfire scene of the second act, the focus turned more to Norman as his friends tried to make him see why he needed to get to know his wife better in order to save his marriage.  Riker's performance here was a cartoon of truculent manhood made worse by multiple beers, but it suddenly turned serious when he realized that his advisors had been right all along -- and that he was in danger of losing Ruth.  Riker's exit at the end of that night scene was a telling vignette of a man crushed, broken, staring into the abyss.

Graham's finest moments as Ruth came the following morning, when she had to first find out what drove Norm to sleep in the truck, and then had to convince him that she still loved him.  This she did with simple, earnest, entirely believable conviction.

The second key relationship in the play is that between Frank (played by Rich Dallaway) and his deceased wife.  Although Frank talks about her in the first act, he really opens up on that theme at the campfire.  I'm sure I wasn't the only person in the audience who had "been there, done that," and felt the strength and truth in his speeches about his loss.

The third relationship issue is between Frank and his grown daughters, Libby and Annie (respectively played by Deanna Stevens and Jessica O'Connor.  His pain is real and palpable as he admits that he struggles so hard to control Annie's life choices because she so much resembles her mother.  In the end, it's Annie (O'Connor in a brief but powerful firebrand moment) who confronts that issue.  He tells her bluntly to stay out of his grief as that is not her decision.  She then bounces the ball right back by shooting him the exact same command about her life, before she walks out.

Several other characters exist mostly to provide foils for these main players.  Among them, I felt that the role of Lenny (Connor McGrath) was closest to being overwritten, and eventually became tedious for that reason.  On the other hand, it was Robert Laszcz as Bruce who most overplayed his role during the campfire scene, his snorting laugh quickly grating on the nerves.  Rose Huysentruyt-Closs in the role of Doris presented a nice mix of genuine kindness and caring with incisive tartness as needed.

The final impression of this show is of a company working as a team, having a whole lot of fun with the material, and making sure that we came along for the ride -- letting us share the fun as well as picking up the life lessons to be found there.  And it was fun -- no question about that!

WODL Festival 2019 # 3: The Hunter and the Hunted

Western Ontario Drama League (WODL) Festival is an annual 

celebration of community theatre in South-western Ontario.  

This year's Festival is co-hosted by the Guelph Little Theatre

and the Elmira Theatre Company.

The adjudicator for the Festival is Maja Ardal.

THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE

by Martin McDonagh
Directed by Robin Bennett
Presented by Guelph Little Theatre

The title of Martin McDonagh's play conjures up images of Irish folklore, lilting speech on the verge of song, young love, and happy endings.

This just proves that titles can be very misleading.

To be sure, the story does take place in the west of the Emerald Isle but the two main characters in it are at best unpleasant and at worst... I guess "psychotic" might be a good word.

(In case you can't tell, I do not like this script at 

all -- but that has no bearing on the review!)

The Guelph Little Theatre's production accurately captured the claustrophobic, hall-of-mirrors feeling of the script, where everything appears turned inside out and backwards, and the audience can never quite tell who is lying and who (if anyone) isn't.

The set offered us a small combined sitting room and kitchen, with two doors and one window -- but the window was fairly high in the wall and covered in what appeared to be bright blue lighting gel material.  The effect ended up looking like a one-way window, and suggesting (to me) a glass case in a scientific laboratory of human behaviour -- an odd choice for what's supposed to be a country cottage in one of the more impoverished parts of Ireland.

Note:  I found out the morning after the show that the window was 

a last-minute patch-up job following damage to the original.  

This sort of emergency repair is totally familiar to anyone who 

has ever worked backstage in theatre.

The rest of the room -- dingy walls, grimy furnishings, hand-me-down table and mismatched chairs -- clearly telegraphed the poverty and grimness of life here.

The costumes suited the characters very well, with one glaring exception: the spiffy, stylish suit worn by Pato Dooley in the scene after the party in Act 1.  The script clearly underlines the poverty and lack of work in the region where the story occurs.  Pato's letter speech at the beginning of Act 2 points out that he works in construction, and it sounds as if he's pretty much at the bottom of the heap on his worksite.  The neat appearance of the suit suggests a well-placed young man in either the business world or the professions, and strongly contradicts what the text tells us.  A mismatched jacket and trousers, with more breaking down or visible signs of wear, would be a clearer choice here.

A clear use of Irish accents is an absolute necessity to the proper effect of this script.  Some of the actors were stronger and more consistent than others in this respect.

In the central role of Maureen Folan, Cora Kennedy gave a strong performance.  In handling Maureen's switches in and out of sanity, Kennedy opted generally for a quick leap of extremes.  In some situations, like the moment when she detects her mother's lies about the letter, this worked really well.  In the context of her morning-after scene with Pato, it was less effective.  On the other hand, her slow transition into becoming her mother in the final scene was fascinating to witness.  Vocally, Kennedy's delivery of text speeded up in her quick shifts and some lines got partially lost as a result.

Her mother, Mag Folan, was played by Cathy Moore with excellent physical presence.  Her voice grated on the nerves to such an extent that one could easily understand why her every word was so enervating to Maureen.  When Mag was acting as the "helpless invalid," Moore's actions, expressions, and voice were spot on.  When the script called for her to be more cunning or devious, Moore's performance became a little more over the top -- an almost cartoonish "hee-hee" facial expression was too quickly switched on, and I did not find it convincing.  A subtler blend of the two parts of Mag's personality would work wonders.

When the scene came in which Maureen burned Mag, I found the whole sequence elapsed a little too quickly.  I'm not suggesting lingering sadistically over the horror, but taking the climax of the scene just 5 percent slower would pay big dividends in terms of impact.

What these two actors did achieve was to set many of us wondering just what had happened to make both Maureen and Mag such an ugly, miserable pair of curmudgeons.  Who was out to get whom, and why?  Which one was the monster, and which the victim?  And just what role did Maureen's father, never seen nor mentioned, play in creating the whole awful situation?  Questions like these would make for stimulating discussions in the rehearsal room.

Of the two Dooley brothers from across the way, Ray (played by Jimmy Omino) is the shallower, more self-absorbed, while Pato (John Cormier) is a deeper thinker, and more thoughtful of others.

Omino's performance of Ray occasionally suffered from too-rapid delivery of the text, which obscured some lines.  He had good presence in the scene where Mag persuades him to hand over Pato's letter, and his rant at Maureen about his stolen ball in the final scene was a good bit of comic relief after what we'd gone through.

Cormier clearly presented the complex, sometimes conflicting emotions of Pato Dooley, beginning with his buoyant mood when he calls Maureen "the Beauty Queen of Leenane," and most of all the uncertainty he's left with on his final departure for Boston.  His delivery of the entire letter scene, seated in a tight spotlight, was a peak moment in his performance.

Director Robin Bennett has brought this company together in a tight, well-integrated performance of an unusually challenging script.  Like many of the audience, I can't honestly say I enjoyed it, but I did admire the power and darkness of this production.

WODL Festival 2019 # 2: Love Lost and Found

The Western Ontario Drama League (WODL) Festival is an annual 

celebration of community theatre in South-western Ontario.  

This year's Festival is co-hosted by the Guelph Little Theatre

and the Elmira Theatre Company.

The adjudicator for the Festival is Maja Ardal.

STRANGERS AMONG US

by Aaron Bushkowsky

Directed by Maureen Dwyer

Presented by Theatre Burlington

"Sometimes we need to make painful things beautiful to be able to look at them."

-- James Kudelka                                       

(hope my memory quoted it accurately)

Last night, Theatre Burlington staged an intense and moving performance of Strangers Among Us which did indeed make painful things beautiful to the eye and ear.

Aaron Bushkowsky's script takes us on a journey through the lives of a group of people affected by Alzheimer's disease.  It seems unlikely and unlikable material for drama, but the resulting play strikes resonant chords in the heart and mind of anyone who has ever come face to face with this condition.

The stage set was simple in the extreme: three wooden boxes of sitting height were placed in front of three hanging banners or sails.  A light-coloured floor cover worked well with the set pieces to keep the stage light and bright at all times (dark sets, floors, and curtains are fashionable in theatre but they do swallow an immense amount of light).  The boxes were moved around to different locations in different scenes, and supplemented by a few simple props that were carried in and out as needed.

At the heart of the story are two patients in a nursing care facility, Gabrielle and Michael.  The story opens with the two of them lost, as they've wandered off the property and into the city.  

Virginia McEwen portrayed the many shades of fear, concern, discomfort, and puzzlement experienced by Gabrielle, making great use of multiple vocal tones and facial expressions as well as understated body language.

As Michael, Vince Carlin presented a stronger physicality allied with a voice which was firmer and clearer, if less varied in texture.

The opening conversation strikes laughter with the unintended non sequiturs and misunderstandings between these two.  As the play unfolds, we watch as recognition leads slowly to friendship and familiarity and at last to love.  The subtleties of this process between these two actors were truly remarkable.

All the while, the threads linking them to the various members of their families are slowly being unravelled, strand by strand.

Kimberly Jonasson played Michael's daughter, Joan, as a type of person who has become familiar in the internet age.  Having read some websites, and gone to hear a few experts speak, she believes that she knows all she needs to know in order to care for her father at home.  Her crisp diction and forceful vocal tone emphasized that sense of conviction, although it was slightly undermined by moments of movement where stillness might have served better.  Her growing frustration as all her methodical planning is unable to reverse her father's illness was both intensely and movingly depicted.

Her husband, Art, by contrast is a person who instinctively senses how to interact with Alzheimer's patients on their turf, not his.  Peter Jonasson projected a nice sense of compassion paired with fun in this small but significant role.

Jerrold Karch portrayed Gabrielle's husband, Virgil, as the bluff, hearty travelling salesman, always with a ready line of talk.  His reluctance to interact with his wife was clearly shown long before he came out and said it in words.

Jennifer Barclay gave a powerful, multi-hued performance as their daughter Netty -- torn this way and that by the events over which she has no control.  Barclay's finest moments came in her final scenes, as Netty struggles to cope with the secrets in her parents' life and with her mother's complete loss of recognition.

Lynne Atkinson gave a nicely understated performance as Robyn, the nurse.  Her compassion for both patients and relatives was constantly there, but gently touched in rather than overtly portrayed.  At times her performance was almost too matter-of-fact.  In the early scenes, I at first missed the significance of her line about the familiarity of roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and canned mushy peas.  (The thoroughly up-to-date Joan, of course, wanted all organics.)  The reason for the line only dawned on me upon later reflection.  Overall, Atkinson did fine work in nailing down Robyn's place as the calm centre and buffer zone for all the violent emotional currents swirling around her.

Maureen Dwyer directed a flowing, involving reading of the script, handling characters and building stage pictures with a due sense of pacing and variety.  Only towards the end did I find my involvement beginning to wane.  

But I think that is more due to the nature of the script than anything else.  The beautiful manner in which the death scenes were staged was deeply moving, but certainly precluded anything of a major climax to the play.  In so far as there was a climax, it probably came with the scene of Virgil and Netty on the golf course, a scene which happened quite some time before the end of the show.

With this remarkable production, Theatre Burlington has definitely given us a night in the theatre that will be remembered for a long time by many of the audience who saw it.

WODL Festival 2019 # 1: Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave

The Western Ontario Drama League (WODL) Festival is an annual 

celebration of community theatre in South-western Ontario.  

This year's Festival is co-hosted by the Guelph Little Theatre
and the Elmira Theatre Company.

The adjudicator for the Festival is Maja Ardal.

ABSOLUTELY...FRED

by Buddy Brennan

Directed by Buddy Brennan

Presented by Cambridge Community Players

The company from Cambridge Community Players opened the Festival with an amusing production of a comedic script that's a bit of a throwback to earlier times.

Buddy Brennan's script for Absolutely...Fred stands in a direct line of descent from the classic French farces of Georges Feydeau by way of the 1960 farce, Boeing-Boeing.

The first scene begins by seeming like a direct rip-off or adaptation of Boeing-Boeing but Brennan quickly finds his own independent direction to take his story line and characters.  The script shows a nice flair for comic writing, demonstrated in Henry's numerous hypochondriac rants and in the scene where Lydia and Farrah meet for breakfast.  On the downside, the character development is uneven, with only two of the five characters being given much depth or dimension to their lives.

Before the show began, the theatre was filled with upbeat, lively, light-hearted music which actually had several audience members bopping in the aisles as they made their way to their seats.  Definitely set the tone before the show!

The realistic set presented interesting contrasts, with neutral walls in light grey offset by two paintings, two brick walls, window curtains, and coffee maker, all in glaring red (with the paintings incorporating an equally garish green in addition).  This overplus of red gave a cartoonish effect to the set as a whole, an effect highlighted by the surreal sight of tops of skyscrapers out the window of Fred's apartment when the apartment itself appeared (thanks to the brickwork) like a walk-up.

The paintings appeared to many of the audience like stylized drinking glasses but, on closer examination, proved to be stylized figures of women.  Both views of this Rorschach test fitted equally well into the lifestyle of the committed drinker and womanizer, Fred.

In the title role of Fred, Kevin Burnett presented an amusing take on the bachelor rake, juggling two girlfriends while deciding which one he wants to marry.  In truth, Burnett left me with the feeling that Fred would never take that final step because he would always want to spring into action every time a new woman walked into his view.  Even at his biggest moments of fear and indecision, his diction remained impeccably clear.  His pat speech about what he wants in a woman and his equally pat speech of denial were comic highlights.

Deb Huggins did fine work with the role of Lydia, one of Fred's two girlfriends.  Vocally, she incorporated a nice touch of irony into almost every line, sometimes just a soupçon, sometimes whole heaping, dripping tablespoonfuls.  Her best moment came in the scene where she dropped Fred, with her indulgent laughter and mocking face pats signalling that he had met his match in the kiss-and-run department.

Sandra Stewart, as airline pilot Farrah, appears at first as almost a carbon copy of Lydia (due to the script), but as the show went on Stewart found her own touching grace notes and intonations that set her apart as a different sort of person altogether.  Her final scene with Henry felt truthful and real.

The tone set in the breakfast scene between Stewart and Huggins made me feel that the two women had cottoned on to Fred's game and were already laughing at him.

As Fred's dorky friend, Henry, Steven Whetstone commanded the widest range of facial expressions and vocal tones employed by any of the company.  Part of the fun of his never-ending health rants was the diversity of face and voice which he employed in presenting them.  His chortling glee as he sets up the event which he imagines will be Fred's final downfall set me chuckling, and his drunk scene with Farrah was both funny and believable.  So, too, were his shenanigans with the whisky bottles.

Indeed, Fred might be the title character but by the last minutes of the show I was rooting for Henry to end up with Farrah, partly thanks to the script but also definitely due to Whetstone's growth and development within the character.

The fifth character, Henry's sister Maggie, was played by Jessica O'Connor with an entirely believable mixture of sophistication and naivete in her attitudes towards different aspects of her life.  Her performance built nicely up to her finest moment, her final reappearance just moments before the curtain.

Apart from a few moments of slackness in Act 1, Brennan paced the show neatly and built up to the energy of the final scenes.  I felt that the whole climactic sequence played out among Fred, Henry, and Farrah could and should have developed even more energy -- some of it frantic, with other moments of tension in stillness.

There were, in retrospect, a number of spots throughout the play where a more farcical, frenetic approach could have been taken without fracturing the through line of the story.  It would do no harm to the show for the company occasionally to remember John Mortimer's classic dictum:  "Farce is tragedy, played at 130 revolutions per minute."

Absolutely...Fred presented the audience with an entertaining and amusing evening of theatre, and got the Festival off to a flying start.

National Ballet 2018-2019 # 5: Alice is Still Amazing

Christopher Wheeldon's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland returns to the stage of the Four Seasons Centre after a hiatus of four years.  That lapse of time gives a distance from the original impact of this unique ballet, and a chance to appreciate anew and in more depth the level of genius which the entire creative team brought to this project.

Alice was originally staged by the Royal Ballet in London in 2011, and by the National Ballet as co-commissioner and co-producer later the same year.

The spectacular visual effects remain spectacular.  Wheeldon's imaginative dance equivalents to the often-bizarre dialogue of the book remain imaginative.  Joby Talbot's scintillating original score gives every bit as much insight into the characters as I had remembered.  The artists of the National Ballet have outdone themselves in bringing the entire performance to vivid, electrifying life.  The entire show has, if anything, even more energy, get-up-and-go, and sheer comedic flair than I recall from earlier stagings.

What has come clearer to me than ever before is the heartfelt depth and truth of this ballet, the number of thought-provoking and emotional moments waiting to be discovered behind the spectacular visual effects and comedic insanity.

Once again, I found myself able to take in two performances, with two different casts.  Many of the dancers were making their role debuts in this cycle of performances.

The title role is probably among the most tiring endurance tests ever conceived for a ballerina.  If it lacks the sheer technical ferocity of, say, Petipa's Sleeping Beauty, the role of Alice is daunting in other ways.  She is on stage for all but a mere few seconds here and there of a performance time of two hours (not counting intermissions).  In almost every scene she has to dance with the various Wonderland characters, and plenty of that dancing is high-energy and high-stakes -- thanks to the dizzying speed with which the madness unfolds before the audience.

On Friday night, the role was taken by Elena Lobsanova.  Her prior experience in the role told to great effect, especially in drawing the distinction in physicality between the girlish Alice of the opening scene and the more mature woman at the end.  A highlight of her performance came with her thoughtful, introspective reading of Alice's long, meditative solo in Act 2.

Saturday afternoon brought a first-ever performance of the role by Miyoko Koyasu.  Her first act was a little underplayed, giving a by-the-book feeling, but in Act 2 she hit her stride, dancing with joyous abandon at the Mad Hatter's tea party and with beautiful purity and line in the solo.  Her performance rose to an authoritative and moving peak with her intervention in the trial scene of Act 3.

The dual role of Jack, the garden boy (in the opening scene) and the Knave of Hearts was a role debut for both dancers I saw.  The part was taken on Friday by Harrison James.  As Jack, he brought a winning, youthful air to his dancing.  Once he was transformed into the Knave, fear ruled his performance more -- the fear of the temperamental Queen and her ever-ready headsman.  The trial scene brought a touching transformation as Alice's declaration of love inspired him with more assurance and confidence.

On Saturday, the role was taken by Skylar Campbell.  His Jack seemed a bit more tentative, but once he transformed into the Knave he displayed much more sparkle.  Campbell's performance of the various chase scenes had a flair and elan that made it look like he was positively enjoying the game of keeping out of the Queen's clutches.  His partnership with Koyasu soared in the final pas de deux, danced here with more ardour and feeling of emotional involvement than I've ever seen it.

The dual role of Lewis Carroll/The White Rabbit is another intriguing challenge -- and again, I saw two role debuts.  On Friday, this part was taken by Brendan Saye.  As the Rabbit, he soared on the multiple leaps and navigated the wicked cross-rhythms of the music with easy assurance in the criss-crossing steps (I haven't seen the score, but I think that a number of passages are written in 10/4 time, a nasty challenge to a 2-footed dancer).  His frequent gestures to Alice to stay put, not move, don't go there, and the like, were all forceful in an ideal way.

Saturday's White Rabbit was Siphesihle November.  Obviously, this young man is moving up in the company, to judge by the number of prime roles he's been given this year while still ranked in the corps de ballet.  If his leaps didn't soar as high as his colleague, his performance overall had more bounce and spring to it, and that kind of light-footed execution is desirable in this part.  So is a strong case of nerves every time the Queen appears, and November's nervous tension was clear as a bell.

The role of Alice's Mother/The Queen of Hearts is one of those nasty challenges that force a skilled and graceful ballerina to dance very ungracefully, indeed clumsily.  Not only that, but at the same time she has to act the villain of the piece -- a subdued villain as Mother, and a full-out melodramatic villain as the Queen.  This means that her mime scenes have to be overplayed to the hilt, and some dancers are just a little too hesitant to throw themselves fully into this role.

I felt that was the case with Svetlana Lunkina on Friday night.  Although her dancing was memorably bad, her mime scenes were all just a little too muted, one might even say a little too nice.  On Saturday, Heather Ogden (in her role debut) all but stole the show with her outrageously comical performance in Act 3.  I almost expected to see her twirling her villain's moustache (she doesn't have one, but that's how her mime work came across).  Both performed memorably in the Queen's two solo dances, the Tart Adagio and the tango, but it was Ogden whose adagio tickled my funny bone more.  That's simply because I've never seen anyone outdo her assured, rock-steady performance of the fiendish Rose Adagio from Sleeping Beauty -- and here she is, quivering at the knees, teetering on pointe, flopping onto the stage, and generally dancing like a reject from a toddler ballet class.

(For those not familiar, the Tart Adagio is an outrageous parody of the Rose Adagio -- similar music, and even some borrowed choreography -- in which the Queen's flunkies have to stuff her mouth with jam tarts instead of giving her roses.)

Alice includes the most unique number I've ever seen in any ballet -- Christopher Wheeldon's insanely-inspired tap dance for the Mad Hatter.  This number originally happened, by the way, simply because one of the Royal Ballet's principal dancers, Steven McRae, could tap dance -- and Wheeldon decided to take advantage of his skills.  Every time the National mounts this show, the call goes out for any dancers in the company with tap experience to jump in and try their luck.

This unique requirement led to a most unusual role debut on Saturday afternoon.  For the first time ever, anywhere, the role of the Mad Hatter in this ballet was performed by a woman.  Chelsy Meiss tapped her way through her scenes with flair and energy to burn, adding a nice sense of insanity to her mime moments.  At one point her tapping fell just fractionally behind the orchestra -- but at that speed it's a minor miracle if everyone arrives at the same time.  The Friday night Mad Hatter was Donald Thom, and his performance brought plenty of fire and precision in tapping.  Thom's mime moments ideally need to become a bit larger than life to really carry across to the audience.

Friday night's Caterpillar was Felix Paquet, and he remains unrivalled among the National's dancers for the sheer sinuosity which he brings to this role.  Harrison James on Saturday was also good, but notably less flexible and bendable than Paquet.

It would take too long to detail the excellences among the numerous dancers portraying other characters such as the Duchess, Cook, Frog, Fish, March Hare, Dormouse, and Executioner.

But I have to close with words of praise for the corps de ballet.  In the final act, Wheeldon created a rapid-fire scherzo for the playing cards which has the dancers running from place to place and snapping instantly from position to position, all at top speed.  This has to be tough work for the dancers' bodies, as many of the snapping motions involve sizable amounts of limb movement or waist bending.  The precision and unanimity of the corps throughout this high-energy number was noteworthy indeed, the mechanistic effect being realized virtually to perfection.

To contrast with that, the corps also gave a totally graceful, sweeping performance of the glorious flower waltz in Act 2.

For all the scenic spectacle, hyperactive comedy, beautiful dancing, and not to forget the final Keystone Kops chase scene, the memory I've taken away from this staging of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is the heart-tugging ending of the last pas de deux, as danced on Saturday by Miyoko Koyasu and Skylar Campbell, that beautiful moment when the two dancers bend towards each other and with their arms form a stylized heart together.  I don't think I've ever seen that vignette unfold so naturally and organically, as if the characters' love was destined since before the beginning of time.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland continues onstage at the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto until March 17.

National Ballet 2018-2019 # 4: From Poise to Flash

The National Ballet of Canada has presented a winter mixed programme which runs the gamut from cool, classical poise through modern high-energy dancing to the flashiest and showiest of balletic showpieces.

The programme opened with George Balanchine's Apollo, set to Stravinsky's neoclassical score for strings, and first performed in 1928.  This ballet is thus almost a century old, but remains as much a landmark of the repertoire as any of the great Petipa or Diaghilev ballets of the past.

In large measure, this is because of the significance of the male title role, and the major technical challenges which that role presents to the dancer.  The significance of Apollo is also found in the stylistic parameters it set for Balanchine's work, parameters which he continued to explore throughout the remainder of his career.  Most notably, this ballet marks a clear encounter with the sheer musicality of Balanchine's choreography, which he would later summarize in his famous maxim: "See the music; hear the dance."  

The choreography of Apollo is marked by cool, clean, poised execution and frequent slow movements or even held poses -- in sharp distinction to the sometimes-frenetic virtuoso showpieces of the earlier Russian tradition.  

Faced with an embarrassment of riches on the male side of the company, the management has divided the seven performances Apollo across six different dancers.  In the opening night performance, the Apollo was danced by Brendan Saye.  He clearly had the measure of the role, and gave a very memorable reading of it indeed.  I was especially struck by his clean line and the smoothness of movement in the slower moments of the role, where any unevenness is easily detected.  The net result was a powerful combination of grace and strength.

Equally memorable support and contrast came from the three muses, danced by Emma Hawes, Heather Ogden, and Miyoko Koyasu -- their three contrasting solos were all beautifully done in their varying styles.

Julia Adams choreographed Night  for the San Francisco Ballet, and it receives its first performances by the National Ballet in this programme.  Gravity seems almost suspended as the cast of eleven dancers move about the stage -- rolling, crawling, walking, leaping, doing handstands and more.  Again, the focus is on the male dancers who take eight of the eleven roles.  

The dynamics of this ballet depend very heavily on contrasts taking place at once -- slow and fast, angular and smooth, still and mobile, standing and lying down.  The musical score composed by Matthew Pierce effectively deploys contrasting groups of instruments from the orchestra in what sounds almost like a theme and variations structure.  It's one of the more interesting and effective commissioned scores that have come our way in recent years.  

The ensemble work among the company in this piece was noteworthy.  Although Skylar Campbell and Ben Rudisin have featured roles and billing, their parts are far from being leads.  In Campbell's case in particular, his part often calls for him to act as the focal point for the actions of the other dancers.  

All in all, Night is both effective and involving.  Really, I only have one criticism.  The costumes for most of the men have the legs covered with loose hanging strips of material, the effect looking like nothing quite so much as a worn-out Papageno costume that's falling to bits.  Those flapping loose pieces serve in part to obscure some of the close-together movement combinations.

The third piece was set by Choreographic Associate Robert Binet, and was entitled The Sea Above, The Sky Below.  After seeing the ballet, I have no idea why he chose that rather "precious" title.  It did nothing to prepare us for a strikingly-classical pas de trois of a woman and two men.  Set to the famous Adagietto movement of Mahler's Fifth Symphony, this piece is very closely wedded to the flexible, breathing rhythms of the score.  The numerous hesitations, extended bars, and the like, all find their choreographic counterparts.

Heather Ogden, in a role debut, danced with a soft-grained presence and motion that completely suited Binet's vision, unlike anything I have ever seen from her before (clean precision being the usual hallmark of her art).  Effective partnering came from Felix Paquet and Harrison James, the final minutes with all three dancers giving a sense of total involvement and commitment which matched beautifully the passion of Mahler's score.  No other work I have seen from Binet has come close to the strong sense of unity and finish throughout this piece.  

The programme concluded with a new staging of Paquita.  This Spanish-themed ballet, with music by Ludwig Minkus, was originally staged by Marius Petipa for the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the height of Tsarist power.  It was all of a piece with what the Imperial Ballet was expected to deliver: flashy, acrobatic dancing, with plenty of featured female roles for the "favourites" of all the major nobility, all set to workmanlike, not-especially-inspired music.  As was typical of the times, the story of the ballet was told from start to finish in the first act, leaving the second act free to become a classic divertissement.

The divertissement was often an entertainment at the happy-ending wedding of the hero and heroine, but in the case of Paquita  the first act has been generally discarded.  What's left, then, is simply the second-act divertissement, and this one has been widely acknowledged as being the flashiest and showiest of them all.

Associate Artistic Director Christopher Stowell has mounted a new adaptation, based on Petipa's classic 1881 revival of the ballet.  With blazingly brilliant costumes by Jose Varona, this piece explodes across the stage in a dizzying whirl of virtuoso fireworks and high spirits.

The lead couple (presumably the lovers of the original full-length ballet) have to execute some of the most fiendish and memorable technical work in their variations, and both Jillian Vanstone and Francesco Gabriele Frola did sterling work in making all this show-off dancing actually beautiful, as opposed to merely exciting.  

The same was true of the pas de trois, danced with great verve and spirit by Rui Huang, Jordana Daumec, and Naoya Ebe.

In the four named variations, Jenna Savella, Emma Hawes, Heather Ogden, and Chelsy Meiss created four distinct and memorable portraits, each in a short space of time.

The supporting corps de ballet displayed impressive unanimity and grace in polished execution of their dances.  

No catch in any of this, by the way.  Paquita was impressive, involving, and breathtaking from start to finish.  If anyone doubts the depth, strength, and classical credentials of the National Ballet (I most certainly do not), this high-energy, beautifully-finished performance of Paquita will silence their concerns.