Intensely Moving Dance Drama

With this week's powerful and moving premiere performance of A World Transformed, Echo Chamber Toronto has created an entirely new genre of dance drama. 

A World Transformed, at one level, is a combination of two separate but intertwined vocal recitals. The first part uses a tenor voice with piano, the second part a mezzo-soprano. At that level, it would be nothing more than the many other vocal recitals which use a theme to tie the disparate songs together.

It's the inspired incorporation of evocative modern dance, from four dancers and two different choreographers, sparing narration, and a sophisticated lighting plot, which takes these two song recitals and melds them together into a dramatic experience of deep and subtle power.

The theme and story alike is the terrible, senseless homophobic murder of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard in 1998. The first part of the performance focuses on Shepard himself, ending with his death. The second part, in an extreme contrast, focuses on his mother, Judy Shepard, who became and remains a prominent advocate for LGBTQ+ rights.

The musical programme was curated by tenor Marcel d'Entremont and pianist Dakota Scott-Digout (who accompanied d'Entremont in the first part). They strung together a fascinating array of selections from such diverse composers as Vaughan Williams, Quilter, Britten, McCartney, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Beach, Coulthard, and Purcell -- to name only a few.

An intriguing result of this use of song was the way that the lyrics of the songs mattered far less than the evocative, atmospheric quality of the music, in shaping the drama as it unfolded. 

That was thanks to the choreography of William Yong and Laurence Lemieux and the dancing of Brayden Cairns, Zachary Cardwell, Evan Webb, and Johanna Bergfelt.

In the first part, the story of the murder, Yong's choreography masterfully evoked the personality of Matthew Shepard and then the chilling events of the night he died. His dance language ranged across a wide gamut from easy lyrical movement to jagged, abrupt motion, with extended moments of stillness a critical element.

Without becoming in the least a literal depiction, the dance showed Cairns, Cardwell, and Webb beconing in effect a trio of Matthews, the three of them all moving in response to the events of the story as it unfolded.

Interaction between dancers and musicians is an essential part of Echo Chamber's mandate, and their interactions with tenor soloist Marcel d'Entremont, although sparingly used, were carefully judged for maximum impact. This was most true at the horrific climax of the story when d'Entremont released the three, one by one, from the "fence" which held Matthew Shepard prisoner -- actually, in an inspired moment of staging, the steel railing of the upper level gantry across the back of the stage.

 

The emotional anguish of this scene was amplified by the serene violin playing of Echo Chamber Toronto's Artistic Director, Aaron Schwebel, in Purcell's When I Am Laid in Earth.

Even more intense was the slow tableau that ended the first part, as the three dancers joined hands with d'Entremont in a line, moving slowly in and out and around each other, even forming a circle. Then the three Matthews laid slowly down in an interlocked formation on the floor while d'Entremont scattered flower petals over the dead bodies.

These two scenes reduced me to tears in their dramatic truthfulness and depth of grief.

The second act saw Jeanie Chung take on piano duty while Andrea Ludwig appeared as the mezzo-soprano soloist. Dancer Johanna Bergfelt sat on a bench, plainly struggling with emotions. Ludwig, on her first appearance, simply walked forward and delivered the first narration of the second part -- a quote from Matthew Shepard's mother, Judy. She then turned and faced Bergfelt and it became clear that the two women were both Judy Shepard.

Laurence Lemieux's choreography for this second part relied more upon subtlety than overt drama. The interactions of the two women were simpler, too -- face-to-face and eye-to-eye moments of stillness, or the moment when Ludwig slid smoothly down into a seat on the bench as Bergfelt stood up.

One telling moment came when Ludwig was singing from a music stand by the piano. Bergfelt moved behind both her and Chung to the left side of the hall, and a strong horizontal light created a shadow play from Bergfelt's dancing on the brick wall of the space. This was only one of designer Chris Malkowski's many intriguing lighting effects.

The final section of the second half opened with a remarkable moment of catharsis. After a brief piano introduction, Ludwig launched into the Beatles' song, Blackbird, and I was moved to tears again at the unmistakable sense of relief I felt as her voice carolled freely in this well-loved tune.

 

The final number, For Good from "Wicked," brought the entire company together on the stage, formed in a line as the singers shared the phrases of the song back and forth.

Echo Chamber Toronto has staged a number of remarkable shows through the last half-dozen years, but with this event Schwebel has moved his project forward onto an entirely different level -- more thoughtful, more sophisticated, more dramatic than any of his previous efforts. 

It was very clear from the opening moments of the performance that A World Transformed was indeed, as Schwebel said in his opening remarks, a collaborative effort, a communal project into which all of the artists poured their thoughts, their feelings, their ideas, their hearts. No wonder it became so impressive, so powerful.

Cellists Galore!

Last Saturday night saw me at St. Andrew's Church in Halifax for a chamber music concert sponsored by the Cecilia Concerts organization. This year, the Cecilia Concerts' Musician-in-Residence is pianist Silvie Cheng, and this was the second of four concerts curated by her. The programme, entitled Cellobration, left her somewhat outnumbered, since the other musicians were a trio of cellists: Paul Wiancko, Andrew Yee, and Silvie's brother, Bryan Cheng.

 

Of course, Silvie Cheng wasn't really outnumbered because a musical collaboration of this sort is neither a race nor a contest.

 

It's often said that the cello is the instrument which most sounds like the human voice, so any concert involving a group of cello players is bound to create some beautiful sounds and textures. I've never been quite sure of the "human voice" comparison, but I do know from previous experiences that the multiplication of cellos definitely increases the warmth of the sound at the same time as it diminishes any edge on the tone. 

 

It's all the sadder, then, that not many composers have written works for multiple cellos. Naturally, then, this concert had to turn to arrangements as part of the programme, a couple of them heard in this concert for the first time. But there were also some splendid works for solo cello and piano, including a couple of gripping contemporary works.

The programme opened with the rhythmically fascinating The Wheel by Caroline Shaw. Andrew Yee gave a wide-ranging reading of this technically complex and musically substantial piece.

The other major contemporary work was 1 for cello and piano "Shifting Baselines" by Paul Wiancko. The work was written by Wiancko on a commission for the Cheng²Duo, but here was played by the composer himself, with both power and subtlety to spare. This is a particularly memorable composition, and I was gratified to hear it again.

The first half of the concert ended with David Popper's serene and richly harmonized Requiem, Op. 66, for 3 cellos and piano. 

Also memorable was the dramatic, even turbulent, Le Grand Tango by Astor Piazzolla. This, too, would benefit from repeated hearings. I can't resist the urge to say how thankful I was that this particular composer wasn't represented by either Libertango or Bordel: 1900, both of which are so overworked that no great harm would be done if the world's musicians set them aside for 20 years or so in favour of other and no less desirable Piazzolla compositions.

Duke Ellington's Such Sweet Thunder, cited as "Arr. Cheng" (I assume that means Bryan, but perhaps a joint effort) received a jazzy, upbeat performance that brought out the strong rhythmic patterns of the music.

I've left my two favourite moments of the concert to the end. The traditional Catalonian song El Cant dels Ocells ("Song of the Birds"), originally arranged by Pablo Casals for cello and piano, and here rearranged for the cello trio and piano by Paul Wiancko, brought serene melodic lines framed by the heartachingly tender birdsong trills at start and finish. 

 

The grand finale, the Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46 by Grieg, arranged by Cheng, created all sorts of fascinating effects by tossing parts of the music around among the four musicians. The two slower movements, Morning Mood and Death of Åse both took full advantage of the lyrical qualities of the three cellists. The finale, In the Hall of the Mountain King, then let loose a rip-roaring race to the finish line which seemed about as energetic as one could possibly get -- until the succeeding encore, whose name I didn't catch, shot past at an even more frenetic pace.

Throughout the concert, all four artists gave well-thought and deeply-felt interpretations coupled with impressive and subtle musicianship. A gala Cellobration indeed!

Stratford Festival 2022 # 6: 2B

My final Stratford outing for this year is Hamlet, directed by Peter Pasyk, and I'm tempted to refer to this as the "Concorde Hamlet" since a number of scenes flew by at what seemed like the speed of the legendary supersonic airliner from the last century.

But then I immediately rein myself in and remember the many other moments in the performance which were allowed ample, and more than ample time to breathe -- and for us, the audience, to hold our breaths.

In addition to this sonic-boom-or-bust pacing, the show was also distinguished by a universally strong cast and imaginative lighting, sound, and music effects.

 

As the Director's Notes in the programme explained, the text of Hamlet exists in three source versions, all quite different from each other -- the First Quarto, the Second Quarto, and the First Folio. The First Quarto is often referred to as the "bad Quarto" since it contains far less text that the others, and has lines and an entire scene which do not appear in the other versions. It's believed that the First Quarto may be a pirated edition or a shortened version for a touring company, drawn from an actor's copy. Thus, there's always the problem of which version(s) to use as source material for a production or a modern print edition. This production draws on all three extant texts. As well, there's the challenging length of the original texts -- well over 5 hours performing time in the Second Quarto and the First Folio, making it Shakespeare's longest play. Surgery, therefore, becomes so desirable for a modern audience as to be essential.

 

In this performance, the most notable surgery was the complete deletion from the play of the character of Fortinbras, Prince of Norway. This in turn means that the play ends with the death of Hamlet, with Horatio having the last word: "Good night, sweet Prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

 

For the rest, I am not familiar enough with Hamlet to be able to identify any of the other excisions. I must confess that this has never been one of my favourite Shakespeare plays (gasp! shock! horror!).

 

With all that scholarly foofaraw out of the way, how did the production unfold?

On entering the theatre, the audience saw a large multi-panelled wall of mirrors spread across the balcony level of the Festival Theatre's famous thrust stage, with smaller mirrored panels lining the edge of the balcony itself. As the play unfolded, it became clear that the mirrored walls were actually one-way mirrors, and became see-through windows when lights came on behind them, illuminating offstage scenes that were in Hamlet's thoughts at the moment. 

The production was set in today's world, and such techno gadgets as Bluetooth earpieces and cellphones appeared and were used frequently, just as one would expect of young people today. That gave the world of the play a strong sense of familiarity which, oddly enough, made the violent action all the more dislocating to the viewers.

 

Amaka Umeh gave a fire-eating performance as Hamlet, pushing the envelope in every direction as if playing to a camera for a TikTok -- as, indeed, Hamlet did on several occasions. Unlike some other performances where Hamlet was content to act verbally mad, Umeh drove the role hard into the physical dimensions of madness, letting an expressive face and uncommonly flexible body underline the disjointed personality of the Prince until his discomfiture screamed to heaven. This performance was nothing if not memorable, although the sheer overplus of the portrayal might make some viewers uncomfortable.

The next powerful centre of the performance came from Graham Abbey as Claudius and Maev Beaty as Gertrude. This pair of Stratford stalwarts presented a united front against Hamlet's extravagances in the early running, only to come apart even more believably at the seams as the truth came out. Beaty in particular made a stunning impact in her final moments in the last scene.

Matthew Kabwe created a Ghost of power and strength, a voice from the grave impossible to ignore. His key scene with Hamlet was one of the dramatic highlights of the show. All the more appropriate, then, that Kabwe should have been double-cast (not unusual, actually) as the Gravedigger. 

 

Norman Yeung and Ijeoma Emesowum brought colourful presence and string vocal work to the duo of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

 

Andrea Rankin's mad scene as Ophelia ranged all over the stage and all over the actor's vocal compass too, in a disintegration that might well have wrung tears from a stone.

 

As her father, Polonius, Michael Spencer-Davis played up the absurdity of the man who has nothing to say and contrives to say it over and over again. Fine work for those who feel that, with Polonius, the comedy is the key point.

The principal cast were surrounded by a strong team of players in minor parts, including the attendant lords who came across more like a security patrol, and the travelling players.

There is, of course, no such thing as a definitive Hamlet -- and there had much better not be. Within its own chosen limits, Peter Pasyk's production brings many strengths and an immense, almost unmanageable energy to the play. Is this a good thing? In the end, it still comes down to whether the individual audience member feels that the more frantic scenes are a good fit with the material.

 

A final note: there's been a lot of discussion about the casting of Amaka Umeh, a female person of colour, in the male role of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. In fact, the show included many notable roles played by persons of colour. Umeh played the title role as a man, and showed more than ample ability to rule the notoriously challenging Festival stage in such a major and challenging role. So what's the problem?

 

Stratford Festival 2022 # 5: A Very Eventful Year

The year 1939 is best remembered in history for the outbreak of World War II in September. In Canada, the spring brought a "first": the first-ever tour of the country by a reigning monarch, King George VI. In a practical sense, it was the royal tour that triggered the events which form the story line of the play 1939, now appearing in its world premiere engagement in the Studio Theatre at the Stratford Festival.

The real story of the play, though, begins far earlier with the establishment of the first "residential schools" for native children by Canada in the 1800s.

 

The script, commissioned by Stratford, was co-written by Jani Lauzon (who also directed the performance) and Kaitlyn Riordan. Lauzon's "Director's Notes" in the programme said it best, and I quote her here: "1939... focuses on the incredible resilience, courage, wit, and ingenuity of five incredible students."

If this sounds too heavy for a night out at the theatre, don't be deceived. 1939 is both witty and completely involving: hysterically funny one minute, heart-touching another, intensely painful yet another, and -- in the end and after the end -- deeply thought-provoking.

The story takes place in a Catholic residential school in Northern Ontario. Five students are chosen as being among the best in English language studies to present a performance of Shakespeare's play All's Well That Ends Well when the King and Queen come to visit the school during the tour. Their Welsh teacher, the ageing and unmarried Miss Sian Ap Dafydd, dreams of a gloriously classic production with her students all sounding like Dame Ellen Terry. The students, though, soon develop other ideas of what to do and how to do it -- ideas which have little to do with the King and Queen, or Dame Ellen Terry, but a great deal to do with holding onto, preserving, and nurturing their own identities and cultures.

This play-within-a-play takes on added resonance in this setting since Stratford is also producing All's Well That Ends Well this season. It's not essential to be familiar with the Shakespearean play in order to appreciate 1939, but knowing it does give extra dimension to the experience of watching this one.

 

Joanna Yu's set design, on the intimate stage of the Studio Theatre, features multiple blackboards with chalk and erasers. As the play unfolds, the five students take turns writing or drawing on the boards during each scene transition, while all members of the company take it in turns to erase the boards as soon as they are marked up. The metaphor of erasing traditional words and designs is clear when it's done by the three settler characters, but less clear and much more thought-provoking when the students erase each other's writings and drawings.

 

Other than the chalkboards, there are several chairs which are normally laid on their sides in piles on either side of the stage, when not being used. Other props, such as desks and tables, are wheeled on or off as needed.

In what is very much an ensemble piece, the actors portraying the five students all have key moments and significant scenes in the show. Richard Comeau,  Wahsonti:io Kirby, Kathleen MacLean, Tara Sky, and John Wamsley each achieved a depth and strength in portrayal that allowed all of the moments, from comical to dramatically tense, to emerge in the most natural way. Quite a challenge in a script that often allows only a few words to create a moment or establish a mood.

All five also excelled in creating the Shakespearean atmosphere with the short excerpts from All's Well that emerged at the end of the play. One of the most powerful scenes for me came when Jean Delorme (played by Wamsley), as a Métis the perennial outsider of the group, used Parolles' wonderful speech of renunciation from Shakespeare's play to tell his fellows how he felt about the treatment he received from them. 

Also powerful was the moment when the five students, one by one, discarded the fake Hollywoodish "Indian" costumes and props which had been wished on them by the church community. From that point on, the power and truth of the entire performance really took wing, culminating in the circle where the five broke out into a traditional song -- apparently spontaneously.

 

Sarah Dodd as Miss Ap Dafydd created a fascinating character, strongly and smugly colonial, yet often seeming just on the verge of breaking out of that shell to a true appreciation of the lives of her students.

 

Mike Shara drew plenty of laughs as Father Callum Wilson, creating a believable figure as the priest who can appreciate the importance or value of nothing but the church -- and the hockey team. Shara and Dodd made an excellent comic team in the multiple scenes where they struck sparks off each other.

 

Jacklyn Francis was similarly impenetrable as the news reporter, Madge Macbeth, determined to find only what she wanted to find and see only what she wanted to see.

 

These three settler characters all veered close to the edge of caricature, but each also had moments of human vulnerability that saved them from tipping over that edge.

The greatest impact of 1939, for me, was the way that the five student characters put human faces on a narrative of inhumanity and indignity which is alls too easily turned into a faceless parade of numbers. This play explored the hundreds of subtle little ways in which the residential "school" experience undermined and devalued the humanity of the inmates -- and then went on, in a powerful affirmation of the human spirit, to show us how each of the five found their own ways to turn the whole terrible experience to their own use and advantage.

Out of all the plays I have seen at Stratford this year, this is the one I would call a must-see. 1939 continues on stage until October 29 in the Studio Theatre at Stratford.

Stratford Festival 2022 # 4: The Richest Miser I've Ever Met

The Stratford Festival has a long history of producing the works of Molière in English translation, This French author, who lived from 1622 to 1673, holds a place in French literature as central as the place of Shakespeare in English language and literature. Given that stature, the seventieth season at the Stratford Festival (which coincides with the 400th anniversary of Molière's birth) is a good time to bring on a new production of one of the master's best-known satirical farces, The Miser.

 

The Festival has chosen to go with Ranjit Bolt's newly adapted version of his 1995 translation. Unlike the older verse translations used in some Molière productions, this is a prose translation and a very up-to-date one indeed. Free use is made of topical and local references, one assumes with the consent of the adaptor.

 

It's really to the point to refer to an "adaptation" rather than a translation, since Molière's humour is essentially verbal, and -- like jokes and puns in all languages -- stubbornly resists literal translation. The only hope is to replace such jokes with English-language jokes and puns which, if you're lucky, live in the same street as the French-language originals. Maybe.

 

 More confusing for anyone familiar with older translated texts is the renaming of the characters with contemporary English-language names. Thus, Harpagon (the miser of the title) becomes Harper, his son Cléante becomes Charlie, Frosine becomes Fay, and so on. 

 

Designer Julie Fox has created an incredibly detailed and finicky Victorian-Gothic Revival-Horror Film fantasy of a stage set, every inch of which would look perfectly in place as the Carfax mansion in Bram Stoker's classic novel, Dracula. This impression is heightened by the dim, gloomy lighting of the stage that greets the audience as they enter the Festival Theatre, and the periodic rumbles of thunder which punctuate the pre-show.

 

Fortunately for the audience, that gloominess doesn't overlap into the performance itself, which is thoroughly contemporary in tone. In fact, it's a pleasure to report that, for a wonder, the company has not gone overboard and tried to drive the comedy into excess, preferring to let it unfold more naturally and humanely. This is not to say that satire is shirked by any means -- only that excess and overplus have been kept at bay for most of the show.

 

Most importantly, this applies to Colm Feore in the central role of the miserly Harper. His first flat-out moment of comic insanity comes in a perfect place, the final two minutes before the intermission. Fox's costume which clothed Feore in wrinkled trousers and baggy sweater with worn-through elbows tells half the story -- the weird collection of odds and ends of stuff around the stage tells us even more. He made very effective use of his turn-on-a-dime changes of mood and voice every time he suspects that someone is after his money.

 

Of course, he has to go much farther in the courtship scene of Act II, appearing now in an elegantly-tailored lilac-coloured suit and matching top hat which certainly made my eyes pop. Even here, though, Feore achieved a remarkable balance of pushing the limits while still showing restraint. This was a true textbook example of how farcical comedy should be approached.

So, for a different reason, was the performance of Jamie Mac as the butler, Victor. In this role, Mac drew plenty of mileage out of his expressive face, without ever taking it too far, and also made notable use of varying vocal tones whenever agreeing with everything Harper said. 

Harper's son, Charlie, was given a more over-the-edge comedic portrayal by Qasim Khan. Charlie's special approach to life is underlined by a particularly flashy costume, and his quick physicality abetted the portrait of a man who lives by flash and dash.

Charlie's sister, Eleanor (usually referred to as Ellie), was given a rather more conventional, practical air by Alexandra Lainfiesta. This contrasted well with her brother's more vivid portraiture, and made her seem an ideal partner for Victor. 

Beck Lloyd brought a more stereotypical look to Marianne, a character who veers perilously close to the edge of stereotype in any case. Vocally, I found her a bit wearing as her voice often sounded on the verge of bursting into tears in the old convention of the girl who cries to get her way or because she can't get her way. Frankly, I couldn't imagine what attracted Charlie to her -- but then, his speeches make it plain that he's completely enchanted anyway, and will undoubtedly learn much more about his dream woman once the enchantment wears off. Jung would have a good deal to say about this couple.

The comedic prize of the show, in many ways, was the marriage broker, Fay. Dressed in slinky black leather with gold chains and a colourful coat over it, she looked like a refugee from Vegas -- or was it Palm Beach? Lucy Peacock made herself completely at home in this flashy costume, strutting and preening and sashaying about the stage. Her distinctive voice perfectly completed the portrait, drawling out the lines in a way that made the very sound of her voice amusing -- and the words she was speaking even more so. Inspired casting and outstanding performance, which nearly stole the show.

David Collins proved an equally ideal choice for the role of Harper's wealthy friend, Arthur Edgerton. Collins is a Stratford regular, and always appears and sounds right at home in this wise elder type of role.

 

Steve Ross gave a fine comic turn as the detective summoned to investigate the theft of Harper's money.

Harper is also the deus ex machina who untangles the whole tangled mess of the plot, and here the extreme topicality of the adaptation of the script began to grate on me. There were just too many convenient coincidences, or synchronicities if you prefer, and I slipped out of the play and into the role of the cynical onlooker saying, "Yeah, right...." Trying to make this ending "go" will, I think, always pose problems for any company performing this version of The Miser.

 

Director Antoni Cimolino has achieved one of his finest outings in the comedy/farce world here, pacing and building the show along nearly ideal lines so that there's always somewhere left to go until the last possible moment. While the stage pictures were rather conventional at times, they always worked well and the characters remained audible at all times.

Kudos to Stratford on a well-planned, well-played, truly funny production of this Molière classic.

Stratford Festival 2022 # 3: But Is All Really Well?

It wouldn't be a tenth-year anniversary at Stratford without restagings of the two plays which opened the very first Stratford Festival way back in 1953. While I have seen several of the anniversary stagings of Richard III (including this year's outing), 2022 marks the first occasion I've seen its running mate, All's Well That Ends Well, in half a century -- since the 1972 Twentieth Anniversary Season in fact.

 

All's Well is an odd duck, theatrically speaking. The play has only half a romantic couple, and actually anticipates Bernard Shaw's favourite formula by having the drama revolve around the means by which Helen pursues and ties down Bertram, despite his best efforts to escape from her. 

 

It's also odd, and more than odd, to try to figure out what she sees in him. He bluntly tells the King that he doesn't want her and won't marry her. He leaves France to avoid his fate when the King orders him to accept the marriage. He schemes and swears love to seduce a young Florentine girl, Diana, handing over his heirloom family ring to her with scarcely a murmur of protest. Brought back to France to face the music from his sleazy behaviour, he lies up and down to try to evade the consequences of his actions. Most modern women would tell Helen to run the other way, as fast as possible. 

 

And yet, her behaviour is scarcely above reproach either, her clever stratagem exposing her (in modern terms) to a charge of sexual assault since she contrives to have sex with Bertram without his knowledge or consent. Also, as the programme note points out, there's more than a hint in her behaviour -- an uncomfortable hint -- of the contemporary obsessive stalker. The ending tries to follow the convention of "and they all lived happily ever after" but I'm sure I'm not the only person ready to put money on how soon this marriage will break down. Even by Shakespeare's standards, this is a play brimming over with awkward moral contradictions and conflicts that resist easy solutions. 

 

In any case, let's look at how this year's production, in the new Tom Patterson Theatre, unfolded. Director Scott Wentworth has helmed a classic Stratford production, handsomely costumed in Victorian dress (not unlike Tyrone Guthrie's original 1953 production), and with minimal props and set pieces whisked on and off. There were few fancy staging effects. Designer Michelle Bohn's set consisted simply of a dozen elegant Victorian "lady's chairs," arranged in two facing rows along either side of the stage, creating an instant and effective keynote to the period.

 

The first character to speak is the widowed Countess of Rossillion, here portrayed by Seana McKenna. In this play, McKenna's ability to dominate the stage is abetted by the frequent reappearances of the Countess throughout the play. We're never long allowed to forget that the supposed romantic couple consist of her son, Bertram, now the Count of Rossillion, and her waiting gentlewoman Helen. These relationships, together with her recent widowed status (the play opens with a pantomime of her husband's funeral) give her an uncommonly strong position of influence over subsequent events. 

Jessica B. Hill gave a strong, multi-faceted account of the role of Helen, lacking only the last degree of vocal clarity -- at times, her voice became simply too inward and intimate, especially in soliloquy. Her frequent and vivid changes of facial expression were a delight, especially in the intimate environment of the Tom Patterson where her face could be "read" easily from all over the house.

Jordin Hall presented a forthright, occasionally brutal, Bertram. His sudden falling into hesitant, devious verbal mannerisms in the final scene was thus made all the more notable. Hall especially excelled in conveying just a slight degree of verbal underlining in key moments, all that was needed to point up the man's hypocrisy and devious nature.

 

Wayne Best was at his best in the insightful Lord Lafew, making for a most believable account of the man who hears more and sees farther than others around him.

Ben Carlson gave a performance of nuance and power as the King of France. His sickbed scenes were notably edgy and unnerving, and his final judgement scene lacked for nothing in tempered but none the less intense and believable emotions.

Kim Horsman captured both similarity and difference to McKenna's Countess in her role as the Widow in Florence.

Allison Edwards-Crewe gave a finely-shaped, unexpectedly tart and sharp-tongued view of Diana, the Widow's daughter, whom Bertram attempts to seduce.

The production featured a delightful set of comic performances, in the clown roles which are such a joy of the Shakespearean repertoire. Lavatch may be the sexton in Rossillion, but Andre Sills all but brought the house down in this role with his overt sexual innuendos, both verbal and physical.

Irene Poole gave a scene-stealing portrayal of verbal and physical comedy in her role as the Florentine soldier who doubles as an interpreter.

And that brings us to Rylan Wilkie, in the showstopper role of Parolles, Bertram's companion, who is the biggest liar and braggart in sight (and in this play, that's saying something). Wilkie achieved splendid comic effect, both physical and vocal, in the scene where he's being "interrogated" by "enemy" soldiers. His subsequent deflation and fall from grace was then played with equal sincerity and insight, making for a treasurable account of a particularly wide-ranging character.

One of the reasons I like to sit along the sides of the Tom Patterson Theatre is the way that the stage pictures take on much more visual meaning when seen thus, on the long side of the narrow thrust stage. Director Wentworth achieved great variety in his staging, finding continually new ways to frame scenes and visually highlight the evolving relationships among his characters. His pacing of the production was equally strong and noteworthy.

All's Well That Ends Well may never be an easy play to like, but the company has produced a thoughtful production with many entertaining moments for this seventieth anniversary season, and made the play much more workable than theatrical experts of an earlier day would have thought possible. A rewarding afternoon of theatre.

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Toronto Mendelssohn Choir 2022/23 # 1: The Pilgrim's Way

The versatility of the renowned Toronto Mendelssohn Choir was on display in a new format at the season-opening concert on Saturday night.

 

This first performance featured 23 voices of the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers, the professional core group of the larger symphonic choir. 

 

For this concert, the Singers moved to Jeanne Lamon Hall in the Trinity-St. Paul's Centre, a much friendlier acoustic environment for this smaller group of artists.

 

The major work on this concert was Path of Miracles, by Joby Talbot. This hour-long work absolutely defies classification. It's neither oratorio nor cantata, neither narrative nor meditative. Perhaps it could best be called a "musical experience." which invites the hearer into a level of participation in the actual pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago in Catalonia and Galicia. 

 

Talbot's music is already familiar to followers of the National Ballet of Canada from his full-length scores for the story ballets Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter's Tale. Here, Talbot's wide-ranging and eclectic musical language takes us into a different realm altogether, with the pared-down sounds of unaccompanied voices (and sparing use of chimes and bells) creating fascinating and complex textures in place of the sparkling orchestration of the ballet scores. Certain features, like melodic and rhythmic ostinati, missing or added beats, upbeat jazzy rhythms, and diverse tempi are used here as well, but to startlingly different effect.

 

Talbot's score casually tosses all kinds of technical challenges at the singers and the conductor. The Toronto Mendelssohn Singers under music director Jean-Sébastien Vallée triumphantly welded this sprawling array of elements into a gripping, unifying whole. And make no mistake, this remarkable work did indeed bring the entire audience along on the journey, right from the staged opening in which the basses and tenors grouped in a circle around the director, until they were joined by the sopranos and altos singing at the rear of the hall. That was only one of a number of simple but evocative staging effects integrated into the performance of Path of Miracles. 

 

The sheer drawing power of the piece became abundantly clear at the conclusion when the final bars repeated ad infinitum while the singers and conductor slowly recessed down the central aisle and out the back of the hall, their voices fading slowly away into the distance while the audience sat in rapt silence, straining to hear the voices as they reached the vanishing point.

The three works which opened the programme were by no means also-rans. Diedre Robinson's arrangement of the spiritual Steal Away, which could better be called a recomposition, presented aptly beautiful tone and phrasing, marred only by one or two individual voices which came searing through on high notes.

The Choir's Composer-in-Residence, Shireen Abu-Khader, provided the heart-achingly sorrowful and gripping I Forgive. It's a setting of a last letter written by Egyptian activist Sarah Hejazi before PTSD arising from torture drove her to take her own life in 2020. Mezzo-soprano soloist Raneem Barakat memorably captured the anguish of Hejazi in phrases which often seemed to float in the near neighbourhood of the choral harmonies, rather than landing distinctly within any one chord.

Then came Elgar's Lux aeterna, although that title is misleading. John Cameron set the words of the Latin antiphon from the requiem mass to the music of the Nimrod variation from Elgar's famous Enigma Variations. Elgar himself did set the music with a poetic text in his late work, The Music Makers, although he did not use this Latin text. 

As for the piece itself, it seemed rather out of place among its companions. Although the thematic relationship was unmistakable, the music itself struck me as rather too conventional and backward-looking in such adventurous company.

The near-capacity audience responded with rapturous applause and cheers at the end of the programme with that gently fading conclusion of Talbot's Path of Miracles. This remarkable musical and personal journey of this entire concert will, I think, resonate long in the minds of artists and audience alike.