[NEohioPAL]Berko review: More About the Shaw Festival

[Roy Berko]

THE SHAW FESTIVAL OF CANADA, PART 2

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association)

--THE TIMES NEWSPAPERS--

Lorain County Times--Westlaker Times--Lakewood News
Times--Olmsted-Fairview Times	


The Shaw Festival is located in Niagara-on-the-Lake,
Ontario, Canada.  As I indicated in the first part of
my comments about the Festival, which are available on
my website:  www.royberko.info, this is an exceptional
production year.  I gave raves to ‘MAJOR BARBARA’ and
‘THE CONSTANT WIFE.’  Here are my comments on the
other plays I viewed, restaurants to eat in, and
places to stay.


‘HAPPY END’


It is only fitting that in a season which features
Shaw’s ‘MAJOR BARBARA’ that the Festival should offer
Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s ‘HAPPY END.’    Too
bad the powers that be didn’t also stage ‘GUYS AND
DOLLS.’  Basically all three plays center on the
Salvation Army and one of its female savers of souls.

Set in Chicago at the turn of the century, ‘HAPPY
END," a play with music, centers on Lillian, a
Salvation Army worker.  She falls in love with Bill
Cracker, a hardened gang criminal. When the two
struggle to maintain the ideals of their
organizations, they find themselves outcasts from the
societies in which they believe.  Comic situations
abound as the virtuous members of the Army invade the
territory of the gang and begin a struggle for the
criminals’ souls.   It plays much like a 1920s
gangster flick with the addition of songs.

In viewing the production it is important to remember
that Brecht and Weill are products of the era in
German theatre when historification, alienation and
epic were in vogue.  Historification concerns setting
the play in a historic time period, but making sure
the audience knows that the writers are really asking
viewers to think about the implications for today. 
Alienation concerns staging the play so that the
audience is always aware that they are in the theatre
by having the actors speak directly to the audience,
using fragmentary sets and letting the light fixtures
hang in view of the spectators.  Epic--bigger than
life.  The play does not duplicate real life.  If you
have seen a good production of ‘CABARET’ you’ll
understand the concept.

Among the most familiar musical numbers in the show
are "The Bilbao Song," "The Sailor's Tango" and
"Surabaya Johnny."  (No, this is not Rogers and
Hammerstein sing along music.)

Why was this German play set in Chicago?  Brecht was
passionately in love with the Windy City of Al Capone
and his gangsters.  Weill loved jazz and old-time
American hymns.  Interestingly, at the time they wrote
the show, neither had set foot in the U.S.  They did
immigrate to the country in 1941.

The show, which premiered in 1929 in Germany, closed
quickly.  At the final curtain on opening night,
Helene Weigel, the star of the show and Brecht's wife,
pulled a paper out of her pocket and started reading a
full-blast, down-with-everything communist tract. The
audience rioted.  In a country fearful of the
deepening shadow of Hitler's gangsters and the
presence of communism, there was less and less room
for the free-thinking Brecht or the eclecticism of
Weill's musical.

It’s hard to pull off this serious and often abstract
musical, but director Tadeusz Bradecki has done it.The
Shaw production is excellent. The cast is exceptional.
   Benedict Campbell makes the role of Bill Cracker
his own.  The gang members are appropriately
hysterically funny and perfectly stupid.  Patty
Jamieson is one mean lady as The Fly.  Glynis Ranney
is wonderful as Lieutenant Lillian Holiday.  David
Leyshon makes the role of the uptight Captain Hannibal
Jackson his. The singing and dancing choruses are
fine.

This said, the show will not please everyone.  This is
not a light, happy escapist musical.  In fact, most
viewers will probably be scratching their heads as to
the authors’ intent and purpose.  Guesses vary from a
Faustian legend, to it foreshadowing the rise of
Hitler and the fall of the fragile German democracy,
to Brecht wanting to make a strong political statement
regarding communism, to it is simply a story of two
people from different backgrounds who find themselves
caught up in a world that didn’t have room for their
contrary life styles.

CAPSULE JUDGEMENT:  Dedicated theatre-goes should see
‘HAPPY END’ because their chance of seeing it offered
again are very slim.  For those people it will be an
experience worth investing time and money.  Others
might look for less daunting fair.  


‘YOU NEVER CAN TELL’


It is rumored that Shaw scripted ‘YOU NEVER CAN TELL’
mainly out of disdain for Oscar Wilde's ‘THE
IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST,’ which Shaw perceived to
be a pretentious social mockery that said little of
the real problems of society.   If that’s the real
case, that’s fine, for the play he created is warm and
humorous and purposeful.  As one critic said, “Angst
should have come knocking on Shaw's door more often. 
This comedy of manners is a charming little piece that
entertains throughout its journey to the predictable
end.”

‘YOU NEVER CAN TELL’ is a social comedy that centers
on what happens when a famous author and her three
children encounter the husband she left 18 years
earlier. Throw in a daughter's complicated courtship
by a penniless dentist, and a lot of hysterical low
brow humor, and you have the plot.

As happens in many of Shaw’s plays he states his views
concerning love, feminism, politics and marriage.  It
is interesting that Morris Panych, the play’s director
comments on his twenty-five years with his life
partner Kent MacDonald as he states, “Nothing can stop
the irrepressible force of love.  When love is true
there is nothing truer, and no perversions of social
form, custom, manner, politics or law will undo it.” 
Obviously, he is taking this forum to comment on the
recent approval of gay marriage in Canada.  Shaw would
have been proud that his ideas about the need for
changes have been used in change!

In the preface to his biography ‘GEORGE BERNARD SHAW:
MAN OF THE CENTURY,’ Archibald Henderson tells us that
on February 24, 1903, a friend invited him to attend a
performance of a play entitled, ‘YOU NEVER CAN TELL,’
by a dramatist he had never heard of.  Reluctantly, he
went.  He wrote, "I sat through that performance,
being moved to gales of laughter, feeling as if I were
being subjected to some sort of mental
electrification."  The Shaw audience mimicked 
Henderson.  They laughed and laughed and laughed.

Under the solid direction of Morris Panych, the
outstanding Shaw cast acts out the tale with
simplicity and comic grace, using underplay to great
effect.  Mike Shara is delightful as Valentine, Nicole
Underhay was fun as Dolly, Harry Judge won the
audience as Philip.  David Schurmann’s Butler
portrayal was right on.  Goldie Semple is so perfectly
very, very proper as Mrs. Clandon.

Ken MacDonald’s set design is both beautiful and
practical.  Nancy Bryant’s costumes are elegant and
era-perfect. 

CAPSULE JUDGEMENT:  ‘YOU NEVER CAN TELL’ is a
delightful piece of farce fluff with underlying
messages.  It is a perfect summertime piece of
theatre.


‘THE AUTUMN GARDEN’


Since the Broadway premiere of her first drama, ‘THE
CHILDREN'S' HOUR’ in 1934, Lillian Hellman has
generally been considered US America’s  leading woman
playwright.  

Her ‘THE AUTUMN GARDEN,’ which was first staged in
1951, is considered one of Hellman’s lesser plays as
she doesn’t take her usual strong political or social
active stand.  This is more a low-key personal play in
which she looks upon the frailties of human existence.
 

‘THE AUTUMN GARDEN’ is also different from Hellman’s
other plays which tend to be plot driven.  This script
is character driven. The story is really about
individual characters who are often persons from
Hellman’s own life.   For example, Hellman had a
thirty-year liaison with Dashel Hammett.  Much like
two characters in the play, she and “Dash” never
married.  And, like Hammett , all of the men seem to
be running from something.  The women are much like
Hellman’s own mother and other female relatives.

In the play we view an elegant summer boarding house
run by a wellborn, middle aged spinster.  The guests
are largely frustrated people.  They include a woman
who runs the establishment and her long time “special”
male friend, a cynical drinker who has never married;
a general who is married to a fool; a confused young
man half heartedly about to marry a woman he does not
love.  
  
Hellman creates characters who fail to meet that
challenge of breaking their patterns and moving on. 
That is all except Sophie, the young European maid,
who has been brought to America by her
well-intentioned aunt supposedly to save her from the
difficult life she was living.  Unfortunately, the
aunt’s plan is for Sophie to marry and live the same
kind of life as the other frustrated people in the
story.  It is Sophie alone who makes the decision to
move on, not to take the easy way out.   Maybe it is
Sophie who does what Hellman was incapable of
doing...moving on to a happier and more fulfilling
life.

The Shaw production is finely directed by Martha
Henry.  As with all of the productions this season,
the cast is excellent as are the set and costume
designs and renderings.

Sharry Flett is properly aloof and frustrated as
Constance, the owner of the guest house.  Jim Mezon is
right on target as Edward Crossman, the drunk who
Constance wants to marry.  Mike Shara correctly
develops Frederick, Sophie’s intended, as a believable
rudderless and spineless mamma’s boy.  Wendy Thatcher
is properly pathetic as the General’s clueless wife. 
David Schurmann effectively develops the character of
the General who can lead men into battle, but can’t
forge his own life in a productive way.

CAPSULE JUDGEMENT:  ‘THE AUTUMN GARDEN’ is not a great
script, but in the hands of the Shaw Festival’s cast
it is an intriguing study in character development
that is well worth seeing.


BEYOND THE FESTIVAL


The Niagara area is dotted with wineries, many of
which, besides offering wine tastings and sales,  have
fine dining restaurants.  I find the best of these to
be the Hillebrand Estates Winery.   The food is
marvelous, the wines excellent, the service first
rate.  Manager Amy Gibbs sees that patrons have an
excellent dining experience.

There are some other wonderful restaurants including
my favorites, The Inn on the Twenty
(www.innonthetwenty.com), located in historic Jordan
Village about forty minutes from Niagara-on-the-Lake,
and the Queenston Heights Restaurant
(www.queenstonheights.com).  The latter is located in
a park just over the US-Canadian border.  The facility
has a breathtaking view of the Niagara River gorge. 
Try and get seated at one of Christine’s tables. 
She’s a total delight and a wonderful server.   The
management of Inn on the Twenty has opened Twelve
(www.12-waterfrontgrill.com), a moderately priced
waterfront restaurant in St. Catherines, about 20
minutes from Niagara-on-the-Lake.  The food is
excellent, as is the service.   The ride down takes
you over the Welland Canal.

The area has many excellent hotels and
bed-and-breakfasts.  We have found Abbotsford House
Bed and Breakfast  (www.abbotsfordbandb.com) to be our
home away-from-home.  Owner Margaret Currie is a total
delight. Return guests are the rule here.  For
reservations and/or information call 905-468-4646 or
e-mail AbbotsfordBandB.com.

Tired of waiting for a casino in Cleveland?  For those
so-inclined, Niagara Falls has the new Niagara
Fallsview Casino Resort which features 3,000 slot
machines, 150 gaming tables and overlooks the
thunderous cascading water.  There is also a large
outlet store complex for the bargain shopper.  And, of
course, not to be overlooked are the attractions
connected to the magnificent falls.

For theatre information, a brochure, lodging
suggestions or tickets call 800-511-7429 or go on-line
to www.shawfest.com.  Ask about packages that include
lodging, meals and tickets.  Also be aware that the
festival offers Sunday night specials, day-of-the-show
rush tickets and senior matinee prices. 



Roy Berko's web page can be found at www.royberko.info.  His theatre and dance reviews appear on NeOHIOpal, an on-line source.   To subscribe to this free service via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.fredsternfeld.com/mailman/listinfo/neohiopal.

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