Fall Theatre Reviews
Kurt and I have finished our fall theatre circuit. This year it geographically spanned from Stratford to New Orleans and chronologically from the Roman playwright Titus Macchius Plautus to American playwright Doug Walker. Along the way we there were some dramatic highs, laughs and ponderings on the human condition. I would like to record some of those moments in this journal.
Early October took us to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. We saw five shows. The Festival gave a contrast between the low comedy of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with the highbrow satire of The Importance of Being Earnest. Forum is based on the Plautus’s plays with music and lyrics by Sondheim. All of the humor and situations in Forum are roman except for a slave wanting to be free. Freedom as we conceive it was not a theatrical device in late republican Rome. There are several versions of Forum, original Broadway, movie and Broadway revivals. Stratford did a revival version with some deleted/added song deviations from the original cast album. We were looking forward to seeing Bruce Dow play the role of Pseudolus, but he had to leave the 2009 season due to an injury. He played the role of the cabaret host in “Cabaret” with oozing perfection last season.
For me spoken English reached its apex with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. The play is full of the sharpest exchanges of wit ever written. Some of the best lines are for Lady Bracknell, the epitome of all aunts in English literature. One of Stratford’s great Shakespearian actors, Brian Bedford, played Lady Bracknell to perfect timing and delivery.
Have you ever been self-conscience in public due to something about yourself? That is the premise of Cyrano de Bergerac, the poet and sword fighter with a large nose. Like Wilde’s Earnest, Cyrano’s dialogue is full of witty lines delivered in rhyme. The repressed love Cyrano has for Roxane is not very believable with his extroverted personality. However, the final scene when Roxane realizes the dying Cyrano has loved her all these years and was the author of the love poetry to her is touching. The movie is faithful to the play and is worth seeing just for this final death scene. The sword fights at the Stratford are as good as the movies.
The art of political spin was obliviously alive and well in Elizabethan times. Shakespeare shows us the workings of spin in Julius Caesar. Mark Anthony’s speech “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him” is pure spin. It was done to great effect at Stratford with the cast in the aisles heckling back at Mark Anthony as he starts these lines. Slowing they react positively to Anthony and he wins the Roman mob to his side against Brutus. I felt part of the Roman mob.
West Side Story is not an easy show to perform. Knowing the depth of talent at Stratford, I knew they could provide the raw energy needed to sing and dance the parts. The cast did not disappoint. Not only did they dance, but did feats of gymnastics on the steel girder set representing Manhattan tenements. I just sat back and enjoyed the Bernstein music and Sondheim lyrics. I have read that some critics consider the show dated with idealized gangs. But a gang leader is murdered. And Maria must resolve her love for Tony with the fact he murdered her gang brother.
Mid October took us to University of Michigan’s student production of Evita. The caliber of the performance was good and the sets pieces adequate if a bit wobbly at times. The tango singer ("On This Night of a Thousand Stars") is usually done by a slightly off key and past his prime actor. Our student performer was virile and pitch perfect and stole the show. His curtain call applause was equal to Evita’s. This is another show with several versions. The cast album was done first and is one version. The Broadway version was more political than the original London production. I like the movie version adding scenes from her early childhood as a bastard daughter. It explains her latter rejection of middle class morals.
For some R & R we spent the first week of November in the French Quarter, New Orleans. Two blocks away, in a downtown shopping center, Southern Rep Theatre was doing I Am My Own Wife. This play won the 2004 Tony Award for Best Play, the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and the 2005 Lambda Literary Award. We had to go see this show. A one-man play, actor Bob Edes was a superb Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. The role also called for Mr. Edes to voice several other characters. He moves in and out of these character voices seamlessly while being dressed as Charlotte. The play is the true story of a German transvestite who was a teenager under Nazi Germany and spent most of her adult life under communist East Germany. Her story was celebrated after her biography came out in 1995. Later it was clouded when evidence came out that she had cooperated with the East German secret police. The story is riveting.
Last weekend we saw Michigan Opera’s production of A Little Night Music in Detroit. Sondheim frequently writes a Broadway show in a fresh or unusual way. Best example is Pacific Overtures. Night Music is no exception. Done mostly in waltz time, it has the feel of an operetta. The plot involves the romantic lives of several couples. The first act introduces the characters. The second act brings all the couples to a country home for the weekend. By shows end each person is mated with his or her true kindred spirit. Sondheim has said of this show it is “whipped cream with knives.” We enjoyed hearing Sondheim’s music preformed by an orchestra with good opera voices. All in all, it is an elegant romantic show with some sassy lyrics.
Early October took us to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. We saw five shows. The Festival gave a contrast between the low comedy of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with the highbrow satire of The Importance of Being Earnest. Forum is based on the Plautus’s plays with music and lyrics by Sondheim. All of the humor and situations in Forum are roman except for a slave wanting to be free. Freedom as we conceive it was not a theatrical device in late republican Rome. There are several versions of Forum, original Broadway, movie and Broadway revivals. Stratford did a revival version with some deleted/added song deviations from the original cast album. We were looking forward to seeing Bruce Dow play the role of Pseudolus, but he had to leave the 2009 season due to an injury. He played the role of the cabaret host in “Cabaret” with oozing perfection last season.
For me spoken English reached its apex with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. The play is full of the sharpest exchanges of wit ever written. Some of the best lines are for Lady Bracknell, the epitome of all aunts in English literature. One of Stratford’s great Shakespearian actors, Brian Bedford, played Lady Bracknell to perfect timing and delivery.
Have you ever been self-conscience in public due to something about yourself? That is the premise of Cyrano de Bergerac, the poet and sword fighter with a large nose. Like Wilde’s Earnest, Cyrano’s dialogue is full of witty lines delivered in rhyme. The repressed love Cyrano has for Roxane is not very believable with his extroverted personality. However, the final scene when Roxane realizes the dying Cyrano has loved her all these years and was the author of the love poetry to her is touching. The movie is faithful to the play and is worth seeing just for this final death scene. The sword fights at the Stratford are as good as the movies.
The art of political spin was obliviously alive and well in Elizabethan times. Shakespeare shows us the workings of spin in Julius Caesar. Mark Anthony’s speech “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him” is pure spin. It was done to great effect at Stratford with the cast in the aisles heckling back at Mark Anthony as he starts these lines. Slowing they react positively to Anthony and he wins the Roman mob to his side against Brutus. I felt part of the Roman mob.
West Side Story is not an easy show to perform. Knowing the depth of talent at Stratford, I knew they could provide the raw energy needed to sing and dance the parts. The cast did not disappoint. Not only did they dance, but did feats of gymnastics on the steel girder set representing Manhattan tenements. I just sat back and enjoyed the Bernstein music and Sondheim lyrics. I have read that some critics consider the show dated with idealized gangs. But a gang leader is murdered. And Maria must resolve her love for Tony with the fact he murdered her gang brother.
Mid October took us to University of Michigan’s student production of Evita. The caliber of the performance was good and the sets pieces adequate if a bit wobbly at times. The tango singer ("On This Night of a Thousand Stars") is usually done by a slightly off key and past his prime actor. Our student performer was virile and pitch perfect and stole the show. His curtain call applause was equal to Evita’s. This is another show with several versions. The cast album was done first and is one version. The Broadway version was more political than the original London production. I like the movie version adding scenes from her early childhood as a bastard daughter. It explains her latter rejection of middle class morals.
For some R & R we spent the first week of November in the French Quarter, New Orleans. Two blocks away, in a downtown shopping center, Southern Rep Theatre was doing I Am My Own Wife. This play won the 2004 Tony Award for Best Play, the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and the 2005 Lambda Literary Award. We had to go see this show. A one-man play, actor Bob Edes was a superb Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. The role also called for Mr. Edes to voice several other characters. He moves in and out of these character voices seamlessly while being dressed as Charlotte. The play is the true story of a German transvestite who was a teenager under Nazi Germany and spent most of her adult life under communist East Germany. Her story was celebrated after her biography came out in 1995. Later it was clouded when evidence came out that she had cooperated with the East German secret police. The story is riveting.
Last weekend we saw Michigan Opera’s production of A Little Night Music in Detroit. Sondheim frequently writes a Broadway show in a fresh or unusual way. Best example is Pacific Overtures. Night Music is no exception. Done mostly in waltz time, it has the feel of an operetta. The plot involves the romantic lives of several couples. The first act introduces the characters. The second act brings all the couples to a country home for the weekend. By shows end each person is mated with his or her true kindred spirit. Sondheim has said of this show it is “whipped cream with knives.” We enjoyed hearing Sondheim’s music preformed by an orchestra with good opera voices. All in all, it is an elegant romantic show with some sassy lyrics.