Why I'll Never Be An Adult

            OH MY GOD, y’all, is it possible to get pregnant from a musical? If it is, I’m in serious trouble because I’m almost definitely having Seussical’s baby. Yeah, the dorky little show is actually that good.

            Incidentally, our upcoming appearance on Jeremy Kyle is going to be fantastic. Seussical is going to be all, “You were cheating on me with Les Mis! How do I know that baby’s mine, eh?” and I’m going to be crying and screaming “It’s got FUR and STRIPES, of COURSE IT IS YOURS” and meanwhile Les Mis is picking up chairs that have been flung around the studio to build a furniture wall and mumbling in French to itself. Further digression: this is why I will never be a theatre critic. I am totally qualified, but at some point my editor would have to propose that I actually write something that makes sense to another human being while I lie on the floor screaming about pregnancy and Jeremy Kyle.

            Seriously, though: if you have the chance, go see this show. The venue is small and the staging is about as low-tech as it comes, but a ridiculously talented and energetic cast make for some of the most vibrant theatre I’ve seen in a while. Every one of them deserves kudos. Kirsty Marie Ayers is particularly outstanding and presh to death as Gertrude McFuzz, and David Hunter (whom you may remember from my last blog entry) is doing what he does best as Horton the Elephant – namely, he’s removing my heart from my breast and crushing it to a fine paste underneath his heel whilst being the most adorable thing in the West End. Also, on an even shallower note, special props to Natalie Green for having such a slammin’ bod that she even makes the Sour Kangaroo’s high-waisted wide-legged salmon-pink trousers look foxy.

            Unfortunately, I wound up sitting in the middle of a mostly-empty second row, and I felt like a total creeper. I dislike the feeling of being essentially in the actors’ laps; I’m a big fan of that fourth wall. Also, there were some minor issues with the microphones and the sound balance that were distracting in the moment, but should be fairly easy to solve. Neither snag hindered my enjoyment of the performance much, but I’d like to go back when they have some of the technical stuff smoothed out a little more.

I know the show is ostensibly kid stuff, but don’t be put off by that. Fun stuff doesn’t stop being fun just because you don’t need a booster seat at the theatre any more. Come on, I know you still sing Disney songs and have waffles for dinner when you think no one’s looking, right? (If the answer to that is “no,” you can just leave now. We don’t need your kind here.)

One final David Hunter-related note. (I promise this is not turning into a Fuck Yeah, David Hunter! blog. It’s relevant. Sort of.) Apparently my mother has found this blog! Hi, Mama, if you’re reading this.  Remember what happened the last time I saw one of Dave’s shows? If not, go refresh your memory with the second half of this entry. Anyway, TLC read that entry and phoned me, very concerned that I was developing a drinking problem.  I had to explain to her that I wasn’t drunk when the whole swearing-and-accidental-hitting thing went down. There is nothing like the shame of having to explain to your dear old mother that her only child doesn’t have a problem with drink – she has a problem with life. APPARENTLY.

Elektra, and subsequently going completely off the rails

            The tricky thing about staging Greek drama is that so little of it fits easily into our modern dramatic conventions, so a production of one of these lionized classics usually does one of two things: it hammers at the square peg of Greek tragedy until it fits the round hole of modern staging, or it attempts to embrace the traditions that the play would have used in its original setting. Either of these options tends to alienate the audience, and in this translation across languages, centuries and cultures the play loses much of the emotional resonances that made the work worth keeping around for some two and a half millennia.

            The staging of Elektra this summer at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival falls into neither of these traps, but is instead a perfectly harmonized blend of classical and modern traditions through which the production can express its wholly original voice. Although I’ve never seen anything quite like it, I found it to be one of the most chilling and moving experiences I’ve ever had with theatre.

            It was obvious even before the lights went down that we were throwing some dramatic conventions out the window, as the members of the chorus circulated through the audience, chatting and bringing us all up to speed on the background points of the play that Sophocles assumed his audience would know. It was a small but clever element to help us feel invested in the action. From that point on, the play relied heavily on the women of its chorus, as they speak both to and for the audience and brilliantly intensify the play’s emotion through song, movement and body percussion. It was the first time I’ve seen a chorus that was a true chorus, rather than simply a speaking ensemble. In a very clever design touch, the women’s costumes were painted with excerpts from the original Greek text of the play, which delighted my inner classics nerd to no end.

            Yanna Mackintosh has truly jaw-dropping endurance, as she never flags through this emotional marathon of a performance but instead seamlessly carries us along through Elektra’s rollercoaster of despair and exuberance. Ian Lake managed to be at once heroic and sympathetic as Orestes, which is doubly impressive as my attention kept getting pulled back to his utterly incomprehensible costume of tweed shorts, knee socks and a white puffer vest. Laura Condlln made a memorable character out of what could have been a throw-away role in Chrysothemis. Graham Abbey also made a strong impression with a short amount of stage time as Aegisthus, and in one scene takes his character from a slick and sleazy opportunist to a frightened and beaten doomed man.

            I’ve personally always found Elektra a difficult play to watch because, frankly, I’m Team Clytemnestra. It seems to me that if a man cuts your daughter’s throat, hitting that man with an axe is an entirely proportionate response. I appreciated that the play resisted the temptation to be a goodies-versus-baddies melodrama, and all the players were painted in a fairly impartial light. It didn’t make Clytemnestra’s death any easier for me, but I was pleased that we saw everyone – Clytemnestra, Orestes and Elektra alike – as all living in moral grey areas.

For a given value of "proportionate response."

            After the play was over, as the audience was filing out, I heard the woman behind me say to her companion, “Wait, I don’t understand. Why did the boy want to kill that guy?” and I suddenly but silently went into a rage.

For a given value of "silently."

            I’m sorry, what? Were you wearing a blindfold and earplugs for the entire show? The backstory was explained to you before the start of the play and also at multiple points throughout the play itself, and you still didn’t piece together that “the boy” wanted to kill “that guy” because “that guy” conspired to murder the boy’s father? And furthermore, out of what crackerjack box did you get your fucking high school diploma that you never once heard the story of the House of Atreus? That last point is harsh, I know – I certainly don’t remember everything I learned in high school – but after a weekend of eavesdropping on intermission and post-show conversations (I was with TLC but she ignores me a lot) I am sick to death of people shelling out the money for these productions and then not bothering to pay attention. These actors are speaking English – and look, there isn’t a huge number of places in North America outside of Stratford where you’re going to hear the texts spoken with such clarity and specificity. This isn’t hard, people, and if you think it is, it’s a wonder you’re sufficiently compos mentis to get your shoes on in the morning.

Pictured: The average audience member, APPARENTLY

            Look, I recognize I’ve got rage issues about the whole thing. I go basically apoplectic when someone tells me that they “can’t understand” Shakespeare and it’s “boring.” I once had such strong feelings while defending Hamlet to someone that I actually burst into tears. I’m not saying I come from a place of calm rationality about this. And I really don’t want to sound elitist, because I don’t think it’s an elitist point. Christ, I’ve loved Shakespeare since I was just a kid, and if seven-year-old Liz could follow this stuff, so can any adult with three brain cells to rub together. I don’t think you need to be really well-versed in the material for it to move you. I was listening to an older couple at Much Ado chat before the performance. The wife said, “What is this play about?” and the husband replied, “Well, there’s this king and he has a daughter and he wants her to marry his stepson,” and from there went off into a complex mash-up of Much Ado and Cymbeline (and the play he described doesn’t exist, but if it did I’d shell out good money to see it because it sounds rad). Clearly neither of them knew the play ahead of time, but it was obvious from my continued eavesdropping that they found the show engaging and delightful.

            If I had any sense of proportion or optimism, I’d find vicarious delight in the fact that people, even older people, are discovering and falling in love with these productions and these texts. But I don’t have those things. So I’m left standing in the queue for the ladies’ room listening to the middle-aged woman behind me whine “But wait, why doesn’t that guy like the other guy again?” and fantasizing about going out to the parking lot and closing my fingers in my car door because that would be less painful than listening to her friend try to explain it to her a second time. Rage issues: I have ‘em. (Also, go see Elektra if you get the chance because it’s fucking amazing; the end.)

Cymbeline and Much Ado About Nothing: Reviews

            Of the five plays TLC and I saw this past weekend at the Stratford Festival, three were really superb: Much Ado About Nothing and Cymbeline, both by Shakespeare, and Sophocles’s Elektra. This Much Ado, set in early-twentieth-century Brazil, showcased one of the Festival’s particular strengths: really superb performers in all the roles, as opposed to a few strong actors in principal roles who are then shored up with a middling-to-adequate cast. The principals were, indeed, superb; Beatrice and Benedick were played by a real-life couple and I can’t say if that helped the chemistry between them, but it certainly didn’t hurt. Both Ben Carlson and Deborah Hay are almost preternaturally likeable, and that made their characters’ repartee absolutely enthralling. Furthermore, Ms. Hay was a remarkably delicate, vulnerable and sweet Beatrice, and Mr. Carlson’s affability kept Benedick’s tirades against her from sounding cruel, as they easily could have been in the hands of an actor with a harsher demeanor.

            It is worth repeating that the supporting roles were filled with remarkable actors. Juan Chioran as Don Pedro was leonine, warm and sexy, with a voice I could bathe in, and Gareth Potter played the Duke’s bastard brother Don John with determined malevolence that verged on downright gleeful. Tyrone Savage gave the usually foolish and bland Claudio real depth, and even managed to make me feel sympathy for a character whose actions often seem inexcusable. His jilting of Hero at the altar seemed more a sudden loss of nerve than premeditated cruelty. Hero herself was the only weak point in an otherwise stellar cast, as Bethany Jillard seemed flat almost unto wooden, and somehow managed not to give any life to this text that shines even on the page. However, as Hero never carries the text nor the action, this didn’t damage the overall production too badly, and the tropical setting set off the play’s fast and witty action perfectly, filling the stage with sunlight, Latin music and dance.

            Cymbeline is tonally much darker, although the plot also deals with the disgrace of a virtuous woman through baseless accusations. It’s a tricky play to stage, as it’s one without a clear protagonist, and the action at different points is carried by any one of a number of different characters. There are a lot of characters and a lot of plot, but there is also a lot of heart, and it’s one of my favorite plays in Shakespeare’s canon. This production was perfect. The director, Antoni Cimolino, has a rare gift for coaching his actors until the verse sparkles, and we see the comedy in the dramatic moments and the melancholy in the comic relief. Every member of the extensive cast was superlative, and in a less perfect production, any one of them could have been a stand-out performer. Cara Ricketts was a dream as Innogen, playing her with a backbone of steel but also with a generous plenty of gentleness and loyalty; as an added bonus, she passed as a very credible boy in the play’s second half. Tom McCamus found the pitch-perfect balance of sleaze and sensuality as Iachimo, and I easily believed that a less virtuous woman than Innogen could have fallen prey to his charms. (For the record, I am far less virtuous than she. Mr. McCamus: call me.) Mike Shara went full balls-to-the-wall on making Cloten an unlikeable boor - it was a strong choice, but an effective one. Posthumus is, by virtue of plot necessity, somewhat doltish and easily misled, but Graham Abbey managed to make his devastation at his wife’s perceived infidelities as heart-wrenching for the audience as it was for the character. Mr. Abbey has an impressive knack for shredding through text at a gallop and keeping every word clear, sharp and specific; he also has a particular strength in stage combat, and his swordfight in the battle toward the play’s end was superb. The fight scenes as a whole were exemplary and some of the finest I’ve seen onstage.

            Another shining moment in the play was when the exiled princes, played by E.B. Smith and Ian Lake, mourn the apparent death of the disguised Innogen. It’s a beautiful piece of text, full of grief and tenderness, and the work of Mr. Lake and Mr. Smith heightened the beauty of the verse. I cried real and copious tears for their loss.

            The staging was spare but evocative; although I generally don’t care for multiple-era settings, the mixture of Elizabethan, Roman and pre-Christian British elements was tasteful and effective, and I did not find the pastiche in the least jarring. The pacing was tight and even, and did not falter even in the hugely unwieldy final scene during which the plot’s many threads are unknotted and brought to a tidy conclusion. My only complaint with the play is that it was over far too soon; after the curtain call I would have willingly stayed in my seat and watched the whole thing over again. It was, on the whole, a brilliant piece of theatre, and I am unlikely to see anything nearly so good again anytime soon.

            Coming up soon: I’ll discuss Elektra, and I’ll also offer some thoughts on the two productions I saw that were somewhat less successful (although it is worth noting that both of those were merely good, as opposed to the other three, which were downright outstanding).