Pilgrimage to Stratford – second take of the season!
June 26
In Stratford for a second intake of theatre this year at the Festival – were here for the season’s opening last month. Came this time with Sylvia & André for the play tonight; we are staying for the week-end.
First fare for this stay: Cabaret, the celebrated musical. Great theatre! Anything that touches that era though is bound to be controversial. First sex: the play captures what was perceived as a depraved epoch where sexual mores where totally on the loose, and sex of all types – hetero, gay, lesbian and bi-sexual – was the driving force of a whole sub-culture in Berlin. Then there is the rise of Nazism, which goes in hand with the surge of anti-Semitism and violence. For many, this is the story. For others, and I tend to prefer that view, this is only the context. The real story is about the burst of creativity that came about in Weimar Berlin in culture and the arts – as the pre-war old society order had crumbled, and probably also, for many, out of sheer desperation due to the uncertainty and fragility of their livelihood – and which is depicted here, albeit in the seedier circles of “Kabarett” life.
To see Cabaret that way is more compelling if you drilled down in the history of this musical, to realize that the dramatic line of the story has gone through some serious iterations: this is a musical that is inspired from previous versions of the musical (Sam Mendes’ London revival in 1993 or Hal Prince’s Broadway original production in 1966), with strong influences from Bob Fosse’s 1972 movie version with Liza Minelli (which added a few new hits to the original musical), all of which is based on the 1951 John Van Druten’s play “I am a Camera” which was staged on Broadway, itself entirely based on Christopher Isherwood’s diary of his years in Berlin between 1929 and 1933, which he published in a couple of books in 1935 and 1939 (re-edited in a single book, The Berlin Stories, in 1954).
In that respect, it is interesting to read Isherwood’s own comments when he attended the rehearsals in 1951; he writes in the preface of the 1954 edition of his books: “As I watched those rehearsals, I used to think a good deal…about the relation of art to life. In writing Goodbye to Berlin (the second book), I destroyed a certain portion of my real past. I did this deliberately, because I preferred the simplified, more creditable, more exciting fictitious past which I’d created to take its place. Indeed, it has now become hard for me to remember just how things really had happened. I only knew how I would like them to have happened – that is to say, how I had made them happen in my stories. And so, gradually, the real past had disappeared, along with the real Christopher Isherwood of twenty years ago. Only the Christopher Isherwood of the stories remained…Now John (van Druten, the playwright) and Julie (Harris who played Sally Bowles) and the rest of them had suddenly swooped down on it, and carried bits of it away with them for their artistic use”. You wonder then how much of “reality” is left after subsequent treatments of Isherwood’s materials by Prince, Fosse, Mendes, and now Stratford director Amanda Dehnert! My point being that to appreciate this play, better focus on the “burst of creativity” aspect of it, rather than attach too much importance to its relation with history and factual accuracy.
Toronto Star’s review: http://www.thestar.com/Theatre/Stratford/article/433977
London NOW review: http://www.nnw.ca/NNW/displaydocument.cfm?DocumentID=2152&cabinetID=108&libraryID=32&cityID=1
Note: staying at the B&B “at Eleven”, and had an early dinner at “Bijou” – both highly recommended (more on this below)
June 27
Sunny today but not too warm – perfect weather to stroll along the streets of the city and the Avon River (referred to around here as “the lake”!) While Cynthia is at work… First stop at Callan Books, a small boutique-type bookshop lovingly tendered by what I can only assume to be its owner, J. Callan (bought something appropriate for Cynthia as a memento of this stay). Walked and drove around parts of town; Stratford must be the epitome of well-established, well-rooted English Canada agglomerations, with considerable history well preserved in its public buildings (e.g. City Hall) and numerous Victorian mansions nested in the tree-lined, shady streets that abound.
Lunch with Cynthia at “Down the street” restaurant, a small place with a small terrasse that gives on the street – good choice.
Second play of the stay: the opening of Fuente Ovejuna, by Felix Lope de Vega, in a new English version by this production’s director, Laurence Boswell.
Fuente est une pièce beaucoup moins connue, du moins du public anglo-saxon, mais d’un répertoire très populaire en Espagne de l’auteur extrêmement prolifique, Lope de Vega, contemporain de Shakespeare. Contrairement à ce dernier cependant, il approche l’histoire « par le bas » ; c'est-à-dire qu’au lieu de définir ses pièces historiques à partir de personnages illustres (par exemple César, Henri III, etc.), de Vega les construit, du moins celle-ci, à partir d’une populace qui détermine le cours de l’action et où les personnages historiques, dans ce cas-ci les très catholiques majestés Ferdinand d’Aragon et Isabelle de Castille, n’ont qu’un rôle secondaire et tout en rapport avec l’unique jeu de cette même populace.
Les faits qui sous-tendent la trame sont apparemment historiques : la population de Fuente Ovejuna qui se soulève en 1474 contre la tyrannie du maître-noble local, Fernan Gomez de Guzman, Commandant de l’Ordre de Calatrava – établie au 12e siècle pour reprendre des Maures l’Espagne – et l’exécute abominablement pour ces exactions économiques et sexuelles outrancières contre la population locale. Le fait mène à une « enquête » royale – où la torture fait figure de pratique courante à l’époque – qui n’aboutit à aucune condamnation faute de pouvoir identifier précisément ceux qui ont perpétré le crime. Et c’est là-dessus que de Vega construit sa trame et fonde la conclusion de l’histoire : les assassins de Gomez, ce n’est personne en particulier mais « tout le village de Fuente Ovejuna » ! Sur foi de quoi, les très catholiques majestés, se voyant confronter à l’option peu invitante de punir et d’exécuter tous les villageois, les exonèrent tous.
Contre cette trame historique, la pièce met en évidence et illustre la vie simple du peuple, avec ces petits drames (possible sécheresse) et ces petites joies (la célébration d’un mariage), celui de fait très anticipé et voulu du héros et surtout de l’héroïne du village, Laurencia, qui tombera victime de l’ignoble Gomez à l’appétit sexuel insatiable, et qui saura, dans une tirade remarquable et digne du féminisme moderne le plus radical, instiller le courage et la fureur qui manquaient à la gente masculine, jusque là peureuse et timorée, nécessaires pour les inciter à la révolte et à l’assassinat de l’infâme Gomez.
On y lira toutes sortes de messages – la victoire de l’action populaire sur la tyrannie, le début de la démocratie, le pouvoir des femmes en action, l’illustration de l’abjecte pratique de la torture – qu’importe: à chacun de choisir son message. Le fait est que c’est une œuvre très forte, magistralement interprétée, et où se côtoient tragédie et comédie, nobles et petites gens, en cela de Vega rejoignant tout à fait Shakespeare!
La critique du Toronto Star : http://www.thestar.com/Comment/article/451245
Celle du G&M : http://ago.mobile.globeandmail.com/generated/archive/RTGAM/html/20080629/wfuente30.html
Back to Shakespeare in the evening with the opening of All’s Well that Ends Well, one of these convoluted farces that challenge playwrights in mounting confusing and drôle stories, built around subtle – an not so subtle – intrigues and quid pro quos, to the delight of their audiences! In that, they are all from the same ink: Shakespeare, Molière, Feydault, Wilde, etc…
I enjoyed but it’s a comedy, and thus it does not have the impact on you that do tragedies. The more enjoyable part though is the mingling with the actors and artisans and selected audience after a première, a glass of wine in your hand; went out of my way, when Cynthia pointed her out to me, to meet with a young actress who played Joan of Arc in Bernard Shaw’s version that we saw at the Shaw Festival last year. Her name is Tara Rosling (I could not remember) and she was remarkable in her role – so powerful in her determination to accomplish her divine mission! Nice conversation about acting, moods that actors go through throughout a season, engagement contracts, unequal employment from year to year, the “free trade” between Stratford and Shaw, etc., a conversation that is joined by her partner, Patrick McManus, who is a member of the Company this year and plays in All’s Well (and 2 other plays this season!) Nice evening, and very clement weather; we walked back to the hotel.
June 28
Last play for me this time around: The Music Man. As musicals go, couldn’t be better put together. Everything is perfect: the interpretation, the tunes, the choreography, the music direction, the plot, the characters, the pleasure and emotion it inspires, the costumes, the accurate and sympathetic depiction of small America, everything! But to be truly taken, you have to be a “Musical man”, and I am not!
Review: http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=72817a79-3763-4676-b3e5-71203f91d80f
Had drinks and dinner with a former colleague of mine, Doug Valentine, he and his wife Beverly being true fans and supporters of the Festival. More drinking while Cynthia is at the première of Hughie and Krapp’s Last Tape – could not get a ticket, but I will see what Dennehy does of them later on in the season…
June 29
On our way back to Toronto, after a copious breakfast at Foster’s Inn, best place we are told for breaking fast in Stratford, and, having been there a couple of time now, I believe it!
Little catalogue of places we like in Stratford, starting with food:
Pazzo: favorite pizza place for us; in basement, at the counter; a ritual by now. The place upstairs is not so good, tells me Doug who should know as he lives upstairs in same building, a flat he bought a few years ago for their stays in Stratford.
Foster’Inn: great place for full breakfasts, …and luncheons, …and dinners,…and drinks; down the Avon theatre.
Tango: best coffee and muffins place, we found, if you don’t have time or the appetite for a full breakfast.
York Street Kitchen: tiny but huge sandwiches!
Down the Street Bar & Restaurant: on the terrasse; good fare.
And then in the more “recherché”:
The Old Prune Restaurant: sitting next to Margaret Atwood and Alice Monroe, and their significant others, one night…oh well! And for the food too!
Bijou: Innovative modern French cuisine, as their advertising goes. Truly so! Enjoyed a remarkable meal with André & Sylvia before Cabaret the other night…
Still to try in the same category:
Rundles and The Church.
Others:
At Eleven: A B&B we stayed at; in a Victorian house, nicely renovated, in modern and sober tones, by Jeffrey Schmidt, the owner of the place. 3 bedrooms: Queen, King and Master Suite with sitting room; spacious. On a quiet, tree-lined street. Garden and pool. Delectable breakfast: eggs benedict with a delightful, very light hollandaise.
June 26
In Stratford for a second intake of theatre this year at the Festival – were here for the season’s opening last month. Came this time with Sylvia & André for the play tonight; we are staying for the week-end.
First fare for this stay: Cabaret, the celebrated musical. Great theatre! Anything that touches that era though is bound to be controversial. First sex: the play captures what was perceived as a depraved epoch where sexual mores where totally on the loose, and sex of all types – hetero, gay, lesbian and bi-sexual – was the driving force of a whole sub-culture in Berlin. Then there is the rise of Nazism, which goes in hand with the surge of anti-Semitism and violence. For many, this is the story. For others, and I tend to prefer that view, this is only the context. The real story is about the burst of creativity that came about in Weimar Berlin in culture and the arts – as the pre-war old society order had crumbled, and probably also, for many, out of sheer desperation due to the uncertainty and fragility of their livelihood – and which is depicted here, albeit in the seedier circles of “Kabarett” life.
To see Cabaret that way is more compelling if you drilled down in the history of this musical, to realize that the dramatic line of the story has gone through some serious iterations: this is a musical that is inspired from previous versions of the musical (Sam Mendes’ London revival in 1993 or Hal Prince’s Broadway original production in 1966), with strong influences from Bob Fosse’s 1972 movie version with Liza Minelli (which added a few new hits to the original musical), all of which is based on the 1951 John Van Druten’s play “I am a Camera” which was staged on Broadway, itself entirely based on Christopher Isherwood’s diary of his years in Berlin between 1929 and 1933, which he published in a couple of books in 1935 and 1939 (re-edited in a single book, The Berlin Stories, in 1954).
In that respect, it is interesting to read Isherwood’s own comments when he attended the rehearsals in 1951; he writes in the preface of the 1954 edition of his books: “As I watched those rehearsals, I used to think a good deal…about the relation of art to life. In writing Goodbye to Berlin (the second book), I destroyed a certain portion of my real past. I did this deliberately, because I preferred the simplified, more creditable, more exciting fictitious past which I’d created to take its place. Indeed, it has now become hard for me to remember just how things really had happened. I only knew how I would like them to have happened – that is to say, how I had made them happen in my stories. And so, gradually, the real past had disappeared, along with the real Christopher Isherwood of twenty years ago. Only the Christopher Isherwood of the stories remained…Now John (van Druten, the playwright) and Julie (Harris who played Sally Bowles) and the rest of them had suddenly swooped down on it, and carried bits of it away with them for their artistic use”. You wonder then how much of “reality” is left after subsequent treatments of Isherwood’s materials by Prince, Fosse, Mendes, and now Stratford director Amanda Dehnert! My point being that to appreciate this play, better focus on the “burst of creativity” aspect of it, rather than attach too much importance to its relation with history and factual accuracy.
Toronto Star’s review: http://www.thestar.com/Theatre/Stratford/article/433977
London NOW review: http://www.nnw.ca/NNW/displaydocument.cfm?DocumentID=2152&cabinetID=108&libraryID=32&cityID=1
Note: staying at the B&B “at Eleven”, and had an early dinner at “Bijou” – both highly recommended (more on this below)
June 27
Sunny today but not too warm – perfect weather to stroll along the streets of the city and the Avon River (referred to around here as “the lake”!) While Cynthia is at work… First stop at Callan Books, a small boutique-type bookshop lovingly tendered by what I can only assume to be its owner, J. Callan (bought something appropriate for Cynthia as a memento of this stay). Walked and drove around parts of town; Stratford must be the epitome of well-established, well-rooted English Canada agglomerations, with considerable history well preserved in its public buildings (e.g. City Hall) and numerous Victorian mansions nested in the tree-lined, shady streets that abound.
Lunch with Cynthia at “Down the street” restaurant, a small place with a small terrasse that gives on the street – good choice.
Second play of the stay: the opening of Fuente Ovejuna, by Felix Lope de Vega, in a new English version by this production’s director, Laurence Boswell.
Fuente est une pièce beaucoup moins connue, du moins du public anglo-saxon, mais d’un répertoire très populaire en Espagne de l’auteur extrêmement prolifique, Lope de Vega, contemporain de Shakespeare. Contrairement à ce dernier cependant, il approche l’histoire « par le bas » ; c'est-à-dire qu’au lieu de définir ses pièces historiques à partir de personnages illustres (par exemple César, Henri III, etc.), de Vega les construit, du moins celle-ci, à partir d’une populace qui détermine le cours de l’action et où les personnages historiques, dans ce cas-ci les très catholiques majestés Ferdinand d’Aragon et Isabelle de Castille, n’ont qu’un rôle secondaire et tout en rapport avec l’unique jeu de cette même populace.
Les faits qui sous-tendent la trame sont apparemment historiques : la population de Fuente Ovejuna qui se soulève en 1474 contre la tyrannie du maître-noble local, Fernan Gomez de Guzman, Commandant de l’Ordre de Calatrava – établie au 12e siècle pour reprendre des Maures l’Espagne – et l’exécute abominablement pour ces exactions économiques et sexuelles outrancières contre la population locale. Le fait mène à une « enquête » royale – où la torture fait figure de pratique courante à l’époque – qui n’aboutit à aucune condamnation faute de pouvoir identifier précisément ceux qui ont perpétré le crime. Et c’est là-dessus que de Vega construit sa trame et fonde la conclusion de l’histoire : les assassins de Gomez, ce n’est personne en particulier mais « tout le village de Fuente Ovejuna » ! Sur foi de quoi, les très catholiques majestés, se voyant confronter à l’option peu invitante de punir et d’exécuter tous les villageois, les exonèrent tous.
Contre cette trame historique, la pièce met en évidence et illustre la vie simple du peuple, avec ces petits drames (possible sécheresse) et ces petites joies (la célébration d’un mariage), celui de fait très anticipé et voulu du héros et surtout de l’héroïne du village, Laurencia, qui tombera victime de l’ignoble Gomez à l’appétit sexuel insatiable, et qui saura, dans une tirade remarquable et digne du féminisme moderne le plus radical, instiller le courage et la fureur qui manquaient à la gente masculine, jusque là peureuse et timorée, nécessaires pour les inciter à la révolte et à l’assassinat de l’infâme Gomez.
On y lira toutes sortes de messages – la victoire de l’action populaire sur la tyrannie, le début de la démocratie, le pouvoir des femmes en action, l’illustration de l’abjecte pratique de la torture – qu’importe: à chacun de choisir son message. Le fait est que c’est une œuvre très forte, magistralement interprétée, et où se côtoient tragédie et comédie, nobles et petites gens, en cela de Vega rejoignant tout à fait Shakespeare!
La critique du Toronto Star : http://www.thestar.com/Comment/article/451245
Celle du G&M : http://ago.mobile.globeandmail.com/generated/archive/RTGAM/html/20080629/wfuente30.html
Back to Shakespeare in the evening with the opening of All’s Well that Ends Well, one of these convoluted farces that challenge playwrights in mounting confusing and drôle stories, built around subtle – an not so subtle – intrigues and quid pro quos, to the delight of their audiences! In that, they are all from the same ink: Shakespeare, Molière, Feydault, Wilde, etc…
I enjoyed but it’s a comedy, and thus it does not have the impact on you that do tragedies. The more enjoyable part though is the mingling with the actors and artisans and selected audience after a première, a glass of wine in your hand; went out of my way, when Cynthia pointed her out to me, to meet with a young actress who played Joan of Arc in Bernard Shaw’s version that we saw at the Shaw Festival last year. Her name is Tara Rosling (I could not remember) and she was remarkable in her role – so powerful in her determination to accomplish her divine mission! Nice conversation about acting, moods that actors go through throughout a season, engagement contracts, unequal employment from year to year, the “free trade” between Stratford and Shaw, etc., a conversation that is joined by her partner, Patrick McManus, who is a member of the Company this year and plays in All’s Well (and 2 other plays this season!) Nice evening, and very clement weather; we walked back to the hotel.
June 28
Last play for me this time around: The Music Man. As musicals go, couldn’t be better put together. Everything is perfect: the interpretation, the tunes, the choreography, the music direction, the plot, the characters, the pleasure and emotion it inspires, the costumes, the accurate and sympathetic depiction of small America, everything! But to be truly taken, you have to be a “Musical man”, and I am not!
Review: http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=72817a79-3763-4676-b3e5-71203f91d80f
Had drinks and dinner with a former colleague of mine, Doug Valentine, he and his wife Beverly being true fans and supporters of the Festival. More drinking while Cynthia is at the première of Hughie and Krapp’s Last Tape – could not get a ticket, but I will see what Dennehy does of them later on in the season…
June 29
On our way back to Toronto, after a copious breakfast at Foster’s Inn, best place we are told for breaking fast in Stratford, and, having been there a couple of time now, I believe it!
Little catalogue of places we like in Stratford, starting with food:
Pazzo: favorite pizza place for us; in basement, at the counter; a ritual by now. The place upstairs is not so good, tells me Doug who should know as he lives upstairs in same building, a flat he bought a few years ago for their stays in Stratford.
Foster’Inn: great place for full breakfasts, …and luncheons, …and dinners,…and drinks; down the Avon theatre.
Tango: best coffee and muffins place, we found, if you don’t have time or the appetite for a full breakfast.
York Street Kitchen: tiny but huge sandwiches!
Down the Street Bar & Restaurant: on the terrasse; good fare.
And then in the more “recherché”:
The Old Prune Restaurant: sitting next to Margaret Atwood and Alice Monroe, and their significant others, one night…oh well! And for the food too!
Bijou: Innovative modern French cuisine, as their advertising goes. Truly so! Enjoyed a remarkable meal with André & Sylvia before Cabaret the other night…
Still to try in the same category:
Rundles and The Church.
Others:
At Eleven: A B&B we stayed at; in a Victorian house, nicely renovated, in modern and sober tones, by Jeffrey Schmidt, the owner of the place. 3 bedrooms: Queen, King and Master Suite with sitting room; spacious. On a quiet, tree-lined street. Garden and pool. Delectable breakfast: eggs benedict with a delightful, very light hollandaise.
Callan Books: little shop, stocked with well-chosen titles; lots on Shakespeare and Stratford
Stratford, June 29, 2008
