Two Stratford Shakespeare Festival late-season winners

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival is where I spent part of my vacation last week, as I finished up my season covering the offerings at the various theatres that are part of the Festival, so over the next couple of weeks we'll wrap up the late-season openings at Stratford.

Two of the shorter, one-act plays at the smaller Studio Theatre space at the back of the Avon Theatre are The Best Brothers and Hirsch.  I was pleasantly surprised with both productions, as they both balanced substance and humour in very entertaining ways.

First up, let's look at The Best Brothers by Canadian playwright, actor and director Daniel MacIvor from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.  MacIvor has a reputation as a creative and funny writer, but also a very thoughtful one displaying a great deal of depth.  The Best Brothers, a play dealing with the death of a loved one, has both humour and depth.  It deals with the two Best brothers, Kyle and Hamilton, who are faced with the passing of their mother and how each comes to grips with the loss and grieving process.

Kyle, played by John Beale, is the more artistic, creative soul, while Hamilton, played by MacIvor himself in this production, is the more solid, business-minded soul.  They are like oil and water, basically, yet each shares the grief at the loss of their mother, albeit in their own particular ways.  I saw a lot of myself and my brother in both these roles, dealing three years ago as we were with the loss of our father.  It was a difficult period for both of us and I identified with one of these characters very clearly, although I won't say which one it was!

A family loss can bring out the best - and the worst - in the remaining family members, as was the case for us three years ago, and so it is with Kyle and Hamilton Best.  Yet both characters are funny, touching and everything in-between in this production.  While the subject matter is rather morbid to some, it is a reality we all have to deal with at one time or another in our lives, and I doubt many in the audience would not be able to identify with either one of the brothers and what they are dealing with.

The final curtain call includes the subject of one of the sore points for one of the brothers during the play, incidentally, and I will leave it at that.  But suffice it to say the audience was pleasantly surprised with that moment at the very end of the play!

Dean Gabourie directs The Best Brothers with a great deal of care, bringing out the best in both characters, and the simple set designed by Julie Fox works well in the small Studio Theatre space.  The Best Brothers continues until September 16th and rates a strong three out of four stars.

Meantime, the one-man play at the other end of the Avon Theatre, complementing the highly-publicized A Word or Two with Christopher Plummer on the mainstage at the Avon, is Alon Nashman as Hirsch, the Hungarian-born Canadian director and head of CBC drama for English-language television in the mid-70s, John Hirsch.  He may be better-known to Stratford regulars as the Artistic Director at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival from 1981 to 1985, which included the first few years I actually started attending and writing about plays at the Festival on a regular basis.  So for me, Hirsch served as my introduction to the theatre institution known as Stratford during those - for me, at least - formative years.

Nashman, co-creator with Paul Thompson and sole performer of the play, directed by Thompson, is the first to admit this is not a bio or even a documentary of Hirsch, but rather their interpretations of some of the events in the life of John Hirsch.  There are some of his "actual" words included in the play, of course, and many of those struck a chord with audience members at the performance I attended last week.  Nashman also notes the chronology of the narrative reflects John's life as well, so it might appear at first glance to be a biography of the director.

Visually, Nashman looks a lot like the John Hirsch we remember, with a full heard and spectacles, wearing a check shirt in his rather casual, professorial way.  I never met Mr. Hirsch personally, unfortunately, but I suspect some of the physical mannerisms are rather similar to Hirsch's as well.

Nashman obviously had a great deal of respect for Hirsch, and as such this is a loving tribute to a man who was often misunderstood by some of those he worked with.  I remember the turmoil he went through as Artistic Director of the Festival in those years from 1981 to 1985, yet few would disagree with Hirsch's love and passion for live theatre in general and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in particular.

The set is simple, making good use of the space at the Studio Theatre, with several props handed off to Nashman by the stage managers that generated a few good-natured laughs during the performance.

I liked this production quite a bit, and respect Nashman for devoting part of his theatrical life to honouring a man who gave so much to Canadian theatre for many years before passing away in 1989.  It will continue until September 14th at the Studio Theatre, and rates a strong three out of four stars.

August 27th, 2012.