Two more winners from the Shaw Festival

We are getting into the time of the year when I love going to our two major theatre festivals in Ontario, Shaw and Stratford, because the crowds in each respective town diminish somewhat, while the weather is still pleasantly warm and the theatres are still humming along.  Plus, the deeper you go into September, the more fall colours you get to enjoy along the way to the theatre!

This weekend, let's look at a couple of shows at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake that are very impressive, each continuing until mid-to-late October.

William Inge is perhaps best-known for two other plays that appeared at Shaw in recent years, Picnic and Bus Stop.  Those later plays by Inge are fondly remembered by many, myself included, as exceptional ensemble pieces at Shaw.  This year, director Jackie Maxwell decided to go back to the beginning, as it were, and direct Inge's first Broadway success, Come Back, Little Sheba, written in 1949.  While not as well known to modern audiences, it deserves the careful treatment afforded it here at Shaw until October 19th.

Come Back, Little Sheba is a very bleak and powerful comment on the evils of drinking to excess and the social consequences of doing so.  The story involves the late 40s-era couple, Doc and Lola Delaney, played by Ric Reid and Corrine Koslo, respectively.  They have a nice life in a nice neighbourhood in a nice mid-western city.  Doc is, obviously, a doctor, but he could have been so much more had it not been for his drinking problem years ago.  He is a reformed alcoholic now, but that comes to a crashing end when he finds their young border, Marie, sleeping under their roof with a young stud while promising her heart and hand to another, more respectable man.  Doc has taken to Marie very much and considers her almost to be his daughter, and the news hits him hard.

His wife, Lola, is the devoted-to-a-fault housewife who lives in fear of this moment, when her husband falls off the wagon and takes to drinking again.  Lola is not unlike the put-upon wife in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which also featured Koslo in a gripping performance opposite Jim Mezon in that production not long ago.  Here, Lola calls for help when her drunk husband arrives home and threatens her harm; his colleagues at work rush to the rescue to try to straighten him out and take him away to detox.

The scene when Doc is hauled away in the second act is sad, powerful and not to be missed.  Reid plays the role beautifully, never going over the top and yet, showing the despair the character is facing. When he is finally hauled off stage, not a word is spoken for a moment and in the audience you could hear a pin drop.  The scene is very convincing.

I love the set design of a humble home, just nicely lived in but not too fancy.  I also love the supporting cast here, too.  Julia Course as Marie is just sexy enough for the time period; her young stud, Turk, is well played by Kevin McGarry; and Sharry Flett gives a fine performance as the neighbour Mrs. Coffman.

This is a must-see at the Shaw Festival this season; you will feel for both main characters, yet wish they could get their lives straightened out.  These are not just players; we see Reid and Koslo as real people we all have known in our own lives and we find ourselves pulling for them at the end of the play.

Come Back, Little Sheba continues at the Royal George Theatre until October 19th, and rates a very strong 4 out of 4 stars.

The second play this weekend is Bernard Shaw's Misalliance, continuing at the Royal George Theatre until October 27th.  Directed by Eda Holmes, the play has lots of Shaw's famous dialogue, of course, but the play's relatively short (for a Shaw play at least) run time of two-and-a-half hours seems to fly by with this production.  Sure the first act drags a little, but the second act more than makes up for it.

The set and costume design is super sleek and stylish, with lots of great touches by designer Judith Bowden.  The ensemble work here is first-rate, with top marks going to Tara Rosling as the exotic Russian daredevil Lina Szczepanowska, who plays the role with a grand measure of good-old-fashioned sex appeal.  All the men who are drawn to her, Johnny Tarleton and Bentley Summerhays among them, played with great humour here by Jeff Meadows and Ben Sanders.  Meadows, especially, is a treat to watch due to his facial expressions.

The rest of the cast is just as strong:  Krista Colosimo as Hypatia Tarleton; Catherine McGregor as a very elegant Mrs. Tarleton; and Thom Marriott as a very appreciative John Tarleton.  I did find Peter Krantz as Lord Summerhays to be more of a bore than he ought to be, though.

The Tarleton household glides through life with not a care in the world, really, until the end of the second act when fate crashes into their roof, literally, and there before them is lovely Lina, throwing them all off their game.  It is fun to watch and of all the productions of Misalliance I have seen over the years, I think this one rates as the most fun to watch.

Misalliance continues until October 27th at the Royal George Theatre, and rates a highly-recommendable three out of four stars.

Enjoy the weekend!

September 2nd, 2012.