First visit to Shaw Festival for the summer season

As we move into the summer season, my regular treks to Niagara-on-the-Lake have begun to see what's up at the Shaw Festival this season.  Hopes are riding high following all the successes, both artistically and financially, last season, and ticket sales appear to be very strong so far this year.

My first foray of the season was to the Court House Theatre for the new adaptation by Canadian playwright John Murrell of Shaw's Geneva, which was one of his more problematic plays written later in life.  The new version, titled Peace In Our Time:  A Comedy, continues at the Court House until October 12 and is going to be one that I suspect flies under the radar this season.

While John Murrell has given the original play a much broader, freewheeling adaptation than what was originally envisioned by Shaw in Geneva, making it much more contemporary and pointed in terms of humour, it is still based on a Shaw play.  That being the case, there is still lots of dialogue here, especially in the first act.  It can get a little tedious during the first act even with the sharper dialogue, but by the second act the cast has hit their stride and things pick up considerably.

The story begins in a dysfunctional diplomatic office prior to the Second World War, with every person visiting the office having a particular axe to grind as far as human indignity is concerned.  Each person is met by American-born Belle Browning, played with great flair here by Diana Donnelly.  She eventually represents the International Committee for Intellectual Co-operation of the League of Nations, the predecessor to today's United Nations.  Belle exemplifies the all-American "We can do it!" attitude even in the face of atrocities committed around the world by tyrants in control of nations without any thought of accountability.

The final act takes us to The Hague and a trial of three of the world's most notorious dictators, all of whom come off here as clowns and buffoons:  Neil Barclay as Italy's Il Duce; Ric Reid as Germany's Der Fuhrer; and Lorne Kennedy as Spain's El Generalisimo.  This is where the play takes on a surreal dimension and becomes much more animated and colourful.  All three actors play their respective characters rather broadly, with Barclay especially so as Mussolini.  Reid's Hitler comes off as even more of a clown due to his physical comedy, and Kennedy as Franco is the strongest of the three.  Sound like the Three Stooges on trial?  That's pretty much what we see here and it makes for some very funny moments.  Kennedy especially makes the best use of his limited time on stage, coming as he does very near the end of the trial.  Comedic master that he is, he mines the role for every comic gem in a rather short period of time.

The rest of the cast is all very strong, with good performances especially from Shaw regulars Michael Ball, Moya O'Connell, Jeff Meadows and Patrick Galligan.  Claire Jullien makes for a very sexy Dona Dolores Ochoa, by the way.

Blair Williams directs with his usual sure hand and great sense of comic timing, and the design by Camellia Koo is sparse enough with the small Court House stage so nothing gets in the way of the actors on stage.

While the early June performance I attended was not very full, I suspect this might become a bit of a sleeper this season at Shaw.  It rates a respectable 3 out of 4 stars and runs at the Court House Theatre until October 12th.

The Lunchtime presentation this season is a pairing under the collective banner Trifles, and presents two one-act plays by Susan Glaspell and Eugene O'Neill.  Glaspell's is titled, in fact, Trifles; O'Neill's is A Wife for a Life.  Normally we see a very funny comedic turn for the Lunchtime show, but that's not the case this season.  Both plays are rather dark and dreary affairs, both in appearance and content.

Both plays are the very first efforts for both authors and both concern marriage and turn on the actions of an absent wife.  In Glaspell's case, the wife can no longer bear her role due to the circumstances she found herself in so she has left; the story was adapted by Glaspell from her short story "A Jury of Her Peers"which dealt with an infamous 1900 murder case she covered as a journalist in Iowa.  With O'Neill he writes of his experiences on a six-month gold mining expedition in Honduras in 1910.

Both plays share the same set and actors; in each case the set is a pretty primitive, desolate space around the turn of the last century when creature comforts are almost nonexistent.  In Trifles the space is a lonely farmhouse kitchen; in A Wife for a Life the scene is a prospector's lonely cabin.

Of the two, the O'Neill comes off as a little more interesting, as Benedict Campbell deals with the fact his young wife has left him for a younger man and that man he discovers just happens to be Jack, who shares the cabin with him.  When Jack explains he has been waiting for word from his lady to come join her for good, the old prospector has to decide if he should give Jack the note that has arrived for him from the lady or burn it.  He knows if he gives it to Jack he has lost his wife forever.

All the performances are quite good, with Campbell especially so; Graeme Somerville and Jeff Irving are also strong in both plays.  But the content is not exactly uplifting so you will be leaving the theatre not with a smile but certainly thankful you didn't live back in the bleak times these poor souls did.

Trifles, directed by Meg Roe, continue at the Court House Theatre until October 12th and rate 2 out of 4 stars.

June 29th, 2013.