Wednesday 21 August 2013

Shaw Festival # 3: Making War on War

My third show at the Shaw Festival this year was a true classic -- Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw himself.  It seems a pity, in a way, that Shaw has become so "unfashionable" these days.  The audience was comprised mostly of people who appeared somewhat older than my nearly 60 years.

Well, so much the worse for the younger crowd.  But in time I expect the wheel will turn full circle.  Many playwrights, and indeed many creative artists of all genres, have had to go through a period of "exile" following their lifetime successes before posterity resurrects and reaffirms their work, and Shaw seems to be in the exile phase right now.

That said, even as powerful a play as Major Barbara is not without its weaknesses.  Shaw wrote himself into a paradoxical dilemma by creating Barbara's father, Andrew Undershaft, as such a demonically clever and powerfully convincing antagonist for her.  At the end of Act II it seems that he has already won the battle between them, an impression reinforced by the tone of Act III.  We know that Shaw had a lot of trouble with Act IV, and it shows.  Here, and here only, the action of the play decomposes into lengthy rhetorical speeches.  At an early point in this last act it seems as if Adolphus Cusins and Andrew Undershaft have already resolved the tangled threads of the plot -- why, then, does Undershaft have to keep demanding that Cusins make up his mind when it seems that he has already done so?  I've always felt that this weak last act somewhat undoes the dramatic drive and power of the first three acts.  Were I directing the show, I should feel very tempted to start blue-pencilling this final scene.

But that's just me.  Anyone who has ever tried writing plays knows that he or she could do it much better than the playwright in question.  This is known as a wannabe author's ego trip!

As for the performance, kudos first and foremost to Jackie Maxwell for helming a production of this flawed masterpiece that went far to minimize the flaws, while making the most of the strengths.  In the intimate stage space of the Royal George Theatre, Maxwell and designer Judith Bowden have come up with three different settings that each speak of the worlds they represent.  The Salvation Army shelter of Act II was especially noteworthy for conveying a simultaneous impression of back-streets poverty alongside the Army's determination to keep its quarters neat and clean.  Each set created plenty of usable acting space, which Maxwell used to the full.

The cast must be led, of course, by Andrew and Barbara.  As the Salvation Army major, Nicole Underhay turned in another of those sterling performances which have made her one of the great treasures of the Shaw company.  In every scene she took Barbara exactly where she needed to go, and did it with fire and passion.  Even in her depressed moments in Act III, the passion shone through to show us that while Major Barbara might be down, she definitely was not out.  Her coaxing manner in the Salvationists' shelter was just as involving as her ecstatic re-definition of herself in Act IV.

As her father, the international munitions manufacturer, Benedict Campbell turned in the best performance of this fascinating monster that I have ever seen.  It's funny to recall now, but a look through the pictures in the program book reminded me that I was right.  The first production of Major Barbara that I ever attended was at the Shaw Festival in 1978, with Campbell's father Douglas in this central role.  Visually, Benedict Campbell looks just like his father in the same role!

But the resemblance stops right there.  Douglas Campbell was famous for his deep, booming bass, one of the most dominating voices I've ever heard on any theatrical stage, anywhere.  Benedict Campbell can dominate too, when he has to, but with moments chosen carefully so that the "everybody-freeze-on-the-spot" quality appears only at a few key moments when it is really needed.  This Undershaft displays an awesome variety of speaking styles -- by turns genial, coaxing, friendly, forceful, wheedling, didactic, and overwhelming, to name only a few.  It's a tour de force for use of the voice on stage, and I would not hesitate to call this a "definitive" performance -- while being perfectly aware that others will disagree.

The third great strength of this production is the uniformly strong set of performances turned in by all the supporting actors.  Laurie Paton as Lady Britomart Undershaft provokes plenty of hilarity right in the opening scene with her sublimely timed overriding of her son (played with appropriate bewilderment by Ben Sanders).  Graeme Somerville finds all the varied notes required in the rapidly evolving character of the Greek professor, Adolphus Cusins, who ultimately becomes the heir to the Undershaft munitions factory. Wade Bogert-O'Brien keeps a firm grip on the inanities of Charles Lomax, making sure that this shallow fool never descends into mere caricature.  James Pendarves did fine work in living out the driving force of frustration behind the words and actions of the ultimately powerless bully Bill Walker, in the shelter in Act II. 

Apart, then, from my desire to start editing that last act, I have no serious criticism at all of the way Jackie Maxwell and company have mounted this powerhouse play -- a splendid re-creation of one of Shaw's most powerful and perplexing pieces.

Sunday 18 August 2013

Shaw Festival # 2: The Fan Club

My second show at the Shaw Festival this year was a rather rare production of Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde.

In watching this play for the first time, I was often reminded of a review given to Eric Nicol's play, Like Father Like Fun, when it was performed in Toronto:  "It has a lot of funny lines, but I wouldn't call it a comedy."  (quoted from memory, please be merciful about any unintentional errors!)

Lady Windermere's Fan was Wilde's first big dramatic success, and many commentators -- perhaps influenced by the subsequent triumph of the more famous Importance of Being Earnest -- have described this play as a comedy.  In my humble opinion, it is no such thing.  I suppose a director might tilt the piece towards a more comic approach, but this could only be done by nudging the audience to mock the characters and situations.  This would be a dangerous mistake.

Indeed, I think it has become rarely performed because it is a near-ideal exemplar of that long-dead genre, the Victorian melodrama, whose only living offspring, the American TV soap opera, is itself now considered an endangered species. 

In its own day, Lady Windermere's success was largely due to the novel idea of satirizing the world of the upper classes so bitingly in public.  But it goes much deeper than that, portraying a world where people are condemned on the flimsiest of evidence or on no evidence at all beyond that of mere coincidence.  The assumptions and condemnations of the "good people" in the play are our own, and exactly mirrored in the snap judgements people make today about the actions and motives of others.  Not for nothing did Wilde subtitle this work, A Play About A Good Woman -- although by the end you are left with the unanswered question of whether the good woman in question even appeared, or whether she is just an imaginary compendium of the best aspects of several of the characters.

The play is complex in the sense that the situations involved are only revealed bit by bit, scene by scene, and character by character.  The lady of questionable character with whom all the others are concerned only appears in the third scene, nearly an hour into the show -- a risky proposition from the viewpoint of keeping the audience involved!  But Wilde manages to sustain interest in the mysterious Mrs. Erlynne for as long as it takes to reach the moment when she appears.  The fan is a perfectly chosen symbol of a world where all the characters are making choices about what to conceal and what to reveal, and to whom.

 I had to give all this background to set the framework for my reactions to the performance.  If the fan is a subtle symbol, the set design was anything but.  The setting of the first scene was slowly revealed by the three edges of a black frame retreating to left, right, and up -- but not far.  This gave a fine claustrophobic air to the first scene and certainly hit us all over the head with the idea of revealing secrets.  Whether it needed to be done so bluntly is questionable.  Whether it needed to be repeated at every scene change is an easier question to answer -- no.  The slow opening and closing of the scene frames became repetitive and tedious, and dragged the play to a halt each time.

Most of the actors gave effective and realistic portrayals of their characters -- and some did considerably more than that.  One of the best was Corrine Koslo as the Duchess of Berwick, by turns motherly, overbearing, friendly, concerned, and judgmental.  Jim Mezon did fine work as Lord Augustus Lorton, a part more sympathetic than many I have seen him in.  Kyle Blair as Mr. Cecil Graham came across as an over-the-top aesthete, a living counterpart to Oscar Wilde himself -- which was understandable, since his part contains more Wildean epigrams than all the rest of the cast put together. 

Marla McLean as the young Lady Windermere, and Martin Happer as Lord Windermere both created their characters effectively.

Tara Rosling, as Mrs. Erlynne, commanded all eyes from the moment of her arrival.  This was partly a matter of costume -- black off-the-shoulder gown when all the other women wore lighter colours with pouffed sleeves.  Most of that command, though, was Rosling's own indomitable acting skill. 
Mrs. Erlynne is a tough character to bring across.  She's a terrific mixture of motivations from all points of the moral compass, and even more than the others uses language to conceal rather than to reveal herself.  Rosling captured all the diversity of this complex personality, and played her with humanity and conviction.  Mrs. Erlynne must not be played as the conventional melodramatic villainess at all, and was not.

Stage pictures (they have to be called "stage pictures" because of the framing blacks) were clearly composed, and the numerous movements of the complex ballroom scene well handled.  Peter Hinton's direction clearly supported the character relationships throughout, and all scenes were effectively lit.  Visually, this could have been a stunning production but for those annoying frames.

If I had to give ratings for this show (maybe I should start doing that), I'd give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars -- that would be a 4 for the performances and a 3 for the designs.

Saturday 17 August 2013

Shaw Festival # 1: A Familiar Favourite

My annual outing to the Shaw Festival took me to 3 shows this year.

The first, Guys and Dolls, is one of my favourite musicals.  After a friend said she didn't like it at all because of its sexism, I started to analyze exactly why I like this particular show so much.

There are three factors: the razor-sharp witty comebacks in the script, the clever patter-song style lyrics of several of the songs, and the absurdity of the relationship between Nathan Detroit and Miss Adelaide (engaged for 14 years, no less).

Like many Broadway shows, this one requires a romantic lead couple and a comic second couple.  Unlike many shows, the second couple -- and especially Miss Adelaide -- can walk away with the entire show without too much trouble.  That's a weakness of the book to a degree, but also shows where Frank Loesser put his best lyric-writing and composing gifts to work.

The Shaw's production of this treat, directed by Tadeusz Bradecki, was a good, solid show.  Alas, it was so solid that it had trouble really lifting off.  Everything was competent, professional, and slickly produced.  But that didn't leave much room for inspiration to take wing -- with two exceptions.

I've really admired some of Kyle Blair's other performances, but here I felt he was miscast.  He just looked and sounded far too much like Mr. Nice Guy to be really convincing as the king of the crap rollers, Sky Masterson.  Elodie Gillett as Sarah Brown seemed stiff and unconvincing at first, but after she cut loose in the Havana scene (and she certainly did cut loose) she successfully made the transition from a "role" to a "person".

Shawn Wright as Nathan Detroit and Jenny L. Wright as Miss Adelaide proved my point about stealing the show by doing just that.  Miss Adelaide in particular turned in as nearly perfect a take on this role as I would ever hope to see.  Her Brooklyn accent was so thoroughly absorbed into her speaking that she even captured the little detail of "cold" becoming a two-syllable word -- "A poyson could develop a co-ahld" -- and stretched it out just enough that the second syllable took on an unmistakable life of its own.  That classic song (Adelaide's Lament) was full of perfectly timed comic payoffs, as were all her scenes.

Miss Adelaide was one of the two examples of genius in the show.  The other was the choreography of Parker Esse.  His dance numbers owed little to any previous productions, but a great deal to careful study of the period.  The dances were the one area where the show really caught fire.  The Havana scene (as mentioned) was a swirling extravaganza of Latin dance that hovered just on the edge of mayhem without falling over.  The Hot Box Club's girls exactly recaptured the flavour of the kind of nightclub dancing considered "naughty" back in the day (and looking very innocent now, to be sure).   The Crapshooters' Dance was a rapid-fire number, bristling with tricky moves and fast position switches, that deservedly pulled down some hearty applause.

In sum: a show with some excellences, a great deal of good work, and nothing seriously wrong except that the whole show wasn't as good as the work of Miss Adelaide and the choregrapher.

Tuesday 13 August 2013

Festival of the Sound 2013 # 4

On our final day of the Festival for this year, we again went to three concerts, two of which had a decidedly lighter flavour than the previous day!

At noon the concert was entitled "Music for Fun".  The opening piece best fit that description, a group of movements from a Serenata by Alfredo Casella -- light-hearted and vigorous, with quirky harmonies.

The performance of Chopin's Etude in A-Flat Major by 14-year-old Parry Sound pianist Gordon Mok was impressive indeed.  Many young "clavier-tigers" can fire off the notes with machine-gun accuracy, and that is as far as they get.  Mok already has the mark of a true musician, with a sense of the rubato appropriate for Chopin which comes as naturally as breathing.  His tempo ebbs and flows with such subtlety that most listeners are probably unaware that it is happening, and that is a prime objective for any Chopin pianist.  Watch for more from this gifted and insightful artist in the future!

There followed a Concert Piece in F Minor by Mendelssohn featuring the unusual and lovely sounds of the basset horn, a kind of alto clarinet.  The fun here, of course, came with the inevitable but still funny joke about not being confused with a basset hound.

The final Piano Quartet in A Major by Joaquin Turina was not overly long, but certainly substantial -- a most effective marriage of the mainstream European chamber music tradition with the characteristic rhythms and harmonies of Spain.  I certainly hope to hear this piece again.

The afternoon concert was a 60-minute program of "Baroque greatest hits", as selected by James Mason and Julie Baumgartel.  As Mason admitted at the outset, the selection of such a list involves a heavy dose of personal opinion which is bound to omit someone's favourites, causing a degree of distress or upset as a result!  However, this selection certainly hit many of the high water marks of Baroque music while making ample use of the musicians available on this occasion.  For me, the star of the show was flautist Suzanne Shulman, equally impressive in the sustained legato of Gluck's Dance of the Blessed Spirit as in the hectic but finely articulated Badinerie from Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 2.  For the rest, I certainly enjoyed the entire program apart from the inevitable dismay of not hearing such works as the Bach Suite or Handel's Water Music in their entirety.

The Friday night concert, aptly entitled Carnival Night, included a fair bit of letting-down-the-hair on the part of all performers.  In a bel canto aria from La sonnambula by Bellini, Leslie Fagan had to put up with shenanigans from accompanist Guy Few, and her hearty laugh soon had the whole audience roaring as well.  How she could sing after that, I do not know, but sing she did and most impressively in this classic instance of coloratura fireworks. 

In the second half, Fagan returned as narrator for Animal Ditties by Anthony Plog, with Guy Few performing now on trumpet.  With impeccable timing, Fagan nailed the hilarious pay-off lines in the verses, and slipped in a little verbal comment of her own (I suspect) in one number.

This was followed by the well-loved Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens.  Well-loved, that is, by all but the composer.  He wrote it for private performance to entertain at a soiree of musicians, and absolutely detested the immense popularity his musical clowning achieved!

For the first time I can recall at the Festival of the Sound, the Carnival was given with the ridiculous verses by Ogden Nash recited before each number.  These recitations were shared between Guy Few and Peter Tiefenbach, the latter especially impressive for his absolutely deadpan delivery of Nash's groaner puns. 

Musically, Tiefenbach shared the critical two-piano duties with Robert Kortgaard, their playing firmly anchoring the whole performance.  Violinists Jerzy Kaplanek and Jeremy Bell made a great game out of trying to outdo each other in the cries of the Wild Asses.  Jim Campbell hammed up The Cuckoo in the Woods, listening and waiting with the fiercest concentration for each of the cuckoo's calls.  Shulman's Aviary fluttered delicately with beautiful articulation.  Tiefenbach and Kortgaard varied the tempo in each of the faux-Hanon exercise in Pianists, to great comic effect.  Beverly Johnston, as ever, rendered the clacking of the bones in Fossils with terrific energy.  Best of all was the lyrical, deeply felt Swan of cellist Katie Schlaikjer, lovingly applauded by the audience.

All in all, a great wrap-up day for our Festival times this summer.

Now, on to the Shaw Festival for three plays!

Friday 9 August 2013

Festival of the Sound 2013 # 3

On Thursday, we had another string of three great concerts at the Festival of the Sound in Parry Sound ON.  This time, though, the focus was definitely on the core composers of the classic chamber music repertoire.

The noon concert began with a sparkling, energetic reading of Haydn's Piano Trio # 39 in G Major.  This is a favourite work at many chamber music venues, including the Stockey Centre, largely because of the high-speed final rondo "a l'Ongarese" which has given the trio its sobriquet of "Gypsy" Trio. 

This was followed by a 2-movement violin sonata by Mozart (# 21 in E Minor, K.304) which often moved the violin part into the middle of the harmony while the piano carried the melody -- to fine effect.  It's a composing technique that requires special attention by the performers to keep the parts perfectly balanced.

Last came a well-known classic: Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata.  Written for a stringed instrument that is almost extinct, this sonata has been transferred to many other instruments, including cello (most often), viola, clarinet, flute, and probably others as well.  In this case, Joel Quarrington played the solo part on double bass.  It's a fascinating experience, and Quarrington went through some serious gymnastics to catch all of Schubert's rapidly moving solo figurations, which he played with great finesse and skill.  But I felt the experiment was overall not a success, simply because of the very low register of the solo instrument.  Many lines had to be shifted down an octave from the original, and were so low down that it was difficult to hear them down under the entire piano part.

In the afternoon, we got first a Wind Quintet by Antonin Reicha.  This close friend and contemporary of Beethoven invented the wind quintet format (flute/clarinet/oboe/bassoon/horn) to give the wind players a chamber forum equal to those enjoyed by string players.  This was the second of a series of 26 such quintets Reicha composed.  I've heard several of them on a recording which I thoroughly enjoy, but this particular one was new to me -- and very well worth hearing.  I hope we get more of these in future from the Festival Winds.

The second item was a String Quintet by Mozart.  The first three movements of this work were light-hearted to the point of being jolly in a Haydnesque way.  The solemn slow introduction of the finale threatened to turn the whole work darker, but was quickly succeeded by a rollicking allegro that brought the Quintet to a lively end.

The evening concert began with a lovely Oboe Quartet (oboe plus string trio) played with great style and effect by Jim Mason.  This was succeeded by a powerful rarity: a Septet in D Minor by Johann Nepomuk Hummel, for the unusual combination of viola, cello, double bass, piano, bassoon, clarinet and flute (notice there is no violin!).  The piano carried much of the weight, not surprising when you know that Hummel was a leading piano virtuoso of his day.  Angela Park's flying fingers delivered a truly monumental reading of the piano part which was definitely of concerto proportions.  Her performance earned her the ultimate accolade of applause from her colleagues before all turned to acknowledge the applause of the audience.  The six other players also had much to contribute, and each got their own highlighted solo moments.  The work built to a towering conclusion which all but burst the bounds of chamber music, sounding like it really belonged in a symphony which the composer never got around to writing.

It's easy to see why a Septet like this doesn't get played much, because of the odd instrumentation, but the Festival of the Sound makes a specialty of throwing musicians together with minimal rehearsal time for such rare masterpieces, and the results are often very special indeed.  This one was a highlight of this year's Festival, another breathtaking performance that highlighted exactly why the Festival of the Sound is such a Canadian cultural treasure.

After the intermission, we heard Beethoven's well-known Septet in E-Flat Major, Op. 20.  This one has appeared on Festival programs before, and is always good to welcome back, like any old friend.  It's for the much tamer combination of a string trio with oboe, bassoon, horn, and double bass -- in effect, half of the traditional harmonie wind ensemble so beloved in Germany and Austria combined with the strings.  The players all did a beautiful job with this early Beethoven work, in a rather Mozartean manner -- don't expect the heaven-storming ambition of the late Beethoven, but this Septet is still a charmer for all that.

Thursday 8 August 2013

Festival of the Sound 2013 # 2

Okay, we're back in Parry Sound again, and in 3 concerts yesterday we were exposed to an extraordinary variety of music.  A little jazz, a little blues, some wartime concert pieces, and a couple of grand old classics from the 19th century chamber repertoire.

The intention behind yesterday's noon concert was to explore the music of composers who were exiled from homes in Europe during the Nazi horrors, as well as composers who were self-exiled from the USA because their black skin blocked their professional advancement.  For me, the music was just music -- nothing I heard particularly reflected the reality of exile, although the harsh realities of the world situation certainly had their impact on several of the pieces played.

We had the jazz and blues set first.  Now, I am no expert at all in the fine art of jazz and blues, so I only sit and enjoy without having much ability to comment on what I'm hearing -- other than to say that I like it.

In the concert music part of the programme, we got a couple of pieces by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.  His music is as lush and romantic as if it were written in the late 1800s, and not half a century later.  The effect is not unlike listening to a film score from the golden age of Hollywood, and that's not surprising because Hollywood is precisely where Korngold ended up when he came to the USA.  

I have to say, though, that Andrew Burashko (pianist) went far over the top in trying to proclaim Korngold as one of the greatest masters of all music.  It was all I could do not to roll my eyes when he said that.  Korngold may have been a very skilled virtuoso performer, but I've heard enough of his music to state that (for my money) Korngold was derivative, milking an old and tired tradition for every last drop but creating nothing especially original or memorable in the process. 

Then we got a Violin Sonata by the Czech composer Martinu.  This was thorny, rebarbative music.  Again, violinist Mark Fewer's description of the work as an overlooked masterpiece cut no ice with me.  I'd like to be able to say that he and pianist Burashko gave a good performance, but honestly I had no way of knowing.  Martinu's music often sounds as if the two players were not on the same page, or perhaps I should say it sounds as if they could be on the wrong page and the audience wouldn't be able to tell the difference.  It's a pity, because there are a few amazing works Martinu wrote that I would go anywhere to hear, again and again, but this Sonata is definitely not among them.

The afternoon concert was another matter altogether.  Guy Few (trumpet) and Angela Park (piano) gave a breathtaking performance of Hindemith's Trumpet Sonata.  I use the word in its most literal sense as I found myself gasping for air after the intensity of the final funeral march and the long silent pause that Few and Park held after the last notes.  Hindemith was definitely a composer of his own time, but this Sonata remains resolutely tonal (albeit with many surprising twists and turns).  The Sonata is full of moments both powerful and moving, and I will be looking out for a good recording.

It was followed by a Bartok String Quartet (No 6) which dates from the years before the war, and certainly reflects the unease and fear the composer felt.  The Penderecki Quartet captured the intensity of this work beautifully as well.  Each movement begins with a slow, solemn introduction (on similar thematic basis) before branching off on its own lines.  The last movement remains slow and solemn throughout, bringing the Quartet to an intense conclusion.

The evening concert opened with a memorable traversal of Schumann's famous Piano Quartet, Op. 47 by the Ensemble Made in Canada.  These four young artists captured all the wit, fun, shades of dark and light, and especially the clarity of the counterpoint in this complex and sophisticated work. 

Alas for good intentions, the succeeding Grand Sextet by Mikhail Glinka turned up sounding like the work of a rank beginner by comparison.  Glinka would gain fame as the founder and exemplar of Russian nationalism in music, but this Sextet predates his return to Russia.  It is fashionable, flashy, and musically about as substantial and rewarding as an empty cream puff.  Glinka detested any suggestion of counterpoint, so the five strings play in mostly chordal textures, while the piano also plays chordally but with the chords enlivened by endless chains of tremolandos and arpeggios.  In the end, the pianist (Andrew Burashko in fine form on a rather unrewarding assignment) does about 80% of the work, with the strings just coming along for the ride.

In sum: five stars for performance, one star for the music (maybe).

The conclusion of the evening was Dvorak's monumental String Quartet No. 13.  It's a late work, written just after Dvorak's return home from New York, and like many of the late Beethoven quartets it seems on the verge of bursting the bounds of quartet form.  The writing is often symphonic in force and density, and could probably form a successful target for orchestration.  I found the slow second movement especially moving, not least because of the slow introduction which (like the one in the New World Symphony) shifts the key from the first movement to the second movement by rather mysterious means.  I also thoroughly enjoyed the powerful finale, and do plan to dig out my recording of this marvellous work and make its further acquaintance.  The Penderecki Quartet again gave a near-definitive performance, high-powered, full of energy and emotion, and not without sublety where required.