Sunday 27 October 2013

See, the Conquering Hero Comes!

It was a long day, but a delightful one, in spite of the cold, windy, rainy weather.  You are setting yourself up for a long day when you head out to attend the complete comic trilogy, The Norman Conquests by Alan Ayckbourn, currently on stage at Soulpepper Theatre in Toronto.

Now, the mere fact that the complete trilogy is on stage is a rarity in itself.  I haven't heard of any Toronto staging of the whole shooting match since the original tour way back in the 1970s when it was brand-new.  And I'm pretty sure that you had to attend then on three separate nights to get the whole thing.  Since each play is only about 2 hours long, including intermissions, Soulpepper has ingeniously scheduled them to play at 1:00, 4:30 and 8:00 every Saturday of the run, allowing for the marathon feat of taking in the entire Norman Conquests in one day.  So I did that.

(If you are already familiar with the hysterical comedic scenario which Ayckbourn has compounded, you can skip the next couple of paragraphs.)

This is a trilogy like no other.  It's really almost the same play, seen from three different points of view.  The frame of the action (in each case) is the same single weekend, and the scenes take place (in each case) at roughly the same time.  The setting is the same English country house for each play.  Round and Round the Garden takes place in "guess where", Table Manners is set in the dining room, and Living Together in the lounge (or living room, as we might say in Canada).  Ayckbourn has framed the plays so the same six characters appear in each one, often disappearing into the wings during Table Manners  at the exact moment when the same character comes onstage during Living Together, or whatever the case may be. 

Ayckbourn has stated that he wrote the plays horizontally, by writing all the opening scenes first, then all the second scenes, and so on.  I'd have to say that this is probably the only way it could be done, and marks a feat of theatrical coordination which even exceeds the complexities of Act II of Noises Off.  As if that were not enough, he has also written these three as stand-alone plays, so that you could take in any one of the three by itself, or take in the whole lot in any order, without doing violence to your understanding of what is going on.

What nobody ever seems to mention is that there are two additional characters, nameless, invisible, but nonetheless powerful controllers of the action: the unnamed cat up a tree, and the invalid "Mother" asleep in her bed upstairs.  Through helpful hints dropped in all three plays, we learn a great deal about how much the lives of the six characters onstage are shaped by the two offstage.

And then, of course, the ultimate irony in the overall title of The Norman Conquests:  none of the seductions Norman attempts actually come off, placing him in the same category of onstage failure as Mozart's Don Giovanni!

So it's easy to see what a mammoth challenge Soulpepper has taken on.  There can be only six actors (for obvious reasons), each one has to master three full-length plays, and they have to perform all three in one day every Saturday!  And these are high energy roles -- very physically demanding, and everyone has moments of shouting and screaming because this is a very dysfunctional family.  I'm pleased to report that the cast appeared just as full of zip and energy after the end of the marathon as they did at the outset -- no signs of fatigue or "thank goodness we're done" at the final curtain call. 

All six of the cast did sterling work.  Derek Boyes as Reg had a delightful snickering laugh that sounded just like an animal snorting, used on all occasions to good effect.  Fiona Reid as Sarah, Reg's wife, was a masterly portrait of a compulsive tidier and organizer, filled with understated but clearly visible tics and twitches (as required by the script).  Her scene of organizing the seating at the dinner table was a particular highlight.

Sarah Mennell was crisp, clear, and totally businesslike as Reg's sister, Ruth.  Indeed, she was so crisp that it was actually shocking to see her façade crack and some human emotions come peeping through, which was exactly what Ayckbourn intended.  Albert Schultz did a great job with all the little insinuations and wheedlings and manipulations which make up Norman, Ruth's husband.  Indeed, he was Norman to the life -- seedy, slovenly, lazy, but completely single-minded in pursuit of his own pleasures and to hell with anyone else.

Oliver Dennis had the difficult task of bringing Tom to life.  Tom, the middle-aged vet, is as close to a non-character as Ayckbourn could possibly write the part.  Dennis was a picture of bewilderment every time he put his foot in it (which was often), and his voice and shambling gait were fully in tune with the kind of man who can freely talk to the animals (or about them) but is intolerably shy and indecisive when faced with a real human being.

Pride of place, in my mind, goes to Laura Condlin as Annie, the younger sister of Ruth and Reg and the much put-upon housekeeper and caregiver for "Mother" and "Cat" (in one scene, Annie says that this is what she calls the animal: just "Cat").  In some ways, Laura is the most complex character of the six.  She has allowed "Mother" to walk all over her, and lets her relationship with Tom remain stalled as a mere chrysalis, an unfulfilled what-might-have-been.  She has allowed her dress and her hair to become messier and more habitual since the last family get-together at Christmas.  Yet, as played by Condlin, it's apparent right from the get-go that Annie still has more than a spark of feeling and energy about her, and is ready to go head to head with anyone else who tries to take advantage of her.  The wide range of emotional states also makes Annie the most human character of the lot, and Condlin clearly evokes the real interior life of this woman as much as the frustrated and frustrating external life.

Ted Dykstra, director, has placed the three plays in a theatre-in-the-round setting (rectangular, actually, but you know what I mean) exactly as in the original premiere in England.  Simple sets, with simple, evocative floor treatments are more than sufficient.  If I had one complaint, it was that the sofa and armchair in Living Together looked a bit too neat and spruce for what was supposed to be a somewhat run-down old country house.  Minor detail.  Louise Guinand's lighting plot involved appealing window gobos at scene openings, but otherwise simply and clearly lit the action without blinding the audience at all.  Costumes were simple and effective, clearly in line with the script, and effectively coloured to evoke the characters. 

If you only have time for one play, I feel sorry for you -- but if thus it must be, make it Living Together, since the scene with Reg's game was hands-down winner as the funniest moment of the entire day.  But I do urge you to see the whole trilogy (even if it is on separate dates) because every play is full of marvellous moments, each play helps to illuminate the other two, and it's highly unlikely the complete Norman Conquests will be staged in Toronto again for many years to come!

Light-hearted, silly, ingenious, and with it all easy to relate to because we have all met people like these in our own lives, and as with any really good play we see elements of ourselves on the stage before us.  Laughing heartily at the foibles of others, we also catch ourselves laughing with rueful recognition at our own follies writ large.

Run, don't walk, down to the Young Centre for these wonderful shows, and book your seats early because all three shows yesterday were sold out!

Sunday 6 October 2013

Stratford Festival 2013 # 5: A Fantasia on History

My last Stratford show this season was also the one I most eagerly anticipated: Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart in the recently-new translation by Peter Oswald.  It's gotten excellent reviews (so I am told -- I try to avoid reading reviews before attending any event!).  Even more to the point, the show has consistently sold out, leading to no less than four extensions of the performance schedule, a feat I can never remember any Stratford show achieving before.

There are many factors contributing to this success, and some of them may be extraneous to the production at hand.  It's a play about a very well-known corner of British history, probably better-known to most Canadians than the home turf of any of Shakespeare's histories.  Unlike the Shakespeare histories, this one has several major parts (including the two leads) for women.  It's not a very commonly staged play in Canada, either.

More to the point, this production was directed by the Festival's new Artistic Director, Antoni Cimolino, a fact which weighed heavily with me as I am a confirmed admirer of his work as a director.  Furthermore, the show stars two of the current leading ladies of the Stratford company, Lucy Peacock as Mary Queen of Scots, and Seana McKenna as Elizabeth I.

Maybe my anticipation was built up too high.  I felt less excited after the show than before it.  My playwright's sixth sense was inclined to attribute this to the script, and that raises another issue.  If that is indeed the difficulty, was it the fault of the original author (Schiller) or of the translator?  Since I am not overly-fluent in German, I doubt if I will ever know for sure.  I just felt that some of the scenes in the latter part of the play became overly-repetitive and needed tightening.

The concept is fascinating: the author creating a scenario which brings about a face-to-face meeting of the two queens, a meeting that never took place in real life.  This meeting happens in the third of five acts, and since there was to be only one intermission I couldn't for the life of me guess if the break would be before or after that third confrontational act.  The eventual answer was "neither".  The intermission came as a literal interruption, a sudden freeze and blackout at the exact moment when Mary turned around to face her cousin and royal captor, Elizabeth.  Was this the express intention of the translator/adaptor?  Perhaps -- it's certainly a very modern, film-inspired conception.  The strobe flash and sound effect of drawn daggers which accompanied that moment was theatricality raised to the nth degree, and for me was chillingly effective.  I would only suggest that it is unnecessary to go back and repeat the 45 seconds or so of preceding action after the intermission.  Top-flight actors are quite capable of taking it again from the exact moment after a freeze-frame effect like this.

Other events in the play also tinker with or elide together actual historic happenings and people, and this statement is probably true of every historic play ever staged, and every historic movie ever filmed. That's why I describe it as "a fantasia on history".

As Mary, Lucy Peacock gave a very subtle reading of a woman who had lost much, but not all, of what gave her greatness.  It was very clear from the outset that this Mary had lost none of her indomitable will and spirit, however much they might disappear under her surface preoccupations from time to time.  Dressed in the plainest of clothes she was still every inch a queen.  The very rare times when her will temporarily cracked were among Peacock's most telling moments.

Seana McKenna had perhaps the harder task.  As depicted in the script, Elizabeth is as changeable as the wind -- first coy and flirtatious, then merry and ironic, suddenly freezing into a human iceberg, and as suddenly erupting in a volcanic rage.  McKenna's great achievement lay in making all these sudden transformations both believable and appealingly human.  This queen was driven above all by the uncertainty underlying her every action, an uncertainty that truly reflected her uneasy and tenuous hold on the English crown.  In an age where uncertainty is the nature of life for so many people, this was an Elizabeth of very direct emotional appeal -- an appeal grounded in our recognition of her as a reflection of some essential part of ourselves.

Among the other characters, Brian Dennehy displayed a range of subtlety which I had never seen from him before as the Earl of Shrewsbury, the last courtier to walk away from Elizabeth at the play's end.  James Blendick made the most of several key moments as Mary's jailor, Sir Amias Paulet.  Patricia Collins was the very picture of Mary's devoted, grieving servant and confidant as Hanna Kennedy (the real servant's name was Jane, but this was presumably rendered to Hanne in German and not switched back again in the adaptation).  And Ian Lake was magnificent as the fictitious Mortimer, handling the complexities of his dual-personality role with finesse and sliding perfectly into terrified determination in his suicide scene.

My only complaint in the casting was that Dylan Trowbridge went too far over the top playing William Davison's scene with Elizabeth where he tries to get clear instruction about what to do with the signed death warrant, instructions which Elizabeth is determined not to give him.  Trowbridge was simply too fussy-fidgety for the situation, whining in agitation like a fearful schoolboy.

Lighting designer Steven Hawkins came up with a splendid light-and-shadow maze which appeared on the floor during two scene changes, and which was carefully negotiated (including wrong turns) by Mary's serving women as they cleared away her furniture to make room for the next scene -- a powerful and inspired metaphor indeed.

Antoni Cimolino's directorial vision welded the show into a firm and coherent whole, pulsing with life and energy from start to finish.  If it came across as a bit less than the transcendent experience I was anticipating, it was still a gripping and effective night of theatre at the highest level, and I am very glad I got to experience it!