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neadodsY'know, the great thing about travelling with one's parents is that you don't have to pay for your own food. The not-so-great thing about travelling with one's parents is that they want to spend a lot of time together -which means that it's taken me 5 days to get a chance to sit down by myself and write up everything. Some trip I shall sit quietly by the river, watching the swans and knitting while listening to the iPod. But not this trip. Not even now that my parents are off daytripping, as the early rain has made every seat soaking wet.
So. Greetings from not-so-sunny Stratford Ont. Where I am blessing every penny I spent on this computer and every early morning at Toledo blipverting through my mail and LJ, as the communications center where I connected the last two years is never open when I drop by and the library is 1) far away, 2) limits time and 3) doesn't allow downloads (which I've been doing daily.) It's sucked to try to compress 4+ hours of daily surfing down to 90 pre-breakfast minutes, but not a bit as much as it would have sucked to be knocked offline for a week entirely!
So. The Festival. I've seen six plays, with two more scheduled today. (Those will have to be written up when I return on Sunday.)
The Liar
"People familiar with the play tend to be disappointed because they expect to see the play," the proprietress of the Aspidistra told us. What you get when you go is closer to a verse form of "Whose Line is it Anyway?" As set of the younger actors and two of the more experienced (they put it, "Seasoned") Stratfordians come out, yank arrows out of the stage to find out which role they're playing, pass scripts around accordingly, and then spend the rest of their time alternately playing their roles and trying to crack each other (and hopefully the audience) up. In this particular case, the real show-stopper was when one of them -- I think it was Stephen Kent, but for reasons I'm about to explain I wasn't looking at his face -- stripped down to his y-fronts and then led the supporting cast of London Assurance straight through what was supposed to be a relatively serious scene between two of the male leads. My favorite was Barry MacGregor, but then, I love Barry on principle. It's a pity he pulled a small role, but he did the best with it (my personal favorite being an allusion to Shaw - "Oh, sorry, wrong festival.")
Coriolanus
Everyone I know who has seen Coriolanus has raved about how wonderful and powerful it was. Unfortunately, I thought the first act dragged horribly, I was tired, and I bailed at intermission, so I wouldn't know. Yes, I am a philistine.
Don Juan
Er. This is where I give up all right to be considered at all educated about literature - I saw "Moliere" and "Don Juan" and expected a French bedroom farce. Um. No. Colm Feore was a fascinating Don, though, and gave a difficult interpretation of a difficult role his all, right up to what could only be interpreted as "death by interpretive dance." Um. I'm not sorry I saw it, I certainly didn't walk out on poor Colm a second time, but… um. That is a weird play weirdly done. And it sure as hell was no bedroom farce, even though it started out with a whole series of mime bits and a hilarious series of audience warnings delivered in French. (The actor laughed, and gave us the thumbs up - "Oui! D'accord." Crying? Also okay. Snoring? "NON!")
Oliver!
Colm Feore as Fagan, which is about anyone needs to know. (My parents are boggled that the same guy played three leads in a day and a half.) The problem was that the production is stuffed full of music - there was barely any dialog - and so it had a very rushed feel as it pelted from solo to production number and back again. Oliver was a darling moppet (which is all that can be said for him), Dodger (Scott Beaudin) has a nice stage future ahead of him, Nancy (Blythe Wilson) was wonderful but the older I get the less patience I have with Nancy's self-destructive delusions of Bill's nature. Mr. Bumble was Bruce Dow, who ate all the scenery last year as Nicely Nicely Johnson and chewed as much as he could get this time around, with just as crowd-pleasing results (get this man bigger comic roles!) And Colm Feore just rocks.
London Assurance
Stratford's long-standing A-List - Brian Bedford, James Blendick, Seana McKenna, and Brian Tree (Colm being busy elsewhere) - all in a drawing-room comedy, trying to upstage each other. NOW you're cooking with gas! This was hands-down the best and funniest thing I've seen all week. Brian Tree did his damnedest to upstage them all and frequently did, but Bedford, Blendick, and McKenna weren't going down without a fight. Plus Sara Topham proved her chops against heavy competition. The plot is somewhere between a Jeeves mixup and The Importance of Being Earnest - lots of mistaken identities, false identities, fast pacing and razor-sharp timing. Sheer frothy delight capably handled by the best in the business. I'm really looking forward to the Bedford-McKenna rematch at tonight's Bollywood-style Twelfth Night.
Much Ado About Nothing
My parents - who haven't seen a lot of Shakespeare productions - were enchanted. I found this production to be competent, but it has to compete against every other version I've seen and so far the Ado stage winners are the DC Shakes 1920s production, which had a lot of charm and the amazingly spark-filled Folger Shakespeare production of a year or so ago, set during WWII. I found Peter Donaldson to be a surprisingly old Benedick (up in the balcony I was counting bald spots among the actors and hitting a surprisingly high number) and he and Lucy Peacock were very much the B-list in direct comparison to London Assurance.
I'm a bad fangirl, as I am seeing nothing with Scott in it. Since I'd pay good money not to have to see Duchess of Malfi, it's Henry IV that I’m rather regretting, particularly since it also has Barry MacGregor and Brian Tree… but, as I keep reminding myself, regretting the play that got away is also part of the annual Stratford vacation.
I've also taste-tested between Rheo Tompsons and Chocolate Barrs (I say it's a tie, my mother votes for Rheo.) And the Aspidistra still has the VERY best breakfasts in town - stuffed croissants, mushroom/zucchini fritatta, melon soup, blueberry muffins, hot scones… enough food to keep you going through the matinee and one of the lower B&B prices in town. Plus Oil of Olay, who are one of the sponsors this year, keeps giving us little samplers of some lotion or other - I'll have to describe it at Christmas, since I'll have to send it back with my parents. Because I might try to blow up the plane home with a .02 oz freebie tube of fancy skin cream, don'tchaknow. (Honestly, this whole thing is just so pathetic. And I'm worried that they're going to try to confiscate my chocolates. Because God knows, bon-bons might go boom-boom just cos they have cream centers or something.)
Truly, there is not enough eyeroll sometimes.
Loreena McKennitt
Loreena McKennitt has a special offer for Festival patrons - a free download of her new song "Cymbeline" from an upcoming album. Rather than stick my download up on sendspace or something, I'm going to be slightly less… is it still larceny if you're "stealing" something free - anyway, I'll say *quiet cough* go here, password is "playon"*cough*
Question for other folks who've been to Strat this year. That advertisement for the Stratford Summer Music series - does anybody else get a rather slashy "Ledo and the Swan" impression from that artwork?
And now it is cold and rainy and my parents have returned early, so I'm off to send this out and head to the next play. Oddly, I do not seem to have a theater icon anymore. Must fix that.
Also utterly OT - the obligatory Dr. Who comment for the 2/3 of my f-list who only friended me 'cause of that: an excellent Ten/Sarah Jane NC-17 fic Very well done, very hot, very in character.
So. Greetings from not-so-sunny Stratford Ont. Where I am blessing every penny I spent on this computer and every early morning at Toledo blipverting through my mail and LJ, as the communications center where I connected the last two years is never open when I drop by and the library is 1) far away, 2) limits time and 3) doesn't allow downloads (which I've been doing daily.) It's sucked to try to compress 4+ hours of daily surfing down to 90 pre-breakfast minutes, but not a bit as much as it would have sucked to be knocked offline for a week entirely!
So. The Festival. I've seen six plays, with two more scheduled today. (Those will have to be written up when I return on Sunday.)
The Liar
"People familiar with the play tend to be disappointed because they expect to see the play," the proprietress of the Aspidistra told us. What you get when you go is closer to a verse form of "Whose Line is it Anyway?" As set of the younger actors and two of the more experienced (they put it, "Seasoned") Stratfordians come out, yank arrows out of the stage to find out which role they're playing, pass scripts around accordingly, and then spend the rest of their time alternately playing their roles and trying to crack each other (and hopefully the audience) up. In this particular case, the real show-stopper was when one of them -- I think it was Stephen Kent, but for reasons I'm about to explain I wasn't looking at his face -- stripped down to his y-fronts and then led the supporting cast of London Assurance straight through what was supposed to be a relatively serious scene between two of the male leads. My favorite was Barry MacGregor, but then, I love Barry on principle. It's a pity he pulled a small role, but he did the best with it (my personal favorite being an allusion to Shaw - "Oh, sorry, wrong festival.")
Coriolanus
Everyone I know who has seen Coriolanus has raved about how wonderful and powerful it was. Unfortunately, I thought the first act dragged horribly, I was tired, and I bailed at intermission, so I wouldn't know. Yes, I am a philistine.
Don Juan
Er. This is where I give up all right to be considered at all educated about literature - I saw "Moliere" and "Don Juan" and expected a French bedroom farce. Um. No. Colm Feore was a fascinating Don, though, and gave a difficult interpretation of a difficult role his all, right up to what could only be interpreted as "death by interpretive dance." Um. I'm not sorry I saw it, I certainly didn't walk out on poor Colm a second time, but… um. That is a weird play weirdly done. And it sure as hell was no bedroom farce, even though it started out with a whole series of mime bits and a hilarious series of audience warnings delivered in French. (The actor laughed, and gave us the thumbs up - "Oui! D'accord." Crying? Also okay. Snoring? "NON!")
Oliver!
Colm Feore as Fagan, which is about anyone needs to know. (My parents are boggled that the same guy played three leads in a day and a half.) The problem was that the production is stuffed full of music - there was barely any dialog - and so it had a very rushed feel as it pelted from solo to production number and back again. Oliver was a darling moppet (which is all that can be said for him), Dodger (Scott Beaudin) has a nice stage future ahead of him, Nancy (Blythe Wilson) was wonderful but the older I get the less patience I have with Nancy's self-destructive delusions of Bill's nature. Mr. Bumble was Bruce Dow, who ate all the scenery last year as Nicely Nicely Johnson and chewed as much as he could get this time around, with just as crowd-pleasing results (get this man bigger comic roles!) And Colm Feore just rocks.
London Assurance
Stratford's long-standing A-List - Brian Bedford, James Blendick, Seana McKenna, and Brian Tree (Colm being busy elsewhere) - all in a drawing-room comedy, trying to upstage each other. NOW you're cooking with gas! This was hands-down the best and funniest thing I've seen all week. Brian Tree did his damnedest to upstage them all and frequently did, but Bedford, Blendick, and McKenna weren't going down without a fight. Plus Sara Topham proved her chops against heavy competition. The plot is somewhere between a Jeeves mixup and The Importance of Being Earnest - lots of mistaken identities, false identities, fast pacing and razor-sharp timing. Sheer frothy delight capably handled by the best in the business. I'm really looking forward to the Bedford-McKenna rematch at tonight's Bollywood-style Twelfth Night.
Much Ado About Nothing
My parents - who haven't seen a lot of Shakespeare productions - were enchanted. I found this production to be competent, but it has to compete against every other version I've seen and so far the Ado stage winners are the DC Shakes 1920s production, which had a lot of charm and the amazingly spark-filled Folger Shakespeare production of a year or so ago, set during WWII. I found Peter Donaldson to be a surprisingly old Benedick (up in the balcony I was counting bald spots among the actors and hitting a surprisingly high number) and he and Lucy Peacock were very much the B-list in direct comparison to London Assurance.
I'm a bad fangirl, as I am seeing nothing with Scott in it. Since I'd pay good money not to have to see Duchess of Malfi, it's Henry IV that I’m rather regretting, particularly since it also has Barry MacGregor and Brian Tree… but, as I keep reminding myself, regretting the play that got away is also part of the annual Stratford vacation.
I've also taste-tested between Rheo Tompsons and Chocolate Barrs (I say it's a tie, my mother votes for Rheo.) And the Aspidistra still has the VERY best breakfasts in town - stuffed croissants, mushroom/zucchini fritatta, melon soup, blueberry muffins, hot scones… enough food to keep you going through the matinee and one of the lower B&B prices in town. Plus Oil of Olay, who are one of the sponsors this year, keeps giving us little samplers of some lotion or other - I'll have to describe it at Christmas, since I'll have to send it back with my parents. Because I might try to blow up the plane home with a .02 oz freebie tube of fancy skin cream, don'tchaknow. (Honestly, this whole thing is just so pathetic. And I'm worried that they're going to try to confiscate my chocolates. Because God knows, bon-bons might go boom-boom just cos they have cream centers or something.)
Truly, there is not enough eyeroll sometimes.
Loreena McKennitt
Loreena McKennitt has a special offer for Festival patrons - a free download of her new song "Cymbeline" from an upcoming album. Rather than stick my download up on sendspace or something, I'm going to be slightly less… is it still larceny if you're "stealing" something free - anyway, I'll say *quiet cough* go here, password is "playon"*cough*
Question for other folks who've been to Strat this year. That advertisement for the Stratford Summer Music series - does anybody else get a rather slashy "Ledo and the Swan" impression from that artwork?
And now it is cold and rainy and my parents have returned early, so I'm off to send this out and head to the next play. Oddly, I do not seem to have a theater icon anymore. Must fix that.
Also utterly OT - the obligatory Dr. Who comment for the 2/3 of my f-list who only friended me 'cause of that: an excellent Ten/Sarah Jane NC-17 fic Very well done, very hot, very in character.
