After my disgraceful procrastination of 2019 that led me to write about an entire year of theatre-watching all in one blog, I was determined to get a jump-start to 2020! Just two months into the new year, we have already seen a wide variety of theatre performances, both live on stage and re-broadcasted film versions of productions from London’s National Theatre.
As part of our Mirvish subscription series, we saw a road show production of the 2017 Broadway stage musical
Anastasia, which is based primarily on the 1997 animated musical film of the same name, voiced by Meg Ryan and John Cusack. Both shows share the same premise (based on actual persistent rumours) that Anastasia, the youngest daughter of the royal Romanov dynasty, was the only survivor of the Bolsheviks attack that killed the rest of her family. They both involve plots where con men Dimitri and Vlad find amnesiac Anya, an “Anastasia look-a-like”, and train her to impersonate the princess in order to gain reward money from her grandmother, only to discover that “imposter” is the real deal.
Where the two versions differ is in the portrayal of the protagonist. The villain in the animated movie is the Russian mystic Rasputin who uses magical powers to curse the Romanov family, and whose minion sidekick is the albino bat Bartok. With an obvious nod to old Disney movies, the Rasputin is a dead ringer for the evil Jafar in the film Aladdin and also reminiscent of the Evil Queen from Snow White. By contrast, the musical version of Anastasia is more political and realistic. The protagonist is Gleb Vaganov, a Boshevik general whose father was tasked with shooting the Romanov family. When he learns that Anastasia might be alive, Gleb feels obligated to finish the job.
Anastasia the musical keeps the best tunes from the film including “A Rumour in St Petersburg”, “Once Upon a December”, “Journey to the Past” and “Learn to Do It”. It then adds songs to fill out the back stories and provide more depth to each of the main characters. The best new song is the haunting ballad “The Neva Flows” which explains the motivation that drives Gleb. The staging is impressive in depicting the attack on the royal family, their reappearance as ghosts in Anya’s imagination, the trolley ride out of Russia and their arrival in Paris. The costumes are stunning in general, but especially the gorgeous red gown worn by Anastasia once she reclaims her true identity.
Last year we watched two very innovative plays (The Flick, and Ghost Quartet) at the Crow’s Theatre, so it was not surprising that their mounting of Shakespeare’s tragedy
Julius Caesar was equally creative and original in terms of wardrobe and stagecraft. The plot and dialogue remained true to the Bard’s play, but this production has added a post-mortem where each character (spoiler alert … including the dead ones, which is most of them), uses modern vernacular to reflect upon what has happened or what is to come (for the ones still alive).
You know you are in for something different when you first walk into Crow’s Guloein Theatre and see stadium seating along all four walls of the space, and a table with headsets, microphones and laptops in the middle of the floor (stage) surrounded by see-through barricades. Three actors approach the table and proceed to give a modern-day “newscast” recapping Caesar’s exploits and military victories, setting up the situation at the start of the play. Following what now seems to be a common practice, the cast members of Julius Caesar are dressed in modern attire as opposed to togas and sandals, and they carry pistols which are use to assassinate Caesar, as opposed to daggers. The civil war that results after Caesar’s death is depicted with soldiers decked in camouflage outfits, guerrilla warfare tactics, machine guns and drone strikes.
I often have trouble understanding the flowery, archaic dialogue and terminology used by Shakespeare, so having all the characters ambiguously dressed, with colour-blind and gender-blind casting as well as some actors playing multiple roles, added to my general confusion over who was who and what was happening. It helped that I read the synopsis and some of the actual text of the play prior to seeing the show. Unfortunately I did not have enough time to get through the entire work. Regardless, I was impressed by this production and the passionate acting by the characters who sometimes stood so close to us that we could see them spit as they enunciated.
After the intensity of Julius Caesar, it was a relief to watch the light, frothy and hilarious musical
Motherhood at the Lower Ossington Theatre. A baby shower is held for first time mother-to-be Amy by her three friends Tina, Barb and Brooke who already have children. As Amy dreamily and idealistically anticipates the blessed event, her friends give her a dose of reality by providing their personal insights on the challenges she will face. This leads to goofy, laugh-out-loud songs about handling the demands of multiple kids (Mommy!, In the Minivan, At Costco) and the affects of pregnancy on the body (“We Leak”, “Ode to Boobs”, “Baby Weight Blues”). Each mom has her own issues to deal with including Tina, the single mother in midst of a divorce (“Every Other Weekend”), Barb, who juggles the needs of five children, and Brooke, who balances her career as a hard-working lawyer with her role as a mom. Throughout the party, Amy fields constant phone calls from her own intrusive mother. Written by the creators of the hit show “Menopause The Musical”, Motherhood is a great escape and pure mindless fun.
By contrast to Motherhood,
Caroline, Or Change is a deeper, more complex musical both in terms of plot and themes, as well as songs and score which feature Sondheim-esque tunes with dissonant chords and eclectic musical styles that include blues, Motown, folk, classical, operatic and Jewish “klezmer”. Played by R&B/Pop singer Jully Black (best known for her hit “Seven Day Fool”), Caroline Thibodeaux is a black maid working for the Jewish Gellman family which includes 8-year-old Noah who has recently lost his mother to cancer, his still-grieving father Stuart, and new step-mother Rose. Caroline spends much of her time down in the basement, doing the laundry while listening to the radio. The washer, dryer, and radio are personified by singers that channel Aretha Franklin, James Brown and The Supremes respectively while Opera singer Measha Brueggergosman plays the moon. Noah often leaves spare change in his pockets which Caroline finds when doing the laundry. To teach him the value of money, Rose wants Caroline to keep any coins that she finds—a request that prideful Caroline resists but is also tempted to accept since she needs the extra money to support her four kids. Therefore the “change” in the title of Caroline, Or Change has multiple meanings, referring to the monetary change as well as changes happening in society and personal change which many of the characters go through. Set in Louisana in 1963, the musical deals with important historic incidents of this turbulent times, including the assassination of President Kennedy and the Civil Rights Movement as well as exploring themes of class distinction, income inequity, immigration and racial tensions.
Playing at the Winter Garden Theatre with its iconic leaf-lined ceiling, the set depicting the Gellman house is interesting as it needs to represent three levels, the basement, main floor and second floor. To fit all the floors, the basement is actually located in what would usually be the first few rows of the audience just beneath the stage while the other two levels are represented on the physical stage. While it was expected that Jully and Measha would have great singing voices, most surprising was the spectacular belting vocals of Vanessa Sears who played Caroline’s spunky, defiant daughter Emmie. Also of note was the performance by the Evan Lefeuvre who played Noah. The number of songs and amount of dialogue that he needed to remember was really impressive and his timing in singing some very difficult songs was spot on.
The final two shows that we watched in February were actually filmed versions of plays from London’s National Theatre. The first was
Hansard, a caustic, scathing and occasionally darkly humorous one-act two-hander set in the Margaret Thatcher era that is basically a 90-minute long argument/debate between Conservative Tory MP Robin Hesketh and his Liberal-minded wife Diana. Yet being a British as opposed to an American play, there are no screaming scenes ala “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?”, but rather a calm but witty back-and-forth dialogue full of cutting comments, sarcasm and irony. Robin returns to his home in the Cotswalds to find Diana still in her dressing gown and itching for a fight. Their banter covers topics including politics (in particular the controversial Section 28 that banned the promotion of homosexuality), suspected extramarital affairs, the waning affections within their marriage and a pointed debate about nurturing or over-nuturing children as opposed to letting them learn to fend for themselves. All this talk is a preamble to the actual elephant in the room that they finally get around to discussing, the issue of their deceased son Tom. The term “Hansard” refers to the official transcripts of Parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth countries. As the play draws towards the end, an excerpt of Tom’s diary, or his personal “hansard” is read aloud, providing insight into the true cause of strife in this marriage. This is a highly intellectual and entertaining play but it may not do well outside of the U.K. because are so many references that only make sense to locals including names of relatively obscure politicians, authors, reporters, socialists and others.
The second filmed theatre production that we watched at Cineplex is a very unique version of
Cyrano de Bergerac starring Scottish actor James McAvoy. It is based on the similarly titled 1897 play written by French poet Edmond Rostand that very loosely dramatizes the life of infamous 17th Century novelist, playwright and duelist. The plot of Rostand’s play is well-known and has been widely adapted. Cyrano is a skilled swordsman who is bold, brash, quick-witted, and an accomplished poet with a gift for the romantic turn of phrase. But due to his unusually large nose, he is self-deprecatingly unable to express his love for the beautiful Roxanne, who in turn is in love with the handsome but witless, inarticulate Christian, a fellow cadet in Cyrano’s regiment. Cyrano agrees to provide Christian with the words to woo Roxanne, through written letters and even secretly speaking to her from the shadows on Christian’s behalf.
Like in Julius
Caesar, once again the conceit of anachronistically dressing period characters in modern clothing is used in this stripped down version of
the play. But what made this production
interesting was the lack of a large prosthetic nose on McAvoy’s face, as well
as no dueling swords despite an extended dueling scene. Cyrano’s nose is left up to the imagination and
Cyrano fights his duels using razor-sharp rap poetry in an epic rap battle that
involves both verbal and physical thrusts and parries, but with microphones in hand as opposed to swords. In fact, hip hop music and rapping are used
throughout this play in an interesting new take on an old tale.
This screening of the National Theatre play was broadcast live across the U.K. via
satellite which unfortunately resulted in the sound and visual occasionally
cutting out, as well as microphone feedback and poor sound quality. It was nearly impossible to hear what was
being said when any of the characters spoke softly, which Cyrano does on
multiple occasions. This detracted from what was otherwise a good production.
Next up for us is the highly anticipated hit musical Hamilton based on the life of Alexander Hamilton, American politician, military commander, lawyer, banker, economist and founder of the U.S. Banking system. To prepare for this experience, which will include listening to some very fast rap singing, I have assigned the following homework for myself:
- Read
the Wikipedia entry for the plot/synopsis of the musical Hamilton
- Listen to the cast recording on Youtube ...
- ... while following along with the lyrics, since some of the rap sequences are sung so rapidly (and occasionally with a heavy French or British accent) that it is near impossible to discern what is being conveyed
- If there is time, review the Wikipedia entry on the biography of Alexander Hamilton
