Revenge Return of the International Playboy

Got back from Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario this evening; I went for one night with my mom. It was her gift to me for not having a proper vacation since 2001, and for not failing (hopefully) summer semester. We ended up just seeing two plays, Anything Goes and MacBeth, mainly because we didn't really have that much money to see more. (I had wanted to see The Human Voice, because I have liked Cocteau since I was a teenager, and I remember the LP of Ingrid Bergman's performance of the play quite fondly; the play wasn't showing while we were there.)

"Anything Goes" was simply fabulous. We had seats in the very first row. This had it's disadvantages -- occasionally the orchestra overwhelmed the singers, because we weren't far enough back to hear them through their microphones -- but I wouldn't have been any further back. It almost felt as if they were performing just for us. The actress who played Reno Sweeney, Cynthia Dale, was absolutely amazing, and it was almost as if the strength of her performance allowed all the other actors to rise to the occasion. The male lead, Michael Gruber, seemed sort of square at first, but that sort of turned out to be perfect for the role. The list of songs from the show is really fantastic: "I Get a Kick Out of You," "You're the Top," "Easy to Love," "It's De-lovely," "Anything Goes," Blow, Gabriel, Blow," "All Through the Night." (The version we saw was the revised version from 1987.) I mean, that basically accounts for a good portion of Ella's "The Cole Porter Song Book". It started off feeling a little tenative, but after the intermission, the whole cast seemed to be having a lot more fun with it. The orchestra, too. My first experience with Cole Porter onstage has turned out to be wholly pleasurable.

It's misleading to compare "MacBeth" to "Anything Goes", but compare I shall; to begin with, because the production was so quiet, every time some jerk cleared his throat, you could hear it all through the theater. It was sort of a rude audience. Some octagenarian four rows in front of us was unwrapping cellophane candy through the first half, only really slowly, so I wanted to leap up and scream, "JUST UNWRAP THE DAMN THING!!!" And some yahoos on the other side of the theater were laughing at inappropriate times, e.g.:


Macbeth:
"And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!"

Inappropriate Audience Member:
"HAW HAW HAW!!!!"


I had drunk a couple of cranberry-raspberry martinis at dinner, and I was just really irritated by the audience. At least no one's cell phone rang in either of the performances.

The production also suffered from the man playing the title character; I've seen the actor in other productions, and while I like him a lot, he didn't really display the sort of emotion (dare I say gravitas?) neccessary. Lady MacBeth was really well cast; when she was onstage speaking, I swear no one was clearing their throats. All through "Out, damn spot..." silence. That whole sequence was dazzling, literally; a white sheet covered the entire stage, and the lights were all suddenly turned on her as she was beginning to speak, so that you had to wait a few seconds for your eyes to adjust before you could see her. The staging on the whole was really sparse, which I think worked in it's favor; it added to the eerieness of the play. In spite of her initial dread, my mom insists she really liked the play. She pointed out that it took her a while to get into the dialogue; she says Shakespeare's tragedies tend to be less accessible to her than his comedies, which I get. I also think it's a little difficult to play the tragic roles so that they are dramatic enough to be affecting, but not so much that it becomes camp. Maybe that (camp) was the cause of the inappropriate laughter.

I convinced my mother to buy "The Jane Austen Book Club" by Karen Joy Fowler at the Book Vault (a great little store, with an impressive collection of graphic novels, in addition to having an impressive collection of capital-L Literature! Although, sadly, not du Maurier's Rebecca), just so I can read it, and because I'm tired of waiting for the library to have a free copy. I also bought some mixing bowls, a candy bar, and an used George Elliot book. Hey big spender!

My mom accidentally stole some person's parking space, which she felt bad about, until I told her that the person had been from New York. That made her feel less guilty.

The Olde English Parlour in Stratford provided wonderful accomodations, a pistachio-encrusted whitefish and asparagus with a citrus-raspberry sauce, a Pavlova, and two excellent raspberry-cranberry martinis. I highly recommend it.

We both agreed we had a very good time. She even was willing to let me listen to whatever I wanted (The Polyphonic Spree "Together We're Heavy"; Blondie "The Platinum Collection"; "Avenue Q" Cast Recording; Badly Drawn Boy "About A Boy" Soundtrack; Komeda "Kokomemedada"), as long as I listened to the "Mamma Mia" Cast Recording. Having been the one to introduce the scourge of ABBA into her house in the first place, I figured I could handle it.

Tomorrow I go back to work... and then my three-day weekend!

Song: "Always There" by Side Effect.