Category Archives: fiction

fiction, History, Politics, Republic of Letters

Stratford Festival Review: Richard III by William Shakespeare

The thought will not down that an unfortunate choice was made when King Richard III was selected as the spearhead stage offering. It is definitely the most unwholesome of all Shakespeare’s tragedies, and its only character of any real dramatic interest is that of Richard himself — a physically repulsive hypocrite, liar & murderer without one redeeming feature.

— The Stratford Beacon-Herald, June 30, 1953

Defying the Beacon-Herald’s strictures, the Stratford Festival nonetheless opened its inaugural season with Richard III — with no less a personage than Alec Guinness (“the old Obi-Wan”, as I overheard a Festival-going mom telling her son a few years back) in the title role, and the results were raved about throughout the Anglophone world. Since then, the Festival has mounted the tragedy at least seven more times, with both widely-known actors such as Alan Bates (1967) and Brian Bedford (1977) and talented company members like Stephen Ouimette (1997) and Tom McCamus (2002’s 50th season) flocking to fill the part.

Having paid his dues at Stratford before launching into a well-rounded career that spans Canadian biopics of Pierre Trudeau & Glenn Gould and comic book movies (Thor: The Dark World and The Amazing Spider Man 2), it’s intriguing to see Colm Feore become a repeat Richard, 35 years after he first essayed the role at the 1988 Festival. His deeply physical take on the Duke of Gloucester, complete with a gait that evokes the scoliosis evident in the monarch’s recently-discovered skeleton, is visually riveting. His way with the text is equally arresting; doing without the scene-chewing excess of an Olivier, he’s nonetheless “determined to prove a villain” from the opening soliloquy, unabashedly eager to walk the Tom Patterson Theatre audience through his machinations as he claws his way toward the throne. And like Feore’s other role this season as Molière’s The Miser, his Richard becomes the focal point around which Shakespeare’s cast revolves, constantly manipulated and mesmerized by him whether they realize it or not.

Sooner or later, however, most of the other characters do discover what Richard really wants. Freed from their self-deception and ambition, it’s their reactions that give the tragedy both its recurring sparks of conflict and its building momentum. Michael Blake’s Duke of Clarence, with his dreamed intimations of his brother’s betrayal; Jessica B. Hill’s Lady Anne, whose loathing of Richard is palpable even as he perversely woos her (and wins her!); Ben Carlson’s clueless Hastings and Andre Sills’ scheming Buckingham, whose death row regrets soar to commanding heights — all these keep any empathy the audience may be developing for the would-be usurper at arm’s length.

Towering over all these are Seana McKenna (who played Richard in 2011!) as the mad, prophetic dowager Queen Margaret, calling down curses on all and sundry; Lucy Peacock, whose Queen Elizabeth soars to dizzy heights of spite and bereavement following Richard’s slaughter of her children; and Diana LeBlanc, whose Duchess of York is shocked into cursing her upstart son just as he gains the throne. This is titanic stuff — the loosely historical narrative may drive the action of the play, but the clash of deep — and deeply flawed — characters is what keeps us from joining Team Richard, despite the combined allure of Shakespeare’s words and Feore’s strange appeal. In fact, no sooner does Richard become king than we (and possibly he) realize that his downfall is inevitable — and that we need to see it, to make some sense of these tumultyous events.

Even in the intimate TPT (with one-third the capacity of the Festival Theatre), there’s spectacle aplenty to be mined by director Antoni Cimolino and the populous, well-drilled cast as Richard approaches his necessary end. Royal processions, civil unrest, a coronation, ghostly visitations and the final battle between the forces of the usurper and Jamie Mac’s enigmatic, recessive Henry Tudor stir the blood, even as they bring Richard’s lurid dreams to both their culmination and their dissolution. And while this generally traditional production is a feast for the eyes and ears that I can’t recommend highly enough, Cimolino leaves us with more food for thought as well. His prologue and epilogue are set in the present day, with the discovery of Richard’s skeleton and his reburial in Leicester Cathedral bookending the tragedy — as if to remind us that, no matter how high Shakespeare’s characters may fly, as the Bard wrote later in his career,

Golden lads and girls all must,
Like chimney sweepers come to dust.

(Cymbeline)

Richard III runs through October 30th at the Stratford Festival’s Tom Patterson Theatre. Tickets available at stratfordfestival.ca.

— Rick Krueger

fiction, Poetry, Republic of Letters

Stratford Festival Preview: The Miser by Molière

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Harpagon, the title character of Molière’s The Miser, is a flat-out fool. Money — getting it, keeping it, hoarding it — is his obsession; in the presence of his stash, he kneels in abject devotion. But he also projects that obsession onto everyone else in his life. He berates his adult son and daughter for their “spendthrift” ways; he lends cash only at exorbitant rates (with outrageous stipulations in the small print); his fear of both having his treasure with him and letting it out of his sight easily slides into wholesale paranoia that everyone is out to part him from it.

The thing is, Harpagon isn’t completely wrong; his single-mindedness warps how everyone in his life approaches him. Both his children hesitate to reveal their new loves to him, for fear he’ll deny access to their trust funds. His household servants (including his son’s shady buddy and his daughter’s lover) suck up to him and diss their colleagues to his face, bitching behind his back and battling for dominance all the while. The local matchmaker (who Harpagon has tasked with finding him a new, young wife) and moneylender butter him up outrageously, hoping against hope to profit from their flattery. Even the ingenue both Harpagon and his son are after wants the miser’s money — to provide for her ill mother’s medical care, but still! The farcical complications of the play flow naturally and wittily from this set-up; in the company of a master fool who has what they desire, everyone’s foolishness will out.

Where the Stratford Festival’s new production of The Miser is faithful to that core revelation of Molière’s wry fable, it sparkles with a sneaky glee — even through two layers of adaptation (Ranjit Bolt’s Anglicized translation of 2001, further updated to contemporary Canada by director Antoni Cimolino). Guarding not only his briefcase full of Canadian $100s, but every absurd knick-knack in his Victorian horror of a house, Colm Feore’s Harper is the blazing star of this show; his alternating mania about Mammon and cluelessness about everything else send everyone around him into their own eccentric orbits. The household servants — ne’er do well Fletcher (a phlegmatic, sly Emilio Vieira), butler/secret lover Victor (Jamie Mac, confident and bewildered in turn), and chef/chauffeur Jack (Ron Kennell in full clowning mode) — alternately brazen their way through Harper’s whims and unleash their frustrations on each other; matchmaker Fay (Festival stalwart Lucy Peacock, in what amounts to a well-deserved star cameo) puts on a show of managerial competence for everyone else while gingerly fumbling with Harper like he’s about to explode; love interest Marianne (an empathetic, determined Beck Lloyd) stands up for herself and her mother appealingly, even as Harper and his son Charlie scrap over her like kids on a playground.

The characterizations of Charlie and Harper’s daughter Eleanor were what struck me as the weakest part of this production. While Qasim Khan and Alexandra Lainfiesta hit the right notes of frustration and futility (aided by the campy thrift-store chic of their costuming), their amped-up desperation comes across as shrill and brittle. The struggle between a serenely ignorant father and his deprived yet somehow spoiled children — the heart of the play’s satire — is where Cimilono least trusts Molière to connect. Instead, he crams gratituous Boomer vs. Millenial references into both the program notes and the script, saddling Charlie with a petty consumerist materialism and Eleanor with a string of cliche “woke yet broke” slogans. It has to be said that Khan and Lainfiesta sell this material with all their considerable ability; but for me, the insistence on painfully present-tense content is what keeps a funny production from crossing over into the hysteria that Molière generates when played with trust. There are plenty of simmering chuckles and outright hoots here, but not as many unstoppable guffaws as I had hoped for.

That said, this production of The Miser (complete with an over-the-top fairy-tale ending that does retain its hilarious impact through the layers of updating, as David Collins’ wonderfully deadpan Sir Arthur Edgerton sticks the landing) had the Festival Theatre audience in stitches, attested by the generous, heartfelt ovation for Feore and his supporting cast. If you can peer through the alternately opaque and overripe references to “the next Bezos” and “the land of Tim’s” (oh, and Harper’s distrust of safes — they attract the FBI as well as burglars!), you may well find yourself reflected in Molière’s unflattering yet strangely revealing mirror.

The Miser is currently in previews at the Stratford Festival Theatre. It officially opens on August 26th, playing through October 29th. Tickets are available at stratfordfestival.ca.

— Rick Krueger

fiction, History, Music, Republic of Letters

Live from the Stratford Festival

This is an exciting time for the Stratford Festival. In 2022, we reopen our theatres, honour the excellence of the past and embark on a new leg of our journey together. A fresh start: an opportunity to reassess ourselves in the world today, reaffirm what we value and take the best path to an extraordinary future.

This will also be a year to celebrate milestones: our 70th season, the 20th anniversary of the Studio Theatre, the 10th season of The Meighen Forum, and the grand opening of our glorious new Tom Patterson Theatre.

It’s fitting, then, that our season theme for 2022 is New Beginnings. Our playbill explores the difficult moral and ethical decisions a new journey entails: What is the best way to start again? How can we avoid the traps of the past? In an imperfect world, what is good?

From Shakespeare’s most iconic play, Hamlet, to the American family classic Little Women; from the great Nigerian Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman to such captivating new plays as 1939 and Hamlet-911, we offer you stories about navigating a new start in life.

Antoni Cimolino, Artistic Director, Stratford Festival

Since 2004, my wife and I have been regular visitors to the Stratford Festival in southwestern Ontario. We’ve fallen in love with the Festival’s unbroken ethos across 70 seasons — dynamic, top-level performances by a dedicated repertory company of classics by William Shakespeare, Molière, Anton Chekhov, Berthold Brecht and others, as well as substantive, appealing musicals and fresh, often experimental works by today’s playwrights. We’ve also fallen in love with the city of Stratford; set in the heart of Ontario farm country, it combines picturesque architecture, unique shops and eateries, and a stunningly beautiful park system along the Avon River and Lake Victoria. And the thought of everyone who’s trod a stage at the Festival’s multiple theatres, played a rock show at the hockey rink or busked for change on the streets (ranging from Alec Guinness and William Shatner to Richard Manuel of The Band and native son Justin Bieber) makes the place a performing arts lover’s dream.

Which is why it hit hard when, in the wake of the worldwide pandemic, the Festival’s 2020 season was cancelled and the 2021 season only went on under severe limitations and restrictions. It’s true that the summer of 2020 brought welcome YouTube screenings of the Festival’s ongoing project to film every play by Shakespeare (along with other archival videos), culminating in the online Stratfest At Home subscription service. But, a few days back at a local B&B, with a full season of 10 productions energizing the town around us, has served to remind me that there’s nothing like the real thing. And that experience is what I plan to share here with you.

Over the next few days, we’ll be attending Molière’s The Miser (currently in previews at the Festival Theatre), Shakespeare’s Richard III (at the new Tom Patterson Theatre), and Freedom Cabaret 2.0: How Black Music Shaped the Dream of America (at the TPT’s Lazaridis Hall). Look for reviews posted here ASAP after each performance. Whether you’re able to visit the Stratford Festival this season or in the future (or take in what it offers online), my hope is to capture at least a bit of the serious fun, the sheer emotional and intellectual sweep, the thrills, spills, heartbreak and heart’s ease — in short, the immersive, cathartic experience live theatre at its best can provide, and that the two of us have come to love and crave.

— Rick Krueger

fiction

Top-Notch Sword and Sorcery From A Prog Rocker

Skallagrim 2

Stephen Babb is best known as coleader, bassist, singer, and songwriter for venerable prog-rockers Glass Hammer. Now he can add “accomplished fantasy author” to his resume. He has just published Book One of a projected trilogy featuring the character Skallagrim, who also features in the two most recent Glass Hammer albums, Dreaming City and Into the Breach.

Let me say right off the bat how impressed I am with Babb’s writing ability. From the very first word, he takes the reader on a rollercoaster of a ride through a fully fleshed out world that includes demons, sorcerers, assassins, hideous Lovecraftian creatures, beautiful nymphs, and monstrous ghouls.

While the plot loosely follows the one outlined in Dreaming City, Skallagrim In The Vales of Pagarna is full of surprising twists and turns. Skallagrim himself is a very likeable and endearing character who endures tremendous trials and hardships on his quest to rescue a beautiful young woman he sees for just a moment before she is taken captive by an evil sorcerer. I won’t say anything more than that regarding the plot, because I don’t want share any spoilers. However, even if you’re familiar with Dreaming City, you will still be surprised with how this story concludes. 

Skallagrim 1

 

The underlying theme of the story is how Skallagrim, a lowly thief who suffers from amnesia, matures both emotionally and spiritually. In that sense, In The Vales of Pagarna is a modern-day Pilgrim’s Progress, albeit quite a bit bloodier! The obvious comparisons are to Tolkien and Lewis, but Babb has managed to come up with an original mix that includes the aforementioned H. P. Lovecraft and a bit of Moorcock. Like Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Christianity provides the framework for Babb’s fictional world, but it is never explicitly referenced. There are several episodes where Skallagrim is “surprised by joy” as C. S. Lewis would say.

Fans of Glass Hammer will rejoice to learn that the story from their The Inconsolable Secret album is deftly integrated into this new saga, and there are several “Easter eggs” sprinkled throughout. GH has long been a favorite musical artist of mine; now I have a favorite fantasy author as well!