Turandot and The Merry Wives of Windsor

Photo by Chris Young

I am looking forward to the week-end: live transmissions of Turandot on Saturday and then Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor on the next day.

Yes, I took on the job of researching both – listening to some of the famous arias for the opera and learning the three riddles that the Calif must answer in order to win the hand of Turandot.

And in the case of Stratford's The Merry Wives of Windsor I took a look at the plot and the major players and even some of the famous lines that I will have washing over me.

I am sure i have lived my life by the following quote: "Better three hours too soon than a minute too late."   (Ford, Act 2 Scene 2)

This is going to be the Thanksgiving week-end that I have always dreamed of.

Arta

After The Tempest

A depiction from Nicholas Rowe's
1709 edition of Shakespeare's plays
of the stage direction
of the opening of the 1674 adaptation

April 13, 2019

 After hearing that Rebecca and her two boys went to The Tempest, I was so happy. Just acknowledging all of the joy of seeing that performance and to know that someone else understands that it feels so good.  Or that it feels so bad, depending on one's love of this kind of theatre.

I did not know how I was going to describe Ariel’s costume to Michael. I was going to tell him that a sprite had been embodied in an pine cone, and so what he was wearing looked like the upturned outer plates or scales of an . His hair was swept back and tiny branch-like veins started in his eye brows and went diagonally back off the forehead into a mass of hair that looked like decaying material of the forest. At time I thought he was stealing the show – at least for me.

I had stayed up until midnight reading both “famous quotes from The Tempest” as well as everything that wiki had to say about it, which was a lot. Famous quotes can slow me down for they are just a few words and not in context so I was using my brain late at night. I thought I was going to have to graph out the plot, but as soon as I could think of these people all in different groups, I didn’t have to go to pen and paper.

As a seamstress I was taking great interest in Propspero’s (Martha Henry’s) cloak. And then when Propero’s other costumes were taken out of her dwelling and put on a line, I was laughing as were the people in the live audience. Such beautiful pieces but when worn on those buffoons, the clothes caused a lot of laughter.

As for the music, Wiki says “two settings of songs from The Tempest have survived … `Where The Bee Sucks There Suck I’ and `Full Fathom Five’.” The good thing about staying up late the night before the performance and filling my mind with more than it can contain is that at odd moments, out comes something I learned and I can feel giggles rattling up and down my spine.

Oh, I was a little disappointed that Miranda wasn't bare-foot, but the clothing of the fairies who came to visit made up for that little disappointment.

I loved the wind the sails during the opening tempest scene.  And I didn't get enough of Caliban.  What wonderful scaley make-up on him!  And his body -- magically acrobatic.

I stayed for a double feature. That is, I went back to the box office and bought a ticket for The Stallion. A lovely movie. I was thinking that Naomi might like it and then I thought maybe the Carter-Johnson guys would like it, though it has a different pace and mood.  Not an action film. The photography is spectacular.

Arta

More on The Tempest

Martha Henry in The Tempest, 
a Stratford Festival on Film play 
being shown across Canada at Cineplex. 
DAVID HOU / CALGARY

Here is the Calgary Herald's review of The Tempest which is playing tomorrow, April 13, 2019.

If I were to have some questions from the review ready for anybody accompanying me to the theatre tomorrow it might include these.

1. Describe the cape Prospero wears.

2. How old is Miranda in the show?

The first page of The Tempest, 
printed in the First Folio of 1623

from Wiki

3. What is the advice given to anyone who plays Miranda, given back in 1962 from actor Bernard Behrens?

4. How many people does the theatre in Stratford, Ontario hold?

5. Which Shakespearian show will Martha Henry be directing next year and how old is she?  (1/2 point for each part of the question.)

Even if you don't see the show, read the review for some fun.

And by the way, the show is only at Eau Claire tomorrow.

Arta

Stratford's The Tempest

For NT Live fans, this Saturday The Tempest is coming from the Stratford Festival. Here is what they have to say on their blog:

 Synopsis “Magic is in the air” (Broadway World) in the Stratford Festival’s latest production of Shakespeare’s final masterpiece, The Tempest, “an elaborate production with eye-popping costumes” (The New York Times) directed by Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino. “ 

The real magic and grandeur come from Martha Henry as Prospero” (The New York Times). She is “one of the true greats” (Chicago Tribune), giving a performance full of “passion and power” (The Globe and Mail). “She’s riveting from her first moments on stage” (Postmedia). “The poetry emerging from her lips is something to behold” (Now Magazine). This “elegant production” (amNewYork) is “embarrassed with fine performances” (Toronto Star). 

Sébastien Heins as Ferdinand and Mamie Zwettler as Miranda
in The Tempest.
Photography by David Hou.

Befitting the play’s origins as the original sci-fi story, the production features “spectacular stagecraft” (Postmedia) and is filled with “giant monsters and sparkling special effects” (The Globe and Mail). “Seeing it is a joy” (Toronto Star). 

Cast Martha Henry, Graham Abbey, Michael Blake, Sébastien Heins, Tom McCamus, André Morin, Stephen Ouimette, Lucy Peacock, André Sills, Mamie Zwettler

The Globe and Mail offers a review of the show.

This is a play that is unfamiliar to me, so I will do a brush up on the plot from Wikipedia.

Arta

The Adventures of Pericles - in retrospect

I liked relying on Rebecca to do all of the pre-show work for me. In Victoria, she used to teach us the connections between all of the characters, have 10 famous quotes from the show taped to the door between the living room and the dining room and she would do a synopsis of the show as we were eating our meals together.

Now I have to do all of that on my own.  I went to the work to do it, even printing out a list of the characters and taking it with my on my early morning walk, memorizing their names and functions from my who is who in Pericles.

Since one of the reviews said that this was a mediocre play, well acted, I had the bar set low.  I wasn't expecting much -- just thinking I was putting in time by seeing some acting from Stratford.

When I got to the theatre 15 minutes early, only one patron was sitting there.  I went over to her to speak to her.  Tonia told me that if I am looking for friends to go with me on these adventures, perhaps it would just be easier to find those friends among people who are already there, since their presence would already tell me they are interested.

So I looked the person in the eye, and instead of saying "How many people do you think will be here today", I said, "How lovely to find you here today.  Do you remember me from the library?"

"Happy Birthday to you
You are 400 years old
I still like to see your work
37 and that's just the plays."

"Of course, Arta", she said, "I know you.  I am here, alone.  It is Shakespeare's 400th birthday, so in honour of that, I decided to see how many of his 37 plays I can see.  That is my new bucket list."

Why didn't I think of doing that?  I could make a list of how many of the plays I have seen, and how many I have yet to see.

Last year's The Winter's Tale and now The Adventures of Pericles are surely among the plays less performed and harder to access.

And Hamlet?  Now really, I can't count the number of times I have seen Hamlet:  for sure twice last year and once this year.

When I get a moment, I am going make my own list.  It will be short.  I will  probably have about 27 more to see.

I forgot to take this selfie with Kelvin at the theatre.
I only remembered after he left.
Perhaps at Butterfly I will get both of us in.

I was pleasantly surprised, enjoying this play much more than I had anticipated.

I don't know if it is the fact that the unusual conventions now seem common -- is it that familiarity that makes me comfortable?

The Greek chorus is a less used form in modern plays (though it is a delightful trop in the musical, Legally Blonde).  The careful wrapping up of all of the threads in the conclusion seems heavy-handed nowadays.   But I enjoyed it yesterday.  Relished it, really.   And the miraculous events:  a waterproof coffin making it to shore, people who should be dead, found living, a riddle which when solved would cause death to the person who solved it.  All of that is perfectly acceptable to me now.  I think my willing suspension of disbelief may be out of control.

Rebecca called me about an hour after the play was over for me.  Alex and she had gone to see it in Victoria.  She had felt too sick to go, but he is the one who didn't want to miss it.  I laughed when he reported that the shipwreck scene almost made him feel sea sick.  I had the a similar engaged feeling when Marina ran at one point to the end of the stage and looked far ahead.  There was the sound of sea gulls and on cue, my mind added the sound of the water, the smell of the salt, the long shore to either side of her.

The play's the thing.  Whoops.  Too much Hamlet.

Arta

Hamlet, Review

"Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well."

The BWW review uses the word electrifying when reviewing Stratford's Hamlet.

Kelvin and I saw the  HD Encore last night.

Kelvin said that he wished he had brushed up on the play.

I saw it twice last fall, the version with Benedict Cumberbatch.  Now Jonathan Goad, a Canadian actor, starred in the role of Hamlet.

There were highlights in the play.  One of them was the fushia tights and the heeled shoes of the play-within-the-play king.  I couldn't keep my eyes off of those legs.

Ophelia was lovely; Gertrude played with depth.

The solioquys seemed to be changed.  I think it is the body language that is added that brings a different meaning to the words.  Old, yet new.

I love the interaction with the audience.  And for the first time, while watching Hamlet, I found myself laughing with delight over how delicious some of the lines were.

When the play ended, I too was saying, "Goodnight, sweet Prince."

Arta

King John - An Afterward

Graham Abbey as Phillip the Bastard

Rebecca chatted with me this afternoon, saying she spent some time last night studying the Coles Notes of King John, and then she sketched out for me, who the characters were and how they were related to one another.  This is a play where a person needs to arrive at the theatre with a geneaology chart in hand.

I would have been lost without all of the work she had done.

What kept my interest is that the King John of this play is the King John of the Magna Cartra and the King John of Robin Hood fame, even if he appears in the wrong century in that folk tale.

She helped me out by reminding me that at the time of this play, England owned some or France.  And further, the fact that the Pope and King John were fighting and that the rights of the church had been withdrawn for all of the English parrisonners had become a political problem.

What is a tragedy without a poisoning, a good sword fight, some evil intrigue and family life gone wrong.  This play had it all.

An obscure play?

Yes.

But a good way to celebrate the 800th Anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta.

For the sake of Duncan and Alex who were on tap to see the play tonight, I will try to do some of my top picks of the evening.

1. I thought the delivery of the lines was beautiful.  So clear and articulate.
2. The pitch, pace and pause of the body language -- letting the audience really get the jokes.
3. Audience interaction? Phillip the Bastard having an audience member hold the decapitated head of someone who had been killed off stage.  I would not have wanted to be assigned that seat for the play.  And those bleacher seats at Stratford didn't look as comfortable as the uphostered seats in our theatre.
4. How did you like the lines,  "Thou weare a Lyons hide, doff it for shame / And hang a calves skin on those recreant limbs"?
5. The drumming seemed so Shakespearian, as did the singing.  And what a high tenor voice on one of the men!  That was a surprise lyric.

Arta

King John - HD Live

Shakespeare's King John is being shown tonight on HD Live at some theatres. The title of the review in the Globe and Mail Reveiw says  of King John: "Cheeky lead performance enlivens Shakespeare’s justly obscure play".

If that isn't enough, you can read what the Toronto Star has to say.

Here is a plot synopsis from the promotional material:

War is the inevitable result when the King of France demands that John relinquish his crown in favour of his nephew, the young Prince Arthur. Excommunication, attempted atrocity, rebellion and assassination all contribute to a political and personal turmoil that finds devastating expression in an anguished mother’s grief for her son.

Enjoy the show.  I am sure I will.

Arta

King Lear

Colm Feore as Lear

Bernard LaMarsh told Kelvin he would like to go see King Lear.

Bernard told Kelvin that he is not sure how accessible it would be to him, since he has never studied Shakespeare.

 I have been thinking about that dilemma off and on – how in the first 15 minutes of the play it is hard to throw myself back into the sixteenth century language.

I have usually done some homework and at least refreshed my memory with the plot – the names of the characters and the major families represented in the play. And I try to get the places in my mind where scenes might happen ie, the castle, the moor, the edge of a cliff.

But all of the above doesn’t seem to be enough in the initial scenes and I worry that this is all going to get by me and I won’t know what happened. And I won’t deny that I have to work the whole play – keeping myself on the edge of my seat, since there are no subtitles to help me along.

At any rate – the play? Exquisite. We had some technical difficulties in our theatre. The play didn’t start automatically as it was programmed to, so we were 20 minutes late – though it did start at the beginning. Then three other times the projection went down and we had a black screen. Don’t you just hate it when that happens at home. At the theatre we had all come too far, had set aside this time too many weeks ago, to get up and leave. But I was laughing at that tremendous amount of energy that gets let down, just as we are climbing to a high point in the play and then it is over. Or at least interrupted. And then interrupted again. Nothing like getting an audience coalesce over their collective desire to keep the action going.  I could feel an internal giggle when we had an interruption and I heard a male voice yell out, "Whose got the control?"

I have forgotten how much fun Shakespeare’s fool is. He just about out shone Lear. Well, I shouldn’t say that for not much can be better than watching a figure in a play get older and then make foolish mistakes. That is how I feel. Better to see someone else making those poor judgements on screen, than to have any eyes turned on me as I make my own.

I adored the play. The scene at the cliff is amazing. And having never been to Stratford for their Festival, it was a joy to see inside of the theatre and to get a tour backstage during the intermission.

As to the question, was the play being accessible? I was thinking that Bonnie could even take David. Kids get out of these performances what they can – so why deny them that. Yes. Young and old. There is a place for you at King Lear.

Watch for the Encore, March 7, 2015

Arta