The closing performance of Nick Green’s Dinner with the Duchess on September 28th was a major moment for Stratford’s small but mighty Here For Now Theatre. In front of an audience quietly packed with some of Canadian theatre’s biggest stars, the low-key company closed out their 2024 season with a truly superb performance of a brilliant play that they developed and debuted and is already scheduled to go on to run at one of Toronto’s most prestigious theatres come the new year.
It was a remarkable moment, a rare one, shared with just the small group of people in a tent behind a small town museum at a 4pm matinee. It was the company’s last performance in the tent where they built their sterling reputation before they, like Dinner with the Duchess, move on to the next big thing. Here For Now will open their new official theatre space for the 2025 season and, while the intimacy of the tent is promised to remain, it’s certainly an end of an era when the dissonance of the calibre of the work and the informality of the theatre made every second feel like an improbable privilege.
Green’s play was the perfect choice to cap off the season and say goodbye to Here For Now as it has heretofore existed. An intricate character portrait that neither convicts nor exonerates its subject, Dinner with the Duchess showcases an extraordinary central performance from the versatile Jan Alexandra Smith (whose directorial work appeared earlier in the season) as a retiring violinist with a complicated reputation. Kelli Fox’s direction is detailed, swift, and sensitive, forefronting Green’s enchanting dialogue and the complexity of his silences in equal measure.
Like Casey & Diana before it, Dinner with the Duchess is a towering achievement, further cementing Green’s place as the Canadian playwright of the moment. The taste, sway, and follow through of Here For Now’s work developing the piece, programming it, and partnering with Crow’s Theatre on this standout production is the best yet testament to the strong foundation that will keep them steady as they grow. It was an honour to visit the tent one final time, dining with the duchess at the moment when everything changes.