Stratford has to have at least one big, impressive, serious classical play a year. 2007- Lear, 2008-Hamlet, 2009-Macbeth, 2010- Tempest, 2011- well, 2011 didn’t have a big tragedy but Twelfth Night was so good and Richard III (in the Tom Patterson) was such a big deal that they made up the difference. In 2012, it’s […]
Stratford’s new musical commission is nothing short of delightful. As I expected. Robert Service (whose poems form the lyrics and whose story loosely inspired the piece) is a Canadian treasure, both populist and prolific, leaving us with the legendary Cremation of Sam McGee among so many others. Beloved director Morris Panych conceived the musical and […]
Hirsch is the studio production thrown into the Stratford 2012 season at the last minute. It doesn’t really belong in a tangible way, but it’s about an eccentric former Artistic Director, so why not? Alon Nashman is great as John Hirsch- an inarguably fascinating figure in Canadian theatre and the world at large- and I […]
I was pretty sure Elektra would be my least favourite thing at Stratford this season. I’m not big on the Greeks (not that I’m against them, they’re just a tough sell and almost always directed by crazy people who want to make everything into a Very Meaningful Movement Piece). I’m most certainly not someone immediately […]
I haven’t seen the full season of Stratford Festival fare yet but The Pirates of Penzance is one of very few things so far that’s thrilled me. I loved it. I went in fond of but aware of the flaws in Gilbert & Sullivan’s work, and specifically the technical insanity of trying to stage Pirates. […]
I may have mentioned this a couple times, by I’ve never really been a Danial MacIvor fan. He’s a beautifully poetic playwright but I haven’t found his stories compelling enough to carry his poetry. That said, I loved The Best Brothers. It has a story simple enough to be told coherently and fully in one-act […]
“I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?” -Benedick to Beatrice (IV.i) The 2012 Stratford season isn’t very good. 80% of the reason I say that is Much Ado About Nothing. There are places to improve Henry V, Charlie Brown, The Matchmaker and so much else, but they […]
“Even if I have to dig ditches for the rest of my life, I’ll be a ditch digger who once had a wonderful day” – Cornelius Hackl, the brightly optimistic heart of Stratford’s uneven but partly adorable oldschool comedy. I was highly skeptical of The Matchmaker, knowing that it would be even more dated than […]