Shaw Fest, second day: on marriage and all that

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ontario; late Thursday -

 "After the Dance" sticks with you. Even a day later, after Bernstein, Comden and Green's "Wonderful Town" and Shaw's "Getting Married," the rediscovered Rattigan is still churning in my head. I'm struck by the note on the Shaw Fest web site, quoting British director Dominick Dromgoole, who connects Rattigan with Wilde, Maugham and Coward: "punished for the direction of their hearts [they were all gay, but mainly hid it, of course], [they] revenged themselves on the society that oppressed them by becoming the foremost chroniclers of that society for 70 years." You can add Evelyn Waugh to that list, not that he was gay, or not actively so. Christopher Newton, director of this production, connects the cultural malaise revealed in "After the Dance" to that satirized in several brilliant novels by Waugh.   

[I love the Shaw Fest programs. That for "After the Dance," for example, includes a director's note by Christopher Newton (of special interest because he was Shaw artistic director, 1980-2002 -- and he's been invited back, which tells you something of his standing); a three-page essay by John Bertolini, who has written a book about Shaw and is working on one about Rattigan; a note on the "lost generation," the Bright Young Things of the ‘20s, with quotes from Gertrude Stein, Waugh and James Laver; a brief note on the play's production history and a longer one on Rattigan; and 12 pictures of this production, two of earlier ones, two of Rattigan and eight of the contemporary world of the play - in addition to the usual bios and pictures of the large cast, etc. It's a trove of good stuff. The only company that gives you anything like this much in Pittsburgh (but without all the pictures) is PICT.]

"Wonderful Town," set in 1935, shares its historic moment with "After the Dance," set in 1938. The difference is that the musical is placed in the exotic bohemian backwater of Greenwich Village, USA, where no one's thinking of politics or the world situation. Comden and Green's witty lyrics are full of references to the forgotten news flashes of the ‘30s, but it's just decorative trivia. The desperate party-goers of "After the Dance" don't talk (and try to avoid even thinking) about the larger world, either, but we sure do, knowing they're going to be swept up in World War II within a few months. But in the distant USA, the war was several years further away. It feels like a colorful, fictional backwater, just the place to set a musical comedy entertainment.

There was an understudy slip in the "Wonderful Town" program, and I was initially distressed to see it was for the star, the feisty older sister, Ruth. But then I saw that the understudy was Deborah Hay, who's so strong as the desperately gay/tragic wife in "After the Dance," and I brightened up. I'm sure Lisa Horner, who normally plays Ruth, is very good - there's usually a reason one plays the role and the other understudies. But Hay more than holds her own against the sunny pulchritude of Chilina Kennedy as her sister, Eileen.

There are a half-dozen actors in common between "After the Dance" and "Wonderful Town," including Neil Barclay, so potent as the truth-talking parasite in the first and capable enough as the colorful Mr. Appopolous in the second. Savoring different performances by the same actor on the same visit is one of the special pleasures afforded by repertory theater.

Then on to "Getting Married," the relative disappointment of our Shaw Fest trio. The popular objection to Shaw is that he's more polemicist than playwright, happy to turn great swathes of stage time into a three-dimensional lecture on the topic of the day. I invariably defend him against this charge - his dramaturgy is generally pretty solid, even though he and his characters sure do like to talk. But "Getting Married" really is awfully static, rich in interesting characters, but stultified with debate.  

The subject is marriage, of course: on the day of a wedding, bride and bridegroom get cold feet because of the antiquated legal status of marriage in 1908 and the relative impossibility of divorce. She objects that the law gives all rights and power to the man; he objects to the same, which means that he can be sued for libel for the platform pyrotechnics of his politically crusading wife-to-be. So the wedding is put on hold, the guests twiddling their thumbs in the church, while all her large family and in-laws, including her bishop father, are back in the caterer's room, carrying on a grand debate on marriage and even trying to write a new marriage contract from the ground up.

That's funny enough, and Act 1 is stimulating, with the wonderful Shavian savant figure of the greengrocer (played by the consummate Michael Ball) showing more wisdom than all his social "betters." There are two other couples (one potentially a trio) with their own objections to marriage law, and we quickly realize there is no possible way to reform the institution to accommodate human variety. Indeed. I came away convinced that the mind-boggling divorce statistics of today are not proof of the failure of marriage so much as the necessary condition of its continuation.  

 But Act 2 gets lost in digressions and side debates and a couple of other characters who just don't hold the same interest, except for a deliciously dry and disapproving lawyer turned priest. For once I agree the brilliant Shaw talks his way into a theatrical morass. He does find the inevitable solution, though: the young couple slips off, makes its own deal and gets married quietly, returning to allow all the disputing relatives and unseen wedding guests to enjoy the reception.

Taken together, the three shows we happened to see out of the 11 on offer at the Shaw form a sort of seminar on the relations between the sexes, especially marriage. (You can see how other 2008 offerings would contribute: "Mrs. Warren's Profession," "A Little Night Music," "The Stepmother," "The Little Foxes," etc.!).

Best of all, I finally got that incessant "Maa-aaame!" out of my head (see yesterday's journal). In its place I have mainly the jaunty "Christopher Street" number from "Wonderful Town" - soon to be replaced by something from "The Music Man," which we'll see at Stratford.