Stratford Festival: first day, sonnets and Shrew

STRATFORD, Ontario; Friday night -

Coming from NOTL to Stratford is like ascending from sea level to higher, cooler air. Not literally - Stratford's in the midst of farm country, with nary a breeze off the Great Lakes. But artistically, the view is grander, since this festival has a grander purview, concentrating on Shakespeare but also drawing on theater of all ages. (Acknowledging that focus, the theater this year renamed itself the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, as it was a half-century ago when it was new.)   

After the 2½ hour drive from NOTL, the intrepid among us opted for a matinee. Some went to "Hamlet," starring a fresh recruit from the Shaw Fest, Ben Carlson. I hear it's very fine, and if I can get back here later this summer, this will be one reason why. But I had opted for British star Simon Callow in "There Reigns Love," his own one-man version of some 75 or so of Shakespeare's sonnets.

 This was Callow's very first preview performance, so it's totally inappropriate to review what is still in the making. But of course the materials are magnificent - Callow, an imaginative actor with a comic bent as well as a fine mind and the instincts of a popular teacher, as his several books show; the sonnets, concentrating on those about the dark lady and admired young man, in which Callow (as many before him)  finds a half-sketch of autobiographical passion; the stage at the Tom Patterson Theatre, an elongated thrust with several levels, a podium, table, various chairs and a small inner audience sprawled on the forestage on pillows, through which Callow sometimes moves to stools beyond; and the outer audience, us, very much a self-selecting, Shakespeare-addicted audience likely to know the poems in advance.

Certainly I do, but it's still hard to hear such densely wrought material in such large swatches. Occasionally Callow talks about the material, and you can hear the audience's gratitude for his guidance, but mainly he moves passionately from sonnet to sonnet, even sometimes downplaying the final rhyming couplet of one to project himself quickly into the next.

(Simon Callow, left, teasing out a sonnet)

After the intermission, I was much more successful in staying in the flow of the moment, rather than letting my mind wander off on a thought just begun. In Act 1, the verse just seemed too rich and compact for theatrical presentation, but Act 2 proved me wrong - or perhaps (as so often happens in theater) I was now sufficiently warmed up to join the journey. Now, I'd like to see the whole thing again, when Callow also will have benefited from his shake-down cruise.

In the Stratford hotel elevator, between shows:

Man: You in from oot [sic] of town?
Me: Yeah. You usually are when you stay at a hotel.
[silence]
Me: [feeling that was kind of snotty] You too?
Man: Yup, from Hamilton.
Man's Wife, helpfully: But he's originally from Stratford, here for a golf tournament.
[Animated exchange about local courses.]
Me: I'm here for a weekend of theater.
[zero response]
. . . From Pittsburgh.
Man: Love those Steelers!

In the evening, we had a treat, a bold version of "The Taming of the Shrew" (at right).  

(More to come, as I keep figuring ot the software.)