Thursday, Sept, 11, 2008
NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ontario -
As I was just saying, 9/11 had been on my mind, as it has been on this September Shaw Fest trip since 9/11/01. That year, the trip was set to leave on 9/12. (If you've heard this story before, my apologies.) During the uproar of that day at the PG, whenever I had a chance to think, I assumed that we would cancel - for one thing, the Canadian-U.S. border had been closed. But during the course of that afternoon, those who called our travel agency, Gulliver's, said they hoped we'd continue.
So we did -- I think only one person cancelled. The border had reopened. The line up of trucks as endless, but they had a lane just for buses and we had only about an hour wait. In NOTL, we have never been so welcome -- it seemed that every Canadian had a special fondness for Americans that weekend. Between plays, we watched the TV coverage unfold on both U.S. channels (Buffalo) and Canadian. And before a matinee, as I wrote the following week, then artistic director Christopher Newton "spoke eloquently about the essential connection between art and life and then led us in ‘O Canada,' ‘The Star-Spangled Banner' and a communal silence. As the tears flowed, the words of our national anthem have never before felt so right."
That memory returns every year at this time, especially when I'm here on 9/11, as I often am. Unfortunately, I slept late today (that all-nighter took its toll), so I never heard until it was over about an early-morning memorial service at the bell tower.
Instead, I started the day reading Robert Cushman's fine appreciation of Richard Monette in the National Post. I know Robert's work because he's one of the most thoughtful, scholarly Canadian theater critics, and I met him when I engaged him as a panelist on Canadian Shakespeare in 2006 when I organized an American Theatre Critics Association conference at Stratford and the Shaw. His feeling appreciation brought back Monette, whom I'd interviewed a couple of times. I especially enjoyed his casual irony, so lacking in any self-aggrandizement or pretension.
Today was my delight, a three-show day, starting with the Shaw's "lunchtime" special, a one-act play that almost every year turns out to be one of the hits of the season. In the past, I've always made it an optional extra, since not every theater-tripper is as gluttonous for theater as me. But this year I included Ferenc Molnar's "The President" ("The CELO" would be a better title) in the package and instead made the matinee ("The Little Foxes") the option, and the group couldn't have been happier.
I'd heard the previous night it was pee-in-your-pants funny, and when I told that to my wife this morning, she gave me the obvious advice: "pee beforehand." I'm glad I did. This is a slick a 59½-minute comedy as I've seen, in which a masterful business man completely remakes a scruffy young man into an ostentatiously fir husband for a rich young woman who's been in his charge - completely, from underwar to haircut, from employment to club memberships, from name to heritage. What a joy.
About "Little Foxes," I was less ecstatic. It ran into the two casting problems that you sometimes find in rep companies. Since they cast from a limited company pool, even one as large as it is here, they sometimes have to compromise. And since it's a rep company, they sometimes lack the starry individual you need for a great role.
In this case, that meant an actor too young and without the sympathetic gravitas (that faded Southern gothic quality) needed for Horace, the dying husband - when Stratford did it in 1996, Horace was played by Brian Bedford!) -- and another too old for the teenage daughter. And although competent, Laurie Paton never showed the incisive glamour and command that are needed for Regina, famously played over the years by the kind of actress who needs only one name, like Tallulah and Bette, or by Elizabeth Taylor or Martha Henry.
Of course Lillian Hellman's play bears up just fine, a sterling melodrama pitting voracious capitalism against fading southern gentility. As such, it fits right into the general theme of capitalism and morality that unites everything we're seeing -- especially with Shaw's "Mrs. Warren's Profession" ahead of us tonight!
In fact, this morning I ran into a woman who has been on other PG theater trips - we always encounter other Pittsburghers at the Shaw, more than at Stratford - and I asked her if she were seeing "An Inspector Calls." No, she said, she'd seen that famous London production and didn't need another look at "that left-wing propaganda"! If she objects to the Biblical morality of "Inspector Calls," I expect much of the rest of the festival is making her uncomfortable, as well.
By the way, we've made it a rule on our trip not to talk politics, because of course we don't want to come to blows. But you know, it just keeps coming up anyway, indirectly. Art is like that - it just keeps commenting on real life, no matter what we do to stop it.
Posted
Sep 12 2008, 04:58 PM
by
Christopher Rawson