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charloweenI had a plan today to do a proper post about all the theatre I saw this week, just like I planned today to figure out what to put in my presentation for when I defend my thesis*, and also like I'd planned to go back to the ACD archive and find more awesome stuff about post-war Holmes fans... but instead I've been sitting under a tree in Queen's Park, shivering a bit in the cold**, enjoying being outside on a day that isn't humid, stealing wifi and noodling on the internet.
I like parks. I like parks in rage of steal-able wifi even more.
*Playing the vids, mumbling something about Van Gogh, and finishing off with jazz hands is sadly not an option.
**IDK, there's almost windchill today. One thing you can count on in Toronto, it's wind.
So, while I'm here and while I'm typing: Stratford! I saw: Kiss Me Kate again this past Sunday (with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
firstgold!), The Tempest and As You Like It on Wednesday (with Mum and my brother) and we hung around Wednesday night so we three could catch Peter Pan yesterday afternoon.
Kiss Me Kate was just as fun as the first time. The lead actor didn't lose his voice part way through the second act this time, which was also good (I'm sure he was also pleased with this outcome). Sunday itself was grey and humid, so it took a while for the a/c to work on both the audience and the cast. The first act had a few mini-gaffes, including one involving trousers falling down. I'd have thought it was scripted, but a song that is supposed to be witty/sexy/chiding usually doesn't include that kind of clothing gag. Just like last time, I still have the songs in my head. *shakes fist* Darn you Cole Porter!
The Tempest was really, really conservative. Christopher Plummer was a good Prospero (as you'd expect), but I found the variety of tricks and effects distracting from what could've been a fantastic show. Mum and I have agreed to disagree on this. I say effects should be at the service of character, she keeps reminding me that it's a play about a magician so having single-use tricks and effects is both expected and necessary. (It's the same problem I had with Des McAnuff's directing job on Jersey Boys: I don't want to go to a show to be impressed by the size of their props budget. I want to go to a show to watch actors be in character and tell a story.)
As You Like It was the opposite of conservative. McAnuff was also responsible for this one, and again included single-use props/effects that added nothing to the show but distractions. Luckily, the cast was uniformly fantastic (Tom Rooney and Ben Carlson in particular always amaze me with their ability to spit out that dialogue like they grew up speaking Elizabethan English and doing so while acting - Rooney played both the usurped duke and the usurper duke). Andrea Runge was an excellent Rosalind. Everyone was great. Here. Have the show's site. Everyone listed was great. So great! I don't have enough exclamation marks and plus the wind is making the park get colder so I need to type faster.
The staging put the play in the 1920s, which was indicated by the bad duke's court being into fascism, the Forest of Arden being into butterflies and Dixieland jazz, and the show's design team being really into Rene Magritte. (No, really.) That last one relied on the audience knowing Magritte's work, but the cast (and the words! can't forget the words!) were good enough to maintain your focus even while there's a dude with a stag's head hanging out and smoking a pipe at the back of the stage for no discernible reason. I enjoyed this one the most, I think. I want to see it again.
Peter Pan was adorable. I haven't seen a stage version before, but I'm glad I finally have. They did a good job of letting some of the parts stand (Wendy as sister/mother/spouse/lover) and making it a production that kids and adults could both get into (pirates = always ftw). The flying was fabulous - the actors looked natural and comfortable and the rigs were absolutely invisible. Micheal Therriault (Peter!) has an incredible physicality and command of his body. He never telegraphed when Peter was about to fly, so when they're all fighting on the pirate ship and Peter takes off I was just as surprised as the kids in the audience. (There were a lot of kids in the audience. Probably a third of the seats had boosters in them.)
Two final things about Peter Pan: 1) J. M. Barrie was a character in the show, and there were a couple of visual/non-dialogue jokes around the permeable barrier between the narrator-character and the others (characters either refused to stay on stage, or joined the main action), 2) the final scene was very well done, with most of the set splitting in half and vanishing off-stage, and Barrie left on-stage looking at Peter who is still flying outside the nursery window. Nothing of the set remained but the window... it was very effective.
Nigel Bennett was in Peter Pan as one of the pirates, and Geraint Wyn Davies was in The Tempest as one of the clowns. Both listed Forever Knight in their bios. Hee!
This went longer than I expected, and now my hands are kind of cold. Thanks, Canada. (On a related note - and isn't everything? - Mum and I were talking about eating breakfast outside, and realized that in this part of the world there's only a few weeks in the year when it's both warm enough and not-humid enough to eat breakfast outside.)
I like parks. I like parks in rage of steal-able wifi even more.
*Playing the vids, mumbling something about Van Gogh, and finishing off with jazz hands is sadly not an option.
**IDK, there's almost windchill today. One thing you can count on in Toronto, it's wind.
So, while I'm here and while I'm typing: Stratford! I saw: Kiss Me Kate again this past Sunday (with
firstgold!), The Tempest and As You Like It on Wednesday (with Mum and my brother) and we hung around Wednesday night so we three could catch Peter Pan yesterday afternoon. Kiss Me Kate was just as fun as the first time. The lead actor didn't lose his voice part way through the second act this time, which was also good (I'm sure he was also pleased with this outcome). Sunday itself was grey and humid, so it took a while for the a/c to work on both the audience and the cast. The first act had a few mini-gaffes, including one involving trousers falling down. I'd have thought it was scripted, but a song that is supposed to be witty/sexy/chiding usually doesn't include that kind of clothing gag. Just like last time, I still have the songs in my head. *shakes fist* Darn you Cole Porter!
The Tempest was really, really conservative. Christopher Plummer was a good Prospero (as you'd expect), but I found the variety of tricks and effects distracting from what could've been a fantastic show. Mum and I have agreed to disagree on this. I say effects should be at the service of character, she keeps reminding me that it's a play about a magician so having single-use tricks and effects is both expected and necessary. (It's the same problem I had with Des McAnuff's directing job on Jersey Boys: I don't want to go to a show to be impressed by the size of their props budget. I want to go to a show to watch actors be in character and tell a story.)
As You Like It was the opposite of conservative. McAnuff was also responsible for this one, and again included single-use props/effects that added nothing to the show but distractions. Luckily, the cast was uniformly fantastic (Tom Rooney and Ben Carlson in particular always amaze me with their ability to spit out that dialogue like they grew up speaking Elizabethan English and doing so while acting - Rooney played both the usurped duke and the usurper duke). Andrea Runge was an excellent Rosalind. Everyone was great. Here. Have the show's site. Everyone listed was great. So great! I don't have enough exclamation marks and plus the wind is making the park get colder so I need to type faster.
The staging put the play in the 1920s, which was indicated by the bad duke's court being into fascism, the Forest of Arden being into butterflies and Dixieland jazz, and the show's design team being really into Rene Magritte. (No, really.) That last one relied on the audience knowing Magritte's work, but the cast (and the words! can't forget the words!) were good enough to maintain your focus even while there's a dude with a stag's head hanging out and smoking a pipe at the back of the stage for no discernible reason. I enjoyed this one the most, I think. I want to see it again.
Peter Pan was adorable. I haven't seen a stage version before, but I'm glad I finally have. They did a good job of letting some of the parts stand (Wendy as sister/mother/spouse/lover) and making it a production that kids and adults could both get into (pirates = always ftw). The flying was fabulous - the actors looked natural and comfortable and the rigs were absolutely invisible. Micheal Therriault (Peter!) has an incredible physicality and command of his body. He never telegraphed when Peter was about to fly, so when they're all fighting on the pirate ship and Peter takes off I was just as surprised as the kids in the audience. (There were a lot of kids in the audience. Probably a third of the seats had boosters in them.)
Two final things about Peter Pan: 1) J. M. Barrie was a character in the show, and there were a couple of visual/non-dialogue jokes around the permeable barrier between the narrator-character and the others (characters either refused to stay on stage, or joined the main action), 2) the final scene was very well done, with most of the set splitting in half and vanishing off-stage, and Barrie left on-stage looking at Peter who is still flying outside the nursery window. Nothing of the set remained but the window... it was very effective.
Nigel Bennett was in Peter Pan as one of the pirates, and Geraint Wyn Davies was in The Tempest as one of the clowns. Both listed Forever Knight in their bios. Hee!
This went longer than I expected, and now my hands are kind of cold. Thanks, Canada. (On a related note - and isn't everything? - Mum and I were talking about eating breakfast outside, and realized that in this part of the world there's only a few weeks in the year when it's both warm enough and not-humid enough to eat breakfast outside.)
