Tag: theater

It Is a Glorious Thing

If you do not know that “Chariots of Fire” is my favorite movie, you do not know me.   https://oldladywriting.com/2019/06/04/run-your-own-race/ Once I saw it, I became obsessed with everything mentioned in the film, such as

  • Watching PBS, in the hopes of running into any of the actors who appeared in “Chariots”.  This was before BBC America, friends!
  • Watching the Olympics.  OK, I loved the Olympics since Moscow ’80.  “Chariots” didn’t do it singlehandedly, but still.
  • Wanting to go to England.  We had no resources to do that for a very long time.  Eventually I went to London for spring break of my senior year in college.  With my grandmother.  I repeat—with my grandmother.  If you do not know how fraught our relationship is, you do not know me.  But there is a happy end to this particular story—I have visited London many times since then, sans Grandma, and each trip has been an improvement.
  • Wanting to take “Sybil” for my middle name.  Sybil is NOT my middle name, because by the time I could acquire one, I had fallen in love with The Monkees.
  • Wanting to see all the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.
  • Wanting to have “Jerusalem” sung at my funeral.  I am saving this one for last.  Literally and obviously.

So, one of the many unexpectedly wonderful benefits of this great film is that it introduced me to the world of Gilbert and Sullivan.  And unlike my belated foray into running, this was instant.  In the movie, Harold Abrahams joins Cambridge’s Gilbert and Sullivan society.  Apparently, this is factual.  So snippets of the operettas are part of the soundrack—it is not all Vangelis.  I must confess, although of course—of course!—I bought the record, I am not a huge Vangelis fan.  I am generally not a fan of instrumental music.  Not going to classical music concerts is one of my small rebellions against my upbringing.  But I love musical theater.  I need words and a plot.

Over the past 40 years, I have only seen four of their operettas—the three BIG ones, and “Ruddigore”.[1]  It started with “HMS Pinafore”.  My high school, during a woefully depressed year when our millage did not pass, the school day was cut to five hours, and buses were cancelled (a disaster in rural Midwest), put “Pinafore” on in the choir room.  The set was minimal, if any, but the costumes were great, because all guys were dressed like sailors.  I recognized “He is an Englishman” from “Chariots of Fire” and was pretty excited.  I was also amazed at the vocal and acting talents of my peers.  The fact that I was generally unfazed by the immense inanity of the plot is a commentary on how limited my command of the English language was at the time. 

Literally no idea what’s going on

In short succession, my mother and I managed to see professional touring productions of “The Pirates of Penzance” and “The Mikado”.  I had high hopes for the latter because of its special part in “Chariots”—but either my English regressed or the plot is even more bizarre than that of “Pinafore”, because I did not understand it.  I have never seen it again. 

Not necessary

“Pirates”, however, was great!  “Pirates” is (or should it be “are”?) great!  The production we saw in Detroit in the early ‘80s was perfect.  I remember nothing about it except the lead.[2]   I think “Pirates” stands wonderfully well on its own merits.  It is a fun, light, colorful bit of cheery entertainment.  I am generally very open and even eager to see variations on the classical traditions—with certain exceptions.  Directors, please, do not mess with “Pirates”!

“The Pirates of Penzance” also happens to be my husband’s favorite musical.  Strangely, he does not care about the rest of the G&S body of work.  He just loves “Pirates”.  Specifically, he is obsessed with the Major General character. Even more narrowly, the “Modern Major General” song, and how quickly the actor can do it.  Fast-talking Major General equals great “Pirates”.  The Major General who is not fast enough just ruins everything for spouse. 

He also claims that he saw that touring production in Detroit and remembers the young blond lead.  To think that we could have met a decade before we did, at a Gilbert and Sullivan show!  It would have led nowhere, for a whole host of reasons, but it is kind of romantic to think that we might have been at the same theater event.  Happy World Theatre Day! 

[1] This is kind of shameful.  I know I had many other opportunities.  Once the plague is over, I should focus more on G&S…

[2] The actor who played Frederick in the touring production of “The Pirates of Penzance” subsequently returned as the lead in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”.  I like to pretend that I saw Andy Gibb in “Joseph”, but I did not. I saw this guy.  I wish I knew who he was, because he was great.  If anyone knows—please tell me.  This was before I started keeping show programs, unfortunately.

The Merry Wives of Stratford

Some years ago, I decided that I needed to complete the Shakespeare canon.  For a spectator like me, that means only seeing the shows, not acting in them or directing them (I laugh because this is true).  As I see several Shakespeare stagings every year, I am ever surprised by the universality as well as timelessness of his works.  I mean, after a few centuries, they are not dated (unless the director allows them to be, which is decidedly NOT the goal).  I am also occasionally surprised by how my relation to the various plays has changed over the years—the ones I thought I loved I occasionally outgrew, the ones I either did not know or did not much like I grew to appreciate more, and so forth.  As of this writing, I have five plays left to see, which seems like a shockingly large number considering how long I have been at it—so, if anyone hears of Henry VI being done anywhere, please let me know.  I do mean anywhere, I will travel for this!

I have deliberately been avoiding The Merry Wives of Windsor for years.  I glimpsed it once on TV, must have been on Masterpiece Theater, and I hated it.  It seemed like a lot of commotion of people running around in bonnets and pumpkin pants, laughing at jokes that made no sense, and the language itself was unintelligible to me.  It also had Falstaff, a character many like, but I kind of hate.  I just do not find him funny or endearing or charismatic in any way.  I just find him annoying. 

But, with so few plays left to complete the canon, and with Stratford Festival—the greatest theater in North America, if not the world—staging Merry Wives this season, I decided to bite the proverbial bullet.  Spoiler alert:  I am glad I did, but I am still not crazy about this play. 

Antoni Cimolino, the Artistic Director of the Festival who directed the play, set it in 1953.  It was the year the festival was founded by Tom Patterson.  Is it weird that I immediately thought that it was the year that Stalin died?  Seems like it was a much more carefree year in Canada than in the USSR, but maybe not so much when it came to women’s rights.  Frankly, though, I did not find the story to be too offensive in the #MeToo era.  Falstaff is lecherous and pushy, but easily confounded and disarmed.  Mr. Ford is jealous not like Othello, but like Moliere’s clueless and pompous husband characters.  The women outsmart and outplay the men with ease, plus great humor and spirit.  So, I am inclined to just view this story as a harmless farce rather than a statement on gender relations.

And what a farce it is—but I am not against farces.  I am an easy laugh, but what of it?  A peculiar mix of Monty Python and I Love Lucy is not the worst to which a comedy can aspire—and achieve.  In this particular production, the stars of Stratford are out in full force.  Brigit Wilson as Mrs. Page is just the most luminous wide-eyed Lucille Ball impersonation ever, and I mean that in the best way possible.  The incomparable Geraint Wyn Davies is possibly the only Falstaff I can stomach, and he actually made me feel sorry for the fat buffoon at the end.  Aww, Geraint with that sparkle in his eyes, his Falstaff exuding the benign mirth that reduces the creep factor almost to zero!  And Lucy Peacock as Miss Quickly is channeling the comic relief housekeepers straight out of the Soviet comedies of the death-of-Stalin era, whose kerchief, ankle boots like my grandmother would wear, and intermittent snacking made me feel all warm and fuzzy and nostalgic.  Ben Carlson, as the Welsh parson, is the funniest I have ever seen him be–and Ben is usually witty funny, not ha-ha funny, so this was a joy to behold.  When he agrees with Mr. Ford that Falstaff in drag as the old woman of Brentford must be a witch because she has whiskers and a beard, I died laughing!  (I use this phrase to excess; I guarantee you will see it again.)  Graham Abbey as Mr. Ford, while very funny as well, is basically Tartuffe’s Orgon, whom he played on the same stage two years ago. It is not his fault that this part is so similar—after all, I have seen Geraint Wyn Davies play Falstaff before, which is literally the same character.  I am just saying it was not a surprise, that’s all.

The Monty Python theme plows through the play in the character of Dr. Caius.  Gordon Miller plays him essentially as the French Taunter from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, complete with pronouncing every letter in “knight”.  When you hear it, you just can’t unhear it.  He even throws in John Cleese’s silly walk.  It’s all very funny, but a bit much, including the exaggerated French accent that is at times utterly unintelligible, although every second word is “bugger”. 

So, I walked out of the theater not feeling that I saw a Shakespearean play.  Is that necessarily a bad thing?  I do not think so.  I laughed a lot, I had a good time, and that is a value in itself.  The fact that a comedy written 400 years ago still retains the humor of a much more modern piece is astonishing.  When Antoni Cimolino mentioned that Merry Wives has funnier jokes than Neil Simon he was not kidding (see what I did there?).  If there was a deeper message, I might not have gotten it.  But, in the words of John Cleese’s Pope in the Penultimate Supper sketch, “I may not know much about art, but I know what I like!”  

P.S.  E.B. Smith needs to have a bigger part in this play, and really in every play.