The 1982 Stratford Festival

Commentary The 1982 Stratford Festival KEITH GAREBIAN The very best productions were not of Shakespeare : one was a bright, zany send-up of The Mikado, another a sparkling rendition of Arms And The Man, and the third, a robust rendition of Blithe Spirit. The very best acting came from one who will probably have to beg to be given roles such as Macbeth and Richard III - roles admirably suited to his expansive talent while lesser lights, such as Len Cariou and R.H. Thomson, were thrust embarrassingly into parts which they laboured like Procrustes to cut down to their talents. The Shakespeare 3 Company, established expressly for the purpose of developing a new company whose training could be refined and expanded in the classics, failed to show what they had learned from either the senior members of their group or from Kristin Linklater, their highly reputed voice coach. Collectively, they were on a par with a mediocre university drama club, although there were a few performers who stood out. Audiences stayed away in droves from Brian Friel's brilliant play, Translations, and had to be virtually bribed into attending Mary Stuart by the seductions of a two-for-one deal at the Avon. The much-publicized Primavera Quartet failed to perform - yet another victim of our absurd cultural politics, when one of its members was denied a work permit. The high-spirited but uneven production of The Merry Wives of Windsor played to a half-empty Festival Theatre at the Guthrie Benefit - a shocking indignity to the memory of the long-departed Titan of the Stratford adventure. And John Hirsch, in his second year as Artistic Director, failed to show that his artistic vision had great depth and coherence when he gave us two mountings that were seriously damaged by uneven acting and an approach that was, in one case, excessively melodramatic and, in the other, needlessly tinselled with the glamour of a fairy tale. The Mikado was the first runaway hit of the season. Susan Benson and Douglas McLean designed a set of golden bamboo and black, with a huge, graceful Japanese fan opening upstage; the scarlet scarves, pennants, and panoply of the Mikado's grand entrance in Act 2 was a spectacle to revive even the most jaded Savoyard connoisseur. Brian MacDonald directed for full parodic effect, taking anachronistic liberties with the lyrics and mixing choreographic and acting styles with zany aplomb. The geishas and male chorus made much ado with fans and kimonos, and the stagehands, attired in Oriental black and red, somersaulted in and out of the wings with gymnastic gusto. There was high gloss lacquer to dazzle amid the corn, and highlights 102 came with old Katisha's sinister appearance near the end of Act 1 (Christina James splendidly decayed in everything but her fine contralto); Eric Donkin's wonderfully grave parody of love-sickness in the Titwillow Song; the bass baritone of Gidon Saks' Mikado; the mournfully "merry madrigal" at a very Western tea-party with Yum-Yum, Nanki-Poo, and Ko-Ko; and the delicately fragrant "Braid The Raven Hair" at the opening of Act 1. Not that other moments were scanted. Despite the flourish of kimonos, fans, and parasols , and the cherry blossom settings, the operetta is nothing but Western parody at its broadest. The Mikado is really an imperial English aristrocrat, and the chorus of pretty maids is nothing but a coterie of coquettes who know the most Occidental tricks. The lyrics and songs are obvious parodies of Western music, and MacDonald's cast got full value for their mimicry, especially in the frontier hoedown with Katisha and Ko-Ko, and the gay pastoral fling with Pooh-Ba, Ko-Ko, and chorus. Assisted by a costume of extravagantly mixed ethnic touches - with a gigantic padded dragon sash and Italianate pantaloons - Eric Donkin was a splayfooted , shuffling Lord High Executioner, and he was more than complemented by Richard McMillan's towering, haughtily silly but nimble-footed Pooh-Bah, made to look like an ostrich with a caricature of a face. While their singing was a thing of shreds and patches, their comedy was sheer licensed lunacy (or lunatic license), exploiting every visual...