STRATFORD 2000
“Right on!”
Tesse (à la QAF): Lau… we’re doing
it! We’re really doing it!
So after twelve hours on train
from New York to Toronto and another two hours driving from Toronto, Lauren and
Tesse arrived in the small town of Stratford, Ontario. Way too exhausted to do
much sightseeing, we crashed at a lovely small motel and fell promptly to sleep. Friday was pretty boring, really.
Travelling for fourteen hours straight… not fun! Train food, cranky babies,
cramped seats… not good. Pretty scenery, though. Not enough to make up for the
twelve hours, but pretty nonetheless.
Lau: And now it is time for my semi-regular
thanking of God for glasses.
Saturday, on the other hand, was
heaven. Stratford is a lovely community, with a lake called the Avon River
(thus making the town “Stratford-upon-Avon”… ha-ha! J ) We
spent the morning wandering around like… well, like American tourists. Shopping
downtown, a boat ride on the lake to watch the foliage… Just gorgeous. It set
the Day Of Theatre off to a wonderful start.
Diane D’Aquila (as Elizabeth I, to Brent
Carver’s Ned): You have the talent and body of a god.
2:00 found us at the Tom
Patterson theatre. Elizabeth Rex, a new 
play
by Timothy Findley, played its final performance, and we were lucky enough to
have front row seats for this incredible event. The plot of the play is at once
complex and simple: Queen Elizabeth I (played perfectly by Diane D’Aquila),
seeking distraction on the eve of her former lover’s execution, commands a
performance of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. After the play, she
goes to the barn where Shakespeare and his company are staying, and begins
clashing with the "Beatrice" of the evening- a man named Ned who is
slowly dying of syphilis. At the very moment when Elizabeth most needs to feel
like a woman and let her feelings surface, Ned needs to be a man and face his
upcoming death with courage. Since each has taken on the traits of the opposite
sex, the two strike a bargain: Ned will teach Elizabeth how to be a woman if
she can teach him how to be a man. Like onion skins, layers are peeled away
until the bitter core of monarch and actor is revealed: they both have been
betrayed by the men they’ve loved. Elizabeth’s Robert tried to raise a
rebellion against her government, and Ned spent only a week with his captain
before the soldier died, leaving him terminally ill. By the time the fateful
cannon blast sounds, announcing that history as we know it has come to pass,
both have revealed more of their souls to each other than they could to any
lover.
The performances in the play
were simply shattering, with Mr Carver, Ms. D’Aquila, Scott Wentworth, 
and Peter Hutt standing out in the
leading roles of Ned, Elizabeth, Jack, and Will Shakespeare (Aaron Franks, as
Ned’s bear, was also quite impressive). We’d never seen an audience leap to
their feet so quickly when the actors appeared for curtain call. Timothy
Findley’s script is tight and heart wrenching while always keeping a sharp
humourous edge. It was one of the strongest plays we’d seen in years. If there
is any justice in the world, PBS and CTV will be broadcasting this production
all over the place. It deserves to be seen by everybody.
After Elizabeth Rex, we
stopped off at a florist’s to purchase souvenirs… and flowers! Naturally, we
each chose a lily to send backstage. It only seemed apropos. J Lau
wrote a lovely note thanking Mr Carver for all of the magnificent performances,
and we arranged to have them sent backstage before the next show.
At 8:00, we went to the enormous Festival
Theatre to catch Fiddler on the Roof… one of the classic
musicals of the 20th century. So, Mr Carver went from playing a
female impersonator to playing Tevye, that Jewish patriarch of patriarchs, in
one day. Quite a stretch.
Fiddler was an equally wonderful production, and
many kudos need to go to Susan Schulman for her magnificent and powerful direction.
Naturally, Mr Carver’s performance was excellent, turning Tevye from a mountain
unwilling to give in to the winds of change, to a reed who can only twist in
those winds and hope for the best. It was a revolutionary interpretation of the
role, and beautifully executed. Barbara Barsky, as Tevye’s long-suffering wife
Golde, was equally powerful, and their duet “Do You Love Me?” was an emotional
high point of the show. The choreography was top-notch (the dancing in
“L’Chaim” was another highlight), the acting was superb… the entire production
just flew. This is another Stratford show that needs to go the way of The
Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado and Dracula and be
broadcast or released on video. It will certainly become a definitive version
of the classic.
After Fiddler, Lau and
Tesse went to the stage door to wait for Mr Carver and (hopefully) get
autographs. We were in luck- he’d received our lilies and Lau’s beautiful note,
and was willing to sign our programmes and chat for a few moments. It was a
very gracious gesture, and the icing on an already excellent cake. Apparently,
his favourite phrase is “right on!” It certainly summed up the weekend! J
Sunday morning dawned with a
gorgeous fog over Stratford and the surrounding areas… gorgeous, that is, until
we tried to drive through the bleeding mess. Tesse nearly crashed the car
umteen times, and spent much of the drive back cursing like a sailor. We
reached Toronto, but took a wrong turn and wound up lost downtown. With Lau’s
navigational skills, we found our way back to the train station, but not before
swinging by the Bluma Appel theatre… where Kiss of the Spider Woman
premiered, and where Larry’s Party will be presented in January.
Coincidentally, or perhaps not so, we found the train station right after. Good
vibes, perhaps? We caught our train back to New York, and sat for twelve hours.
No one should ever have to suffer through twelve hours of Amtrak- it’s
considered cruel and unusual punishment in some countries. But we survived, and
as we’re still speaking to each other, we’ve proven Tesse’s pre-departure
comment that Lau must be the most patient human being alive. J
And so, until the next excursion
to catch Larry’s Party… we already miss Canada!
Other Notable
Quotables
Tesse: Lau, quelle heure a-t-il?
(What time is it?)
Lau (trying to read her watch): Two twenty... thirty... forty...
Brent (entering, as Ned): SHIT SHIT
SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT!!!
Peter Hutt (as William Shakespeare): You’ll wear yourself out with
shitting, if you're not careful.
Brent (as Ned): I near fell off the
God-damned rutting stage!! In front of the the God-damned rutting Queen!! You God-damned rutting bitch!!
Brent (looking through our programmes for a
place to sign): Where’s the bear? I wanna sign on the bear!
Lau: No fishing for yoooo-ooouuuu!! (You
just had to be there!)