One of the great pleasures — or is it agonies? — of being a theatre critic is to try to find a link between several shows being reviewed in the same column. Linking two Shakespeares or two Chekhovs is easy. But try a wild, unruly, challenging modern tragedy at one of our most important Canadian theatres (the Tarragon) and a poorly written and directed, not-very-funny time-waster at Mirvish’s Royal Alex? Now, that’s a toughie.
The far more interesting work is Forests by Wajdi Mouawad. This Lebanese-born Quebec director and Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama winner has written plays performed around the world. The brilliant and devastating film Incendies is based on his play Scorched, which was recently nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
This phenomenally daring play is similar to Eugene O’Neill (at his best) crossed with the detective-story nature of Oedipus Rex or Citizen Kane. The audience is forced to piece together dozens of strands of familial and national horrors from several countries around the world. Some of Canada’s most respected performers (David Fox, Alon Nashman, Liisa Repo-Martell, RH Thomson and others) play many parts each, not always successfully. But they do their best to present a modern tragedy, one that struggles to capture over a dozen decades of wars, genocide and ugly secrets.
I can’t say that I found Forests to be a complete success, but it gave me much to think about. To be moved by a dozen scenes of such beauty and power, my head is still spinning.
It’s at the Tarragon Theatre until May 29 and, unlike 95 per cent of live theatre today, it raises questions, fears and concerns that deserve airing.
What a writer this Wajdi Mouawad is! And, when Tarragon’s artistic director Richard Rose is at the top of his game, as he is here, what a thrill to see so many flashes of greatness.
For more information, go to www.tarragontheatre.com.
Calendar Girls at the Royal Alex misses the mark
Theatre critics must often pull back and put the rocket launcher away when a fly swatter will do. Calendar Girls, at the Royal Alexandra Theatre until May 28, is a stage adaptation of a minor, quickly forgotten movie from 2003 starring the wonderful Helen Mirren and Julie Walters.
The plot revolves around a ladies’ group in Yorkshire, England, that chooses to pose “strategically nude” for a wall calendar to raise money for a neighbourhood hospital when one of the woman’s husbands dies from leukemia. Fine. But does it make for an enjoyable evening of theatre?
It’s nice that David Mirvish has chosen to cast most of the play with some of our best-known (Fiona Reid) and most-talented (Barbara Gordon) Canadian actresses. But the script, direction and downright-ugly set are not up to snuff.
The Yorkshire accents are dreadfully forced, making many of the big laughs unintelligible to most of the audience.
Lines like “We’re not posing naked; we’re nude!” are not funny or insightful, and the image of middle-aged women having to get drunk in order to pose without their clothes did nothing for this obviously humourless reviewer.
The second act suffers greatly after the “tension” of the struggling-to-maintain-some-dignity-in-posing-nude scene at the end of the first act, and that’s a shame.
For more information, go to www.mirvish.com.
