A sound not often heard during a Shakespeare play is shrieking — from the audience anyway.
Snores are rather more common.
But I heard several loud yells at a recent performance at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, an idyllic theater haven especially frequented by upstate New Yorkers, Michiganders and Chicagoans.
The noise came from a little boy in the front row of “Othello” in the close-quarters Tom Patterson Theatre. In the first half, the young man was audibly terrified by the violent tussle between Roderigo (Rylan Wilkie) and Cassio (Jordin Hall).
“AHHHH!,” he howled as he clutched his mom for dear life.
Later, at intermission, an amused man in the bathroom line cracked to me, referencing what was yet to come between jealous Othello (André Sills) and innocent wife Desdemona (Krystin Pellerin), “If he thought that was bad, just wait for the second half!”
Stratford, North America’s largest repertory theater and one of the last few remaining, is brilliant at eliciting such big responses — from ages eight to 98. Classic tragedies tend to be more upsetting than usual, and comedies far funnier. At the fest’s best, there is an earthiness to the acting that gets performers and audiences blessedly out of their heads. Concept, more often than not (see: biker gang “Macbeth”), doesn’t snuff out rich, vibrant characters.
In that respect, director Haysam Kadri’s “Othello” couldn’t have been further apart from the sleep-aid, wallet-robbing Broadway revival a couple seasons back starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal, which had the stiff posture of a long history play. The only screams there were caused by the $900 ticket price.
This vastly superior production begins at a stratospheric level of intensity and never relents, with a ritualistic set of ancient-looking stone arches that could host a gladiatorial fight to the death. Sills has a real right-off-the-battlefield vigor as boiling-mad Othello, and Evan Buliung is the best sort of evil Iago. He’s got a come-hither energy, and seems like a perfectly decent fellow… right until “I hate the Moor” spurts out like bubbling green acid.
And as his conspiratorial wife Emilia (and as Helena in the fun-enough “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”), Jessica B. Hill delivers some of the most striking and memorable acting of the entire season.
Fizzier, and with squeals instead of shouts, is an Easter-egg-colored “The Importance of Being Earnest” over at the proscenium Avon Theatre, the very same space that delivered Broadway’s last revival of Oscar Wilde’s play starring Brian Bedford back in 2011.
There was a gravitas to that superb production that this separately lovable one, directed by Krista Jackson, unceremoniously rejects. This time is more like “The Importance of Being A Juvenile Delinquent.” I say that because posh schemers Jack (Joe Perry) and Algernon (Carter Gulseth) read especially youthful and feisty here — not quite 2026, but not specifically Victorian either.
Their lively chutzpah (especially that of the terrific Gulseth, who reminded me of a more buttoned-up John Early) butts heads perfectly with Fiona Reid’s side-eyeing Lady Bracknell — a role that’s rather too frequently played by men now. The eviscerating actress has a martini-tinted, half-hoarse voice as the vicious wealthy aunt that, without resorting to camp, gives off a hilarious chill of “I hope to never serve this woman brunch on the Upper East Side.”
In the same theater is a young-audience production of “The Hobbit” that is only suitable for the youngest of kids (let’s say, the shrieking sort) and locked-away grownups who have somehow never heard of J.R.R. Tolkien and “The Lord of the Rings.” While the “Leave It To Beaver”-quaint stage play has existed for a long time, these days Middle Earth is not a place to venture unless you have $20 million or so to throw at it.
Back in the Festival Theatre, however, no expense has been spared in the final Shakespearean production at Stratford of artistic director Antoni Cimolino. It is appropriately “The Tempest” — a dramedy written toward the end of the writer’s life that is very much about accepting the past while facing an uncertain future. Can’t imagine why a departing leader would pick that one!
During his successful 14 years in the top job, Cimolino gained a reputation for magicking plays that audiences admired into ones they cherish — particularly tricky romances like last season’s “The Winter’s Tale” and “Cymbeline.” They rank with some of my favorite Shakespeares I’ve seen anywhere.
Island-set “The Tempest” is more famous than those two — who doesn’t love a beach? — but is no less complicated.
Stratford’s features one of the most massive sets the Festival Theatre’s hosted in ages, with a gigantic central rock that rotates to reveal nooks and crannies, and a washed-ashore piano downstage that rings of Salvador Dali. Ariel the sprite (who’s a bit much here) crawls out of it.
Atmospherically, this “Tempest” is very cool and transportive. There’s a dance of Godzilla-size jellyfish and a freaky sequence that flirts with horror, another useful tool in Cimolino’s box.
While this staging can fall a little too eagerly into the play’s natural episodic natures — partly because of that spinning stone that practically announces, “And now, another scene” — there is a warmth here too, of sun and of heart.
The role of Prospero is usually played by Geraint Wyn Davies, a muti-faceted Stratford regular who’s able to be both regal and jovial. A Falstaff or a Claudius, depending on what side of the bed he woke up on. That appealing mix makes him a smart fit for a staging that wisely wants to shrug off some of the sorcerer’s grandeur that’s calloused over the centuries. But just as well-suited, if differently so, is Davies’ understudy I saw — Ben Carlson, a tremendous actor I’ve admired since I first saw his Hamlet in Chicago, ugh, 20 years ago.
Carlson brings a natural wit and fighting spirit to all his roles — be it Danish prince or Benedick. Here, though, he finds a dad wrestling with regular dad problems while dealing with his growing daughter Miranda. OK, only so regular as a powerful magician who has enslaved the monster son of a sea witch can be, but certainly more relatable than usual.
He powerfully grounds an otherworldly staging that is at its best during the funny bits, namely the antics of Alonso, Stephano and Sebastian. And in the end, while the waters were a tad choppy at times, I was ultimately moved.
The other side of Stratford, which has its own devoted fanbase, is its lovely musicals, most of which are helmed by the talented director-choreographer Donna Feore. What unites a “Tempest” with a toe-tapper is their shared thrust stage’s intimacy means actors don’t have to wail to the sky or ham it up to hit the back row.
That easy connection is a godsend for musicals, which when allowed to go too far, can board a Carnival Cruise ship real quick.
It was definitely a boon for 2024 season’s big hit — Feore’s “Something Rotten,” the bonkers Broadway comedy in which a (fictional) contemporary of arrogant Shakespeare, Nick Bottom (Mark Uhre), invents the musical. That dazzler, which the festival improved upon, is back and funnier than ever, with the original cast mostly intact.
I’m especially fond of Dan Chameroy’s Python-esque Thomas Nostradamus, a second-rate soothsayer who accidentally prophesies, well, “Seussical” in a gut-busting showstopper. Also great is Henry Firmston as Nick’s guileless brother Nigel. He’s a J. Pierpont Finch from “How to Succeed” only sweeter and in a tunic.
Feore’s other more traditional show is “Guys and Dolls,” which she last staged in a pretty close version in 2017. This new iteration, though, is better and fresher.
That’s thanks to a galvanizing “Crapshooters’ Ballet” into “Luck Be A Lady” (a Broadway producer would be smart to scoop up the star dancer Devon Michael Brown) and a tight new cast.
As Miss Adelaide, Jennifer Rider-Shaw is very sneaky. She turns “Adelaide’s Lament” into a singing striptease — as befits a stripper — by methodically revealing what a knock-out voice she has.
And the luminous Olivia Sinclair-Brisbane makes a wonderful Sarah Brown. Rather than simply sharp-turn from a stern Salvation Army worker to a woman besotted with a smooth gambler, there’s always a flicker of a romantic beneath her militant uniform. She works as hard to spread the good word as she does to hold back her inner fun-loving flirt.
There’s a gorgeous moment during the song “I’ll Know,” this show’s “If I Loved You,” in which Sarah softly imagines her faraway Prince Charming when he’s standing right in front of her.
Or, in this case, behind her. Dice-game king Sky Masterson (I saw the tender understudy Alex Kelly, who has electric chemistry with Sinclair-Brisbane) stands upstage of Sarah. So they are unable to see each other. Then, midway through the number as he begins to duet with her, she glances back in startled surprise — as if almost to say, “You sing?”
It’s a stunning split-second of remarkable sensitivity that not only kicks off her attraction to Sky right away, but subtly shows her maybe he’s not the guy she thinks he is. And, as Feore so often does with her musicals, the move makes us wonder if 75-year-old “Guys and Dolls” is not the show we thought it was either.
Stratford just announced its next season this week — the first for new artistic director Jonathan Church of England.
His inaugural lineup includes, among other shows, the musicals “Mary Poppins” and “Chicago” and Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” “The Merchant of Venice” and “The Taming of the Shrew” and “Present Laughter” with Eric McCormack from “Will & Grace.”
And Church will make his festival directing debut with Hilary Mantel’s Anne Boleyn dramas “Wolf Hall” and “Bringing Up the Bodies.”
Shriek it with me: O brave new world!
