The Stratford Season

Performing Arts & Entertainment in Canada, Wntr, 1999 by Karen Bell

This season the Stratford Festival brings together works from several centuries as Shakespeare, Jane Austen and 20th century gang warfare vie for attention on the festival's trio of stages.

Man's lust for power and wealth are recurring themes this season. The Tempest showcases two masterful actors, William Hutt as Prospero and nephew Peter Hutt as Caliban. Here the wronged master triumphs and forgives his enemies, while Shakespeare slyly reminds us that the audience holds the ultimate power in any theatre. Real-life husband-and-wife team Martha Henry and Rod Beatty play the ultimate ambitious couple in Macbeth while Henry takes on directing duties for Richard II which has Geordie Johnson in the title role of the monarch who is locked in a struggle for the kingdom with Henry Bolingbroke. The Alchemist, by Shakespeare's contemporary Ben Jonson, is a cheerful production featuring Benedict Campbell, Diane D'Aquila and Keith Dinicol as a merry trio of con artists out to fleece the greedy. It's a bawdy play with a colourful cast of characters, all of whom crave wealth - the easy way.

Critics of the festival's practise of staging big-budget musicals can't fault this year's choice; in a 20th century version of Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story makes its Festival debut, directed by Kelly Robinson with choreography by Sergio Trujillo.

Jeanette Lambermont directs the stage adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice with Lucy Peacock as Elizabeth and Geordie Johnson as Mr. Darcy.

Also on stage, Sheridan's School for Scandal and two Canadian works - a delightful chamber musical, Dracula, with book and lyrics by Richard Ouzounian and music by Marek Norman [see PA&E vol 32 no 2] and David Young's Glenn, a less successful investigation of the complex personality of Glenn Gould. Although having four actors play various aspects of the great man's tortured psyche is interesting, the play lacks drama.

To complete the lineup, Brian Bedford plays Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream, joined by Seana McKenna (Titania), Diane D'Aquila (Hippolyta) and Jordan Pettle (Puck). Diana Leblanc directs.