Outdoor theatre reviews: Romeo and Juliet, The 39 Steps
This summer’s al fresco offerings include a delightful adaptation of a spy classic and an atmospheric version of a Shakespeare tragedy
Outdoor theatre season is upon us, and you know what that means: uncomfortable seating, insects buzzing around, heavily altered text, iffy sound systems and porta-potties instead of real theatre washrooms. Plus the ever-present chance of Mother Nature cancelling the show with a sudden downpour.
But seriously, at its best, there’s nothing like al fresco theatre: it’s relatively cheap and accessible. And there’s something so lovely about being engrossed in a show as dusk slowly transitions into night.
Canadian Stage has been presenting Shakespeare in the High Park Amphitheatre for over four decades, and there’s always been something to recommend about each production. This year, with Marie Farsi’s staging of Romeo and Juliet (Rating: ✭✭✭), there are several things.
I really enjoyed Farsi’s use of Italian canzones to set the mood. (Olivia Wheeler is the sound designer and composer.) They’re often sung as lively duets between actors Matthew G. Brown and Diego Matamoros, who also moonlight as Friars John and Laurence, at parties or receptions. This production’s opening brought to mind the beginning of The Godfather which, come to think of it, felt appropriate for a show about warring families and vendettas.
But there’s also a really soulful moment when Juliet (Lili Beaudoin) turns on the radio near the end and listens to a mournful Italian song to comfort her in her increasing isolation.
Beaudoin, based out west, is a real find as one of the star-crossed lovers: ardent, eager, open to the possibilities that love is about to show her. She speaks Shakespeare’s lines with spontaneity and intelligence, grounding every word with a gritty naturalism and yet rising to the poetry as well. We see her grow immensely, even in this truncated version, from naive girl (although Farsi has upped up her age) to a desperate young woman who feels betrayed by all around her.
Her early scenes with Romeo (Praneet Akilla), when they’re discovering something they haven’t felt before (and expressing it in language), are among the production’s best. It’s too bad Akilla hasn’t given his character more shading. Early on, he’s amusingly nerdy, halting and charming in his line-delivery, but — and here I’m not sure if it’s the actor or the director’s choice — he doesn’t evolve much. His character’s quirks become mannered and meaningless.
The casting throughout feels similarly uneven. Dan Mousseau’s Mercutio — Romeo’s bestie — is so quick-witted and nimble his mouth can barely keep up with his brain’s rapid-fire thoughts and poetic fancies. Tybalt (Ziska Louis), on the other hand, his opposite number in the Capulet camp, comes on like a raging wildcat from the start and never changes. It’s the definition of a one-note performance.
Farsi has made some interesting edits. Romeo’s parents are gone, making the family feud a little uneven. And she’s beefed up Brown’s part so that he essentially acts as a narrator, which helps move things along swiftly, especially as the plot points come together in the latter half.
Besides the eponymous couple, the play is dominated by Mike Shara’s Capulet, who’s a mix of contradictions. Initially he’s a goofy dad who loves his daughter and is chummy with the Montague bros; he invites them to his soirée and, as they’re leaving, finds a way to retrieve the booze Mercutio has tried to take without ruffling any feathers.
But as his plan to have Paris (Daniel Krmpotic) marry Juliet develops, he hardens into the very picture of toxic masculinity. His booming, bellowing presence in the second part of the play is harrowing.
What’s so strange about this production is that with all of Farsi’s cuts, the ending feels protracted and drawn out. There’s a nice bit of scenery transition as Juliet’s bedroom turns into the Capulet vault. (Logan Raju Cracknell’s lighting here adds lots of mood to Sim Suzer’s set.)
But like the bad timing of the lovers’ plans, things feel off in the pacing of the production’s finale. And for some reason, Wheeler’s score sweeps in like the ending of a cheesy melodrama, a jarring conclusion to an otherwise fine show.
Romeo and Juliet continues at the High Park Amphitheatre (1873 Bloor St. West) until August 31. See details here.
Hitch yourself to The 39 Steps
Patrick Barlow’s The 39 Steps (Rating: ✭✭✭✭) has been entertaining audiences around the world now for two decades.
Why so popular? This murder mystery — adapted from both the Alfred Hitchcock thriller and the John Buchan novel it’s based on — features a dramatis personae of dozens but a cast of only four. It relies on swift direction, skillful comic acting and some good old-fashioned stage ingenuity to tell its twisty tale of intrigue and adventure.
It’s 1935 London, and 30-something bachelor Richard Hannay (Sébastien Heins) is at the theatre when the woman seated next to him, one Annabella Schmidt (Georgia Findlay), shoots a gun into the air and asks to go home with him. Claiming she’s a spy, she says she caused the disturbance to evade assassins who were after her for uncovering some plot in Scotland involving a mysterious man missing a joint in his pinky finger.
The next morning, Hannay finds her dead, clutching a map of Scotland, a knife plunged into her back. Now the prime suspect, he’s soon evading the police and the actual murderers and heading up to Scotland to see if he can untangle the plot that got Annabella killed — one that might threaten the safety of the free world.
The joy of this play comes not from the plot — which pretty much invented the concept of the MacGuffin — but from the endlessly inventive ways of dramatic storytelling. Director Tyler J. Seguin makes us savour everything from chases atop speeding trains to baddies hovering under lampposts. There are also lots of amusing Easter eggs for Hitchcock fans.
And the actors, helped by stage manager Kiera Doerksen Smith, sound designer Ashley Naomi and costume designers Carmen and Alex Amini, do lots of work bringing the sequence of events to life.
The dashing Heins proves a great comic and physical performer, and he has a terrific push-pull chemistry playing opposite Findlay. The latter, a gifted emerging actor new to me, has a radiant presence and disappears into her roles as Margaret, the younger wife of a Scots crofter, and Pamela, whom Richard meets a couple of times and tries to convince of his innocence.
It’s up to Isaiah Kolundzic and Kiana Woo to play everyone else, a challenge they rise to marvellously. One of the play’s big set pieces sees the two quickly changing into newspaper boys, policemen and train inspectors, and it alone is worth the price of admission.
At just under two hours, including a brief pause in the middle, the play goes on a little too long. But that’s quibbling. The way Seguin and his terrific cast make use of every inch of the Guild Festival Theatre’s magnificent Greek Theatre, complete with grand columns, is inspired.
There’s no venue like it in all of the GTA. Before the show you’ll definitely want to walk around the grounds. And speaking of steps, the area is only a couple hundred of them from a TTC stop. New this year is something called Theatre in Transit, in which you can get in the mood for a play with a special shuttle (full of dramatic offerings) to and from either the Kennedy TTC Subway Station or the Guildwood GO Station. Details are here.
The 39 Steps continues at the Greek Theatre at the Guild Festival Theatre, 201 Guildwood Pkwy, until August 3. See details here
Coming up: a review of Charlotte Runcie's new Edinburgh Fringe-set novel Bring the House Down, plus reviews of the Mirvish extension of the massive Crow’s/Musical Stage Company hit Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 and the national tour of Back to the Future: The Musical.