Shaw Festival an odyssey of enjoyment

By Burt Saidel

The Shaw Festival, held at Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, has been a beacon for fine acting and excellent theater in a splendid village atmosphere.  We have attended the Shaw for many years.  

The town is a few miles from the famous falls.  It sits among lakes, connecting rivers, vineyards and historic sites.  From our hotel, we see an historic US fort and a short walk takes us to Fort George, the contending British-occupied Canadian fort in the past days of the then two young countries.

The tourist atmosphere gently affects everything.  The town is replete with fudge, ice cream, fine restaurants and every conceivable shop to distract the theater lover.  To blunt this distraction, we generally schedule five or six plays in two or three days.  This leaves little time for crawling the tourist shops.

This year was especially fine.  The plays were wonderful and the weather a few notches beyond sublime.  Each day started with a long walk of several miles followed by a groaning breakfast board at our Inn.  

The rest of the day was taken up with performances and occasional peeks into the shops.  At the Shaw Festival, the works of George Bernard are featured.  

Complimentary plays of that rich period are also presented as well as a few works whose relationship to GBS could be questionable – but who cares!

This season we saw Shaw’s Saint Joan as our opening experience.  The life and times of Jeanne d’Arc have been dissected by authors, playwrights and opera composers for centuries. The crusty, irreligious curmudgeonism of Shaw makes his tale of the “Saint in spite of herself” a riveting and delightful contest of wits.

Shaw’s language, much like Shakespeare’s, can speak with incredible clarity when delivered by actors who understand the underlying layers of satire and irony.  The talents of the Festival casts deliver Shaw to perfection.  

Saint Joan was directed by festival artistic director Jackie Maxwell.  Featuring Tara Rosling as Joan, the play challenged actors and audience.  

Everyone knows Joan’s story.  No one has ever been able to figure out exactly who this country maid who saved France and lost herself was.  

Shaw’s terse dialogue is never meant to solve character problems but to enhance them.  In this Saint Joan, he succeeded magnificently.  Each character was well-rounded both historically and in the universal dilemma of right vs. wrong vs. expedient.  We sill haven’t solved that problem.  How can we expect a playwright, even GBS, to do so?

Next we saw a musical, Mack and Mabel by Michael Stewart and Jerry Herman.  The musical, revived from their 1974 version, deals with film pioneer Mack Sennett and his star/love Mabel Normand.  Well performed by all, the highly predictable and quite hackneyed play dwelt in my “definitely mediocre” category.

Next came an exercise in real theater.  Two one-act plays by Lady Augusta Gregory provided innovation as well as historical prospective.  Lady Augusta was a contemporary, friend and collaborator of Shaw.  She founded Irish playhouses, directed and wrote many plays and was a driving force in the works of many of the greats of Irish theater.  

Her double bill, titled The Kiltartan Comedies, was pure enjoyment and a sterling example of the power of a good play well acted.  Each play began with a stunning Irish ballad sung by Patrick McManus.  The power of the song illustrated the old saw about the Irish, “All their wars are merry and all their songs are sad.”

The first play was the confrontation of a policeman and a renegade Irish rebel.  The police sergeant is to guard the possible escape route of the fugitive by sea.  His assistants paste a placard offering 100 pounds for the capture.  This huge sum prompts wonder among the policemen.

Of course, the fugitive and the policemen meet, discover each other and react.  In spite of guaranteed riches and promotion, the sergeant shields the fugitive and helps him escape.  The complex admixture of loyalties and sympathies was spun out in brilliant dialogue delivered in low key but high power by Douglas Hughes and Patrick McManus.

The second play, Spreading the News, a side splitting comedy, follows the formula of such plays as Schnitzler’s La Ronde.  Each bit of action leads to a reaction.  In this case, a rumor becomes a fact and begets another fact and so on.  The play unfolds with much confusion and even more riotous humor.  Again, all is woven together with great acting and heart-rending song.

Ivan Turgenev’s A Month in the Country is a classic.  Russian masterpieces lend themselves so well to modernization and adaptation. Irish theater genius Brian Friel added ten adaptations of Russian plays to his thirty original scripts.  

A Month in the Country is not a comedy of manners like the British genre.  It is rather a family drama squeezed into the closely regulated life of the Russian gentry of the mid-19th century.  The family lives in remote opulence on a large estate.  Natalya and Arkady run their lives and their rich estate according to these established conventions.  

Resident in their aegis is a mother, a son, two tutors, a beautiful orphan niece and, of course, a lover and several hangers-on like lap dogs savoring the life of the wealthy.  What happens is not as important as the way it happens.  Love is the warp and convention the woof.  

The cast, uniformly brilliant, was led by veteran Shaw Festival star Patricia Hamilton. Costumes, set, ambiance, the total effect was, again, perfect theater.

The final play of our visit was a true comedy of manners.  Somerset Maugham’s The Circle follows some of the fugal progression described in Spreading the News.
The plot, complex and yet simple, deals with a mother who abandons wealth, position and her son to fly away to Italy with her lover.  The lover is also of the British establishment and like all the characters, filthy rich and very proper.

She returns after her three decade hiatus to meet her son and his wife for the first time as adults.  Her ex-husband has absorbed the decades of disgrace in his stride and looks on rather dispassionately.  

The son’s wife, played delightfully by the absolutely beautiful and marvelously talented Moya O’Connell, is full of romantic fervor.  What is subrosa is her own dilemma.  She has tired of her dull but very proper husband and is ready to duplicate her mother-in-law’s adventure with the handsome Edward.  What happens is, again, not as important as the fact that it is done according to the highest social standards!

Who knows what will be seen next year?  What is certain is that it will be well done and totally enjoyable.

The Long-Romspert Open House Sept. 29

Phyllis Miller, Lisa Kell and Harrison Goudy in period costume.

The Oakwood Historical Society is committed to the restoration and interpretation of the historic Long-Romspert Homestead located at 1947 Far Hills Avenue.  This project is undertaken to meet the growing educational interest in the Homestead as a “time capsule” of history spanning from the Civil War era to the early twentieth century (1865-1920) as America made its transformation from a rural to a suburban culture.  To find this in one structure is extremely rare and only serves to enhance the architectural and historical significance of the Homestead within our community and indeed within the entire Dayton area.

Restoration work on this very important site has already begun.  To showcase the work already completed, the Oakwood Historical Society is hosting a community open house on Saturday, Sept. 29 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Visitors are invited to see the stunning transformation of three rooms, hear the plans for the rooms yet to be done, learn about the history of this very interesting home of one of Oakwood’s earliest families, and experience how the Homestead spans two important centuries of American history.

The Long-Romspert Homestead is a hidden gem; the Oakwood Historical Society hopes you’ll come discover the treasure for yourself!

Vanguard Concerts’ 46th season opens Sept. 28

Vanguard Concerts opens its 46th season with a performance
by violinist Timothy Fain on Friday, Sept. 28 at 8 p.m. in The Dayton
Art Institute’s NCR Renaissance Auditorium.

A native of Santa Monica, Fain is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of
Music, studying with Victor Danchenko, and the Juilliard School, where he
worked with Robert Mann.  He currently resides in New York City.  Fain’s
family has deep Dayton roots.  His uncles, publisher Jim Fain and Judge Mike
Fain, can proudly claim Dayton’s newest musical heritage.

His program in Dayton will be:

Sonata in G major, K.379 WA Mozart

Sonata No. 3, S.62 (K.2C6) Charles Ives

“A Stream Than All More Strong” Patrick Zimmerli (written for Timothy Fain)

“Fantasy” Scherzo No. 4 in E major op. 54 Franz Schubert

Tickets are available at Hauer Music Company, Wright State University Center
Box Office, and at The Dayton Art Institute on the night of the concert
only. Tickets may also be ordered online at www.daytonartinstitute.org.
Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for students.  

For more information, please call Vanguard Concerts at (937) 512-0144 or (937) 298-6622.

Harp ensembles to perform Sept. 29

The Dayton Area Harp Ensemble and the Dayton Area Harp Ensemble Youth will be performing a Summer Delights Concert at the Seventh Day Adventist Church, 3939 Stonebridge Rd., Kettering, on Saturday, Sept. 29.

The free concert starts at 5 p.m. and a reception will follow. 11 harpists will be accompanied by flute, cello and percussion.

UD’s ArtBeat Festival Sept. 28

On Friday, Sept. 28, from 4– 8 p.m., the University of Dayton will host some of Dayton’s finest performing arts organizations for the fourth annual ArtBeat Festival. The entertainment lineup includes Dayton Contemporary Dance Company; a quintet from the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra; the Dayton Jazz Ensemble; and Rhythm In Shoes. Also featured will be “No Intermission”, a vocal group performing selections from upcoming shows at the Schuster Center and Victoria Theatre; SMAG Dance Collective; and selections from 365 Days/365 Plays by Suzan-Lori Parks, performed by UD theatre students.

The ArtBeat Festival will be held at ArtStreet, UD’s new living/learning arts complex, located at the corner of Kiefaber and Lawnview streets in the UD South Student Neighborhood.

“This year’s festival will help introduce UD students to the wealth of arts in Dayton, as well as draw Dayton community members to the UD campus. In addition to the performances, said Susan Byrnes, festival organizer and director of ArtStreet. ArtBeat will also host student and local artists selling their work, as well as student organizations selling refreshments to raise funds for charitable causes.

For more information on the ArtBeat Festival, or for directions and parking information, visit the ArtStreet website at http://artstreet.udayton.edu, call (937) 229-5101, or email artstreet@udayton.edu.

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September 25, 2007
Volume 16, No. 39

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