Reviews 2000
Reviews 2000
✭✭✭✭✩
by Noel Coward, directed by Dennis Garnhum
Shaw Festival, Royal George Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake
July 14-September 10, 2000
“The Impact of a Full-Length Play in Just One Hour”
“Still Life”, part of a cycle of ten one-act plays Noel Coward presented in 1936 under the title “Tonight at 8:30”, is better known to the general public as the basis of David Lean’s classic 1946 film “Brief Encounter”. The Shaw Festival production not only gives us a rare chance to see the play on stage but it also turns out to be one of the finest shows of the season. The lunchtime show comes in at just under an hour but is so richly detailed it gives one the feeling of having seen a full-length play.
The story concerns an affair between a married man and woman as shown through five meetings they have in the refreshment room of the Milford Junction train station from their first chance encounter to the realization of their love, to a spat and agreement they must part for the sake of their spouses, to their final goodbye. It is the story of two decent people caught up in a grand passion who know both the joy it gives them and the pain it will ultimately cost. This affair is contrasted with two other affairs going on among the staff at the station. The flirting between the refreshment room manager and a ticket collector as it moves into a steady relationship is the comic parallel to the main couple as the manager periodically worries whether the ticket collector considers her a decent woman. So, too, to a lesser degree is the relationship between a male refreshment vendor and a waitress whose cheerful affair is overshadowed by the death of the girl’s grandmother. The three stories taken together along with the interruptions brought about by additional visitors to the station provide a portrait of the interweaving of joy and sorrow in human life that is almost like a miniature version of Coward’s epic “Cavalcade”.
This is the kind of play the Shaw company does best and it is superbly cast, designed and directed. Simon Bradbury and Jan Alexandra Smith as the central couple, Dr. Alec Harvey and Laura Jesson, are excellent. Bradbury assumes his most serious role to date with such mastery that it is hard to believe he was once one of the chief farceurs at the Shaw. Unlike so many who attempt the change from comedy to tragedy, Bradbury successfully channels the energy he used to put into farce into the conflicting emotions of his character. Jan Alexandra Smith makes a welcome return to the Shaw. The role requires her constantly to communicate two opposite feelings--one outward, one inward--expressing confidence while feeling doubt, attempting small talk while her life is collapsing around her. Hers is an extraordinary performance in every way.
Nora McLellan as Myrtle Bagot and Neil Barclay as Albert Godby, the main comic couple, are also excellent--Barclay for his irrepressible jolliness and McLellan for her airs of personal and professional propriety in running a fine dining establishment despite all evidence to the contrary. They show the nuanced gradations of how a friendly banter can change into something of more substance. Blair Williams as the vendor and Jenny L. Wright are very fine as the second comic couple--he, a common happy-go-lucky fellow in complete contrast to his role as the title character in “The Doctor’s Dilemma”, she as an innocently cheerful girl who becomes increasingly preoccupied (as we later discover) with her grandmother’s ill health.
The minor roles are all well taken--Susie Burnett as a series of customers both male and female, Bruce Davies and Douglas E. Hughes as two rowdy soldiers giving Mrs. Bagot a hard time and Jane Perry as another station worker. Special mention must be given to Laurie Paton as Dolly Messiter, a friend of Laura Jesson, who arrives just when she and Alec are saying their final goodbyes. The scene is exquisitely managed as Paton’s character carelessly rambles on oblivious to the tragedy unfolding in her midst.
The play is simply but effectively dressed and set by designer Barbara Gordon, evoking both period detail and the passage of time. Jeff Logue has provided the lighting so effective in setting the shifting moods of the play and imaginative in the use of projections to help trace the passing of the months from meeting to meeting. Dennis Garnhum’s direction draws such natural and detailed performances from the cast that we feel as if we, too, happen to be there by chance observing the various romances unfold. He has exactly the right feel for the mixture of comic and tragic in the play, so important to Coward’s view of the world. He gives the play more weight and power than one finds in many a full-length work. In fact, many people may not wish to see a matinee immediate following this lunchtime show in order to savour more fully the bittersweetness of the story. Anyone contemplating a visit to the Niagara-on-the-Lake in the next few weeks should make sure not to miss this production.
©Christopher Hoile
Photo: Jan Alexandra Smith.
2000-08-23
Still Life