Reviews 2017
Reviews 2017
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by Robert Chafe, directed by Jillian Keiley
Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland, Grand Theatre, London
March 24-April 8, 2017
“‘Making Newfoundland better known to Newfoundlanders’ – And Everyone Else”
The latest tour of Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland brings its exciting production of The Colony of Unrequited Dreams to London’s Grand Theatre. The production’s only other stop in Ontario was the National Arts Centre in Ottawa from January 25 to February 11. Those wishing to see a fine play about Canadian history in this year of the sesquicentennial should make haste to London to see it while they can.
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is Robert Chafe’s stage adaptation of the 1998 novel of the same name by Wayne Johnson that tells of the rise of Joseph R. Smallwood from a relative nobody to the position of the Premier of Newfoundland who becomes the “Last Father of Confederation” by bringing the Dominion of Newfoundland into union with Canada in 1949. Chafe’s play, like Johnson’s novel, makes Smallwood’s story dramatic by intertwining Smallwood’s life with that of a fictional character, Sheilagh Fielding, a journalist who has known Smallwood since childhood and aims her vitriolic wit at him at every step he makes toward success. The story thus becomes in large part not merely a history play but a mystery as we learn piece by piece what it is that has turned Smallwood’s former friend into his principal nemesis.
The play is divided into three acts. Act 1 covers the years 1927-1932, Act 2 covers 1933-1941 and Act 3 covers 1947-1948. This structure depicts three stages in how Newfoundland was governed. In Act 1 Newfoundland is a self-governing dominion which it had been since 1907. At the end of Act 1 riots ensue after the election of Sir Richard Squires and by Act 2 Newfoundland is saved from bankruptcy only by becoming a colony of Great Britain again under the Commission of Government. By Act 3, however, Joey Smallwood’s dream of having Newfoundland join Canada comes to fruition with his campaigning for it during the 1948 referendum.
Acts 1 and 3 begin with Sheilagh Fielding (Carmen Grant) directly addressing the audience in the role of a narrator. The whole play thus appears to be her memories of her relationship with Smallwood and consequently of this critical period in Newfoundland history. She begins by noting that Smallwood went to work for a Socialist newspaper in New York City from 1920 to 1925. That is where they met again and where they fell in love. He proposed. She rebuffed him. We think that is the source of her enmity toward Smallwood, but it is a much more complex story which unfolds gradually over the evening.
By Act 2 Smallwood has begun hosting a radio programme called The Barrelman (1937-43) with the motto “Making Newfoundland better known to Newfoundlanders”. Here we see that it is in radio rather than in print that Smallwood best communicates his fervent love of Newfoundland. His voice is heard all over the now-British colony and implicitly reminds Newfoundlanders of their uniqueness. As a well-known nationalist who had long censured British rule, Smallwood is elected as a delegate to the Newfoundland National Convention to organize a referendum about the colony’s future. At the same time he tries to patch up his relationship with the still mocking but erratic Fielding.
In Act 3 as the colony heads towards its historic referendum, Smallwood visits the ailing Fielding and at last the reasons why Fielding rejected Smallwood’s proposal of marriage and the mystery of who wrote the letter that halted Smallwood’s education are revealed.
Director Jillian Keiley suggests in her Director’s Notes that Smallwood’s relationship with Fielding is symbolic of Newfoundland’s relationship with Canada, a territory that Canada had long hoped would join with it but whose period of independence and fall back into colonyhood prevented its eventual union. Since Smallwood, who is already married, and Fielding do not link up at the end of the play, Fielding more likely represents a summation of all the criticism from all the sources that Smallwood would experience during his life and which he had to overcome to achieve his the status he thought that he deserved and that Newfoundland deserved. Once he achieves his goals it is appropriate that he should part ways with Fielding and the past.
Luckily, as Robert Chafe has written the play, Fielding is not merely a symbolic figure. Rather, she is the most vibrant and memorable character in the play. Carmen Grant is her ideal embodiment. For all of Fielding’s very funny, incisive wit, Grant always suggests that Fielding’s attacks have a personal component, that she is still chiding Smallwood for unknown actions in the past. Grant shows how easily Fielding’s façade of self-possession can slip off when she drinks and the mockery she so freely directs at others she also directs at herself.
Colin Furlong plays Smallwood as a feisty man who chafes under the pointed neglect with which people regard him because of his height, his lack of education and his lack of status. Yet, as Furlong shows, Smallwood’s entire frame is animated with big ideas that people only appear to listen to when they are desperate. His real nature only has a voice in the enthusiastic, nationalistic trivia he spouts on his radio broadcasts. But in his personal appearances on the campaign trail, speaking to the people face to face, that enthusiasm increases exponentially. In the key scene Chafe presents in Act 3 where we see Smallwood with his small-minded and actively critical parents, we learn where the roots of Smallwood’s desire to escape and to embark on a glorious enterprise had their source.
Only Grant and Furlong of the adult cast of ten play only one character. The rest plus two children play approximately 40 amongst them. Of this colourful group is the apoplectic Sir Richard Squires of Jody Richardson, the Machiavellian Daniel Prowse of Brian Marler, the lizard-like Louis St. Laurent of Paul Rowe and the pompous but sonorous Mackenzie King of Charlie Tomlinson.
In each act Chafe gives us glimpse of Smallwood’s ever-bickering parents Minnie and Charlie, beautifully played by Alison Woolridge and Steve O’Connell. While Minnie does the housework, Charlie does nothing but drink. In Act 3, Charlie, a Newfoundland nationalist, views his son as a traitor and after many attempts at reconciliation cannot bring himself to shake his son’s hand.
It is a pleasure to see how Artistic Fraud’s trademark minimalist style copes so well with its largest play ever. All the set elements are on wheels – doors, windows, desks, tables, chairs – whooshing in to take their place and whooshing out making the flow of the 25 scenes almost cinematic. Often Fielding and Smallwood enter while seated at their desks typing, one time even doing a sort of dance about each other. All this movement is precisely coordinated with Patrick Boyle’s soundtrack evocative of jazz and the changing decades and with Leigh Ann Vardy’s atmospheric lighting that lends everything a hazy glow of memory. It’s a brilliant idea of director Jillian Keiley to have the snow that has fallen on stage throughout the story as a sign of hardship suddenly change to glittering confetti when Newfoundland votes to join Confederation.
This is an epic story wonderfully directed and acted. My main quarrel is that since the Grand Theatre seats only 839, the voices shouldn’t need to be miked, especially when miking tends to distance an audience from the performers. Most often Canadian history is portrayed in a satirical light as in Michael Hollingsworth’s series of 21 plays about Canadian history. Here it is a pleasure to see Canadian history taken seriously, the satire built into the character of Fielding, and real issues raised about what it means to grow up in this relatively new country. This is an ideal moment for all those in the London area and beyond to avail themselves of the chance to see such a high calibre production about this nation’s history especially in this sesquicentennial year.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Colin Furlong as Joey Smallwood and ensemble; Carmen Grant as Sheilagh Fielding; Carmen Grant and Colin Furlong. ©2015 Timothy Richard.
For tickets, visit www.grandtheatre.com.
2017-04-05
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams