Stage Door News
Stage Door News
The Stratford Festival is extending its season! The summer’s smash-hit Guys and Dolls will now run until November 5, giving people an extra week to catch the musical everybody’s talking about. Plus, the new play touted as Stratford’s War Horse – The Breathing Hole – will now run until October 6. The gripping new Tudor drama The Virgin Trial will run until October 8. And the Festival’s superb production of The Madwoman of Chaillot has been extended to October 1.
Guys and Dolls, directed and choreographed by Donna Feore, “Stratford’s secret weapon” (The Globe and Mail), features some of the most incredible dancing you will ever see: “Crapshooters’ Ballet…is a gravity defying showstopper,” said the Cleveland Plain Dealer, one of many papers to call attention to the “jaw-dropping” choreography (Toronto Star). The production got exuberant reviews across the board. “Feore’s dance staging is thrilling. … Don’t miss it. … [It] can lift you out of your seat and make you whoop with unrestrained joy,” enthused The Hamilton Spectator. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal called it “staggeringly good.” “The visual energy never lets up,” said The Globe and Mail in its four-star review. The Chicago Tribune said it was “bursting with life and emotional openness.” And in its four-star review, the Toronto Star noted: “Stratford has made a solid bet on Feore and Guys and Dolls, and theatregoers would be suckers not to do the same.” Don’t miss Sean Arbuckle, Evan Buliung, Alexis Gordon and Blythe Wilson in the show Postmedia called “dazzlingly fresh and uniquely Stratford.”
Donna Feore also directed The Madwoman of Chaillot – the hilarious 20th-century satire about man’s exploitation of the earth – featuring Seana McKenna in a “luminous performance” in the title role (Postmedia). The Cleveland Plain Dealer described it as a “sublime production … at turns deeply moving and bitingly comic.” Says the National Post: “this is one of Stratford’s best shows this year” and “without any directorial forcing, [it] proves astonishingly prescient of the present moment.” Said the Detroit Free Press: “McKenna is a marvel, dominating the stage and ultimately her adversaries,” also noting: “the play speaks to gentrification, a whole heap of environmental issues, and the disappearance of civility and tolerance. … There are so many things to appreciate about the production.”
Another environmental drama, The Breathing Hole, commissioned by the Festival, is being hailed as an important piece of climate-change theatre. “There are plenty of plays that tell of climate change,” says the National Post. “This may be the first to find a way of showing it.” The play’s key character, a mythic polar bear presented as a life-size puppet operated by actor Bruce Hunter, is winning high praise, with the Toronto Star calling his “one of the most affecting performances at the Stratford Festival this season.” The Globe and Mail drew comparisons to the international hit play War Horse, asking, “Could The Breathing Hole be for Canada’s Stratford Festival what War Horse was for Britain’s National Theatre?” – a sentiment echoed by the National Post: “What War Horse did for horses, The Breathing Hole does for bears.” With exceptional reviews from all outlets, The Breathing Hole has been called “enlightening,” “engaging” (Postmedia), “ambitious” and “moving” (Toronto Star). “This production marks many firsts for Stratford,” said the Toronto Star: “its first Inuit director, Reneltta Arluk; its first commission focused on the North and Indigenous people; and its first cast featuring a large number of Indigenous characters, played by eight Indigenous actors. It is an epic undertaking and a significant one in this problematic historic year.”
Another mesmerizing new drama captivating audiences is The Virgin Trial. Commissioned by the Stratford Festival, this “gripping Tudor tale” (Toronto Star) is the second in a trilogy from Kate Hennig. “If you didn’t see the first play,” the Star continues, “don’t worry: they stand on their own.” In praise of the first two installments, The Globe and Mail says: “Step aside, Wonder Woman. The Stratford Festival has the real feminist summer franchise on its hands with Kate Hennig’s edgy takes on Tudor history.” This “riveting” play (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) focuses on the girl who would become Queen Elizabeth I, played by Bahia Watson, her relationship with her half-sister Mary (Sara Farb), and her troubling bond with the much older Thomas Seymour (Brad Hodder). Postmedia described it as “powerful, taut, moving” and “remarkably entertaining and insightful.” Broadway World says: “This production should not be missed.”
The following additional performances are now available for purchase at www.stratfordfestival.ca or through the box office, at 1.800.567.1600.
Guys and Dolls:
Tuesday, October 24, at 2 p.m.
Wednesday, November 1, at 2 p.m.
Thursday, November 2, at 2 p.m.
Saturday, November 4, at 2 p.m.
Sunday, November 5, at 2 p.m.
The Madwoman of Chaillot:
Tuesday, September 12, at 8 p.m.
Saturday, September 16, at 2 p.m.
Sunday, September 24, at 8 p.m.
Tuesday, September 26, at 8 p.m.
Thursday, September 28, at 2 p.m.
Friday, September 29, at 8 p.m.
Sunday, October 1, at 2 p.m.
The Breathing Hole:
Friday, September 29, at 8 p.m.
Sunday, October 1, at 2 p.m.
Friday, October 6, at 8 p.m.
The Virgin Trial:
Thursday, September 14, at 2 p.m.
Friday, September 15, at 2 p.m.
Wednesday, September 27, at 8 p.m.
Friday, September 29 at 2 p.m.
Saturday, September 30, at 2 p.m.
Thursday, October 5, at 2 p.m.
Saturday, October 7, at 2 p.m.
Sunday, October 8, at 2 p.m.
Tickets are also still available for Romeo and Juliet, Timon of Athens, Twelfth Night, HMS Pinafore, Treasure Island, Tartuffe, The School for Scandal, The Changeling, Bakkhai and The Komagata Maru Incident.
Photo: Blythe Wilson and Sean Arbuckle in Guys and Dolls. ©2016 Don Dixon.
2017-09-11
Stratford: Stratford Festival extends 4 shows – "Guys and Dolls", "Madwoman", "Breathing Hole", "Virgin Trial"