Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde,
directed by Christopher Newton
June 26 to October 31, 1998
at the Festival Theatre

John Bull's Other Island by Bernard Shaw,
directed by Jim Mezon
July 4 to Sept 26, 1998
at the Court HouseTheatre

Another day at the Shaw Festival

A Stage Door Guest Review by Jonathan Harrison, originally published in the Cambridge Reporter

Lady Windermere's Fan

At the point in Lady Windermere's Fan when the dancers at the ball were gliding through the traveling porticos of the Shaw Festival Theatre's revolving stage I heard myself say to myself, "I hope to God someone's filming this." It was such an absolute privilege to be there, watching what director Christopher Newton and design team William Schmuck (set), Christina Poddubiuk (costumes) and Robert Thompson (lights) had wrought. To say nothing of what the cast had been "wroughting" all evening long. Lady Windermere's Fan is an absolutely top notch, world class production.

Do you know the plot? Given that it's a hundred years old I'm not letting anything out of the bag by telling you that the young Lady Windermere was abandoned by her mother shortly after her birth and that her husband has recently found the mother in a Mrs Erlynne, a woman with whom Lady Windermere has just been told her husband is having an affair. Whereas today's humorists would use this mix up as the basis for the fun of the play, Wilde uses this part of the plot for his drama, and the manners of the late Victorian age for his humour. This choice alone dates the play and therein lies the danger.

Though Oscar Wilde's script cannot help but show its age, it doesn't have to suffer from it, and, under director Newton's treatment, it doesn't. Despite Wilde's legendary clever wit, he is given to using short soliloquies to expose the plot. An acceptable device in 1892, when the play was written, but now a little trite. Under the wrong treatment such a device can seem melodramatic, however Colombe Demers, playing Lady Windermere, handles an early speech about choosing to leave her husband and child, with a conviction that she's not exposing plot at all, just talking out loud to herself. It's great.

In the second act, Mrs Erlynne (Fiona Reid) tells Lady Windermere of her empathy with Lady Windermere's delicate situation. She saves it from melodrama by not wallowing in the self-pity of it all. And listen to the wonderfully clever scene in the rooms of Lord Darlington (Gordon Rand). Against a background of cigar-chatter and brooding menace, the wit flies fast and fanciful and the very music of the different voices (Mike Shara's tenor, Neil Barclay's bass, and Barry MacGregor's varied keyboard) creates a rich port wine of an effect.

Lady Windermere created many new fans on opening night and none of them could be more ardent than this one.

John Bull's Other Island

Not so with George Bernard Shaw's John Bull's Other Island. It opened Friday at the Shaw Festival's, Court House Theatre and, though I am still trying really hard to enjoy Shaw as a playwright, I found this long and tiresome. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with the production, its just Shaw... he does go on so.

John Bull's Other Island is the only play Shaw wrote which deals with Ireland, per se, and Shaw being an Irishman that's something of a coup, I should think. Much of it is very funny. When King Edward the VII saw the play, he laughed so hard he fell off his chair and broke it. Mine remained firmly intact.... and yet.

David Schurmann plays an absolute perfect twit of an Englishman, Tom Broadbent (who isn't a twit at all) and, despite his dour Irish business partner, remains a joy to watch throughout the evening. But his dour Irish business partner, Larry Doyle (played by Blair Williams) has all Shaw's essay lines and it must be a heck of a role to play.

Peter Millard puts in a thoroughly joyous performance as professional Irish barfly Timothy Haffigan, and Alison Woolridge as Nora Reilly has a voice as sweet as an Irish lullaby. It's not the actor's performances I have truck with. Nor is it Jim Mezon's direction or Kelly Wolf's set. It's just that Shaw does insist on talking so much about everything.

To brighten the plot of this play (in which Tom Broadbent travels to Ireland with Doyle to see Doyle's home town and create an urban development project) defrocked priests talk to grasshoppers, pigs take rides in cars and Broadbent falls in love. But it's not enough. The play remains a bit static. Great, anyway, if you're a Shaw fan, or an Irishman, or a politician, or a student of theatre, but unless you have a particular reason to see this particular play, I'd be wary of recommending it. Its a bit of a test of loyalty, I'd say, great performances notwithstanding.