Reviews 2002
Reviews 2002
✭✭✩✩✩ / ✭✭✩✩✩
by Ian Ross, directed by Dean Gabourie /
by Federico Fellini, translated by Damiano Pietropaolo, directed by Idalberto Fei
Stratford Festival, Studio Theatre, Stratford
August 6-25, 2002
"Strange Bedfellows"
In the double-bill that opened the Stratford's Studio Theatre last month, the plays had both themes and cast members in common. Even though I thought only one of the plays had a future beyond its premiere, there was at least some rationale for presenting the two plays in tandem. That is not true of the Studio's second double-bill. Worse, the two one-acters are not only unsatisfactory as a double-bill but as independent works.
The evening begins with "Bereav'd of Light" by Ian Ross, a Métis writer from Manitoba who won the Governor General's Award for Drama in 1997. It is a naïve morality play about race that has everything to do with lecturing the audience and nothing to do with character or plot. On a plantation in the antebellum South, the owner Abraham Milton (Leon Pownall) is going blind so he teaches Absolom (Derwin Jordan), one of the house slaves, to read. This provokes the anger of Absolom's brother, Samuel (Seun Olagunju), one of the field slaves, to encourage Absolom to read to him and then to tell on him to the master. The master has Absolom beaten but he escapes into the forest where he is befriended by Wagoosh (Gregory Dominic Odjig), an Ojibway, who sees Absolom as the fulfillment of a sign he saw on a dream-quest seeking to put his own brother's spirit to rest.
Ross gives only Wagoosh any personal background. We don't know where exactly the action is taking place, the ages of any of the characters, when Abraham's wife died, how long Absolom has been a house slave, and so on. What we do learn is that Abraham is Bad because he is a racist. Samuel is also Bad because he supports Abraham's racist doctrine and uses it against his brother. His brother, however, is Good because his learning to read has made him challenge the master's racist views. Wagoosh is also Good because instead of attacking Absolom he makes him realize that they are both victims of the white man's oppression.
Yet the white man, as represented by the blind Abraham, is capable of repenting. When Samuel leads him into the wilderness to find Absolom, and Abraham finally reveals a secret about his brother, Abraham sees the folly of his ways and realizes the meaning of William's Blake's poem "The Little Black Boy" that is quoted repeatedly through the play: "My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O my soul is white; While as an angel is the English child, But I am black as if bereav'd of light." Ross wants to use this poem to signify that all men are equal as human beings, but he can't deal with Blake's colour symbolism where "white" is pure and innocent (and English) and "black" is impure and sinful. In fact, Ross reinforces the symbolism by having the Bad brother Samuel say that his soul is not white but black.
All four players have greater acting abilities than what the play requires. They do the best they can with a script that underlines its main points two or three times in lieu of creating any sort of subtext.
Dean Gabourie's direction is straightforward and Lorenzo Savoini's minimal set of a magic ring of stones is effective as are Joanne Dente's period costumes. To provide some visual interest to the action, Gabourie has had Renée Brode set up some scenes in silhouette on the Studio's balcony though they merely illustrate actions the characters mention. There are certainly more complex one-act plays by Native Canadians than this one. Let's hope Stratford's director of new play development stumbles across them.
The second half of the bill, "The Fellini Radio Plays" is also unsatisfying, but for different reasons. It consists of three sketches the famed Italian director wrote for radio in the 1940s, translated and stitched together by Damiano Pietropaolo. The third sketch portraying a live all-request radio show itself consists of seven sketches. The effect is rather like trying to make a meal from a series of hors d'oeuvres.
While we should all be glad that theses scripts, once thought to be lost, were found in 1998, we do have to wonder whether there is any sense in adapting them for the stage. Assuming that Fellini was at all sensitive to the medium he was writing for, the proper way to experience these discoveries would be on the radio. There words and sounds have primacy and work on our imaginations to fill in the most bizarre details. The show unintentionally makes clear that embodying these sketches on stage only lessens their impact.
This is obvious in the first sketch where a Poor Man (Steve Cumyn) begins by begging a match from a Rich Man (Andrew Strachan) and ends by wheedling him of all his clothing. On radio the escalation of the Poor Man's demands could be quite funny. On stage, given that the Rich Man has almost nothing to say, the effect is merely stupid.
The most effective sketch is the second about an illiterate couple (Andrew Strachan and Tracy Michailidis) who vow to write each other every day while the man is away in the city looking for work. They send each other blank sheets of paper and imagine what the other has "written". This is the only sketch to achieve the poignancy of the early Fellini and translates well to the stage.
The third and longest section deals with a radio request show where any kind of question is invited and answered. Among other things, we meet the host and director (Eric Peterson) who directs every event in his life, we see a dialogue between two fish, we learn what train wheels say, we see the host teach a county-western singer (also Peterson) how to sing like Caruso, we have an emotional-filled radio drama between the host and an actress (Luba Goy) and we learn where sounds go after they fade away.
The emphasis in all of these skits is auditory not visual. The staging only attracts attention away from the sounds which according to Pietropaolo's note are so important. In the last skit all we see are Peterson and Michailidis on stage listening to the echoes of sounds as they arrive at their final station. There's everything to hear, nothing to see.
Italian director Idalberto Fei, who won an award for directing the radio show skit for radio, lards the show with songs and a funny dance by Ms. Goy, but only in the love letters sketch does he come close to creating any visual counterpart to the words that could be called Felliniesque.
Luba Goy is the only actor to have the right sense of serious clowning to make her sections work. It's a pity she doesn't have more to do. Peterson and Cumyn both overact so much they destroy the humour of their lines. Strachan and Michailidis are very good, especially in the love letters scene, though Michailidis is the better in conjuring up a sense of fantasy.
The set, costumes and lighting designers are the same as in "Bereav'd" and each rises to the challenge of a fanciful work that asks more from them. Besides Ms. Goy the chief pleasure of "Fellini" is the musical interludes of Eugene Laskiewicz on the accordion.
It's strange that the Festival would think it worthwhile to stage a play of such simple moralizing as "Bereav'd". It's also strange that Pietropaolo, Head of Radio Arts and Entertainment for CBC Radio, could not see that "Fellini" is more appropriate for that medium. It's doubly strange that anyone would think these two would make a good double-bill and that anyone would pay $50.00 to see it.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Programme covers for Bereav’d of Light and The Fellini Radio Plays. ©2002 Stratford Festival.
2002-08-18
Bevreav’d of Light / The Fellini Radio Plays