Reviews 2008
Reviews 2008
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by Philip Grecian, directed by Donna Feore
Canadian Stage Company, Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto
November 27-December 20, 2008
The Canadian Stage Company’s current production of It’s a Wonderful Life is a paradox--a superbly acted staging of a ludicrous adaptation of a classic film. Adaptations of movies to musicals or stage plays have become commonplace, but an adaptation succeeds only if it works completely on its own terms in its new medium independent of its source. Thus it is with Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music (1973) based on a 1955 Ingmar Bergman film or more recently with David Eldridge’s adaptation of Festen (2004), currently playing in Toronto, based on the 1998 Danish film of the same name. American playwright Philip Grecian’s bizarre idea in 2003 for adapting Frank Capra’s beloved 1946 film is to turn it into a staged broadcast of a radio play. Grecian thus takes a story from a visual medium and turns it into an aural medium which he then forces us to watch.
If we were at home listening to an adaptation of Capra’s film over the radio, we would be free to picture the events in our mind’s eye. Instead, in the theatre, we watch actors holding scripts they pretend to refer to speaking into microphones rather than to each other. This is no way to cause an audience to become engaged with a story. No wonder that what piques our interest most is John Gzowski’s amazing facility and precision as the live Foley artist and the humorous on-air commercials inserted into the broadcast accompanied by Leslie Arden. Otherwise, we sit in a kind of daze looking at the stage but conjuring up images of the film in our minds. Indeed, many scenes can only be clearly understood with reference to the film such as any crowd scenes or, worst of all, the tour that the angel Clarence (Patrick McKenna) gives to George Bailey (Mike Shara) of what his home town would be like without him. Capra showed those powerful contrasts visually in a way no dialogue can match.
In spite of all this, the play provides a fine showcase for the acting of the supremely talented cast of ten who play 63 roles. Chief among these is Shara. He make not expunge memories of Jimmy Stewart, but his delivery is so natural you might think the part had been written for him. Juan Chioran plays good and evil in the guise of the celestial Joseph in charge of Clarence and as Bailey’s snarling nemesis Mr. Potter. McKenna is quite loveable as Clarence and Marla McLean shows a becoming youthful ardour in the Donna Reed role of George’s wife Mary. Blair Williams has the voice of a self-important radio announcer down pat but can easily morph into seven other characters. Grecian tries to give the radio cast a life of their own but his efforts are perfunctory at best. The main question is why the Canadian Stage Company is performing this adaptation at all. The film is ubiquitous on television during the holidays and the DVD can be bought for less than the cheapest ticket to the play. Even Grecian seems to have realized the error of his ways and has created a new non-radio play-effect adaptation that premiered in Vancouver just last year.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2008-11-28.
Photo: Ensemble with Mike Shara (centre). ©Cylla von Tiedemann.
2008-11-28
It’s a Wonderful Life