Reviews 2009
Reviews 2009
✭✭✭✭✭
by Garson Kanin, directed by Gina Wilkinson
Shaw Festival, Festival Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake
May 23-November 1, 2009
“This Blonde is Platinum"
“Born Yesterday” is the runaway hit of this year’s Shaw Festival. Garson Kanin’s 1946 comedy about bribery, crooked politicians in Washington, DC, and the stereotyping of women could not be more relevant in light of recent scandals. Besides gorgeous design, sensitive direction and a rock-solid cast with Deborah Hay in an outstanding performance in the central role of Billie Dawn, the show is sheer perfection.
The play, probably most familiar from the classic 1950 film directed by George Cukor starring Judy Holiday, Broderick Crawford and William Holden. In both play and film, Harry Brock, a violent, low class tycoon who has made his fortune clearing and selling junk, comes to Washington with his showgirl mistress Billie Dawn, whose bank account he uses to hide his assets. Brock wants to enter high society but sees that Billie’s near total ignorance will be a liability. He therefore hires Paul Verrall, a journalist who would like to investigate Brock, to teach Billie etiquette and give her a general education. The problem is that Billie, blonde though she is, is not inherent dumb. the more she learns from Paul, the more she begins to see through her boyfriend’s schemes.
The play resonates more than some Broadway plays of the period because combines two archetypal plots. One, as in Molière’s “School for Wives”, shows an overbearing misogynist guardian who tries lock his female ward away from all men so that she will love only him. The other, as in Shaw’s “Pygmalion”, shows a pupil who learns enough to surpass her master. Kanin has linked both so that the “Pygmalion” plot underlies the overthrow of the guardian in the “School for Wives” plot.
Deborah Hay gives the funniest, most endearing comic performance from an actress I’ve have seen in decades. She has perfect comic timing that make Billie’s initial cluelessness and unpolishedness hilarious. Simply her unfocussed demeanour as she nearsightedly walks about because she thinks glasses will make her look ugly is funny not to mentions the other layers of comedy she builds upon it. And yet, Hay communicates a fragility in Billie that makes us sympathize with her and actually fear for her when Brock gets into one of his rages. The important gin game she plays with Brock in Act 1, shows that even if she needs her toes to tally her score, she has an innate intelligence that lies dormant. The naive but utterly fundamental questions she asks Verrall as he educates her shows that she also has an innate sense of right and wrong. Hay captures our hearts with her first entrance and we cheer her along until she triumphs in the end. Hay is absolutely wonderful and it is worth seeing the play simply to see her performance.
Nevertheless, the rest of the cast is also in top form. Thom Marriott is superb as petty tyrant Brock. He’s brash, uncouth and not a little bit frightening. He’s a big, tall loudmouthed bear of a man who could easily kill a person without intending to. He’s dragged himself out of the gutter through his scheming and now is frustrated that he has reached a national level where the law may impede his further progress. Yet, when Brock says he loves Billie, despite his generally rough treatment of her, Marriott makes us believe he actually does Billie even if he loves her more as a possession than as a person.
Gray Powell is also excellent as Paul Verrall. He shows us how Paul’s concern for Billie gradually changes from professional interest to pity to love. The more she learns the more he sees in her the idealistic world view he seems to fear he is losing. We hope both for Billie’s sake and for Paul’s that he can win Billie away from Brock’s brutal sphere of influence.
Kanin has surrounded this triangle with a gallery of conflicted characters. Patrick Galligan plays Ed Devery, a lawyer dismayed at his own cynicism in helping a thug like Brock and who is becoming an alcoholic to numb the pain of his lost ideals. Lorne Kennedy plays Senator Norval Hedges, whose influence Brock is trying to buy. Kennedy portrays him as pompous but weak and without Devery’s crisis of conscious to make him sympathetic. Donna Belleville plays his socially adept but airheaded wife who is really just an upper-class version of Billie with better diction and manners. Ali Momen is Brock’s brother Eddie, a comically constant reminder of the gutter his brother has escaped. The one positive character is the hotel maid Helen, played by the perky Beryl Bain. For a play from 1950, it is notable that Kanin shows Billie sharing her books with Helen, thus relating his depiction of gender oppression to racial oppression.
Sue LePage has created a gorgeous set of what is meant as the most expensive suite in the hotel with a two-storey living-and-dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Mall. She has obviously delighted in creating a wardrobe of well-observed all-money-no-taste outfits for Billie. Alan Brodie’s indoor and outdoor lighting is so natural, you often forget you are watching a play. Director Gina Wilkinson has a clear understanding of how the play works and allows the tension to build up slowly but inexorably even as the mood changes from sheer comedy to suspense. The most brilliant scene is the gin game between Billie and Brock played at a natural pace in total silence. This shows a trust of the audience that highlights without gimmicks a crucial aspect of the relation between the two. The pacing in that scene as in the whole play is perfect. The Shaw Festival, as usual, as multitude of fascinating plays on offer, but if you have the chance to see only one, this is it.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Deborah Hay and Gray Powell. ©David Cooper.
2009-08-21
Born Yesterday