On Rebecca

The Rebecca billboard on Broadway

So my heart has been ripped out by the recent events surrounding Rebecca: Das Musical's troubled and ultimately aborted transfer to Broadway. That link is a pretty good rundown of what happened, but basically the producer, Ben Sprecher, was probably the victim of an audacious financial scam that left his production 4.5 million short of its budget. So now Rebecca's Broadway opening has been postponed indefinitely, and several hardworking theatre people are out of work.

I love this musical, in all its incarnations. In the past three years since I became acquainted with it, I have been longing for a production that was closer to where I live than Austria or Japan. There were myriads of rumours and workshops and aborted productions in the English-speaking world, but this was the closest an English production came to actually opening.

Yeah, I do feel betrayed. It's a vicarious betrayal, perhaps, but it hurts all the same. I can't even imagine the disappointment of those who had bought tickets to this show or those whose bread and butter were depending on its premiere and run. It's a gigantic loss.

I feel that anger is the only acceptable emotion to have towards the debacle, both towards the person or persons who perpetrated this despicable fraud and towards Ben Sprecher. The situation was severely mishandled by Mr Sprecher. There were livelihoods and reputations running on his decision-making, and he played fast and loose with them.

Though I try to be an optimist when it comes to the inevitable disappointments in theatre, the things that have happened lately serve only to upset me. An English-language production of this wonderful show seems unlikely now. I would not blame anyone if they decided to drop this project, and frankly the fact that Mr Sprecher wants to try producing Rebecca again isn't heartening.

At Last, A Play To Audit: Stratford's Cymbeline

Lately, theatre at Stratford has been focused more on the visuals and the concept rather than the rich text and characterization. This isn't a bad thing; there is always going to be a place for spectacle. But Shakespeare's audiences went to audit a play, not see one. Antoni Cimolino understands this succinctly, and makes the words the star of the show in Cymbeline.

Staged on the Tom Patterson's extreme thrust stage, Cymbeline is at first blush an extremely problematic play. With a twist-riddled story that feels an awful lot like Snow White, Cymbeline is often perceived as one of the weaker entries in Shakespeare's canon. Be that as it may, it has some thrilling passages of text. When delivered by a cast as strong as the one at Stratford is, this play is a fantastic experience.

Absolute Perfection: Stratford's Matchmaker

One of the aspects of reviewing I have the most difficulty with is what to write about in the case of a perfect production. Praising uniform amazingness gets tiring (this is an unspoken rule of criticism, I fear), and often does the production a disservice. So imagine my consternation when I came out of the Festival Theatre having seen The Matchmaker.

Goddamn it, this is a beautiful show.

...

How dare they?

Stratford's Much Ado About Nothing

One of the biggest problems I have with theatrical productions in general, but especially productions of Shakespeare, is the tendency of creatives to give their show a totally arbitrary setting and aesthetic. At best, this can be an amusing showcase of the creativity of the designers. At worst, the new setting can undermine the text and feel totally appropriative. I tend to feel uncomfortable with 'reimagined' settings no matter how unobstrusive they are, which is why I feel at a loss to describe my feelings about the Festival Theatre's production of Much Ado About Nothing. Light and engaging, with an appealing cast, Much Ado nonetheless has a troubling attitude towards its setting and the setting's culture.

Empty Vessels Make the Loudest Sound: Henry V at Stratford

Aside from his frenetic comedies of the past few years, I have not been a fan of Des McAnuff's directorial work at Stratford. As such, perhaps I was already a little biased when I went to see this season's flagship production of Henry V. But, as predicted, this interpretation held all the hallmarks of Mr McAnuff serving the needs of the lowest common denominator rather than the text.

Sub-Par Steampunk or Second-Tier Disney?: Stratford's Pirates of Penzance

The Stratford Festival has a long history with the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan. Many remember with great fondness the Festival's seminal production of The Mikado in the eighties, which had several revivals and a Broadway run. The productions of the other operettas that followed were just as handsomely dressed and casted (great Canadian stars such as Brent Carver and Maureen Forrester all had their turns in these productions), if not met with the same critical fervor. In 1961, The Pirates of Penzance had its first non D'Oyly Carte production at the Festival. So I was really excited to see the return of Gilbert and Sullivan to the festival.

I was not the only one; my little brother of seven years was seeing his very first play at the Festival the afternoon we attended, and he loves pirates. Particularly the ones who aren't very good at being dastardly.

Stratford's Elektra is Stunning

Elektra mourns the death of her father Agamemnon, whose death has left her in the hands of her loathed mother Clytemnestra. Having alienated her sister and unwilling to live under the same roof as the woman who killed her father, Elektra has little to do save suffer the pain of Agamemnon's death and await the vengeance that comes with the arrival of her brother Orestes.

I saw Elektra by Sophokles at the Tom Patterson Theatre on Thursday, prior to last night's opening. It was, I am happy to report, a spectacular effort, with a solid cast and confident direction.

There Are No Asian Men In China?- The Nightingale Panel Discussion

A few days ago, several creatives from the La Jolla Playhouse had a panel discussion about the recent casting debacle surrounding their new production of The Nightingale. You can see the whole thing here.

My notes annotating the discussion are below, but before those, I'd like to thank the La Jolla Playhouse for seeking accountability on this issue. There are so many responsible for whitewashed movies and theatre productions alike who think that they are totally justified in what they do, and hardly bother with open discussion regarding the choices that they make. This is a rare thing.

Stratford 2013

2013 marks the year that Stratford alum and former financial director Antoni Cimolino takes the artistic reins for the Festival. Hurray! No more McAnuff. Maybe there'll be watchable tragedies at the Festival now!

Here's the season:

Colourblind Casting Two: You're Doing It Wrong

So lately it has come to my attention that Duncan Sheik, who wrote the angsty coming-of-age rock musical Spring Awakening, has premiered a new show at the La Jolla Playhouse. The Nightingale is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name, and has also kept the story's original setting of Ancient China.

Well great!

My Ideal Stratford Season

Antoni Cimolino will soon be taking over the artistic direction at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, and he's already breaking my heart. According to the linked article, he would rather produce The Who's Tommy than Henry IV parts 1 and 2 along with Henry V. That is a pretty bizarre priority for a classical repertory theatre, but considering that it's been Des McAnuff's mission to make Stratford a well-oiled cash machine featuring the seminal works of Andrew Lloyd Webber, maybe this mentality isn't too surprising.

That's not to say that I still won't be excited for next year's season. I am always thrilled when it comes to what Stratford does. The Festival is basically Disneyworld for me. But sometimes, when I'm a little blue, I like to construct my own seasons. Here's my favourite one that I've made.

Danny Boyle's Frankenstein Viewing 1.2

Yes, Danny Boyle's Frankenstein was popular enough in the cinemas the last round that it got re-broadcasts this summer. Hells yeah I watched it again!

This time around, I had purchased a ticket to the showing with Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature and Johnny Lee Miller as Victor. Unfortunately, the showing was still the one with Miller as the Creature and Cumberbatch as the Doctor, an unfortunate mistake on the cinema's part. This coming Saturday they promise they'll be showing the correct screening, but as I'd already paid upwards to twenty dollars for this special event, I was a tad disappointed.

But!

It's still a great show, and really stands up to a second viewing. Having read the script in the space between my first time last year and this one, there were things I was looking for and references that were much clearer this time around. I honestly don't think I noticed the Sistine Chapel imagery the first time, which is hilarious to me now because it's kind of heavy-handed:

• In their initial discourse, Victor and the Creature make a deal regarding a mate for the Creature. They shake on the deal, and as they withdraw, their fingers linger long enough to recall God and Adam.
• In the final scene set in the Arctic, Victor is weak and lying on the ground. The Creature pulls him up with one arm. For one moment they look very much like God and Adam, except this time the Creature is on the right side, and Victor on the left. SYMBOLISM.
• "I should be Adam" - The Creature in Scene 24.

The thing that bothered me the last time around, the casting of Frankenstein's father, hasn't changed one bit. The actor just doesn't fit with the rest of the cast; his line delivery is odd and at times unintentionally funny, and he doesn't command the kind of respect I would have expected from someone who is said to be a magistrate.

I'm anxious to see the alternate casting though, because I want to see how having dual roles affects the overall and complete performance of both. According to Johnny Lee Miller in the short film they show at the beginning, a lot of his Creature has seeped into his Victor. As a performer and a theorist, I really want to see that kind of 'two halves of a whole' thing.

This time around I saw this show with a group of friends who are admitted Cumberbitches. Last time I'd seen it with my father and another friend. The atmosphere was slightly different, way more receptive. There was a lot more emotion coming from our row of the cinema than the last time. It reminded me of that scene in Farinelli where the titular character gives that duchess an orgasm through the pure force of his performance. If they come again this Saturday to see Benny in the actual tortured role, I think that the collective pathos will actually destroy the block.

What was really great was that everyone I saw the show with looked really interested in seeing other live broadcasts from the National Theatre. This was a really positive experience for them, and I hope the NT takes note and programs a lot more of these events in the near future.

Over The Rainbow In Toronto

Over The Rainbow was originally a British TV competition that followed the search for Dorothy in a new stage production of The Wizard of Oz. The winner, Danielle Hope, was chosen via viewers vote. This same production will be transferred to Toronto, and so a Canadian equivalent of the televised competition has been devised.

On Monday, June 18th, I was lucky enough to attend the initial audition in Toronto. This was a cattle-call style audition; literally anybody could try out at this stage, with no preference made to professional or unionized talents. The only qualification was that participants had to be over the age of sixteen and willing to wait.

Colourblind Casting One: The Streetcar and I

As someone who is not a part of a visible minority, I'm pretty sure I'm not qualified to talk about this, but lately this has been bothering me a lot, because there have been a lot of cases where colourblind casting (or hell, even colour-conscious casting) has been received with a mindset that is less than modern and far less than enlightened. Though the US and Canada that generally pride themselves on being open on issues of diversity, there are still embarrassing and primitive fails.

(I'm not talking about the Hunger Games issues. I am so late to the party on that one it isn't funny. The twitter shitstorm that followed the release of that movie was a problem that stems from idiots reading a book but blocking out what they don't want to here. Rue is clearly black in the books, and while it isn't a huge part of her character, it was definitely the right choice to cast a black actress in the movie, especially if that actress was someone of such screen presence as Amandla Stenberg. Case closed. Idiots are idiots, and should have their rights to the Internet restricted if not outright revoked.)

What I'm talking about is the treatment of actors and actresses of colour in theatre, not film and television. Tentatively this subject will be covered in more than one post.

She's Queer, The Phantom Of The Opera: Part One

There aren't enough lesbians in musical theatre, so I thought I'd reappropriate some existing musicals into my world of perversion and aberrance. A little bit of personal context and Takarazuka will be provided to facilitate transition into my queering of Phantom of the Opera.

When I was ten years old, I was just coming to term with what my identity was called by everyone else. Though I'd more or less known that I was gay long before this moment in life, it was around grade six that students and teachers in my school started talking about homosexuality. This was because of the ongoing debate in Canada on whether or not to make gay marriage legal, and my teacher thought that it was important we know about the issue and the realities of gay people.

The hurtful things that my fellow students said at the time still stay with me. They weren't trying to hurt me specifically, and it's my belief that their opinions must have been heavily influenced by their parents, but it was shocking and distressing for me.

Luckily, my birthday rolled around. The Christmas before, I'd received a soundtrack of Cats, which I'd enjoyed, and so on my birthday I got the London Highlights of The Phantom of the Opera.

What a horrible cover...

I don't really know how to explain what happened next.

(Mostly) Failed Animated Adaptations of Musicals

For about twenty years, animated films have done very well when converted to stage, and yet the reverse is hardly ever true.

In 1953, one of the greatest animated films that never was got scrapped because of politics and paranoia. The story of John Hubley's aborted animated adaptation of the Broadway musical Finian's Rainbow is seemingly all but forgotten except by those who have special interest in the fields of theatre and animation. Luckily, Finian's Rainbow received a revival on Broadway in 2009, which I hope will renew some interest in this project. In the meantime, check out the article I linked above. It has some great storyboard art, and the complete story of this movie that never was.

For those who are not familiar with Finian's Rainbow (and who can blame you), the plot briefly concerns a leprechaun who comes to a small village and combats bigotry. Which is awesome, and you know it. It has a lush score with words by the guy who wrote the lyrics to The Wizard of Oz. In a word, brilliant.

The film would have been the first animated film created with an adult audience in mind, and would have featured the talents of such giants as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson. Here's a song from the show sung by Sinatra in an unrelated album:

The failed Finian's Rainbow affected a great deal of the animated musical sub-genre, I believe. More after the jump.

The Importance of Challenging Theatre

That I should even feel the need to write an article with the title this one has is extremely depressing. There was a time when expression and innovation in the arts was revered rather than ridiculed, as it is today in political and professional platforms. It is my belief that I was not alive for this time. Particularly in the nation I live in, where the arts are simultaneously protected and denigrated by my current government, the arts seems more and more like a corporate outreach program every day.

Today, artists of any kind - theatre, writing, film or dance - seem to be phobic of making their work relevant to the current time and place. I can't speak for other fields, but what results is what in my field is known as 'dead theatre' (thank you Peter Brooks); a very nicely staged play done in a retrospective context rather than a current one. There is no reason for such a production to exist except to put bums in seats.

The Post-Flop Era of Broadway

'Don't you understand, Mama? Everything's not a sin!'
-Actual line from this piece of crap. <3

So, in 1988, the infamous musicalised version of Stephen King's Carrie opened to hisses and boos and disastrous reviews. After almost a week, it closed to a huge financial loss and an infamous history that would bury it in the eyes of serious commercial theatre forever...

Until the fanboys attacked, that is.

Danny Boyle's Frankenstein

A repost from my old blog in honour of the news that this screening is getting another outing this summer! Yay!


I just got back from a live cinema broadcast of Danny Boyle's Frankenstein, which has been playing to sold out seats at the National Theatre of London. Here is my review of that experience.

Female Hamlets, East and West

Another repost. I just like this bit that I wrote.

The keys to the kingdom have finally been given to the women. At the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Seana McKenna prepares for her turn as the titular role in the Festival's upcoming production of Richard III. At the Royal Shakespeare Company, Kathryn Hunter plays Cleopatra, having just finished King Lear, not as the King this time but as the Fool. Meanwhile, Helen Mirren has wrapped up filming The Tempest, her Prospera hot on the heels of Christopher Plummer's Prospero.

Hardly a new phenomenon (the first two Hamlets on film, Sarah Bernhardt and Asta Nielsen, were both female), Shakespeare's greatest tragic roles have become fame for women as well as men. There's yet to be a mainstream female Romeo outside of opera (Bellini's Il Montecchi e Capuletti comes to mind), but the convention of the 'trousers role' has finally transcended its reputation as a novelty act and has gained prestige. An inversion of the Shakespearean practice of male players, gender-neutral casting does not seem so unnatural to the actresses who benefit from it.