Review: (Winnipeg) Jane Eyre

Gordon Tanner (photo by Bruce Monk)

Up in the Eyre
A novel and a play are two different things.
by Edgar Governo
@pseudohistorian

It can be intimidating to stage a new interpretation of an oft-adapted work.

Charlotte Brontës novel has been expanded upon and retold countless times since it was first published in 1847. On film alone, Jane Eyre has been tackled by everyone from Aldous Huxley to Franco Zeffirelli, with many acclaimed actors portraying both the fiercely independent Jane (Joan Fontaine, Susannah York, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Samantha Morton) and her love interest Edward Rochester (Orson Welles, George C Scott, William Hurt, Michael Fassbender), making one's own approach a daunting task.

As she explains in her notes for the programme, playwright Julie Beckman has chosen to face this challenge through Chamber Theatre--a form which emphasizes using as much of the original text in the adaptation as possible, often through explicit narration by the characters onstage. Beckman's stated goal is "to embrace the storytelling experience, to allow us to step into Jane's world," but this style has exactly the opposite effect, constantly taking the audience out of the story just as the characters are starting to feel like real people.

Review: (Winnipeg) Hirsch

The Master and MetaTheatre
by Edgar Governo

It's always hard to speak ill of the ones you care about. Even when you know you're right, even when you feel you're speaking truth to power, there is an element of pain to it, and a part of you wishes you had kept things to yourself.

Alon Nashman and Paul Thompson have clearly struggled with those feelings in their biographical play based on the life of John Hirsch, well-known enough in Canadian theatre but a legend in Winnipeg theatre.

Bringing their work to the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre (RMTC)  Warehouse -- that is to say, The Tom Hendry Theatre, named after the man who co-founded RMTC along with Hirsch, whose own namesake theatre is just down the street -- is fraught with potential tensions they wouldn't have had to deal with when it premiered at the Stratford Festival or when it played at the Edinburgh Fringe. For one thing, neither of those runs had to contend with a bronze statue of the man in question practically within earshot.

Review: (Winnipeg) Venus in Fur

Allison Brennan, Matthew Edison (photo by Dylan Hewlett)

Topping from the Bottom
How do I know when the scene is over?
by Edgar Governo
@pseudohistorian

When we go to the theatre, we are consenting as an audience to a particular dynamic with those who are putting on a performance, and this is unique in theatre compared to works of fiction in other media because the performers are there in the space with us as this dynamic unfolds--we give ourselves over to a suspension of disbelief while the cast is aware of us.

Although this is rarely negotiated explicitly, we attend a specific play with certain expectations, just as we do with a new partner, a new relationship--or a new kink scene. When a play does not meet our expectations, that can be a great thing (discovering an evocative piece of art is like discovering something new that turns you on) or it can be upsetting, whether we are merely disappointed or because we feel that what we have implicitly negotiated (through a play's advertising, for instance) has been violated. Some common examples of this are when a play turns out not to be in its announced genre and when a show unexpectedly includes audience participation; the latter can be especially unsettling because it also violates an understood boundary between performer and audience.

Review: (Winnipeg) Harvey

Cory Wojcik, Mark Crawford (photo by Leif Norman)

Rabbit Season
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
by Edgar Governo

Since my 11-year-old nephew had never seen a play at The John Hirsch Theatre in Winnipeg, I decided to have him join me for the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre production of Harvey--the whimsical story of the outgoing Elwood and his titular best friend, an invisible six-foot-tall rabbit. At the intermission, he turned to me and noted that Elwood acted "a lot like Doctor Sheldon Cooper."

What I already knew which my nephew didn't when he made that comment was that Jim Parsons, the actor who plays Sheldon in the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, had starred as Elwood in a Broadway revival of Harvey last year. As such, I sincerely hope that Mark Crawford was not deliberately choosing to play Elwood in the Parsons mode based on the same knowledge, but his seeming Texas drawl (which matches the accent of Parsons but not that of any other character in this production) and the mannerisms he employs in his performance are disturbingly similar.

Review: (Winnipeg) Other People's Money

Ashley Wright and Julia Arkos. Photo by Bruce Monk.

Money for Nothing
Once you have Other People's Money, you never give it back.
by Edgar Governo
@pseudohistorian

Most of the time, you don't think too much about your investments, if you're lucky enough to have them in the first place. You're content to put some money aside in bonds or mutual funds or some other financial instrument, and although you care in an abstract sense about things like the environment or income inequality, you're not looking too closely at your statements to see where your money goes.

Simply not thinking about the consequences should make it easy to watch the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre production of Other People's Money and believe that a go-go 80's Reaganaut like its central character, Lawrence Garfinkle (Ashley Wright), is nothing like you, but Garfinkle himself knows better. Dubbed "Larry the Liquidator," he is the Kevin O'Leary of his day; unapologetic in his pursuit of money, agreeing with Wall Street's Gordon Gekko that greed is good and living by the credo that profit is its own reward. Other People's Money is set in 1987, the same year the movie Wall Street was released, and much like that film, the line between good guys and bad guys blurs as every character begins to employ the same underhanded schemes to accomplish their own agendas.

Review: (Winnipeg) Ride the Cyclone

(photo credit: Barbara Pedrick)

Cyclone Hits Winnipeg!
...the dead rise and sing
by Edgar Governo

Ride the Cyclone: A Musical arrives in Winnipeg with hype worthy of a carnival barker—the media coverage of its current tour across Canada has a very catch-a-rising-star quality, as if you are witnessing the birth of the next great musical theatre classic. Even its programme write-up compares it to The Drowsy Chaperone, whose humble beginnings eventually led to a Tony-award winning Broadway run.

With that much build-up, disappointment might appear inevitable, so it's a great relief to be able to say that this lives up to its promise.

Victoria's Atomic Vaudeville has put together a show that is more innovative and entertaining than anything else I've seen staged at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre this season. Despite various statements by its creative team that it remains a work in progress, the production carries you along at a pace that never seems to lag or come off the rails.

Review: (Winnipeg) Daddy Long Legs

Megan McGinnis and Robert Adelman Hancock in Daddy Long Legs. Photo by Jeanne Tanner

The Route to Musical Love
by John Herbert Cunningham

Daddy Long Legs has walked a great distance to get from page to stage making many transformations along the way.

It began its journey in 1912 as a novel by Jean Webster, daughter of a wealthy socialite family who, when she arrived in New York to attend Vassar College as a budding English major and future novelist, became exposed to the American orphanage system and became an advocate for reform. Its next incarnation was as a 1919 silent movie starring Mary Pickford whom many may remember as a Canadian actress. It first appeared as a musical in 1931, sticking close to the original, before Shirley Temple, in 1935, starred in a musical version which required significant changes. This revamping continued when, in 1955, a movie version starring Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron was created with music and lyrics by Johnny Mer, as an anime television series, (1990), and South Korea (2005).

Finally, through a joint effort by the Rubicon Theatre Company of Ventura, California, TheatreWorks of the Silicon Valley, and the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, the original plot was restored before finally settling onto the mainstage of the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre (RMTC), the John Hirsch Theatre.

Review: (Winnipeg) Assassins

Kevin Dennis (photo credit: Bruce Monk)

The American Psyche Sung
by Edgar Governo

In theory, the American Dream is one of limitless possibility—no matter what your background is, you can achieve any goal you desire (even becoming President of the United States) as long as you're willing to put in the effort. In practice, however, there are many factors that get in the way or preclude that, along with the simple reality that not everyone is going to achieve the same level of success regardless of the conditions set out beforehand...and only 44 people have ever achieved the highest office in the land.

Assassins, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a libretto by John Weidman, confronts this tension in American society by expanding on the ultimate assertion of power from the otherwise powerless in that society: the assassination of its most powerful figure. Many people seem to think this is a shocking work to include in Winnipeg's SondheimFest, but it is more relevant than ever in light of a political climate that continues to reflect that inherent contradiction. As I write this, President Obama is being inaugurated for a second term while gun advocates are protesting any restrictions on gun ownership in state capitals across the US, and I could never come up with a better analogy in the headlines for these same issues at odds with each other.

Review: (Winnipeg) Gone With the Wind

Meaghan Moloney and Miche Braden (photo: Bruce Monk)

Shadow-Boxing
by Edgar Governo

In the programme  accompanying the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre's world première adaptation of Gone with the Wind, playwright Niki Landau discusses the process of asking herself why such an adaptation of the novel by Margaret Mitchell should be done. She concludes that the universal theme of survival in the original story continues to resonate with audiences around the world, calling out for a new adaptation that speaks to today's struggles and inequities, but I still find myself looking for a satisfactory answer to Landau's original question.

Sunday Feature: Steven Schipper on Gone With The Wind

(photo credit: grajewski-fotograph inc)

On Gumption and Defenses

by Steven Schipper, Artistic Director, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre

Here are two items: my remarks to the assembled cast, crew and staff at the “meet and greet” on the first day of Gone With the Wind rehearsal, and two samples of observations made by Dr Michael Eleff, a psychiatrist I consult about each play I direct.  

From GONE WITH THE WIND Opening Remarks

December 7, 2012

Margaret Mitchell said GONE WITH THE WIND is about survival, especially gumption.

For those of you who don’t know what gumption is, if you are here voluntarily, you have gumption.  

Review: (Winnipeg) Miracle on South Division Street

Stefanie Wiens (by Bruce Monk)

The Unseen Statue 
by Edgar Governo

Miracles are always just around the corner. They happened to someone we used to know, they're sure to save us from this mess, they're going to change the world according to the prophecies in our holy text of choice. Somehow, though, the reality always turns out to be something other than we expected.

Families and cities, like individuals, can end up clinging to this idea of the miracle—something that surely happened in the past or will happen in the future, without ever happening right now. The Polish-American Nowak family in Miracle on South Division Street rests their whole sense of identity on their Catholic faith in general and on the tale of a past family miracle in particular, only to have both fall apart when confronted with reality. All around them, the city of Buffalo is also slowly deteriorating, losing whatever sense of miraculous promise originally brought immigrants like the Nowaks there in the first place.

Review: (Winnipeg) Red

Oliver Becker (photo credit: David Cooper)

Red: An Abstract
by Edgar Governo

Many people think of Abstract Expressionism as a joke—just a collection of "random" colours or lines or shapes that could be put together by anyone, ignoring the weeks or months of deep thought and effort being put into each work by those who were part of that movement. The version of Mark Rothko we find in Red (as played by Oliver Becker) agonizes over this while in the midst of creating his Seagram Murals in the late Fifties, tortured by the idea that his patrons think of his work as nothing but a commodity without realizing any of his artistic intentions.

Playwright John Logan is no doubt intimately familiar with this classic conflict between art and commerce, as someone who has written award-winning plays like this one along with numerous commercial screenplays, including both a Star Trek feature film and the latest James Bond outing (now playing in a multiplex near you). It's all too easy to imagine Logan coming across a marked-down DVD copy of one of his movies in a video store and painfully recalling countless hours bent over a keyboard.

Review: (Winnipeg) A Few Good Men

Jeff Strome, Brent Hirose and Cole Humeny (Photo by Epic Photography)

Revisiting Men

by Edgar Governo

Any modern production of A Few Good Men must emerge from three shadows simultaneously: Aaron Sorkin, who has since become very well-known for creating television series (Sports Night, The West Wing, The Newsroom) and writing award-winning screenplays (The Social Network, Moneyball);  the film adaptation directed by Rob Reiner and its indelible starring performances by Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and Jack Nicholson; and the changing historical connotations of the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, which has become far more associated in recent years with the legally questionable detention of alleged terrorists.

Director James MacDonald does his best to stand out from these competing legacies with mixed results. The central story, involving US Navy lawyers defending a pair of Marines accused of murdering one of their own, will be familiar to those who have seen the film, and the plot remains unchanged outside of some structural elements such as flashbacks. (I hesitate to delve too deeply into plot details, but how much spoiler protection is needed for a play quite faithfully adapted into a hit movie 20 years ago?)

News: MTC's God of Carnage is going to Vancouver

Shauna Black and Oliver Becker in
Carnage (photo: Bruce Monk)

After being thrown into doubt by the recent closure of Vancouver Playhouse, a production from Manitoba Theatre Centre of Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage will be going to the West Coast after all. It was reported by CBC that MTC stood to lose $100,000 if the presentation fell through. The performances in Vancouver will be presented in the venue once enjoyed by the defunct company.


The production is currently enjoying a successful run in Winnepeg.


See Charlebois Post articles about Vancouver Playhouse


Read the MTC press release:

News: (Winnipeg) Royal MTC Rides Cyclone in 2012-13 season

Ride the Cyclone cast

Speculation is rife that Ride the Cyclone - the smash hit musical to rise out of SummerWorks 2010 - will be part of seasons across the country, but Manitoba Theatre Centre is the first to announce it as part of theirs. Opening in March 2013, the cult show is only a small part of a marvellously eclectic season at the Royal house in Winnipeg.