By Louise Rachlis
Themes of identity and madness coloured summer 2017 for the Stratford Seminar Society, a longtime group that meets annually at Stratford for theatre, lectures, and discussions.
It was also hopefully the season of farewell to “the Patterson,” the popular building that began as a badminton court and has been a makeshift theatre for 40 years.
Seana McKenna and many of her fellow actors are sentimental about the Patterson, as are many theatre-goers. “It feels like summer theatre,” she said, speaking to Stratford Seminar Society participants. “The actors are away from the administration and all together in the Green Room together. But the air conditioning never works. It’s time for a new theatre. I’m ready to let go and welcome change, and if I am, everyone should be…I have a soft spot for the space. I will be a nostalgic historian but I will welcome the change.”
If plans go ahead, the beautiful large new theatre would begin construction in October. Provincial funding has been announced, and federal support is pending. Meanwhile, according to an article in the Stratford Gazette, there has been local opposition from members of the SLAAA, the Stratford Lakeside Active Adults Association including the Stratford Lawn Bowling Club. Sound like a good plot for a theatre production!
Between July 31 and August 5, our more than 80 Society members saw Tartuffe, Romeo and Juliet, and Twelfth Night or What you Will at the Festival Theatre; School for Scandal at the Avon Theatre, and Bakkhai, Timon of Athens, Madwoman of Chaillot and the Changeling at the Patterson Theatre. Many added in the musicals HMS Pinafore at the Avon and Guys and Dolls at the Festival, for a bit of levity among the tragedies.
Meeting since the 1980s, the Seminar Society arrangements are made by Kate Stiffler of New York and Susan Hobbs of Toronto. Members come from both the U.S. and Canada.
Professors Peter Parolin of the University of Wyoming and Liz Pentland of York University taught us about each play and its time period. It was helpful for instance to learn from Peter that Bakkhai was about “the god, the king and the women” and that the director had engaged an “intimacy coach” to help the actors deal with scenes of intimacy and eroticism.
Similarly, Liz’s explanation of the turbulent times of The Changeling in the 1600s and the plot lines of “madness and confusion of sexual obsession” enhanced our appreciation of the performance.
There was a lot of blood and violence in both Bakkhai and The Changeling. Stratford has bloody heads and bloody clothing down to a science, but as one Society member said, sometimes imagining it is better than seeing it in front of our eyes.
For Twelfth Night, Liz provided slides that showed maps of the ancient world that showed that Shakespeare’s Illyria, the ancient Greek name, stands between Italy and the Ottoman Empire.
Liz and Peter also led the post-play discussions, which always elicited both appreciation and disapproval of the same plays. Some hate what others love, particularly evident in our responses to Romeo and Juliet and the Madwoman of Chaillot.
Many loved Tartuffe, with its modern dress and translation, and referencing of current U.S. politics elicited strong reaction. One Society member said it was “the most emotional experience I’ve ever had in the theatre” because of the Trump references. Another remarked that “French humour is usually subtle, but this is not.” He said that coming to Canada he and his partner had wanted a week of “he whose name will not be mentioned.” Another thought it was brilliant to make this audience feel the way that original audiences felt - “we laugh when we’re uncomfortable.”
Everyone loved the performance of Twelfth Night, particularly the music played by Brent Carver on crystal bowls with different pitches, his singing and the set.
Our talented theatre guests were dramaturge Bob White, and actors Rosemary Dunsmore, Joseph Ziegler, Seana McKenna and Brent Carver.
Bob White, the director of new plays and drama at Stratford, said that when the theatre was founded 65 years ago, it was done as an economic solution for the city when the railway yards were closed. It conformed to Stratford’s English namesake, and developing new plays wasn’t a priority at that time.
Ten years ago, former artistic director Des McAnuff gave him the mandate to source new work. He develops relationships with new writers, and tries to increase roles for women and how women look at the world. He also works on translations and adaptations done by Canadians.
He works on the text even during the play previews. “We are lucky to have seven previews before the official opening.” He quoted an old adage, “Plays are never finished, they just open.”
Two of the plays we saw were in their first preview, Tartuffe and Madwoman. Seana McKenna said the audience at a preview was “important and informative.” One factor is that “when we don’t have an audience, the sound quality is very different. The audience soaks up some of the sound.”
While White doesn’t look at unsolicited manuscripts, he asks writers for “one-page pitches” and decides from that what plays to evaluate.
Some other thoughts from our guests:
Rosemary Dunsmore on Bakkhai by Euripedes: “The Bakkhai is not tidy. It’s a play about addiction…It’s much more than a ‘feminist’ play. Greek plays are a public forum to discuss ideas, and not designed to be emotional.”
Joseph Ziegler who played Timon in Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens: Timon is “a problem play” because it isn’t really a comedy or tragedy. “It’s not really about a man who becomes a freak…We are supposed to think ‘why isn’t the world helping him?’ He is completely unprepared for the loss of friendship and all he can do is withdraw. He cannot bear to be with those people any more.” As Peter Parolin said in his pre-Timon presentation, Timon is about misanthropy. “Is man so hateful to thee?…It’s Shakespeare’s anti-social play. The character turns his back on social relationships altogether.”
Ziegler said that for every play he’s in, his own life is “the fuel.” “That moment is the same moment as you felt” in a similar situation.
Now in her 26th season at Stratford, Seana McKenna first did Madwoman as a teenager. “This is a new translation and there are still times the long term memory want to kick in the old line.” She said The Madwoman of Chaillot is “a play about resistance, very topical now…Is it progress to tear down the old and keep building, building, building? There’s a line in this play, ‘the world is in trouble.’ It’s an allegory, it’s a fable, but it’s about what the playwright saw happening in 1940.”
Brent Carver, who played Feste in Twelfth Night and Rowley in the School for Scandal, on his previous role as Tevye the dairyman in Fiddler on the Roof at Stratford: He said he had doubts about playing Tevye and was sitting on a bench outside the rehearsal hall, and asking, “Why me? I don’t know.” And then he realized he was talking to God, and understood the role better and that he could do it. “The part of Tevye reminded me of my father who had eight kids.”
Next year’s Stratford Seminar Society session will take place July 30 to August 4, 2018. The play lineup will be announced in the fall.
