Bard on the Beach’s production of Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor is an adaptation set at a recreation centre in a Vancouver suburb, where the women’s soccer team has just won the local championship. (photo by Emily Cooper)
World Cup Fever hit Vancouver this summer and Bard on the Beach was not immune as it launched its 37th season with a soccer-inspired version of the Shakespearean comedy Merry Wives of Windsor, which runs in repertory on the Mainstage until mid-September with a dark and dystopian Macbeth.
Merry Wives has been dubbed Shakespeare-Lite and for good reason. It is more of a chaotic farce than a dramatic piece. And Bruce Horak and director Rebecca Northan have taken the chaos one step further in what can only be described as major surgery on the original, setting the play at a recreation centre in a modern-day Vancouver suburb, where the women’s soccer team has just won the local championship. Younger audience members will appreciate the references to influencers, followers, TikTok and Twitter that pervade the script along with some X-rated cheeky moments, while purists may be appalled.
Receptionist Miss Quickly (Stephanie Davis) keeps tight control over the comings and goings of the patrons from behind her centre-stage reception desk and sings up a storm. There’s a yoga class, an art class with a thong-wearing male model, steamy sauna scenes and locker room hijinks.
Washed-up soccer veteran Falstaff (Ashley Wright) has come to town to woo two wealthy suburban housewives – Mrs. Page (Jennifer Lines) and Mrs. Ford (Melissa Oei) – to improve his dismal financial fortunes. However, he sends them both the exact same love letter and the ladies, upon comparing notes and discovering his agenda, set out to extract their revenge on the portly rogue and to teach their husbands a lesson for not trusting their fidelity.
To that end, Craig Erickson is sublime as the cuckolded (or so he thinks) Mr. Ford – although methinks that he doth protest too much. Wright, in his velour tracksuit, plays his part with aplomb (this is his third time in the role at Bard) and you almost feel sorry for him as he suffers the indignity of being hidden in a laundry basket, followed by an unceremonious dumping into muddy False Creek. Lines and Oei are fantastic as the scheming housewives. The entire cast exudes tremendous energy.
Interwoven with the main event is the subplot of Mr. and Mrs. Pages’ efforts to find a husband for their daughter and captain of the women’s soccer team Ann (Rachel Angco). Ann likes Fenton (Cameron Grant), the men’s team captain, but her mother wants a doctor. In this case, chiropractor Dr. Caius (Raf Rogers) – cue the chiropractor jokes … are they really doctors? Meanwhile, Mr. Page (Munish Sharma) wants local influencer Slender (Sara Vickruck) to be his son-in-law. Thus begins the war of the suitors.
Set designer Amir Ofek, who is a member of the Jewish community, has gone to great lengths to provide a soccer environment on a simple set with pentagonal-shaped-tile floors and some furniture, along with the obligatory soccer net and scoreboard. Costumer Barbara Clayden gets the suburbia chic right and sound designer Steven Charles has put together a great play list.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Macbeth, one of Shakespeare’s masterpieces. Director Steven Drover’s vision of a post-cataclysmic not-too-distant future, with a clash of power, corruption and politics, resonates in today’s world.
In this version, the pot-stirring witches are replaced by three eerie zombie-like, masked creatures with distorted electronic voices providing a futuristic veneer.
Munish Sharma is superb in the eponymous role as the conflicted warrior-to-be-king. The production opens with his successful return, armed with the spoils of his triumphs.
Tess Degenstein is an ambitious Lady Macbeth who manipulates her husband into killing King Duncan (Anthony Santiago) so that he can reign over Scotland. Macbeth agonizes over whether to carry out the plot, while his wife laments the fact that, as a woman, she cannot do the killing herself. Once the bloody deed is done, her “out damn spot” soliloquy portends her descent into madness and ultimate death.
Macbeth continues on his murderous path, arranging for the death of his friend Banquo (Sebastian Kroon) and the family of his rival, Macduff (Jacob Leonard). Haunted by Banquo’s ghost, Macbeth becomes paranoid and he, too, descends into madness culminating in a duel with Macduff.
Stephanie Davis provides the only levity in the production as the Porter with her “knock-knock” jokes, as she breaks the fourth wall to tease the audience. Her versatility comes through in her alternate role as a poignant Lady Macduff.
Ofek also designed this set – a bunker that was inspired, as he states in the program notes, by “images of tiled, medicinal-like slaughterhouses, abandoned indoor swimming pools and public shower rooms to create a spotless, underground tiled maze as cleanliness-obsessed Lady Macbeth’s domain.” Juxtapose this with the elevated mezzanine of the set, which exudes a dark, toxic outside-world vibe.
Alaia Hamer’s costumes reflect this juxtaposition, with the below-ground Macbeth household clad in simple white garb (the antithesis of the Macbeths’ aspirations) and the struggling others dressed in camouflage. Mary Jane Coomber’s spooky music provides a powerful soundscape. The fight scenes are fast-paced and energetic – kudos to fight director Jonathan Hawley Purvis for his choreography.
In the smaller Douglas Campbell Theatre, Bard is presenting Antigone and Goblin: Oedipus, adaptations of two plays written by Sophocles more than 2,000 years ago.
In Antigone, a masked Greek chorus sets the scene for the poignant story of a dysfunctional royal family and a sister’s fight to ensure that her dead brother has a proper burial – a struggle between moral courage and allegiance to the state. Yoshie Bancroft plays the eponymous lead and is simply stunning. Jennifer Lines as matriarch Jocasta, Kate Besworth (who adapted the play) as younger sister Ismene, Paul Moniz de Sá as King Creon (the uncle) and Cameron Grant as Haimon (the cousin and dead brother Polynices) find the right balance for each of their characters. The visuals are a feast for the eyes, from the stark white pillars and sand-coloured floor mosaic of the set to the draping earth-toned costumes, all suffused with John Webber’s evocative lighting. Greek tragedies are rarely performed in Vancouver so seize this opportunity to see this excellent production.
In contrast, Goblin: Oedipus is for audiences of 18 and older, as it is a treatise on patricide, incest, self-harm and suicide presented by three goblin-like characters (Moog, Wug and Kragva, playing multiple roles) who, at the beginning of the play, enlist 12 audience members to play the half-masked Greek chorus to tell the story of Oedipus and his descent into hell. There is slapstick, mayhem and bedlam in this interactive version of absurdist theatre and it all ends with the audience being invited to the stage for a dance party. Warning: coarse and suggestive language, not suitable for all.
For tickets to any of these productions, go to bardonthebeach.org or call 604-739-0559.
Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.