Shakespeare

Romeo & Juliet sublime

Ghazal Azarbad and Daniel Fong in Bard on the Beach’s Romeo and Juliet, which runs to Sept. 24. (photo by Tim Matheson)

William Shakespeare’s tragic love story, Romeo and Juliet, about teenaged lovers who come together despite the objections of their families, resonates with contemporary audiences as much as it did with the Elizabethan crowd.

Since it was written in 1595, ˆ has spawned countless adaptations, including the musical West Side Story, the animated feature Gnomeo and Juliet, and even a Palestinian girl meets Israeli boy version. So how do you present this well-known tale from a different angle? You do what director Anita Rochon did for this year’s Bard on the Beach production – start at the end, when Juliet wakes up in the family crypt next to dead Romeo, and flash back to the beginning. As well, tell the story from Juliet’s perspective, as she grapples with the question of how this situation came to be.

Rochon has taken some creative liberties with Shakespeare’s text, nipping and tucking here and there, and leaving out the characters of Lord Capulet and the Montague parents. Purists may not appreciate that surgery but will like that the play is set in its proper era. However, if you don’t know the story, the time line is a bit confusing, as the scenes jump around a bit, unlike the linear unfolding of the original text, so you should read the program summary beforehand.

From the minute you walk into the small tent and are met with the sight of the set, you know you’re in for a treat. Front and centre is an elevated marble-like tomb surrounded by 300 skulls strategically stacked around the macabre crypt, all bathed in flickering candlelight. The crypt’s massive iron doors open and close on an ever-changing backdrop as actors make their entries and exits. The tomb disappears into the ground on scene changes while a balustrade rises from the ground for the iconic balcony scene. Kudos to set designer Pam Johnson for a job well done.

The acting in this production is also first rate. Each and every one of the nine actors gets the job done. Daniel Fong as Romeo, Ghazal Azarbad as Juliet and Jennifer Lines as Lady Capulet are particularly strong in their roles. Fong nicely portrays the naïve confusion of the young swain while Azarbad shows strength of character and resolve not normally seen in depictions of teenage girls. The chemistry between the eponymous duo is palpable.

But it is Lines – morphing from gracious and charming party host to ferocious tiger mother when she gives Juliet the disinheritance ultimatum – who captures the essence of the play’s unspoken dilemma: Do we marry who our parents/families pick for us or do we marry who we love, no matter the consequences.

In a nod to role reversal, which seems to be the flavour of the season for Bard, Andrew McNee plays Juliet’s nurse, Sara Vickruck does double duty as the doomed Mercutio and the Apothecary and Anita Wittenberg plays Friar Laurence. McNee is one of the best comedic actors this city has, and his antics on the boards inject much-needed comic relief into an otherwise dark script.

Raising the production to sublime are the costumes (richly coloured, textured gowns for the ladies and sexy doublets and britches for the men), the dramatic lighting and the trio of choreographed sword fights – all backgrounded by the haunting tones of handheld bells that herald scene changes.

As Rochon points out in the program notes: “We know how their story ends and, in a way, we know how all our stories will end. The way we get there is where the mystery begins.”

You don’t have to be a hopeless romantic to appreciate the beauty of this production, which runs to Sept. 24 on the Howard Family Stage at Vanier Park. For tickets, visit bardonthebeach.org or call 604-739-0559.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

Welcome back, TUTS!

Much of the humour in Something Rotten! comes from Nostradamus (Jyla Robinson), right, leading Nick (Kamyar Pazandeh) astray with incorrect visions of the future. (photo by Emily Cooper)

Theatre Under the Stars is a fun, relaxing way to ease yourself back into theatre after the COVID hiatus. Its two productions, Something Rotten! and We Will Rock You, are happy fare that alternate nights through Aug. 27, outdoors at Stanley Park’s Malkin Bowl.

The Independent saw Something Rotten! on opening night, hoping to see Jewish community member Daniel Cardoso, who plays Jewish moneylender Shylock in the TUTS productions. However, it was understudy Simon Abraham who took on the role of the moneylender that night. He and the entire cast put on a great show.

In this comedy, set in 1595, Shakespeare is monopolizing the theatre industry and playwright siblings Nick and Nigel Bottom are trying to write a hit. They face several challenges, including being in debt to Shylock, who is willing to forgive that debt if they permit him to produce their new production. However, they initially refuse because he and they could be put to death, as Jews at the time were permitted few professions, one of which was moneylender.

Something Rotten! takes on – in very light manner – antisemitism, the treatment of the poor and the place of women in Shakespeare’s time. It also takes on these issues as they are depicted in Shakespeare’s plays and poetry.

“Shylock has been a very interesting character to explore and I extremely grateful to our director, Rachel Peake, for giving me the chance to do so,” Cardoso told the Independent in an interview before the show opened. “In researching for this part, I certainly took a cursory look at Merchant of Venice, but only so I could have an idea of who Shakespeare’s Shylock is. Because of how much Something Rotten! subverts the audience’s expectations of these well-known Shakespearean characters, there are only a few similarities between what I’m doing and what we see in Merchant of Venice. I don’t think that antisemitism is a central theme of this show, but we certainly get a view of it through Shylock.

“I also dove into what antisemitism looked like during the time of the Renaissance,” he continued, noting that Jews were “expelled from England in the late 13th century and only officially allowed to return in the mid-17th. However, it does appear that there were indeed Jewish people living in England during Shakespeare’s time and that some even fled to England from Spain and Portugal, due to the Inquisition.”

Cardoso sees parallels between Shakespeare’s time and today’s undocumented immigrants in both Canada and the United States and the refugee crises around the world. “In trying to find a way into the Shylock ofSomething Rotten!,” he said, “I found myself drawing on these modern-day examples, as well as trying to imagine what it must have been like for Jewish people in the time of the Renaissance or various other points in history. I found that, given my own connection to the community, this hit quite close to home for me. At the end of the day, he’s a smart guy who works hard and, despite the obstacles in front of him, he is able to be an equal and a friend to many of the characters in the show.”

Not such a smart guy is Nick Bottom (Kamyar Pazandeh) who, in trying to skip the hard work and best Shakespeare (Daniel Curalli), seeks out a soothsayer, Nostradamus (Jyla Robinson), who tells him that musicals are the popular theatre of the future. Nick sinks the last pennies he and his wife Bea (Katie-Rose Connors) have into a musical production with a reluctant Nigel (Vicente Sandoval), who has Shakespeare’s talent but lives in his brother’s shadow. It is only after Nigel meets Portia (Cassandra Consiglio), the daughter of Puritans, that he becomes to his own self true.

The homage to and satire of both musicals and Shakespeare makes for a lot of laughs and reference guessing – is that line or musical snippet from Annie, Evita, Rent, A Chorus Line, or more than a dozen other shows? Standout songs are “God, I Hate Shakespeare,” with the Bottom brothers’ differing views of their main competitor; “The Black Death,” a cheery ditty about the plague, the Bottoms’ first musical attempt; “Will Power,” Shakespeare enjoying his rockstar status, amid fawning, crying, screaming, fainting fans; and “Make an Omelette,” the title song of the Bottoms’ new musical. Foreseeing Omelette instead of Hamlet as Shakespeare’s best-ever play is only one of the soothsayer’s many slightly incorrect visions.

“It’s been a privilege to get to work on Something Rotten!” said Cardoso, who has been in four other TUTS productions. “It’s an extremely funny show and, if you’re a fan of either musical theatre or Shakespeare, then you’ll have a fun time at this show. And, if you like both, even better!”

For tickets to either of this season’s productions, visit tuts.ca.

Dreamy Midsummer’s Night

The company of Bard on Beach’s production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. (photo by Tim Matheson)

The thespian delights of Shakespeare set against the glorious backdrop of mountains, sea and sky have been missed. But now, after a COVID-induced two-year hiatus, Bard on the Beach at Vanier Park is back with a bang, based on the audience buzz on opening night.

The comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a perennial crowd pleaser, will occupy the BMO Mainstage all season. Harlem Duet, a tale of Black life spanning three periods in American history, runs until mid-July on the smaller Howard Family Stage, with Romeo and Juliet taking over that stage in August through to September.

This is the seventh time Bard has produced A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and this rendition has “hit” written all over it. It is one cheeky dream.

Set against the backdrop of the upcoming marriage of Athenian Duke Theseus (Ian Butcher) to foreign Queen Hippolyta (Melissa Oei), three stories weave their way through a mélange of mistaken identities, unrequited love, feuding fairy royalty and would-be actors, riotously intersecting in the enchanted wood outside of Athens.

Four young lovers, Hermia (Heidi Damayo), Lysander (Olivia Hutt), Helena (Emily Dallas) and Demetrius (Christopher Allen) dash through the woods in a mad, “looking for love romp” replete with a WWE-worthy cat fight and zingy insults.

Meanwhile, in the sylvan wonderland, Fairy King Oberon (Billy Marchenski) and his queen, Titania (Kate Besworth), are in the midst of a custody battle. Oberon sends his trusty servant, the mischievous Puck (Sarah Roa), to exact revenge on his queen with a potion meant to make her fall in love with the first thing she sees when she awakes.

Finally, we meet a troupe of bumbling tradesmen who seek refuge in the forest to rehearse Pyramus and Thisbe, the play they have written in honour of the duke’s pending nuptials. It is during this rehearsal, that one of them, Bottom (Carly Street), morphs into an ass, both literally and figuratively, and becomes the love interest of Titania.

In a nod to diversity and gender fluidity, director Scott Bellis (who knows this play from top to bottom, having performed in five of Bard’s previous Midsummer productions) has cast lovers Hermia and Lysander as a lesbian couple, while two of the tradesmen, Bottom and Snug (Jewish community member Advah Soudack), are played as females.

Bellis has also incorporated some interesting staging devices. Oberon arrives on stage on stilts, towering over his subjects. Bottom makes numerous asides to the audience and takes forays up the aisles. And the Mechanicals characters, at one point, move in a shuffling turntable motion around the stage.

Street steals the show as Bottom, the know-it-all of the working class group. Although given the lead of Pyramus, she wants to play all of the parts, thinking she can act better than the others. In her quest to prove this, she gives whole new meaning to the concept of emoting. It generally works and the audience loves it, although she often upstages her castmates.

Roa provides a refreshing spin on her impish character and Soudack, although in a minor role, is hilarious as the timid lion in Pyramus and Thisbe, as is Flute (Munish Sharma) as Thisbe, the reluctant object of Pyramus’s affection. Many of the actors are making their Bard debut and it is good to see new blood in the Vancouver theatre scene.

Jewish community members are prominent behind the scenes in this production. Amir Ofek’s set, backed by two leaded glass windows framing the view of the North Shore, easily transitions from the staid royal Athenian court to the warehouse of the tradesmen to the whimsy of the Oberon realm. Mishelle Cuttler, as sound designer/composer, provides original music that complements Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg’s ethereal choreography, as performed by students from the Simon Fraser University School of Contemporary Dance. You don’t usually get to see Shakespeare with so many dance elements, which adds an interesting layer to the mix.

Christine Reimer’s costumes are a delight – earth-toned, tailored day suits and cloche hats for the women, a white bejeweled gown for Titania, frothy candy-coloured tutus for the fairies and silky evening frocks for the final scene. Gerald King’s lighting – the greens, the purples, the reds – all work in harmony with the sun as it sets behind the stage.

To escape into the Bard’s fantasy world and enjoy the dream, visit bardonthebeach.org.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

To do or not to do (the Bard)

Bard on the Beach’s Done/Undone, written by Kate Besworth, co-stars Harveen Sandhu and Charlie Gallant. (photo from bardonthebeach.org)

Throughout COVID, Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach has been unable to mount its popular summer festival at Vanier Park. However, it is easing its way back into the hearts and minds of Shakespeare fans with its innovative film production Done/Undone, written by Kate Besworth and starring Bard veterans Charlie Gallant and Harveen Sandhu, who take on multiple and diverse roles. The creative team includes community member Mishelle Cuttler as sound designer.

The film raises many probing questions. Is time up for Shakespeare’s works in the #metoo, woke, cancel culture era? Is there room today for plays written 400 years ago that can be interpreted as misogynist (The Taming of the Shrew), racist (Othello) or antisemitic (The Merchant of Venice)? Are the Bard’s works not just the reflections of a white, privileged male, written for colonial audiences to glorify British mores and culture? Or was English writer Ben Johnson, who died in 1637, right when he said Shakespeare was “not a man of his age, but a man for all times?” Should any form of Bardolatry continue or should Shakespeare and his folios be laid to rest as we move forward with contemporary artists telling contemporary stories?

To answer these questions, the film, set against the backdrop of a working theatre, uses snappy vignettes to showcase the pros and cons of the debate with interesting and perhaps unexpected results.

It opens as the two actors arrive at the theatre to prepare for a production of Hamlet, and the question first arises. Sandhu appears as Shakespeare to state that the purpose of writing is to “hold a mirror to humanity,” as she lists off the myriad subjects that the Bard explored – the sea, star-crossed lovers, a donkey in the arms of a fairy queen, an exiled warrior, an emperor of Rome, a triumphant king, how choices matter, and how governments fail us.

We then are spectators to a battle of wits between dueling professors, explaining and emoting from their respective lecterns. Gallant emphatically argues that Shakespeare is a product of a white, patriarchal society, using words as a tool of cultural imperialism written, originally, for white men to perform (women were not allowed to act in Shakespeare’s times, so male actors would take on the female roles) and that there is no place today for his work. Sandhu counters that Shakespeare’s texts still evoke emotions that resonate within the contemporary world – his topics of love, hate, greed and lust are timeless and embedded in the human character, she argues. She sees Shakespeare as remarkably progressive, with many of his characters in gender-fluid roles and with his portrayals of strong women – Rosalind, Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth, to name a few. His works can provide teaching moments, says Sandhu, giving the examples of Taming of the Shrew to show the harm that misogyny causes, King Lear, the scourge of elder abuse, and Othello and Merchant as vehicles to elicit tolerance and empathy in society.

Other vignettes in the film include a Bard board member – a neurosurgeon – who, during an opening night audience address, poignantly recounts the solace he found in the dark spaces of the theatre during a production of King Lear after the loss of a patient. He says that darkness was the escape from the reality of his grief.

Another scenario depicted is a couple taking in a performance of Romeo and Juliet, where the woman is clearly more into it than her male partner, who finds the Shakespearean language highbrow and difficult to understand.

Then there are the gothic, spectre-like creatures who denounce the Bard’s portrayal of women and Blacks in a macabre pas de deux; a talkback session after a Measure for Measure performance, where the female actor embarks on a scathing indictment of colour-blind casting; and the finale, in French, as the two actors attend an inventive Shakespeare festival in Montreal.

Shakespeare’s influence is global. At any given time, somewhere on the planet, one of his plays is being produced, either in its original form or as an adaptation. Do we judge him with our contemporary lens or should we remember the times in which he wrote and appreciate his genius? Done/Undone is a thoughtful and intelligent production that seamlessly blends the worlds of cinema and theatre, and considers some difficult questions. It leaves you to draw your own conclusions.

Done/Undone, with a run time of 76 minutes, is available for streaming online until Sept. 30. Tickets can be purchased at bardonthebeach.org or from the box office at 604-739-0559.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

To be heroes in our eyes

William Shakespeare designated a minor character in his play Hamlet to express and offer to us profound advice, something that is really an observation about the nature of the human animal. It rattles around in our minds, and probably has since time immemorial.

In Act 1, Scene 3, Polonius’s advice to his son, Laertes, is “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”

It may be that many people do not think about it, but some of us – those with aspirations regarding the roles they hope to play in the lives they will lead – have this buzzing around in their conscious and subconscious minds. And it begs the question, who and what is that self?

Some of us, and certainly it was true in my case, concocted, in the days of our youth, fanciful tales of the derring-do we would accomplish in our lives. Aided and abetted by library readings that detailed the accomplishments of heroes in past times, I painted myself into the foreground of these scenarios. Along with this, necessarily, went standards of behaviour that demanded selflessness and virtue. I not only had to be brave and courageous, but I had to be honourable and generous. A hero could not be otherwise.

So, to be true to myself, there were rigid standards of behaviour to which I imagined I should live up. I am sure many of us have been subjected to entreaties from parents, other adults and teachers, as to standards of behaviours that were to be expected of us, and some of these were incorporated into what we wanted from ourselves.

No standards are applied as rigidly or as harshly as the ones we inflict on ourselves. Taking them into account in our private moments, we are aware of every one of our transgressions. Totting up the score, we make judgments all the time as to whether we are worthy of the self-respect we would like to possess. We dearly want to like ourselves if we can. We wrestle with our failings and remember most of them.

And we judge our accomplishments, too, of course. How close did we come to achieving those deeds of derring-do, however we define them, that we promised ourselves we would undertake? Are we on the way to being heroes in our own eyes? Or, at least, can we enjoy a satisfaction for our accomplishments, including meeting our standards of behaviour towards others? If we didn’t make it all the way, did we fight the good fight sufficiently to make us worthy of self-respect? After all, it is ourselves with whom we cannot escape living. How much self-destructive behaviour can be traced to remorse in this arena?

Where have you been in life, you dashing daredevils? What mountains did you climb? What goals did you set for yourself, to reach or exceed? Were they modest and did you achieve them to your satisfaction? Were they vainglorious and did you feel the bitterness of defeat? Was public attention your goal, for good or ill, or did you not need acclaim? Did you find satisfaction in the effort itself? Did you have to be satisfied with only partial accomplishments? Were you like me, who blundered around until the moment caught me, rather than seizing these moments?

If you are just starting out, you have all this to look forward to. Go forth, you heroes and heroines of endeavour!

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.

Help Macbeth escape play?

Brigitte May plays many characters in The Tragic Comedy of Macbeth, which runs Dec. 5-15 at the Jericho Arts Centre. (photo from Literary Larceny Artistic Collective)

“I love the spontaneity of it all. Improv is so magical because it can and will go anywhere,” actor Brigitte May told the Independent. “The agreement that improvisers have to commit to whatever has been established in the scene is such an amazing thing because, if done well, the scene can bear an undeniable truth in complete absurdity.”

May is part of the cast of The Tragic Comedy of Macbeth, which opens Dec. 5 at the Jericho Arts Centre. The production uses comedy, improvisation and the words of William Shakespeare to reveal more of the real Macbeth. It has its origins in a show envisaged by David C. Jones and created with the students of Langara College’s Studio 58 in 2014.

“As a professional improviser and actor, I have loved playing with existing stories and finding a way to make them more inventive and funny,” said Jones. “I was one of the original creators of a hit show that was remounted by several theatre companies (including the Arts Club) across Canada entitled A Twisted Christmas Carol. I also created an award-wining street theatre show called A Twisted Cyrano de Bergerac and toured England with a show called Twisted Anne of Green Gables.

“A decade later, I was approached by Kathryn Shaw, the artistic director at Studio 58, the professional theatre training program, to create a theatrical performance piece with the fourth-term students. We decided to do a partially scripted and partially improvised Macbeth. The premise of that one was very different and it was only one hour. It was narrated by the Porter, Hecate and Lady Lennox and they got the suggestions to change the show, and the focus was more of fixing ‘plot holes’ and problems with the original text. Although Shakespeare is brilliant, he does have some hiccups in some of his scripts.”

The Tragic Comedy of Macbeth is being staged by the Literary Larceny Artistic Collective.

“We are a group of professional actors and improvisers who came together specially to make this new expanded version of the show,” said Jones of the collective. “Now under the direction of Shakespearean actor Bernard Cuffling and veteran professional improviser Gary Jones, we have created this new slightly darker version.

“The real Macbeth (Mac Bethad Mac Findlaích) was actually a ruler of Scotland from 1040 to 1057 and was not at all like the man portrayed in Shakespeare’s play,” explained Jones. “He is trapped in the play in our production and he is trying to get free so he doesn’t have to suffer the beheading for the six billionth time. The witches in the play have agreed that, if he can derail the play and survive to the end, then his spirit can be set free. So, it is up to the audience to help him change the play to survive, or not.”

May plays many characters in The Tragic Comedy of Macbeth, but, she said, “the witch Hecate is the most prominent. Hecate is the queen of the witches, the mistress of charms, a very powerful expert of the dark arts, but she gets cut out of most versions of the play. In TCOM, Hecate seeks revenge for constantly being omitted and attempts to foil Macbeth’s plan.”

In improv, how much of the plot and action are laid out ahead of time depends on the show, said May. “In TCOM,” she said, “we have a fairly concrete structure. We are able to manipulate and play with it a little through audience suggestion, but David C. Jones and Brent Hirose (the writers of the play) worked hard to create a fascinating twist on a classic tale.

“Practising improv sounds like a joke, but it’s actually super-important!” she added. “Making sure your brain is warmed up to take whatever is being thrown at it, building trust with your castmates, and practising and learning the format that you’re performing are integral to the success of any improv show.”

In addition to being an improviser and actor – she has performed with Affair of Honour and Blind Tiger theatre companies and is a cast member of Instant Theatre’s Fistful of Kicks improv comedy show – May is a staff writer for the satirical news website, the Beaverton, and works in retail. She graduated from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., with a bachelor of arts (honours) in English with a film minor, but was born here.

“I am a first-generation Vancouverite,” she said. “My father and mother moved here from Ottawa and Manila, respectively, got married and raised my brothers and me on the west side of Vancouver.”

Intentionally or unintentionally, those brothers helped direct her to the stage.

“As a kid, I was always performing. I am the youngest in my family and have three older brothers, so I was always vying for attention and trying to prove myself,” she explained. “I wasn’t too much of a troublemaker (I feel like my brothers had that covered), but I would frequently get into fights if I were told I couldn’t do something because I was a girl. Still, my parents were supportive of my creative pursuits, they signed me up for dance lessons (at the JCC), music lessons and acting camps. I didn’t really start writing comedy till late in high school and into college, but I had been on my school’s improv team, which heavily influenced my love for comedy.”

As for the roles played by Judaism, Jewish culture or Jewish community in her life, May said, “The Jewish community has always been a part of my life. I have been a member of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver ever since I was born. I remember swimming in the pool with my bubbie, and watching my dad and zaidie play racquetball. Now that I think about it, a lot of my childhood was spent running around the halls of the JCC.

“It was also where I was first introduced to performing. I had my first ballet lessons there – there’s actually a photo of me in the lobby of the JCC in my first-ever dance recital … we did The Little Mermaid! – then did a couple years in Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! in my teens. I was even a counselor at Camp Shalom for a couple of years. The JCC was where I first was introduced to the arts, so I owe a lot to the community.

“In regards to Judaism and Jewish culture,” she said, “I find myself being drawn to it. Being half-Jewish and half-Chinese comes with a lot of ambiguity, so, when I was younger, I used to grasp at anything that gave me any notion of identity and history. My grandfather was a drummer and artist by trade, so, while my siblings and I might not have been the most educated in the religious aspect of Judaism, we were exposed to a lot of the cultural aspects. We would watch old Saturday Night Lives with Adam Sander, Mel Brooks movies, old(ish?) SNL with Andy Samberg, and were constantly being told jokes by our uncles. I think growing up having those comedians as my role models greatly influenced and shaped who I am today.”

The Tragic Comedy of Macbeth previews Dec. 4. Opening Dec. 5, it runs Wednesday through Saturday, 7:30 p.m., with 2 p.m. shows on Sundays, until Dec. 15. For tickets, visit tickets.theatrewire.com.

Bard’s strong summer lineup

Jennifer Lines and Andrew McNee in The Taming of the Shrew. (photo by Tim Matheson)

Bard on the Beach celebrates its 30th season with an eclectic, nontraditional mix of three Shakespeare plays – a western Taming of the Shrew, a Bollywood All’s Well that Ends Well and Coriolanus, a political drama with gender reversal – and a stage version of the Oscar-winning movie Shakespeare in Love.

A Western-style Shrew

How do you present Shakespeare’s tale of a strong-willed woman brought to her knees by a tormenting husband in today’s #metoo world? Can you justify staging a misogynistic play in the 21st century? That was the dilemma facing director Lois Anderson, who played the female lead in 2012. Her solution? Take some liberties with the script – nip it here, tuck it there, add in some role and speech reversals, set it in the American Wild West of the 1870s. While purists may bemoan the surgery, there is a lot to like about this production.

In Shrew, Lucentio (Kamyar Pazandeh), the son of a wealthy merchant from Pisa, comes to Padua to study and is smitten by Bianca (Kate Besworth), the lovely younger daughter of Madam Baptista (Susinn McFarlen). He is resolved to marry her but the good Madam insists that her older daughter, Katherine (Jennifer Lines), must be married off first. Unfortunately, Kate has the reputation of being an über shrew and none of the local men sees her as wife material. Enter Petruchio (Andrew McNee), a down-on-his-luck Veronan who has come to Padua to “wife it wealthily” and sees Kate (and her dowry) as both a challenge and an answer to his prayers.

Their first meeting is a fiery battle of evenly matched wits and an insight into things to come as the “taming” journey begins from a spontaneous marriage proposal, through the outlandish wedding to the honeymoon in a canvas tent on the range. The scene with Petruchio’s men lounging around the campfire singing in harmony about tumbleweed is a harbinger of Kate’s metamorphosis from the shrew to the good wife.

Meanwhile, back in Padua, now that Kate has been married off, Bianca’s admirers are set to woo her. Lucentio and Hortensio (Jewish community member Anton Lipovetsky) disguise themselves as tutors to vie for her affections. Lucentio wins the battle of the swains, the couple elopes and Hortensio consoles himself by marrying a wealthy widow. Kate and Petruchio return to Padua to celebrate the nuptials and a wager is made among the three grooms as to which wife will be the most obedient and come when called. Although Kate is the one who appears to obsequiously respond, she makes her final exit with a bang.

Lines is stellar as Kate. We see her feisty side when she lassoes her sister Bianca and drags her around the room, when she throws a flowerpot out of a window onto a mocking crowd below and when she breaks a lute over Hortensio’s head – Lipovetsky plays the part with great comedic timing. We also see Kate’s more vulnerable side, as she sits alone contemplating her spinsterhood and what is, in essence, the bullying she endures from the townsfolk.

Petruchio’s character has been made into a kinder, gentler soul, more palatable to today’s sensibilities, but the nice guy doesn’t always mesh with the mean one Shakespeare wrote. That said, McNee is strong in his portrayal and you cannot help but like him. It helps that the chemistry between the two leads is palpable – their characters are outsiders who have finally found their soul mates and revel in the discovery.

The production values are high for Shrew. Mara Gottler has done a stellar job with the costumes, the colourful frocks worn by the women, the cowboy dusters and the urban togs of the localites. Cory Sincennes’ set is simple, with the opening scene of Padua City’s main street readying for a summer fête easily morphing into the Baptista sitting room or a saloon. Gerald King’s lighting design and Malcolm Dow’s western sound design, replete with sounds of galloping horses in a very funny pony express scene, complete the theme.

This Shrew is certainly worth seeing but it would have been better with the original script, acknowledging the culture of the Elizabethan period regarding the treatment of the “fairer” sex and opening the dialogue about how far women have come in the past 400 years and how much further there is to go. After all, you don’t take the antisemitism out of Merchant of Venice or the elder abuse out of King Lear – and you should not take the misogyny out of The Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare’s works, warts and all, should be looked at through a 16th-century lens, not a modern one.

The Bard in India

photo - Edmund Stapleton and Sarena Parmar in All’s Well that Ends Well — Edmund Stapleton and Sarena Parmar in All’s Well that Ends Well. *(photo by Tim Matheson)*

All’s Well that Ends Well defies classification into one of Shakespeare’s genres – comedy or tragedy. Bard on the Beach plays it as the former and it pays off, with an audience-pleasing feast of colour, music, bhangra dancing and swordplay.

The setting is 1946 India in a country on the cusp of independence from British rule prior to the partition with Pakistan, which divided the country into Hindu and Muslim nations. The story revolves around Helena (Sarena Parmar), an upper-class Hindu physician’s daughter and ward of the aristocratic British Countess (Lucia Frangione), who falls in love with the Countess’s soldier son, Bertram (Edmund Stapelton). Bertram is dismissive of Helena, considering her beneath his station.

However, Helena is determined to have him. The Viceroy (Bernard Cuffling) is ailing and near death. Helena, remembering her now-deceased father’s various remedies, offers to treat the Viceroy in exchange for the right to marry any man of her choosing. But, while she gets her wish and Bertram is forced to marry her, he abandons her to go to battle. He leaves behind a letter stating that he will not live with Helena as her spouse until she retrieves a ring he is wearing and bears him a child.

In Delhi, Bertram meets virginal but coquettish Diana (Pam Patel) and seduces her (so he thinks) but Helena has previously met with her and made plans to trade places with Diana in the bed chamber. This deception allows her to meet Bertram’s conditions and finally convince him that she is worthy of him – although why she would want such a cad is beyond comprehension.

Helena’s journey of self-discovery is symbolized by her sartorial choices, as she changes from Western garb to a traditional sari by the end of the play, paralleling the Indian journey from colonization and British rule to independence.

It is nice to see the diversity of cast in this production and the use of Hindi dialogue, particularly by Diana’s mother, the widow (Veenesh Dubois). Parmar is lovely as Helena, Cuffling a grouchy but avuncular Viceroy. David Marr as Lafeu, the minister, is hilarious and Jeff Gladstone as Parolles, one of Bertram’s military mates, steals the show with his slapstick antics. Newcomer Patel as Diana is a breath of fresh air. The ensemble dancers under the direction of choreographer Poonam Sandhu and the two Gurkha guards, Munish Sharma and Nadeem Phillip, bring authenticity to the onstage movement.

This show is all about the visuals – the set, the costumes, the dancing and the lighting. Kudos to costume designer Carmen Alatorre for her stylish choices and to set designer Pam Johnson for the stunning terracotta arched set, which transitions from a palatial Delhi home to a Punjabi marketplace brimming with colour and activity. Co- directors Rohit Chokhani and Johnna Wright, with their talented cast and crew, have created a gem. This fusion of East meets West is a winner.

Fall for Shakespeare

photo - Charlie Gallant, left, and Anton Lipovetsky in Shakespeare in Love — Charlie Gallant, left, and Anton Lipovetsky in Shakespeare in Love. *(photo by Tim Matheson)*

As director Daryl Clonan – who helmed last year’s hit, As You Like It, Beatlemania-style – said to the opening night crowd of Shakespeare in Love, this play is a love letter to the theatre. Not only that but it is great fun. The costumes, the acting, the set, the ambience, all do honour to its namesake 1998 film starring Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow. The movie took the cinematic world by storm, winning seven Oscars, including best picture, and this summer’s stage version is set to wow Vancouver audiences.

The story is set in period, the early 1600s. The Bard (dashing Charlie Gallant) is suffering from writer’s block as he works on a new play, Romeo and Ethel and the Pirate’s Daughter. His inspiration ultimately arrives in the form of muse Viola De Lesseps (Ghazal Azarbad), the daughter of a wealthy merchant, who dreams of acting on stage. However, as women were not allowed thespian careers at that time, she has to disguise herself as Thomas Kent in order to audition for Shakespeare’s new play. As Kent, she gets the part of Romeo.

Meanwhile, Shakespeare meets Viola and falls for her – and she for him, although she has been promised to Lord Wessex, a nasty fortune-hunting aristocrat who plans to whisk her away to his family’s Virginia tobacco plantations.

This show has something in it for animal lovers (the dog Spot is a scene stealer), movie buffs and, of course, Shakespeare mavens, who will delight in identifying the various lines from the Bard’s repertoire, the play-within-a-play, mistaken identities, swordplay, a balcony scene, an in flagrante delicto moment and more.

The ensemble cast is terrific and Gallant and Azarbad are sublime in their portrayals of the two lovers, who enjoy some steamy moments behind the bed curtains. Jennifer Lines has a small but memorable role as a regal and stately Queen Elizabeth I. Mention must also be made of newcomer Jason Sakaki, who plays Sam, the young boy who plays Juliet until opening night, when his voice changes, giving Viola a chance to tread the boards without hiding her gender. Kit Marlowe (Austin Eckert), one of Shakespeare’s competitors, has been given an enhanced role in this rendering and he helps Shakespeare muddle his way through Sonnet #18: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day….”

Four Jewish community members are involved in this production. Warren Kimmel – last seen at Bard as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice – plays Fennyman, a local impressario who takes a share in one of Shakespeare’s plays and, while it is a small role, Kimmel plays it to the comedic max. Anton Lipovetsky makes the unctuous groom Lord Wessex utterly repellent, Mishelle Cuttler provides a potpourri of baroque melodies as sound designer and musical director, and Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg’s work as movement coach adds energy and playfulness, as it does in The Taming of the Shrew.

Set and costume designer Cory Sincennes once again keeps the set simple, a stark sepia-coloured Globe Theatre, but goes all out on a colourful feast of costumes.

This will likely be the hit of the season.

Three of the four Bard productions are up and running; Corialanus opens Aug. 21. For the schedule and tickets visit bardonthebeach.org or call 604-739-0559.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

Modern-day Merchant

Warren Kimmel (Shylock), left, with Charlie Gallant (Bassanio) in Bard on the Beach’s Merchant of Venice. (photo by David Blue)

It is always hard as a Jew to watch Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, which has been characterized at one end of the spectrum as purely antisemitic and at the other as sympathetic to the plight of outsiders. Each vicious epithet hurled at Shylock, the Jewish protagonist, hits you in the gut like a ton of bricks. However, the play has to be considered in the context that Shakespeare likely had never even met a Jew.

Jews were expelled from England in 1290 and not invited back until the 1650s, by Oliver Cromwell. England was judenrein (“free of Jews”) for almost 400 years. Merchant was written between 1594 and 1599. How, then, could Shakespeare write such virulent diatribes against Jews? Was he influenced by the zeitgeist of his time or was he trying to preach a morality lesson to Elizabethan audiences? Bard on the Beach takes on the daunting task of presenting this “sinister parable of our times,” as director Nigel Shawn Williams calls it in his director’s notes.

The story revolves around Bassanio (Charlie Gallant), a Venetian lord and bankrupt fortune hunter, who needs 3,000 ducats (apparently close to three-quarters of a million in today’s dollars) to woo Belmont heiress Portia (Olivia Hutt) so that he can wed wealthily. His friend, Antonio (Edward Foy), a successful shipping merchant, urges him to borrow the sum from Shylock (Jewish community member Warren Kimmel) and agrees to stand surety for the loan. Shylock, who has been humiliated and abused by Antonio and his ilk, sees an opportunity for revenge and agrees to lend the money on the condition that if there is a default he gets a pound of Antonio’s flesh. Antonio’s ships run aground, he cannot repay the loan and Shylock demands his bond in a dramatic court room scene that includes the “Quality of Mercy” speech and, unfortunately, a not-so-happy ending for Shylock.

Fast-forward several centuries and enter cosmopolitan Venice as presented in Bard’s contemporary take on this play. It is a world inhabited by self-centred metrosexuals with a sense of entitlement, where money and power carry the day. These guys are not very nice and anyone who does not fit their worldview is an outsider deserving of contempt. The play opens with a frenetic scene as actors bustle to and fro. Shylock enters the melee, is tripped by Antonio and falls flat on his face amid the jeering crowd – a harbinger of what is to come.

I have seen all four of Bard’s productions of Merchant since it was first presented in 1996 – this one raises the bar, although there are some shaky bits along the way. While purists decry taking Shakespearean works out of period, putting Merchant in a contemporary business setting full of suits will resonate with audiences.

photo - Warren Kimmel is sublime in his dignified portrayal of Shylock in Bard on the Beach’s Merchant of Venice — Warren Kimmel is sublime in his dignified portrayal of Shylock in Bard on the Beach’s Merchant of Venice. *(photo by David Blue)*

Despite the fact that I cringed every time Shylock was spat upon or called a Jew dog, I was moved by Kimmel’s “Hath a Jew not eyes” soliloquy, his heartbreak on learning that his daughter Jessica (Carmela Sison) had eloped with gentile Lorenzo (Chirag Naik), his soulful rendition of the Kaddish and his isolation as he sat alone in the courtroom facing his antagonists. Kimmel is sublime in his dignified portrayal of Shylock. You really care about what happens to him.

While Antonio is the merchant of Venice and Shylock the victim, this Bard version is very much about Portia and her plight as a woman facing stereotypical and misogynistic restrictions. We first see this when she has to endure the indignity of being the prize (wife) in a game devised by her now-deceased father for three would-be suitors. Each has the chance to pick one of three caskets (gold, silver and lead) that contains her photograph. The first two, Prince of Morocco (Nadeem Phillip) and Prince of Aragon (Paul Moniz de Sa), are brilliant in their cameo roles. In other productions, they are played as buffoons. Here they are elegantly dressed but smarmy and unctuous and, thank goodness, ultimately unsuccessful in their casket choices. Then along comes Bassanio, who picks the right casket (“all that glimmers is not gold”) and wins fair lady.

Portia’s next trial is the real one, where she disguises herself as a young lawyer and listens carefully to Shylock’s pleas for justice. It is in this scene that Hutt truly shines as the quick-witted and resourceful heroine Shakespeare intended her to be.

As good as the production is, there are some problems. Many of the actors spend a lot of time yelling their lines, which is distracting. I was offended by the Nazi salute Solania (Kate Besworth) made when mocking Shylock. It adds nothing to the story and should be taken out. There is a short homoerotic scene between Bassanio and Antonio, including a full-on mouth-to-mouth kiss, that seemed out of place, and Shylock’s forced conversion to Christianity is played down – he is told he must convert and simply walks off the stage, leaving the audience to wonder what happened to the bankrupt and humiliated moneylender.

Production values are high, including some interesting freeze-frame moments. The stage is at floor level, making for a very intimate audience experience. The stark minimalist set allows the focus to be on the dialogue. High-tech gadgets like cellphones, laptops and iPads seamlessly fit into the mix, and Drew Facey’s stylishly chic costumes are structured and fitted for urban Venice, and softer and looser for coastal Belmont. Conor Moore’s projections, Adrian Muir’s lighting and Patrick Pennefather’s sound, a mélange of contemporary and classical music, provide the finishing touches.

This is an intelligent, moving production. See it, consider it, discuss it. Tickets for this and other Bard shows can be purchased at bardonthebeach.org or 604-739-0559.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

***

Also on stage …

Running on the Main Stage at Bard on the Beach is Much Ado About Nothing with The Winter’s Tale. Director John Murphy has transported the comedy of Much Ado into a 1950s Italian film studio. Think Fellini, Sophia Loren, Vespas and fabulous cocktail dresses.

The story is boy meets girl, they profess to hate each other and then realize (with a little nudging from family and friends) that maybe they are right for each other. Of course, to get to the final epiphany, there are lots of misadventures, including mistaken identities, a young bride left at the altar and a faked death. As the program guide notes, “Friendships are tested, secrets are revealed but will love conquer all?” Amber Lewis and Kevin MacDonald are stellar as in the main roles of Beatrice (one of Shakespeare’s feistiest female characters) and Benedick. Community member Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg’s choreography is featured in this fun foray.

The Two Gentleman of Verona, which is on the Howard Family Stage, is also very good. Friedenberg choreographed some of the movement in this production as well, and her work is lovely. This production also stars a real dog, a basset hound named Gertie, who almost steals the show without doing anything but coming out on stage and mournfully looking at the audience.

– TK

Kimmel plays Shylock

Bard on the Beach’s The Merchant of Venice is set in modern times, where the character of Shylock, played by Warren Kimmel, is a high-powered businessman. (photo by David Cooper)

Among the Shakespearean works being presented by Bard on the Beach this season is The Merchant of Venice, which is being complemented with a short run of local playwright and Jewish community member Mark Leiren-Young’s one-man show Shylock. Fellow Jewish community member Warren Kimmel has taken on the daunting task of playing Shylock in both the main production and its eponymous companion piece.

There is continuing controversy over whether or not theatrical companies should produce Merchant. There are those who say the play should be relegated to the dustbin of history while others champion it as an opportunity for meaningful dialogue about outsiders and otherness.

In Merchant, Bassanio, an eligible Venetian bachelor, wishes to “wed wealthily” and woo the beautiful heiress Portia. To do so, he needs money. Enter his friend, Antonio, a successful merchant of Venice, who can guarantee a loan. Jewish moneylender Shylock is approached. Shylock, who has been ridiculed and despised by the citizens of Venice, especially Antonio, sees an opportunity for revenge and agrees to make the loan in return for Antonio’s bond, which, if forfeit, would give Shylock a “pound of Antonio’s flesh.”

Meanwhile, Portia’s father has devised a test for eligible suitors to win his daughter’s hand. The antics of the three suitors vying for the prize provide some comic relief for the tragedy that follows. Bassanio wins his lady but learns that Antonio’s ships have all been wrecked at sea and that the merchant cannot pay back the loan. Shylock is insisting upon his “pound of flesh” so Bassanio makes haste back to Venice.

This leads to a powerful courtroom scene where Portia, disguised as a young lawyer, makes an emotional plea in her “quality of mercy” speech. However, Shylock insists upon his legal rights and wins the suit. Just as he is about to take his “prize,” Portia points out to him that he is restricted to exactly one pound of flesh and not one drop of Christian blood is to be shed, or else Shylock will forfeit his own life. Shylock agrees to walk away but is nonetheless systematically stripped of all his possessions and forced to convert to Christianity.

“I was very flattered when Christopher Gaze, the artistic director, asked me to play Shylock in both plays,” Kimmel told the Independent. “This will be my Bard debut and the first time that I have played a really serious dramatic role in Canada, as my background has mostly been in musicals.”

Kimmel, born in South Africa, was trained in classical theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England. He compared Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter verses to the rhythm in songs, so there is no problem there, but he has been grappling with how to present this iconic character to audiences.

“The problem I have with the play is the portrayal of Shylock,” he said. “It is very complicated because it is antisemitic. But, at the same time, it is not just black and white. Shylock is not a nice guy, he is a piece of work – but a complicated one. On one side, he is an aggressive businessman but, on the other, he lost his wife, had a hell of a life and loves his daughter more than anything, perhaps too much … to the point that she wants to escape and does so by taking his money and running off with a gentile. So, I have an inner conflict to resolve to get into the character so that it makes sense to me.”

“That really is the central question, isn’t it – is this play sympathetic or not? This is the first time a Jew on stage has been portrayed as anything close to human and we can say Shakespeare is amazing for doing this. Or, let’s be honest, it is an antisemitic piece and the guy is basically cast as the villain for whom you have absolutely no sympathy.”

Some productions portray Shylock in a sympathetic light, while others paint him as the quintessential villain. “That really is the central question, isn’t it – is this play sympathetic or not? This is the first time a Jew on stage has been portrayed as anything close to human and we can say Shakespeare is amazing for doing this. Or, let’s be honest, it is an antisemitic piece and the guy is basically cast as the villain for whom you have absolutely no sympathy.”

This is the fourth time Bard will have produced Merchant and Kimmel is the third Jewish actor to take on the role. “You don’t have to be Jewish to play Shylock, just like you don’t have to be black to play Othello. However, I do believe there is a cultural sensitivity that a Jewish actor brings to the role,” said Kimmel.

Many with even only a passing knowledge of literature know who Shylock is, and the iconic “Hath not a Jew eyes” soliloquy is as well known as Hamlet’s “To be or not to be.”

“Funnily enough,” said Kimmel, “doing that soliloquy is not what worries me about the piece…. You can do it as a plea for justice or you can do it with more of an aggressive tone,” he said, paraphrasing the speech’s main point, “But what about us? We are the same as you, so we don’t need to take this from you anymore.”

“I have decided that I am not going to play it as a victim,” said Kimmel.

As to the courtroom scene where Shylock demands his “pound of flesh,” he said, “I think I have to play him there as a vengeful kind of guy, I just don’t see any other way to do it. Some productions try to show the struggle between the good soul and the bad soul, but I see him as unrelenting in his quest for the forfeit, even though he has been offered up to three times the original amount of the loan and even though he is aware that what he is doing is wrong, fully aware, but he can’t stop himself.

“That is what happens with big emotions like revenge – one gets tunnel vision. I sing a piece of the [Maurice] Ravel Kaddish, which is very ornate, just before the courtroom scene. The point of that is to show Shylock’s mindset, ‘Look, my wife is dead, my daughter is dead [to me], I have nothing left to live for, I am going to take this man’s pound of flesh.’ I think that I would like to play the character as sinister but understandable – that this is a steely, powerful guy who is saying, just because people are prejudiced against you, does not mean you have to be a victim.”

Bard on the Beach’s Merchant is being set in modern-day Venice.

“It is a pretend world, it has to be,” said Kimmel. “It is a corporate banking world of suits that centres around a group of high-powered businessmen. Shylock is one of them. He is savvy and a very powerful guy by virtue of the fact that he has a lot of money. There is a tension there in the play itself as, despite his money, he is treated as a second-class citizen. We are not playing up the religious aspect in terms of costuming so that the only outwardly visible sign of his Judaism will be the yarmulke that I will be wearing – he is a modern Jew.”

On the issue of whether or not the play is too offensive for contemporary sensitivities, Kimmel is thoughtful.

“I don’t think you should look at it with post-Holocaust eyes,” he said. “The fact that this version is set in modern times makes it even more difficult to digest. In the actual period, 1500, Jews were essentially reviled wherever they lived, and Shakespeare was just reflecting the animus of the time.”

Despite the antisemitism, Kimmel feels that the play is one of the great works of literature and that it is important to see it.

“I feel that, as actors, if we are not doing something that is offending someone, why are we doing it? We are supposed to provoke dialogue and conversation.”

Noting that “there is way too much political correctness in the world right now,” he said, “I feel that, as actors, if we are not doing something that is offending someone, why are we doing it? We are supposed to provoke dialogue and conversation. For example, when people are spitting on Shylock and calling him a dirty Jew, that has to be part of the story so you get what is going on. You can’t ask, does it offend you because people are spitting on you? That’s the story and that is part of why he goes and tries to cut someone’s heart out. You have to be driven to that, so what would drive you to do that? Once you get the back story, then you see the context of his actions.”

Kimmel believes audiences will get something different out of this version of the play than from the three previous productions. One of the reasons for this belief, he said, is that the director, Nigel Shawn Williams, is playing on the theme that we are all outsiders at one point or another. Kimmel wants people to leave the theatre challenged to sort out their feelings about what they have just seen.

Shylock will run for one week in September. In this work, the actor who plays Shylock comes out after the final performance of Merchant – the play has been shut down due to public pressure and, as part of a talk-back, the actor defends his participation in it as a Jew and explains why it is important to stage Shakespeare’s play.

“I am more excited about that piece because, with it, I know exactly where I am at and I get the arguments from both sides,” said Kimmel. “It was written specifically for Bard and Vancouver to run alongside its 1996 Merchant production with local community member David Berner playing the Jewish actor.”

Kimmel said, “The play seems to say that you can’t censor something just because it offends you. Why can’t you have a Jewish villain? Why don’t we just stop doing anyone who is in any way compromised?”

Audiences will be exposed to a range of perspectives on history, censorship, identity and the meaning of art in this intensive 90-minute offering, which is being directed by first-time Bard director Sherry Yoon, who will be fleshing (pun intended) out the play with projections and sound effects.

“Shylock is a character that has endured for over 400 years. He is the best-known Jewish character in literature. There are people the world over who know what a shylock is. That is because he is so fascinating. Jews are fascinating people.”

“This is the first great Shakespearean character,” said Kimmel of Merchant’s Shylock. “After this comes Othello, Hamlet and Lear. It is really the first time Shakespeare goes from silly comedies with twins with mistaken identities to serious roles that fascinate humanity through time. Shylock is a character that has endured for over 400 years. He is the best-known Jewish character in literature. There are people the world over who know what a shylock is. That is because he is so fascinating. Jews are fascinating people.”

The play had been used to incite hatred against Jews – the Nazis in particular promoted it because it fit in with their worldview.

“That is exactly why it is important for everyone to see Merchant for themselves,” said Kimmel, “so you don’t get the story secondhand – you should be exposed to it, not told about it.”

Bard on the Beach runs until Sept. 24. Its other productions this season are Much Ado About Nothing, Winter’s Tale and Two Gentleman of Verona. For the full schedule and tickets, visit bardonthebeach.org.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

From Mideast to the South

Pericles is one of the best Bard on the Beach productions this season. (photo by David Blue)

If the thought of being transported to the mystique and exotic locales of the ancient Middle East appeals to you, then you must see Pericles, which is currently playing on the Howard Family Stage at Bard on the Beach, alternating with Othello.

Director Lois Anderson takes this rarely produced play – only once before in Bard on the Beach’s 27-year history has it been performed, and scholars believe Shakespeare only wrote the second half of it – and creatively turns it into something magical, with puppets, terra cotta figurines, white-faced ghostly creatures and billowy sheets that morph from crashing waves to animals.

As you enter the tent, your breath is taken away by Jewish community member Amir Ofek’s captivating set design: soft desert hues, Corinthian columns, red and gold brocade-tasseled tapestries, woven baskets and blown glass. John Webber’s warm lighting pervades the room. The mood is reinforced by Malcolm Dow’s exquisite sound design; a melodic fusion of traditional Middle Eastern fare. Before it even begins, the play is a visual and aural treat.

Pericles is the tale of the nautical odyssey of a wandering prince, the eponymous hero Pericles of Tyre (Kamyar Pazandeh), as told through flashbacks by narrator and healer Cerimon (David Warburton) in the temple of the goddess Diana to a young woman he has saved from a brothel. As he tells her, it all began with a trip to Antioch 15 years earlier, when our hero hoped to marry the princess of that city but had to flee for his life when he learned the secret of her incestuous relationship with her father.

Pericles’ escape takes him to many ports, culminating with a shipwreck at Pentapolis. There, he wins the hand of the princess Thaisa (Sereana Malani) in a jousting competition and sets sail with his new wife, now pregnant, to reclaim his throne in Tyre. Daughter Marina (Luisa Jojic) is born on the ship and Thaisa dies in childbirth. Pericles throws his wife’s body into the sea and heads to the nearest port, Tharsus, where he leaves Marina in the care of his longtime friend, Governor Cleon (Luc Roderique), and his wife, Dionyza (Jeff Gladstone in an interesting gender-role reversal).

Fast-forward 14 years. Marina has grown into a beautiful young woman. Dionyza, jealous for her own daughter’s betrothal chances, arranges for a servant, Leonine (Kayvon Kelly), to murder Marina. However, pirates kidnap Marina before the dastardly deed can be done. She is sold to a brothel, but keeps her virtue with eloquent talk, and captures the heart of Governor Lysimachus (also played by Kelly).

In the meantime, Pericles returns to Tharsus to reunite with his daughter but is told that she is dead. I stop here so as not to spoil a very surreal ending – you will have to see it to believe it.

All of the cast, many of whom play multiple roles, are outstanding but special mention must be made of Pazandeh, who runs the gamut of emotions from victorious suitor to grieving husband and father; Jojic, who gives the right touch of innocence to Marina; Warburton, with his wizardly tricks; Gladstone as a very creepy Dionyza; and Kayla Deorksen as Bawd, the flamboyant brothel owner.

Costumer Carmen Alatorre’s costumes are spot on with flowing robes of bright, textured fabrics: earth tones to represent the land and shades of blue, the sea; the main characters are contrasted by off-white ghostly spectres.

Pericles was one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays in its time and Anderson’s rendering makes it easy to understand why. The intimate setting of the Howard Family Stage is perfect for this showcase of hope, perseverance, redemption and ultimate reconciliation. I took my 11-year-old niece to opening night and she loved it. Of the four Bard productions, this one topped the list for me and it is highly recommended.

photo in Jewish Independent - Luc Roderique and Kayla Deorksen in Othello — Luc Roderique and Kayla Deorksen in Othello. *(photo by David Blue)*

Playing in repertory with Pericles on the Howard Family Stage, and featuring most of the same actors, is Othello, set in 1864 Charleston during the American Civil War.

What does it take to drive an intelligent, successful, respected man into a jealous husband capable of a murderous rage? A manipulative villain named Iago – and Othello really is the story of this vile person, who brings tragedy to all unfortunate enough to cross his path.

Directed by Bob Frazer – who played Iago in Bard’s last mounting of this work – this psychosexual drama gives a new perspective to the racism inherent in the testosterone-infused military world in which black Othello (Roderique) lives.

The story revolves around Othello’s rise to power in the union army and Iago’s (Kelly) planned revenge as he is passed over by General Othello for a senior position that is given to Cassio (Gladstone). To get even, Iago plants the seeds of doubt in Othello’s mind as to the fidelity of his new wife, Desdemona (a mixed racial union), accusing her of an intimate tryst with Cassio.

Slowly, Othello is convinced – a handkerchief allegedly found in his good lady’s room the final proof – that Desdemona has been untrue and, in a moment of murderous passion, strangles her in her canopied bed. Emilia (Jojic), Iago’s wife but also Desdemona’s maid and confidante, walks into this deathly scene, tells Othello the truth of the handkerchief and outs her husband for his role in the tragedy. Othello is overcome with grief and remorse and takes his own life.

Iago is a sadistic sociopath who manipulates those around him with his ersatz sycophantic charm. Kelly is sublime in this role – you love to hate him. Tall and slender, Roderique portrays a sympathetic Othello with a quiet sense of dignity and authority that disintegrates as we watch his metamorphosis into uncontrollable and lethal rage. Deorksen is a sweet-tempered but strong-willed Desdemona. Jojic gives a heart-breaking performance as a passionate and loyal servant torn between her duty to her husband and that to her employer. Lesser roles are ably played by Malani (Bianca), Andrew Cownden (Roderigo), Ian Butcher (Gratiano) and Shaker Paleja (Montano).

Costumer Marla Gottler provides crisp navy uniforms for the Union soldiers and gorgeous Scarlett O’Hara-type frocks for the ladies. Music is pure southern comfort with banjos strumming “Dixie.” Unfortunately, the set design is a problem. The same Ofek-designed Pericles set is used, and that Middle Eastern look with its columns and arches seems out of place in a moonlight and magnolias milieu. However, the minimalist use of props – a couple of boxes here, a table there – allows the audience to focus on the powerful words that make Othello one of Shakespeare’s most eloquent works.

This production is good, but it would have been so much better had it made more use of its Civil War setting, other than just to give a perfunctory nod to the fashion and music of the time.

Othello runs to Sept. 20 and Pericles to Sept. 21. For tickets and more information on these shows – and Romeo and Juliet and The Merry Wives of Windsor – visit bardonthebeach.org.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.