A new Canadian play

Proud by Michael Healey, starring the author, is on at the GCTC.  It was a great evening of theatre, full of insight and laughter. The Prime Minister--entirely not unlike Mr Harper--has won most of the seats in Quebec, and has some interesting new MPs to work with and train.  The story had economics, sex, ethics, pragmatism, deceit and political legerdemain.

We stayed for the "Friday Night Fights", a series of debates on the play's themes. But it was more of a love-in than a fight. Still, it was interesting to hear inside press gallery stories, and meet a very good editorial cartoonist from Halifax, who draws for the Hill Times. The moderator was the publisher of the HT; I think he's a GCTC regular because he looked awfully familiar.

Shakespeare's Henry plays, all at once!

Well, maybe not all of them, but three of them! Hal and Falstaff, presented at the Gladstone by A Company of Fools, under the direction of Margo MacDonald, edits out most of those tedious roll-calls and battles, and concentrates on the friendship. It was presented as if by a bunch of punk actors, with costumes for the roles made up of capes, scraps, and ridiculous beards. There were only 5 actors, --and a couple of puppets--but they played dozens of characters. It was long but very entertaining! The actors had lots of energy and had those long Shakespearean passages almost completely memorized (it was early in the run).

The season has begun with a trip to Stratford

Actually, the season began in July, when we went to Stratford to see two musicals. Two non-Shakespeare shows. We saw Fiddler on the Roof on a Friday night--followed by a chat with some of the performers. On Saturday night, we saw Tommy. Both were excellent productions. The music, the singing and dancing, the sets.... everything combined to make theatre magic.

Fiddler is a story we had seen on stage and screen. I have always loved the music and the production did not disappoint me. The staging was imaginative, simple and flexible. The actors were energetic and appealing.

I wasn't very keen on seeing Tommy. I have seen the movie a time or two and always found it tedious, pretentious and dated. But this production was many, many times better than the movie. The plot made sense, mostly, and the actors and sets were wonderful. The things you can do with modern technology: screens, lasers, lights.... it really worked.