HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1986-07-23, Page 18Theatre review
'Glory' audience
got the laughs
it wanted
BY KEITH ROULSTON
Everybody needs a chance to
laugh now and then and after one
Blyth Festival play that was a
poetic drama (although with hu
mour) and another that was a
hard-hitting drama (again with
large doses of humour) Blyth
Festival audiences were ready to
just plain laugh for the opening of
Gone To Glory.
And laugh they did at Suzanne
Finlay’s play from the moment
Araby Lockhart (Lulu) tows her
shopping cart (fashioned from an
old baby buggy) down the theatre
aisle and caught it accidentally on
one patron’s foot. From then on
through every one-liner and sight
gag in the show to the final blackout
the audience was primed.
The show features two feisty
elderly women, Lulu and Winnie
(the irrepressable Margaret Bar
ton) trying to eek out a meager
existence in an isolated cabin.
Their stay there is threatened by a
new landlady (Anne Anglin getting
her first chance to show a little
glamour at Blyth, in years) who
wants tosell the place. The quiet of
their northern retreat is further
shattered when their charming,
drifter friend Bakpak brings a film
maker (Lynn Woodman) to visit.
She decides the couple would make
perfect subjects for her latest film
on elderly poor. She then hauls in
her cameraman (Robert King) to
record the couple ’ s struggle to find
a new home when they’re evicted.
The highlight of the play is the
mad-cap film-making scene early
in the second act when there is so
much activity on the stage it spills
over into the aisles of the theatre
itself.
There are also some moments of
sleight of hand that delighted the
audience and kept them guessing
as to who would appear where on
stage next.
Araby Lockhart as Lulu shows
some of her best work in the play.
After two seasons at the Festival,
Margaret Barton has won such a
loyal following that she could
probably get a standing ovation for
reading a telephone book. Her
delightful performance as the
stubborn, cantankerous and
earthy Winnie won her shouts of
“bravo” from the opening night
crowd.
Anne Anglin, getting a chance to
play someone near her own age for
a change, is a wonderfully, flighty
Googie, with perfect comic timing.
David L. Gordon has a wonderful
combination of boyish innocence
and a hidden sense of power that
lights up the stage. His work with
the other actors brings his scenes
alive.
Lynn Woodman as the hard-
driving film-makerTeddi, getsa
chance to use her comic talents in
this show and proves to have a deft
comic touch. And Robert King is,
well Robert King, able to turn his
small part on stage into a memor
able moment.
Gone to Glory probably has the
strongest production values of the
season so far at Blyth. Sue
LePage’s set, spilling off the stage
to both sides and down into the
theatre, is integrated into the
auditorium by surrounding the
proscenium arch with fake tree
trunks and blackened ropes that
run like vines, well back along the
ceiling and sides. Her costumes
also fit the bill to a T.
Louise Guinand’s lighting is
subtle and helps establish the
moods of the play. Katherine
Kaszas’ direction pulls the show
together, getting strong perfor
mances out of the cast and fine
production values. She puts the
performers right into the audience
at atimes in a way that isn’t stagey
but seems natural, even necessary
given the requirements of the
script for so many different playing
spaces.
Given all this and some delight
ful moments in the script, there are
still serious problems with the play
itself. Although workshopped in
Banff in 1985, workshopped again
in Blyth last winter and with
extensive rewriting during rehear
sals, the play is still uneven. The
quiet moments with just Lulu and
Winnie seem almost to be in a
different play in comparison to the
hectic group scenes. There seems
to be a lack of direction in the script,
a lack of driving toward a conclu
sion.
And just a word of warning to
those contemplating going: if you
don’t like jokes about various
bodily functions, you may not enjoy
the show as much as the majority of
the audience seemed to.
But the show is virtually sold out
for its entire run already, with only
a few tickets available for August
performances. If the audience’s
reaction from opening night is any
gauge, those tickets too will be
snapped up quickly.
Blyth's success has
led to big changes
in summer theatre
While the importance of the
Blyth Festival in the Canadian
theatre scene is often talked about
in these parts, it’s often hard for
the ordinary citizen to know how
much is fact and how much is
publicity hype. An indication of the
Festival’s impact, however, comes
in the most recent edition of
CanPlay, the magazine of the
Playwright’s Union of Canada.
When Blyth Festival began in
1975, Canadian plays were seldom
performed in summer theatres and
newCanadian plays were never
performed there. In those days the
staple for summer theatre was Neil
Simon from the U.S. or Agatha
Christieor Alan Ayckburn from
Britain.
This year, CanPlay points out, of
the 97 plays being done in
Canadian summer theatres (ex
cluding the classical productions at
Stratford and Shaw Festivals), 16
are world premiers and 39 others
are revivals of successful Canadian
plays. Well less than half, (42 to be
exact) are imported plays.
This year there is only one
summer production of a Neil Simon
play in Canada.
Leading the way in many
theatres are the playwrights who
made their reputation at Blyth. Ted
Johns’ “Garrison’s Garage” gets
several productions and of course
Peter Colley gets more productions
for “I’ 11 Be Back Before Midnight’ ’
and his other plays. “Midnight” is
being produced both in Toronto in a
major commercial run and in
Petrolia.
THURS., FRI., SAT.
5P.M.-12A.M.
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 1986. PAGE 19.
Araby Lockhart as Lulu, reads from her romance novel to Margaret Barton as Winnifred as the two women
survive in their cabin in the northern woods in “Gone to Glory” by Suzanne Finlay which opened at the
Blyth Festival last week. The show provided the laughs the audience came for. — photo by Jim Hockings.
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