The Citizen, 2019-06-20, Page 19THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 2019. PAGE 19.
‘Jumbo’ a missed opportunity for Blyth Festival
There’s no other way to begin this
review of Jumbo than by addressing
the obvious elephant in the room.
Sorry, I had to.
By that I mean the last-minute
replacement of Don Nicholson, the
man who was tapped to play P.T.
Barnum, the star of the Blyth
Festival’s opening production.
Nicholson was set to headline the
show other than, of course, the other
elephant in the room: Jumbo.
Sean Dixon’s Jumbo premiered on
the Blyth Festival stage on Friday
night, preceded by two preview
performances. This came after
Thursday’s announcement that
Nicholson had fallen ill and Artistic
Director Gil Garratt, also the
director of Jumbo, would be
replacing him for a handful of shows
before renowned Canadian actor
Layne Coleman could be brought up
to speed this week.
This late-breaking development
no doubt threw the production off its
axis in the days leading up to the
premiere and, to borrow a sentiment
from Don Draper in the television
show Mad Men, Jumbo has a lot of
bricks, but no doubt audiences will
be left wondering what the building
looks like.
For years I’ve held up The
Wilberforce Hotel as being the best
Blyth Festival production I’ve seen
in recent years. Also penned by
Dixon, where Wilberforce’s
characters were nuanced and fully-
formed, in Jumbo, we’re often left
wanting more or asking full-on
questions.
Jumbo is a spectacle the likes of
which the Blyth Festival has never
seen, that is beyond debate. At
certain points in the night you have
to remind yourself that you’re not on
Toronto’s King Street or Broadway,
or at the actual circus. The show has
Mark Segal’s tremendous aerial
feats and Lucy Meanwell riding
circles around Garratt on a unicycle
and juggling. Tiffany Martin takes
her turn at walking on stilts and
Peter Bailey and Kurtis Leon Baker
tumbling over one another is truly
fun, not to mention their rich clown
training that transports you from
Memorial Hall to right under the big
top.
However, with all of that talent
under one roof and a fascinating
local story to tell, the Festival
production of Jumbo can’t help but
feel like a missed opportunity.
The show begins, after Garratt’s
Barnum receives a quick haircut
from Bailey’s “Shack” Martin, with
a recreation of Barnum’s “Greatest
Show on Earth” and it’s truly
thrilling. Garratt, who also served as
the show’s director, and “Circus
Master” Manon Beaudoin found a
way to pull off some amazing feats
on the stage. And what they couldn’t
put on stage, like a death-defying
tight-rope walker, they found
creative ways to embrace Memorial
Hall’s inevitable limitations, but still
put the fabled circus on stage.
Truly breathtaking is Jumbo. As
the majestic animal shambles on
stage, the work of puppet creator
Gemma James Smith is brought to
life by actors Baker and Bailey and
Tony Munch, who plays Matthew
Scott, Jumbo’s trainer. It’s very easy
to forget you’re watching three men
manipulate a bundle of cloth with
eyes and a trunk. Similar to the
renowned stage production of The
Lion King, the animals ask for
suspension of disbelief (the actors
are clearly visible operating Jumbo),
but quickly have you believing
they’re living, breathing beasts.
Once the lights go down on the
Greatest Show on Earth, however,
things start to get murky and, often,
the audience feels left behind.
Backstories and historical tidbits
are alluded to, hinted at and dropped
in then moved on from, making it
very hard to connect with the
characters on stage. And, leaving
behind the universal themes of love
and loss when Jumbo meets his
untimely demise at the hands of an
unscheduled freight train, it’s hard to
draw a line through the production
from start to finish.
I found myself confused and lost
at times, despite having conducted
multiple interviews with numerous
artists involved with Jumbo. I can
only imagine how difficult it might
be for those coming in cold.
It’s tough to point to one aspect of
the play and identify it as the culprit,
but in the end it just didn’t come off.
The cast played their roles well. The
design and lighting were intriguing
and evocative. The story is there to
be told, but in the end it just feels
like a missed opportunity that suffers
from trying to be too many things all
at once.
In addition, we heard very little
from Garratt’s Barnum in the
premiere performance of Jumbo. I
think it’s fair to speculate that
perhaps some emergency rewriting
may have taken place in the wake of
Nicholson’s illness, drastically
reducing the presence of the star role
with so little time to get Garratt, and
then Coleman up to speed.
Perhaps the story of P.T. Barnum
and Jumbo the elephant can be told
one day, but with forced local
connections and whiffs of unclear
relationships all thrown into the pot,
the result is a kaleidoscope of
storylines, very few of which ever
truly come into focus, like various
ideas written on Post-It notes and
restaurant napkins, all incorporated
into the same play.
Jumbo is on the Memorial Hall
stage until Saturday, Aug. 10.
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Red Plaid Productions
Presents
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Wingham Town Hall Theatre
Saturday, July 13
$28.00 All Ages
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Tickets at: ticketscene.ca
Annette’s Treasures Galore
519-912-1515 Store
519-503-7666 Cell
Doors Open: 7:00 p.m.
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This is a Mudmen Inc. Event
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Graduation
Robert and Lori Gordon
of Auburn are proud to
announce the graduation
of their son Robert
Gordon. Robbie has
graduated with a Bachelor
of Applied Science in
Biomedical Engineering
from the University of
Waterloo.
Mom - 89th on June 23rd
Dad - 85th on July 12th
from Bill & Susan, Dorothy & Bob,
Annette & Brian, Cathy & Brad,
Bruce & Shelley, Rob & Mary-Anne,
all your grandchildren
and great-grandchildren
Save the date
October 27th
at the Four Winds Barn
for their
65th Wedding Anniversary Party
Happy Birthday!
Carol & John Boneschansker
Happy 50th
Wow, you’re old!
Love your baby brother
and family
June 20th
High in the sky
P.T. Barnum, played by Blyth Festival Artistic Director Gil Garratt, looks up and sees one of his
death-defying tight-rope walkers (aided by Kurtis Leon Baker and Peter Bailey) as part of the
Greatest Show on Earth in Jumbo, the Festival’s season-opening production. While the
physical circus performances are impressive, the story of Jumbo gets lost in the ambitious
story. (Denny Scott photo)
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
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