I’ve just finished writing my new book, CREATIVITY EXPLAINED BY CREATORS: MY CONVERSATIONS WITH 311 MASTERS IN THE ARTS, so please excuse the erratic nature of this long overdue blog entry from my pooped but exhilarated brain.
This life-consuming book of mine began with an afternoon of watching tennis on TV and chat with Dizzy Gillespie, two backstage visits with Jeremy Brett playing Sherlock Holmes at the Wyndham’s Theatre in London’s West End, and breakfast with Marcel Marceau who, before running off to prepare for that night’s performance, ran his hands over my list of questions and said, “This will be a very important book.” I needed reassurance that my book was on the right track and these three, right at the outset, gave it to me.
In 2013, when I interviewed the Saudi Arabian author Raja Alem, I expressed surprise at how long this same book, for which I had begun my interviews in 1988, was taking to complete. Raja was most understanding and said that a work of importance to the creator’s life sometimes can take a lifetime to realize itself. Raja was right, of course, and here we are. For my mind-opening interview “Posted on May 2, 2013” please Google SAUDI AUTHOR RAJA ALEM: AN INTERVIEW & A REVIEW.
And while you are back there in time, you should Google my blog of July 30, 2014 titled SHAW FESTIVAL PRESENTS A COMPLEX, INTENSE, FUNNY, AND THEATRICALLY BRILLIANT PRODUCTION OF EDWARD BOND’S THE SEA. This production offered, along with much else that was memorable, an outstanding performance by Patrick Galligan who is starring in this season’s Sleuth, and I did two things as a result: I immediately bought another ticket to see it again and I sent my review to Edward Bond, the play’s creator, whom I had recently interviewed. Edward wrote back that this review made him want to come see the production, but of course he was in England.
Discovering an actor is one of the special delights of going to the theatre and I’ve had many such moments at the Shaw Festival. Over time, in fact, I have been much taken by the special qualities of a number of actors featured in this very season’s Festival. Now let me see….Fiona Byrne, Neil Barclay, Damien Atkins, Sharry Flett, Julia Course, Peter Feranades, Tara Rosling, Travis Seeto, Sanjay Talwar, Graeme Somerville, Allan Louis, Martin Happer, Kristi Frank, and of course there are others. You get the point, I’m sure, that this is a company of individuals of honed versatility, of ever-explored human depths, of sometimes even magical smarts.
Another delight of addiction to theatre is the quietly intense but subtly complex experience of watching a play and never quite realizing what the work’s creator is doing to you, with you. Ambiguity often rules and fosters curiosity, delayed reaction, and shades of introspection that ebb and flow with subtle impact that remains beyond our control. In this season’s production of Sleuth, Patrick Galligan as a mystery writer Andrew Wyke fuels an air of tension at the outset just with his presence, while Sepehr Reybod as Milo Tindle, his wife’s lover, ably provides a compelling counterbalance. Both the play and the production grab us by the collar and never release their grip.
On one hand, having long ago been annoyed by the inaccuracies of the Milos Forman film of the Peter Shaffer play Amadeus, especially the simplifying and silly Tom Hulce as Mozart, I felt hesitant at checking out the Shaw Festival take on this work. On the other hand, all turned out exceptionally well in this thoroughly engaging production which featured the unobtrusively challenging and solidly present Tom Rooney as Salieri, the always subtly surprising and enriching Tim Carroll as director, the scatological but musically-driven Mozart of Michael Therriault one discovers in Robert Spaethling’s translation of Mozart’s letters, and a cast of many an individual distinction.
Many years ago, on my third visit to Vienna, when I once again visited the Mozart Figarohaus Museum, I was told that the walls, marble if I remember correctly, were the same ones that looked down on Mozart as he composed a number of masterpieces like, yes, Le Nozze di Figaro. Be that information true or not, I placed the palm of my hand on the surface of the wall for a moment and still can find no words to describe the sense of connection I felt, the sense of another dimension.
Did I feel another dimension present as I watched Amadeus last week in Niagara-on-the-Lake? Indeed, I sensed something unanticipated, something ineffable in the air. In any case, I would return to see this production for several reasons, say to experience the magical pairing of Venticello Julia Course and Venticello Sochi Fried one more time. So much happens in theatre.
I’m writing these next lines on a Shaw Festival bus returning us to Burlington, near Lakeshore and Brant, on its way back to Toronto, its point of origin. The driver is admirably brilliant, the hostess delightful, and I can relax since I’m not driving. We have just seen A New Work in Progress, A Special Workshop Production of a New Play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins which begins with immediately engaging lines like “You can bring her back and you let her stay dead.” It’s a take on the Cinderella story and features David Andrew Reid as Older Step-Sibling and Savion Roach as Younger Step-Sibling and they offer, albeit while playing extremely vicious assholes, some of the most perfectly honed physical comedy I have seen on stage.
I have many more items to cover but they must remain for the next blog. In the meantime, since I’ve been scanning my previous blogs, allow me to suggest reading my interview with playwright Edward Bond which you’ll find by Googling AN INTERVIEW WITH PLAYWRIGHT EDWARD BOND ABOUT HIS LONG AND “CONTROVERSIAL” CAREER IN BRITISH THEATRE AND HIS PLAY “THE SEA” NOW AT THE 2014 SHAW FESTIVAL Posted on June 17, 2014
