Hamlet

Two hours and no intermission - how can you do it? The only other version of Hamlet that has ever made sense is the Kenneth Branagh movie and it ran four hours!
This production has been stripped down to the Revenge Tragedy components, eliminating the philosphical ruminations and the comic buts thrown in for the groundlings that exist in the full play.
What remains is fast paced and gripping. The staging with audience on two sides of a centre stage was effective - it suggested watching a sporting event, of a particularly violent and bloody nature.
The cast was fabulous, with one exception - Steven McCarthy - who played Horatio. He seemed too tentative and weak and never did figure out what to do with his cane.
Gordon Rand was brilliant as Hamlet, never mad and always angry. Benedict Campbell as Claudius was real and fully present and Eric Petersen was a nasty bully as Polonius, not the usual bumbling fool.
I loved this production and gave it a standing ovation!

Stuff Happens

A group of talking heads, but my oh my, what they had to say! Combining actual quotes with speculation about what was said behind closed doors, this is a fascinating review of the George W Bush era.
Michael Healey looks nothing like Dubya, but captures him brilliantly . Great performances by Hardee Lineham as DIck CHeney, Karen Robinson as Condoleeza Rice and David Fox as Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Binsley as Paul Wolfowitz and Nigel Shawn Willams as Colin Powell, with a strong supporting cast of journalists, bureaucrats, politicians etc, kept you glued to your seat, even though you know what happens. It's not the plot, but the process that is important.
It is a very time specific play, but may survive as a general portrait of political greed and hubris.

Rocking the Cradle

Continuing in our theme of disfunctional fmaililes, Des Walsh wrote this play about a Newfoundland family that is disfunctional becuase it is not a family - there are no children. Vince and Joan appear never to have discussed whether they want children before they married. She does - desperately; he does not, definitively. What he wants is a house with a wife in it - literally. She should stay home and be waiting for him. The results of this lack of communication are fatal.

The cast was unknown to us as they are generally from the east coast, largely from Newfoundland. But very experienced and very talented.

The staging used a scrim in front very effectively to present weather, windows and to reflect the Newfoundland mummer tradition. I thought it would be irritiating, but it was not.

So, no drugs, no incest, some alcohol and a lot less shouting - more quiet desperation. But still a disfunctional family.

That Face

The night after August: Osage County, we saw That Face - a British drama about a disfunctional family with drugs, alcohol and incest and a lot of shouting.
Polly Stenham wrote this play at age 19, so she is definitely someone to watch for in future.
Sonia Smitts staggers and flounces around the stage as the Mother, who has descended into drug and alcohol fuelled madness. It is not clear if this is the result of her husband's departure or if he left because of it. But, when he left, he abandoned his children to her care and avoided thinking about the consequences. The son has tried too hard to look after his mother; the daughter who is perhaps the one character who sees clearly, has cped by developing a skin of cynicism.
A couple of underlying themes here - bullying and the offical response to it; the ability of the rich to buy their way out of problems; and the responsibility for the first family, including the ex wife.
Seeing this the night after Osage County highlights the difference between the Amercian and British view of disfunctional families - the Americans hate each other; the British love each other but are desperate to get away.

That

August, Osage County

Tracy Letts has written an American disfunctional family drama that has it all - alcohol, drugs, suicide, incest and a lot of screaming and shouting. It is a very vivid portrait of a family, with each character well defined. the weakest character in many ways is the father, who disappears early on. The Mother is truly awful - wandering about in a drug fuelled stupor, but not so out of it that she doesn't know exactly what is going on. Estelle Parsons is excellent in this role. You can really learn to hate her.
Shannon Cochran as Barbara Fordham does an astonishing job, particularly at the end, when you can see her becoming her mother. When she sees it, she leaves.
The heat of August in Oklahoma is almost a character in itself and gives the play a southern drama feel.
Some great lines, and some very funny scenes, but overall an American tragedy. Exhausting to watch and when it's over, you want to move away and leave your children on their own to be sure you do not control them!

The Drowning Girls

Fascinating play about a serial murderer,told from the veiwpoint of three of the victims. All three were his wives, whom he drowned after marrying them to steal their money and get the insurance.
Based on a true story and set in the eraly 20th century, this play reveals the limited choices available to women of marriageable age. Is it any wonder that a handsome man who declares love is welcomed over the objections of family and friends?
This is a very challenging play for the three actresses, who spend the whole play soaking wet and leaping in and out of bath tubs. The audience is challenged too, as they have to keep the theatre warm to prevent the cast from getting pneumonia.
All three actresses were excellent - Natascha Girgis, Beth Graham and Daniela Vlaskalic. The lattter two wrote the play with Charlie Tomlinson.