Fiona Reid, Jim Mezon and Laurie Paton in The Charity that Began at Home. Photo by David Cooper
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Mawr girl with a Connecticut accent. As coltish debutante Tracy Lord, Moya O’Connell sports a deep red wig and first appears in high-topped riding boots. She’s headstrong and independent, ready to marry successful businessman George Kittredge (Thom Marriott), after the failure of her first marriage to C.K. Dexter Haven (Gray Powell). Tracy gets on well with her impish kid sister Dinah (Tess Benger), a reliable comic presence, and keeps family secrets with her elegant mother Margaret (Sharry Flett), such as the whereabouts of her missing father. Under Dennis Garnhum’s prudent direction, we soon forget that Tracy was supposed to be Katharine Hepburn. Even more, Dexter obliterates the memory of Cary Grant at his entrance, here dressed in a baseball cap while the rest of the men have pulled on their soup and fish. Dexter’s reduction, along with Mike’s elevation, understandably, greatly changes the tensions between the two men and Tracy. William Schmuck’s set and costumes for the stage production elicit spontaneous applause at the rise of the curtain. The top 1 percent lived sumptuously at the end of the Depression, not to mention in color. George Bernard Shaw’s 1892 work Arms and the Man (through Oct. 18 at the 328-seat Royal George Theatre, 85 Queen St.) is one of the author’s most often produced plays for many good reasons, not the least being its accessibility and brevity. Set in Bulgaria, a country of intractable warfare, Arms gives us a Swiss mercenary, Captain Bluntschli (Graeme Somerville), who would rather carry chocolate creams than bullets in his pouch. A Shaw mouthpiece, Bluntschli deflates militarism, nationalism and heroism, shocking sentiments at the premiere but pretty popular with audiences these days.
07.09.14 - 07.15.14 | syracusenewtimes.com
Many of Bluntschli’s sentiments are carried in lessons to a naïve, beautiful patriot named Raina Petkoff (Kate Besworth), who lives with her amusing parents Catherine (Laurie Paton) and Major Paul (Norman Browning), and is smitten with a Bulgarian blowhard, Major Sergius (Martin Happer). Also in the household is a servant from the peasant class, Louka (Claire Jullien), who manifests sharper street smarts than any of her betters. To give a new spin to such a familiar work, the festival assigned Arms to director Morris Panych, who has now been in Niagara many summers. Panych is one of Canada’s best-known comic playwrights, whose work has been well received in Central New York (such as the Redhouse’s May 2012 mounting of Vigil). At the Shaw Festival, however, his record is spotty. He once destroyed one of the greatest of all farces, Hotel Paradiso, by making playwright Georges Feydeau a part of the action. His innovations here are not so counter-productive, but their success is mixed. Shaw may not be subtle, but Panych prefers exaggeration. Military uniforms are not merely comic opera but rather something ushers wore in an old movie chain run by Liberace. When characters open their mouths they speak in heavy, rural Ontario accents. Think of Robin Williams joining the MacKenzie brothers in the Great White North. Some players thrive on this, admittedly. Veteran actor Norman Browning steals scenes with abandon, and we’re happy for the theft. Less than four hours from town, the Shaw Festival remains the best summertime cultural destination for theatergoers. If two out of three productions are outstanding hits, they’re batting .666. SNT