The Canadian province of Ontario is bordered on three sides by as many Great Lakes – Ontario, Erie and Huron – and its interior is highlighted by a pair of delightful theater festivals, the Shakespeare Festival at Stratford and the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake.
Its largest city, Toronto, also is home to a wonderful film festival every August, giving the province a superb cultural heritage.
I’ve covered the festivals several times, in the days when the Post-Dispatch thought its theater-and-film critic should attend international festivals on occasion, but most recently as a member of the American Theatre Critics Association combining good fellowship, a chance to learn and a little R & R. The journey to Stratford and Niagara provided a fine opportunity to visit friends and family and restaurants in Annapolis and Washington, D. C., to tour Harper’s Ferry and ponder about John Brown, to make a pilgrimage to the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, N.Y., where the original Buffalo chicken wing was hatched, to marvel once again at Niagara Falls, to taste some Ontario wine, to see a great deal of fine theater and, on the way home, to stop in Paw Paw, Mich., for lunch at an excellent restaurant owned by the sister of a good friend.
All these aspects will be touched on, or have been touched on in various parts of this site, but this will be a critical look at the theater festivals. . . .
STRATFORD
The city of Stratford was founded in 1832, adopting the name of William Shakespeare’s birthplace and early home in England. Since the settlement already had the Shakespeare Hotel, it was an easy step. It became the seat of Perth County in 1853 and, a year later, was divided into five political wards, Avon, Falstaff, Hamlet, Romeo and Shakespeare, which solidified the connection with the playwright. To mark his 300th birthday, in 1854, a celebration was held and an oak tree planted.
The current Festival began in 1953, with Sir Tyrone Guthrie its first artistic director, and its permanent home, the Festival Theatre, opened in 1957 in Upper Queen’s Park. Designed by Robert Fairfield to look like a tent, it was marked, 40 years later, by a bronze statue of men raising the original tent. Today, the Festival Theatre, with 1824 seats in a thrust configuration, is the centerpiece of the Festival. A couple of blocks away is the 461-seat Tom Patterson Theatre, named to honor the Festival’s founder, with seats on three sides of the long, narrow stage. During the winter, the building houses the courts for the Stratford Badminton Club, and next door is an area used in the summer for lawn bowls and tennis. In downtown Stratford, the Avon Theatre, seating 1091 in a more traditional proscenium arrangement, became part of the Festival complex, and it was enlarged, with a new lobby, in 2002. Across the street from the Avon is the Studio Theatre, a black box with 260 seats.
The Festival season runs from April to October, with 16 productions. The list includes four Shakespeare plays (Coriolanus, Henry IV, Part I, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night); two musicals (Oliver! and South Pacific); Moliere’s Don Juan, in separate French and English productions and Colm Feore playing the lead in both languages; Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie; Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts; John Webster’s bloody Elizabethan classic, The Duchess of Malfi; London Assurance, a comedy by 19th-century Irish playwright Dion Boucicault, with Brian Bedford starring and directing; and four new or experimental works, Harlem Duet, the first play by an African-American playwright to appear at Stratford; a new production of The Liar, by 17th-century French playwright Pierre Corneille; and two one-person shows, Fanny Kemble, a new play by Peter Hinton, starring Domini Blythe and directed by the author; and The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead, by Australian Robert Hewett, in which Lucy Peacock portrays all three women – and four other characters as well.
Of course, they don’t all play every day, though I saw both Feore and Peacock shine in demanding, and very different, leads in two productions each over a four-day visit. In fact, Feore, who starred on Broadway last season in Julius Caesar, was Fagin in a matinee, Coriolanus the same evening, and masterful in both. Peacock was Beatrice in Much Ado and the title character in The Duchess of Malfi, and both performers showed versatility along with their talent.
I also watched the talented Bedford in a delightful, funny production of London Assurance, a broad comedy of manners, and still had time to enjoy sitting in the park that comes down to Lake Victoria, created by a dam on the Avon River. Swans and other waterfowl abound. Two of the theaters are in the park, the others in downtown Stratford. There are many hotels and a solid number of good restaurants. With some advance planning, a long weekend can provide a lot of theater-going. A week will be marvelous – and exhausting.
All 16 productions are being staged during August and September. For information, schedules, brochures and ordering tickets, the Festival has a web site, and a toll-free phone at 800-567-1600. It’s a comfortable two-day drive from St. Louis, and Detroit and Buffalo are the easiest cities for flying and car rental.
Niagara-on-the-Lake, on the road from Niagara Falls to Stratford, is at the point where the Niagara River, having roared over the falls, enters Lake Ontario with much less sound and fury. The town, smaller than Stratford, is oriented to being a major producer of Canadian wine, and to the Shaw Festival, featuring the writings of George Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries. The season runs from April through October, and there are 10 plays in three venues, the lovely Festival Theatre, the Royal George and the Court House. The former is in a charming park just off downtown, the others are on Queen Street, Niagara’s main thoroughfare. The festival began in 1962, at the Court House, built in the 1840s.
A pair of Shaw plays, an elegant production of Arms and the Man, and a dutiful one of Too True to Be Good, a rarely-performed (and for good reason) minor Shaw work, were the highlights to me. As a fan of Shaw, I was eager to see Too True to Be Good, and while Shaw may sometimes become tedious, he’s always interesting. High Society, the sort of over-produced conglomerate work by a committee or two that always is boring and badly patched together, was a major disappointment. It’s a musical version of The Philadelphia Story, with old Cole Porter music, including a couple of songs from Can-Can, that did not fit at all.
The Festival also will present The Crucible, by Arthur Miller; Rosmersholm, by Henrik Ibsen; The Heiress, by Ruth and Augustus Goetz; The Invisible Man, by Michael O’Brien from the H. G. Wells classic; Love Among the Russians, by Anton Chekhov; The Magic Fire, by Lillian Groeg; and Design for Living, by Noel Coward. The theater web site is and information is available at 800-511-7429.
Ontario also is rich territory for Canadian wines, and the highway from Niagara Falls to Niagara-on-the-Lake is lined with vineyards. Wineries offer a variety of tastings, and the larger ones, like Peller, have tasting rooms and facilities that rival anything in California.
As far as the wines are concerned, there is a wide range of styles and ability. In some respects, it’s like the Missouri industry a decade or two ago, making progress but still not to all tastes. Chardonel, Vidal, Seyval and other hybrids are popular, and there is a large number of fruit wines, all on the sweet side. Some varietals, especially among the reds, are planted, but for now, the whites are better. Wine fans, whether dedicated or casual, will find the experience a great deal of fun and interest.
And then there’s Niagara Falls, only a couple of dozen miles away and America’s most popular national park. There are two viewing areas, one on each side of the border. Both are impressive – the sound and spray can be heard and seen for miles – and there are good locations to see, but the Canadian side offers a better view of both falls. From the American side, one is close enough to be impressed, but too close to get an overall view. Maybe the image is trite, but a visit to the falls is a dazzling, unforgettable experience.