Saturday, May 27, 2006

The Duchess of Malfi

On Victoria Day (observed, that is May 22) got a pair of rush tickets to see a preview performance of The Duchess of Malfi at Stratford which opens June 2. My first time at the Tom Patterson Theatre, the "winter home of the Stratford Badminton club" -- I love the long stage. I also love the Studio Theatre. But I just hate the stage at the Festival Theatre -- I hate it. My heart sinks whenever I enter the Festival Theatre because whatever play is being done will look the same. It makes any play look like an arrangement of figurines on a hutch-cabinet. And in the middle, that damned post. Saw The Country Wife there once and they stuck a phallus on the post -- what else could you do? I'd like to take a chainsaw to that post.

Excuse me.

The Duchess of Malfi -- I suppose I shouldn't say anything since this was a preview -- but nobody's reading this -- here -- I'll tell you -- very striking visual design, everything black, the props, the set, the costumes (except for the Cardinal of necessity in red), the makeup (that is, black highlights, rather Goth in fact), and especially a long strip of vinyl? linoleum? anyway, a long very shiny strip that made the Patterson stage seem even narrower, almost Japanese. The scenes of violence were marred for me somewhat by a woman behind me who gave these little complacent, condescending, mirthless laughs (hardly laughs) usually rendered as "heh heh", expressing her understanding that someone in fact was not being strangled on stage, it was just acting.

The music -- in general I wish there was more live music in theatre -- I wish the madmen and women had sung "Oh let us howl a heavy note" instead of it being piped in. Of course there is the expense -- some of them were already naked, and how much it costs to have someone naked sing, I don't know. (But it is done.) Perhaps I am reimagining The Duchess of Malfi as a Jacobean Three-Penny Opera.

I don't know why we didn't think of rush tickets for Stratford before: you can reserve them by phone two hours before a performance, and in Waterloo we're an easy half-hour from Stratford. It takes a while to adjust to reduced circumstances. (I had stock options...)