12/29/2023 0 Comments Razzle dazzle chicago![]() The big question: will audiences come back again? Since COVID-19 is particularly threatening to older people, the very people who have provided the most reliable ticket-buyers for generations, the answer might well be in the negative. There is no doubt that the pandemic has shaken arts communities everywhere to their core. What began in 1953 as a Shakespeare festival and grew to become the foremost Shakespeare festival in the world, has become a shadow of its former self with no clear sense of purpose and no clear identity either in Canada or beyond as a theatre company. What really bothers me about Chicago and the upcoming Rent, is of a piece with what is happening to the Stratford Festival. Or if it is the company has lost its way. Is that the business the Stratford Festival is in? I don’t think so. Philip Seguin, onstage trumpet, in Stratford Festival 2022’s Chicago (Credit: David Hou)Ĭhicago represents the best and the worst of American commercial theatre. Perhaps it is no coincidence that it was produced by none other than Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax company. Incidentally, the film version of Chicago is almost as bad in this respect. ![]() Does it really add to Chicago’s entertainment value to have women forced to appear on stage nearly naked and in poses that make them out to be no more than sex objects? This is 2022 after all and the time is long past for women to be portrayed in this way. The program book warns the audience about “sexual innuendo” but Feore had the female dancers make moves that were both vulgar and demeaning. On the down side Feore often went too far in matters of taste. Her dancers are rehearsed to the highest level of precision, they move with endless energy and the moves they make are often fresh and surprising. Steve Ross as the hapless Amos brought down the house with “Mister Cellophane”.ĭonna Feore has always been a fine choreographer and in Chicago she has done it again. It would be hard to imagine a more commanding presence in “Razzle Dazzle”. I first saw him in 2007 at Stratford as an ideal Curly in Oklahoma, and he is clearly continuing to grow as an artist. Dan Chameroy as the crooked lawyer Billy Flynn has never been better. Jennifer Rider-Shaw as Velma and Chelsea Preston as Roxie Hart – the two murderesses – demonstrated excellent singing and dancing skills and played their contrasting roles to the hilt. The orchestra directed by Franklin Brasz played very well and the sound system balancing instrumentalists and miked singers was the best I have ever heard at Stratford. Set designer Michael Gianfrancesco miraculously transformed the notoriously awkward Festival Theatre stage, often in a matter of seconds. The gold at the end of the rainbow is all that matters.Īll aspects of the Stratford production showed both the highest degree of professionalism and imagination. The two murderesses, freshly acquitted in a sensational trial, quickly transform their new-found celebrity into commercial success in show business. And like the play on which it is based, it satirizes sleazy lawyers, corrupt prison officials, ambitious entertainers, and an easily manipulated press corps. The show also makes use of popular dances of the Roaring Twenties. Steve Ross (centre) as Amos with members of the company Stratford Festival 2022’s Chicago (Credit: David Hou)Ĭhicago has an appealing if not very original score written in the style of the 1920s. ![]() But I couldn’t help but wonder whether the Stratford Festival has lost sight of what makes it one of Canada’s greatest cultural institutions. Director Donna Feore has demonstrated her mastery of this idiom once again and the cast is superb from top to bottom. There is no question about the quality of this year’s Chicago production. But that is all gone now and instead we are offered relatively recent Broadway musicals such as this year’s Chicago and next season’s recently-announced rock musical Rent. Seeing this fine production of Pirates I was reminded that for many years the Stratford Festival offered exemplary G&S productions. Talented young singers from all over the United States are featured in these performances and four or five operettas and musicals are presented every summer in an 8-week season. The OLO is a unique cooperative venture with the College of Wooster and it has been going since 1979. Among the highlights was a first-class performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of driving through Amish country in southwestern Ohio, and attending performances by the Ohio Light Opera (OLO) in Wooster.
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