Shaw Festival
– Niagara-on-the-Lake –
Noël Coward’s
Tonight at 8:30 – Ways of the Heart – Play,
Orchestra, Play – Star Chamber.
It has been my pleasure to attend all of Noël Coward’s play
at the Shaw Festival – the first trio Brief Encounters
in the spring, and the rest very recently. Noël Coward has
always been one of my favourite playwrights, finding ways to
present some life events as centerpieces, adding some spice to
common events or just having fun.
 Ways of the Hart consists of three plays: The
Astonished Heart, Family Album and Ways and Means.
Again, as in the other sets the actors are mainly the same and
the audience has the opportunity to see their professional
skills as they transform from one character into another.
The first one The Astonished Heart tells the story
of the sudden unrestrained infatuation of a psychiatrist (David
Jansen) with his wife’s friend, solutions sought by the wife and
the tragic outcome. The time shifts are interesting, the
 past merging with the present, first the end of the story, then the
beginning of it, and the final consequences.
Family Album is about a family gathering after a funeral
and the reading of the will. At first everyone is appropriately
subdued, gradually they relax and the joy of having money and
freedom to do as one pleases is erupting. Michael Ball as a
manservant is a real centerpiece in this one. The music
accompanying the performance and the colouring adds to the
farce.
Finally Ways and Means shows a couple played by
Claire Jullien and David Jansen trying to find a way out of a
financial mess. Easy life in
 comfort has always been their
preference, different alternatives are discussed, finally they
stumble upon a solution – and the life will go on. What fun!
The common element in this trio is the contemplation of life and
death,
 what is resolved, and what is left afterwards. Even as a
farce Coward conveys a deeper theme and leaves us with it.
Ways of the Heart is directed by Blair Williams.
Play, Orchestra, Play, directed by Christopher Newton,
is a combination of a different kind. Three plays again,
Red Peppers, Fumed Oak and Shadow Play are different:
dreamlike, enveloped in music and borderline unreal.
In each play a married couple is at the crossroads – if not at
the end – of their relationship and have to decide either to
part or keep on going as usual. In each of the plays there is
not much to hold them together, just a habit difficult to break.
In Red Peppers two vaudeville actors somewhere at
the end of their career are carrying on with the show dancing
and fighting, fighting and dancing, even though their successful
vaudeville days are over. In Fumed Oak downtrodden
henpecked husband has enough and announces his departure to the
stunned disbelief of his wife, daughter and mother-in-law. There
is nothing left of their 15 years of marriage and day-to-day
relationship. In Shadow Play, a wife facing
divorce takes an extra dose of sleeping pills and hallucinates
about their better days, how was it before it faded away. When
she wakes up – the past and present has merged and the decision
to stay together or to divorce is not clear anymore.
The stage design by Cameron Porteous of changing projected
images is very impressive, with music arrangement by Paul
Sportelli. Patty Jamieson and Steven Sutcliffe in main role are
doing their best.
The luncheon play, the tenth of Noël Coward’s Tonight at
8:30 is Star Chamber.
Coward, having had much experience of his own participating
in charity organizations is clearly poking fun (as Kate Lynch
comments in her director’s notes) at the acting community and
their efforts to run a business meeting of sorts, with hardly a
beginning and no end, participants coming and going, the dog
brought in by some actress being the real centre of attention.
Oh, what a fabulous dog it is! This is how the artists run their
business – very truthful, indeed.
So this completes the series of ten plays Tonight at 8:30.
Some of the plays are stronger and more memorable, some are more
entertaining or colourful, - all a great opportunity for actors,
directors and designing staff, thank you Jackie Maxwell, thank
you Shaw Festival! It was a great summer, without a doubt!
The Shaw Festival continues till the end of October. Box
Office can be reached at 1-800-511-SHAW or through the website
www.shawfest.com.
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