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| The Threepenny Opera September 6th and 7th, 2002 Director: Stephen Ouimette Writer: Bertolt Brecht (music by Kurt Weill, translated by Marc Blitzstein) Cast: Peter Donaldson, Sheila McCarthy, Diana Coatsworth, Susan Gilmour Character: Macheath Plot: The bandit Mack The Knife marries Polly Peachum in a stable, and causes havoc in the London underworld as her parents plot to have him hanged on the day of the Queen's coronation. Review: Brecht was always meant to get a bad review, particularly Brecht produced with a large budget, a cast of Stratford's finest actors, and a sense of humour. It couldn't possibly work. After all, the entire point of Brecht is for the audience to think rather than be entertained and, if humanly possible, to go out rather more in favour of overthrowing Fascist regimes than they were before. On one point at least, this Stratford production fails utterly. Despite the best efforts of director Stephen Ouimette, this is relentlessly entertaining. From his opening gambit of interrupting the play's only widely recognised song, Mack The Knife, with the apparent attack of a street person on the audience, ushers and cast (the only time you're possibly going to see Tom McCamus playing himself onstage all year), Ouimette treads a fine line between keeping faith with Brecht's mission to disturb, and keeping the audience happy. Fortunately, he keeps his balance, and the spectacle of actors having a good time is an infectious thing. Mack is the centrepoint of the play, practically a legend in his own right, and McCamus carries off his charisma splendidly, with a neat sideline in pinpointed comic timing. He does suffer in comparison to such singing stars as Susan Gilmour in the musical numbers, but his Mack is such a loveable rogue that we don't really care. Hell, he could go out and knife someone by the Thames - we'd like him all the same. Fortunately the other cast members stand up to him rather better than they did in Richard III, with the Peter Donaldson / Sheila McCarthy double act proving both believable and riotous, and Gilmour near-perfect as Pirate Jenny. Coatsworth, although supposed to be quite overwhelmed by Mack's intellect and influence, has more trouble convincing in her transformation into heartless criminal overlord, but I would tend to give her the benefit of the doubt that this is the point. The musical numbers are never less than good solid fun, with choreographer Donna Feore deserving a good round of applause for two scenes in particular involving boots and gloves. Anyone who can get Peter Donaldson to tapdance and Tom McCamus to sound like he sound be presenting The Price Is Right in short order should probably be given some kind of award. Ouimette's mandate to shock could have been fulfilled entirely through the inclusion in the marriage scene of a large painting of female genitalia, but perhaps wisely (given the average age of the Stratford crowd) chose to do most of this through humour: witness the decidedly uneasy entrance of the deus ex machina, and McCamus' bout of miming. All in all, a nicely weighted success story with a difficult script, which proved that, in this story at least, only Mack is ever caught with his trousers down. Trivia: Stephen Ouimette's directoral debut at Stratford. Tom played composer Marc Blitzstein in the play It's All True. |
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