First, our first meal in the English style for several weeks now. That is to say, meat and veg.. More precisely, sausage, brussels sprouts, swede and pasta. All cooked in water, although in the case of the garlic sausage this was more a warming up, it having been previously hot smoked. Nice not to have a hot meal not involving hot cheese.
Second, our first visit to the theatre. More precisely, to the National Arts Centre ensemble production of 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. The free programme explained, inter alia, that this Earnest is a chestnut which has a hot pepper hidden inside. Ensemble in the sense that the Centre put together an ensemble for a season of plays, a system which we have, sadly, more or less abandoned in our London theatres. Tickets at $75 each, not much less than one might pay in London.
We were told that the centre was around thirty years old, and like our National Theatre, included a number of stages, with the one we were in not being the largest. Despite that it was a handsome modern theatre, the shape and perhaps the size of our Olivier Theatre, but without the revolutions. But as it turned out, for me anyway, both theatre and the stage (with its rather odd & very conspicuous proscenium arch added to frame the rest of the set) were too large. The play was too slight a thing to survive in the space it was given. Furthermore, the actors seemed to spend a lot of the time facing us and speaking rather loudly, presumably in order to be heard at the back, but I like my actors to preserve at least some sense of speaking to each other, even though they are, indeed, speaking to us.
The play was given in English English, rather than the Toronto English which was the native tongue of most of the cast. I think the result of this was that far too much energy was spent on getting the accents right, and not enough on getting the play right. Although I did notice that by the end, the native accents of Jack were breaking through. Algernon was very tall - maybe seven feet tall - and played very foppish. But he had a lightness of person which carried it off. I also rather like Cecily although I was not so impressed afterwards to read that she is involved in a web series about flushing in bathrooms. Lady Bracknell, a lady originally from Kingston, Jamaica, rather than Kingston, Surrey (the home of our Rose Theatre, spartan by comparison with this one, but at least with a proper bar operation (see below)), had a great costume and great presence. But she did not quite pull it off and her odd delivery irritated rather than amused.
Rather long at two and three quarter hours, including two breaks, Very feeble attempt at smoking at one point by the two male leads and one did not get the impression that they were very keen. Or maybe the smoking exemption for theatres here is not as full-blooded as our own. And the theatre was not very keen either on selling us refreshments, with provision in that department being very feeble. Are they so well endowed that they do not need the revenue? Well endowed or not, we did have to share the main concourse area with something called Convocation 2014 for Algonquin College, the graduation event for an outfit which looked to be somewhere between our own Nescot and Kingston University. And very flash it was too.
Out by an entrance which no-one else seemed to be using to find a lone taxi handily waiting for us. Off to Lower Town, to learn that with the traffic lights nicely synchronised on the grid road layout, one could, at night, do the whole of Dalhousie in one go. Maybe most of the people there - it felt much like a National Theare audience, although a touch quiet & respectable - came by car and had used the (900 spaces) centre car park.
Home to read what the 'Citizen' made of it in their 'You' section, with their piece headed 'Farcical physicality mars Wilde's classic' - which did not mean anything sexual, rather just the horseplay - and 'No need to act out metaphors'. They liked the costumes, as I did, and they liked the set, which I was not so keen on. They did not like Lady Bracknell, having similar problems with her delivery to mine. Their second heading was right in that the piece was laboured rather than slick.
Reference 1: a not very enthusiastic notice at http://psmv2.blogspot.ca/2013/03/its-that-earnest-time-again.html, But another production where height was important and smoking, while present, was not.
Reference 2: a not very enthusiastic notice at the second and third posts at http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.ca/2011_09_01_archive.html. Much more smoking in this one.
Reference 3: flushing can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRSrGBfXHFs.
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