Stratford Festival, Ontario, Canada

I live in Ontario, Canada and the Stratford Festival is an amazing gift for we theatre lovers. It has also carved out a wonderful artistic community in Stratford (on the Avon river, no less) which used to be just a small farming and manufacturing centre.

We now have fabulous restaurants, adorable Victorian B&Bs, and some of the best shopping you will find anywhere. And of course, from late spring to the fall, we have world class actors in some of the best plays both Shakespearean and more modern.

This season seems to be a particularly wonderful one, so if you have the chance to come and check it out, I don't think you will be disappointed. This weekend was the Michigan Member's Weekend and there are also  events through the season for Members from Chicago, NY and Ohio.

Of course, this is on my mind right now as I just saw Shakespeare's Measure for Measure yesterday. It was fabulous by the way. It is put on in one of the smallest of the venues, the Tom Patterson Theatre which is actually the winter home of the Stratford Badminton Club and only holds about 500 seats around the thrust stage.

It sounds strange but it is a wonderfully intimate experience and we were in the first row, so we almost felt like we were inside the play! The other two theatres, the Festival Theatre and the Avon Theatre are of course much bigger and house the more popular of the plays and musicals.

I like to study up a bit on the plays I see at Stratford, as I find as an adult who studied science and not literature in University, I need a bit of background for some of the lesser known plays. My husband was doing the same (dueling laptops on the deck) and he was laughing his head off at the analysis of Measure for Measure on shmoop, which I had never heard of. I wish shmoop existed when I was a high school student. Heck, I wish the internet existed when I was a high school student. Anyway, it's a fun and informative place to bone up on a play beforehand.

And as good as Measure for Measure was, the next one I am going to see with my girlfriends in July is supposed to be even better. Mary Stuart, an adaptation of Friedrich Schiller's play from 1800 has been getting fabulous reviews. I don't have to study as hard for this one, but a bit of Wikipedia cramming so I know my Dudleys from my Darnleys is probably in order. And I get to have a lovely lunch with my friends beforehand.

So although no film review this week, at least you know what I am up to this summer!

Cheers!

P.S. On my last trip to NYC, our waitress one night was a struggling actress who travels from NYC to Stratford every summer to take in as many plays as she can cram in over a few days. We gave her an extra good tip that night!

Rhys Ifans- Actor of the Week

Rhys Ifans is one of those British characters who are rather fun to watch, both in film and in life. I mean here is a man who used to be the lead singer for the Welsh pop group Super Furry Animals, was engaged to Sienna Miller and played Spike the crazy Welsh roommate in Notting Hill.  And now he has the lead role in Anonymous, playing the Earl of Oxford who, and I quote with disdain, "supposedly penned Shakespeare's plays". Whether you buy the premise of the film (and I truly hope that you do not), there is no denying the fact that Rhys Ifans is a talented actor. Weird, but talented!

Rhys Ifans as The Earl of Oxford in Anonymous

He really shows his acting chops in Anonymous. This role will finally help to erase Spike from the minds of film goers everywhere. OK, maybe not totally erase the image of Spike...in his underwear...

Rhys Ifans as the crazy Welsh roommate Spike from Notting Hill

Or perhaps Spike in the wetsuit and scuba mask eating cereal...

Rhys Ifans as Spike from Notting Hill

Shudder...he really is a good actor isn't he? Ewwww......

I also loved him in Pirate Radio (The Boat that Rocked) as Gavin, the "greatest DJ in Britain who has just returned from his drug tour of America to reclaim his rightful position". If they need an eccentric Brit, who do they call?

Rhys Ifans as Gavin from Pirate Radio

But he can also do a straight period drama role such as Dobbin in Vanity Fair...

Rhys Ifans as Dobbin in Vanity Fair

And who does Emma Thompson call when she needs a creepy, slimy uncle with gambling debts for her latest Nanny McPhee?  Why Rhys Ifans, that's who. It's hard to even imagine these are all the same people isn't it? What a chameleon!

Rhys Ifans as nasty Uncle Phil in Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang

And of course for the odd father of the odd Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter?  Yes, for Xenophilius Lovegood he hardly had to act at all!

Rhys Ifans as Xenophilius Lovegood from Harry Potter

So whether or not you like all of the films he has been in (and I am a fan of pretty much all of these films to a greater or lesser degree) you have to admit that this guy can act.  And I hope to see lots more of him in the future. Apparently without Sienna Miller.

Anonymous- Was Shakespeare a Fraud? Methinks not!

Anonymous: The Film

"Set in the political snake-pit of Elizabethan England, Anonymous speculates on an issue that has for centuries intrigued academics and brilliant minds such as Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Sigmund Freud, namely: who actually created the body of work credited to William Shakespeare? Experts have debated, books have been written, and scholars have devoted their lives to protecting or debunking theories surrounding the authorship of the most renowned works in English literature. Anonymous poses one possible answer, focusing on a time when scandalous political intrigue, illicit romances in the Royal Court, and the schemes of greedy nobles lusting for the power of the throne were brought to light in the most unlikely of places: the London stage."

Rhys Ifans as the Earl of Oxford who in my opinion did NOT author any Shakespearean texts

As I was researching this post in anticipation of the release of "Anonymous" in a few weeks' time, I was actually sucked in just for a moment. Just a brief moment. And then I shook my head and did some more research and I am now quite convinced that although this might make a good story, it is a work of fiction. That is a polite way of saying that this film is a bunch of bunk. But that is OK, as long as it is made clear to viewers that this is truly fiction/bunk and we should watch it for entertainment and not information.

Sam Reid as the Earl of Essex in Anonymous

I do not claim to be an English scholar, but I have now read enough to believe that there are enough contemporary accounts referencing William Shakespeare of Stratford as the author of these plays and sonnets, to discount all of the so called evidence to the contrary. Furthermore, as an educated Canadian woman who is descended from English coal miners and cotton mill workers and shoemakers, some of whom were in the workhouse during the 19th century, I find the idea that only a highly educated member of the aristocracy could have written Shakespeare's prose and poetry offensive. Poppycock and twaddle I say!

Joely Richardson as young Queen Elizabeth and Jamie Campbell Bower as young Oxford

However, as someone who adores the film Shakespeare in Love, which never purports to be anything but fiction, I am open to seeing this film and hopefully enjoying it as an Elizabethan political thriller. There are certainly a fine collection of actors in this (Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, Rafe Spall, Joely Richardson, David Thewlis et al).  There are also a lot of fab costumes. And I am a total sucker for a CGI flyover of the Thames in any century that isn't the 21st!

Vanessa Redgrave as the apparently not so virginal Queen Elizabeth

So bring on the intrigue, incest and incredible distortion of the facts. I just want the eye candy!

What do you think? Shakespeare or the Earl of Oxford? See the film or pass on it? Let me know what you think.