STRATFORD, ONTARIO – To a lover of the theater, there is no more wonderful place in the world than Stratford, Ontario, and its wonderful Stratford Festival.

Now that the Chautauqua Institution program has begun to slow in momentum, I was able to spend three and a half days on the banks of Canada’s Avon River, during which I saw seven full professional productions and attended a memorial service for one of the theater’s most influential men.

I have to tell you, it was wonderful, and I could have happily stayed on to do more and more in that atmosphere of beauty and calm and intellectual inquiry. Let me tell you as much as I can squeeze into this column. If it captures your interest, you still have until October to enjoy it yourself.

STRATFORD

For many decades, the Stratford Festival has taken place in a beautiful, spotlessly clean little city, located about mid-way between Toronto and Detroit. Visiting there requires about four hours of driving from Jamestown, and less from Dunkirk. That doesn’t include time for eating meals, waiting in line for customs inspection at the border, and other such stops.

It requires a passport or some legal document making it possible to visit a foreign country.

The festival is back to operating four theaters at a time after a single season of running five. Acting of this quality is difficult to find, but when you combine it with scenic design of this quality and costumes of this quality and sound and lighting skills of this quality, it is probably the finest theatrical experience in the world. It’s nearer than New York City, safer than that city, much less expensive both for tickets and for meals and lodging than the big city.

Truthfully, the driving is unpleasant and stressful, and if you have time, it’s possible to drive more leisurely on less crowded highways. To me, it’s more than worth it. I saw a play which was written more than 400 years before the birth of Christ, and another play which was written in 1990. While much has passed between those extremes, all of it was wonderful.

ROBIN PHILLIPS

By coincidence, my days in Stratford coincided with a memorial service in honor of the late Robin Phillips, who died July 25. British-born Phillips was artistic director of the Stratford Festival from 1975-80. He is credited by nearly everyone with rejuvenating and energizing the festival, and turning it from a mild entertainment for the unchallenged to the demanding and often thrilling organization which it has become.

I didn’t know Phillips personally. I believe I shook his hand twice at public functions, and I’m certain he had forgotten me by the time my arm was back at my side, but I saw a great many of his productions and they were thrilling. So, I wanted to honor him in this small way. Many actors didn’t like him, and in many of their memoirs, he comes off as cruel and perhaps unstable, but he could make the members of an audience overwhelmingly glad they had bought theater tickets.

The service was held in St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, and was a high Anglican service such as once was common in American Episcopal Churches, but is now extremely rare. It made me feel I was in the presence of God, which is something to which I always aspire, and which is a very pure kind of theater in itself.

CAROUSEL

Some years back, Stratford began producing two musical shows per season, one on the stage of the giant Festival Theatre and one on the stage of the more intimate Avon. My usual response is that it isn’t necessary to drive hours onto the Canadian prairies in order to see well-performed musicals, when some of the finest Shakespeare in the world is being done down the same street.

But I will say, you aren’t likely to see better-performed musicals anywhere not on Broadway, not in London and not on movie screens. The big stage musical was ”The Sound of Music,” and I must say, I heard the production discussed frequently on the streets, in restaurants and so on, and without exception, I heard it was the best production of that show which the speaker had ever seen. If you like musicals, and you aren’t over-primed with renditions of ”The Sound of Music,” I heartily recommend it to you. I guess I’ve just seen it a few times too often, so I opted for the musical on the smaller stage, which was ”Carousel.”

”Carousel” is the story of a young woman in early 20th century Maine who works in a small factory. One day, Julie Jordan goes to a traveling carnival which has come to town and falls in love with Billy Bigelow, the tough yet smooth man whose charming ways convince people to ride the carnival’s carousel.

All her friends try to convince Julie that Billy will bring her nothing but grief, but she marries him, only to be left with an unborn child when Billy is killed in the midst of performing a robbery. In the second act, Billy’s spirit is sent back to observe his widow and their daughter to see if he can repair the damage which he has done to them.

The score contains what, for me, is the most wonderful of all Rogers and Hammerstein’s wonderful music, and the Stratford orchestra is as fine as I’ve heard anywhere. Director Susan H. Schulman, who is currently the toast of Broadway, has directed it with energy and style.

The true star of the production is the set, by Douglas Paraschuk. It matches perfectly the style and mood of the show, and the huge carousel flies together from parts which rise up through the floor and float down from the flies and becomes a miracle of glass animals, on which members of the cast can and do ride.

Alexis Gorden is attractive and energetic as Julie, although she didn’t project her character’s vast emotions to the audience. Her singing voice is strong and fine.

Jonathan Winsby has played many leading roles in Stratford musicals, and it’s no surprise. He’s movie-star handsome, tall and physically robust, and has a rich and expressive, high baritone singing voice. My only reservation and I confess that it isn’t fair is that while he often plays rough, tough characters, he always strikes me as a nice person. It always wars in my mind when I see him perform.

The rest of the cast is excellent, the dancing is spectacular and it is worth the drive to Stratford just to see this production. The sound track has been professionally recorded, and can be bought in music stores or purchased from the Stratford web site.

LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST

”Love’s Labour’s Lost” is a challenging selection from Shakespeare’s canon, and Stratford has staged a pretty version of the play on the stage of the Festival Theatre.

The challenge of the play is that almost nothing happens. The king of Navarre and three of his young male courtiers open the play by discussing that life doesn’t have to be the challenging, often immoral mess in which they say most people end up living. They decide that the four of them will devote three years to becoming admirable and good men by renouncing all temptation. They will eat only one meal per day, and that of plain quality. They will avoid the company of women, wear only simple clothes, and spend their time reading books of religion and philosophy.

One of the nobles, Berowne, privately doubts that it’s possible to live such an isolated life, and even if it is possible, he thinks mastering such an artificial existence is not comparable to the mastery of one’s own life.

Naturally, no sooner have they signed the written contract to begin the experiment, there arrives at the king’s court a beautiful French princess, sent by her father to negotiate an important treaty. She brings with her three ladies, each of whom has a corresponding personality to one of the nobles in the experiment.

The king and all his men immediately abandon their experiment, and each tries to see his lady without the others finding out. Eventually, they decide to disguise themselves as Russians and go to visit the women, only to have the women find out their plan and don disguises which cause the men to woo the wrong ladies.

Director John Caird showed us many beautiful images, greatly aided by costumer Krista Jackson’s beautiful capturing of the elegant ”Three Musketeers-like” setting in which the play has been placed. Sadly, he never found a way to make us care about these characters.

Juan Chioran was masterful as Don Armado, a Spanish braggart whom Shakespeare tosses in as he does characters in other plays, such as Dogberry, to make us laugh. There is even a play within the play, in which very common people demonstrate how little they understand culture and education by their hilarious attempts to act it out for the nobility.

I would describe it as my least favorite of the seven plays I saw.

TAMING OF THE SHREW

”The Taming of the Shrew” is another challenging work by the Bard, only this time, fortunately, the challenge is that society’s values have changed since Shakespeare’s time. The play is about an aggressive, demanding young woman, and the play suggests that her spirit must be broken and she must be made to accept the role of subservience which his society expected.

Director Chris Abraham accepts the challenge and gives us a very funny, most enjoyable production which at least attempts to demonstrate the wrongness of the play’s attitude toward women. Designer Julie Fox makes a beautiful stage picture and enables every actor to effectively impersonate his or her character in our eyes.

The story is of a rich, old Italian widower who is the father of two daughters. Katharina, the older, has a rough temper and verbally and sometimes physically assaults anyone who gets into her sites. Bianca, the younger, is charming and agreeable.

Most of the unmarried men in the city of Padua attempt to court Bianca, but her father announces that no one may marry Bianca before her sister is married. Three wealthy suitors decide to hire a rough young man who has promised that he is so lacking in money that he would marry anyone who had a rich enough dowry. Once the Shrew is married, they can focus on winning her sister.

The suitor is named Petruchio, and he decides to keep his wife awake all night and to deny her food until she curbs her quarrelsome nature. The irony of the play is that, in fact, Katharina is happier and much better off when she stops making war on the world, but it’s the methodology that deserves some questioning.

The director has chosen to begin the play with one of those artificial little tricks which almost never works, but Abraham’s version of it worked perfectly, demonstrating his understanding of his actors’ abilities and strengths.

Deborah Hay was masterful as Katharina. She was beautiful, her comic timing was perfect, and her voice was clear and produced her character’s attempts to ”out-clever” her husband, not as whiny, one-upmanship, but as believable conversation.

Ben Carlson was fine as the grumbling groom, keeping his character well out of the brutal range and well within correction, however arrogant.

Anyone can enjoy this production. The language may be the easiest to understand of all Shakespeare’s plays, and there is plenty of slapstick and broad physical humor.

STOOPS TO CONQUER

I will confess, when I made my reservations for my short visit to Stratford, ”She Stoops to Conquer” by Oliver Goldsmith is the production I expected to enjoy the least.

If I had paid attention to the fact that it was directed by Martha Henry, one of the great theatrical minds of the past two centuries, I would have put it near the top of my list.

The plot is set in England near the time of the American Revolution and concerns Richard and Dorothy Hardcastle, a wealthy couple who were each widowed earlier in life. They have now married, and each has an adult child to the first marriage.

Dorothy has become the guardian of her late sister’s adult daughter, and by the sister’s will, she is the guardian of the ward’s considerable wealth as well. Dorothy is determined that her ward will marry Dorothy’s son, Tony Lumpkin, which will keep the great wealth in Dorothy’s own family.

Richard has a beautiful and very competent daughter, Kate. Richard dotes on Kate, and plans to allow her to direct her own life, but he dearly hopes that she will agree to the marriage proposal which she has received from Charles Marlow, the son of his best friend.

Marlow has been invited to visit the Hardcastles to meet Kate, whom he expects not to like and the engagement to whom he hopes to break, but on his journey he stops at a tavern where he meets Lumpkin, Dorothy’s son. Lumpkin considers himself a great joker, so he advises the young soldier that he is too far away from the Hardcastles’ home to reach it in one night. He recommends a nearby inn, which he describes as clean and attractive, but operated by an eccentric landlord who suffers from the delusion that he is hosting his customers in his own home.

Naturally, the home being described is the Hardcastles’ house. Marlow believes he has checked into an inn, so he removes his boots and stockings and orders drinks and food from the kitchen, sometimes rejecting with criticism the hospitality he is offered.

Kate arrives and meets her suitor, although he is so shy among women that he never looks her in the face, so later, he doesn’t recognize her. Traveling with Marlow is his best friend, George Hastings, who has volunteered for the journey because he has met and fallen in love with Constance, Dorothy’s niece.

Eventually, all the young people have been matched to an appropriate and eager companion. Dorothy is mildly punished for her greed and inflexibility, and the right triumphs in all matters.

Lucy Peacock, who is one of the regular stars of the Stratford seasons, is very funny as Dorothy. She has been outfitted with a ridiculously huge and puffy hairstyle, and endows her character with an excess of self-confidence that makes the whole audience ache to see her get some of her own back.

Joseph Ziegler is wonderfully mature and well-meaning as Richard, while he schemes to arrange marriages and his daughter first refuses, then accepts, then begins to pursue the man he has chosen for her. He endowed the character with a number of little vanities and visible tics which made us like him no matter what.

Maev Beatty was strong and fine as Kate, and as Marlow, Brad Hodder balanced beautifully between the well-mannered son and the hotel guest whose orders were questioned by ”the staff.”

Three cheers to Karack Osborn, a large man who showed astounding physical and vocal dexterity as the spoiled and devious Lumpkin.

This is a play which often might be enjoyed only by the most history loving and language loving audiences, presented in a production which would entertain almost anyone thoroughly.

I recommend it to you.

FURTHERMORE

In addition to these four plays, I enjoyed productions of ”Hamlet,” ”Oedipus Rex,” and ”Possible Worlds.” All of them were great, and I will tell you more about them in a future column. I wanted to leave space so that some of the wonderful photos of the productions can be fitted on the page, so I’m going to pause here, for now. Go and see them all if you can. Some will be ending their run soon, so plan your visit to be sure you see what you want to see.

The plays I didn’t get to see included ”The Adventures of Pericles,” ”The Sound of Music,” ”The Diary of Anne Frank,” ”The Physicists,” ”The Alchemist,” and ”The Last Wife,” about Catherine Parr, the wife who outlived Henry VIII.

I’d leave tomorrow and see them all, if I could.