Secrets are floating through the air in Niagara-on-the-Lake at Canada’s Shaw Festival, with some held between characters for love, their blossoming engagement, their safety, or simply for the pleasure of future audiences. We are asked to hold them close to our hearts; literally, so others can enjoy the splendor of the reveal that we just experienced, or so that the air can be filled with the fragrant flowers of connection and love. Other secrets are held between sisters, and sometimes, not held for long, while others are spit-handshaked and held tight between new friends to see if they can pull a fast one over the others. Or it is so they can escape their confines, whether it’s a class structure holding them down or a confining bed so they can’t commune with the healing powers of nature. But all are done and held tight for the pure purpose of theatrical engagement, and in the hands of all those wonderful company members, both cast and crew, at The Shaw Festival, this two-day, four-play delight left us completely awe-inspired and deliciously full-filled with chocolate-flavored excitement and tenderly felt engagement.
Gabriella Sundar Singh as Mary in The Secret Garden (Shaw Festival, 2024). Photo by Michael Cooper.
The first secret is right there in the title of The Secret Garden, a play with songs based on the children’s novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett (“Little Lord Fauntleroy“). A train whistle is what draws us in as my companion and I settled into our seats surrounded on all sides by children chattering with a carefree excitement. This was going to be interesting, I thought, as the luggage-constructed train ride scene wisely and craftily chugged its way forward. Gaurdian shhh’s were thrown about hoping to settle the young audience members, but slowly the chatter and shushing became less and less frequent as The Secret Garden spread its magical roots out into the audience pulling these kids in with wonder and enchantment, holding them tight and engagingly in their ingenious hands and wide Robin wings.
Designed with ingenuity by Beyata Hackborn (CS’s The Inheritance/assoc) with lovely costuming by Judith Bowden (Shaw’s Sweeney Todd) and lighting by Kevin LaMotte (Soulpepper’s Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train), this classic children’s story unfolds with deliberate care, thanks to the strongly formed and sweet adaptation created by director Turvey and writer Paul Sportelli (Shaw’s Tristan; Maria Severa).
With the dreariness of the moor wailing like the sea in the background through projected panes, a young girl stands frowning at the center of this tale. Her name is Mary, and as played with just the right amount of spirit and vinegar by Gabriella Sundar Singh (Soulpepper’s Wildwoman), she discovers that she must find her place within her uncle’s home, not by being haughty or demanding, but by opening herself up to the wondrous world that exists just outside the grieving darkness of this manor.
Gryphyn Karimloo as Colin and Gabriella Sundar Singh as Mary in The Secret Garden (Shaw Festival, 2024). Photo by Michael Cooper.
Played in double tasks by David Alan Anderson (The Court’s The Mountaintop), the lead uncle is as stoic as the books that line his library’s shelves, but like those books, there is a story to be discovered within his pages. Secrets are held by the Uncle’s demand and threat to all those around the young lonely Mary, orphaned by sickness in India. But the main secret, held together in a bond between Mary and the sheltered overprotected Colin, played dutifully by a wonderful Gryphyn Karimloo (Fidelity Theatricals’ Spring Awakening: The Concert), is the one rooted in the magical garden and held in their care for one another. It is in their connection that everything else blooms and grows in The Secret Garden. The production feels as tender and emotionally pure as one could hope for in this engaging unearthing, and we can’t help but lean in like all the young entranced kids around us.
Delivered by love and friendship into the garden by a friendly Robin, gently danced forth by Tama Martin (TPM’s Okay You Can Stop Now), thanks to an introduction from an older gardener, played with warmth and care by David Adams (Tarragon’s Much Ado About Nothing), The Secret Garden opens its gates to a sense of wonder and care, and the audience of children are swept up and along. Even if their secret adventures go strongly against the anxious formulations proclaimed by Dr. Craven, also played by Anderson, and dutifully enforced by the rigid upright Mrs. Medlock, played to perfection by Sharry Flett (Meridian’s Driving Miss Daisy).
David Alan Anderson as Dr. Craven, Gryphyn Karimloo as Colin, Gabriella Sundar Singh as Mary, and Drew Plummer as Dickon in The Secret Garden (Shaw Festival, 2024). Photo by Michael Cooper.
Mary’s main caregiver and ally, Martha, beautifully embodied by Jacqueline Thair (Shaw’s The Grand Hotel), arrives to help, alongside her gentle brother, Dickon, played with purpose by Drew Plummer (Shaw’s On The Razzle), and their mother, Mrs. Sowerby, played with a delightful energy by the wondrous Patty Jamieson (Musical Stage’s The Light in the Piazza). They step in and try to help grow the young grieving Mary’s beating heart, which in turn, spreads its butterfly wings out to Colin and their family, healing more wounds than any of us thought possible.
It’s the glorious transformative power of nature and friendship that take root in the souls of these lost characters, and with snippets of sweet traditional songs, like “Scarborough Fair” and “Blue Bells, Cockle Shells“, sung with a gentle simple construction thanks to director Jay Turvey (Shaw’s Gypsy) and the show’s music director Ryan deSouza (Shaw’s My Fair Lady), the novel story blossoms before our very eyes, completely captivating the children in the audience and bringing a few sweet tears to my eyes.
(l to r): Drew Plummer as Dickon, David Adams as Ben Weatherstaff, Gryphyn Karimloo as Colin, and Gabriella Sundar Singh as Mary in The Secret Garden (Shaw Festival, 2024). Photo by Michael Cooper.
The “big good thing” lives large out in their world, and does not speak of limitations, isolation, and sickliness. It’s about giving space and fresh air so one may grow as big and tall as one can, and strong enough to withstand the pain of life and the love that lives within it all. It’s tender and heartfelt, even in its simple construction, and this idea of growth without limitations brings me to our next tightly held secret, a secret between two intellectuals around the origins of the poorly educated street urchin, Eliza Doolittle. It’s within this bet, made between these privileged men, without much thought for the young lady, that ushers forth the complication and challenge that lives in My Fair Lady: to see if, given the right lessons and care, this young woman can blossom into a beautiful flower.
Tom Rooney as Henry Higgins, Kristi Frank as Eliza Doolittle, and the cast of Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady (Shaw Festival, 2024). Photo by David Cooper.
It’s within that framework that Lerner & Loewe’s My Fair Lady is considered a masterpiece, without a doubt. Maybe not exactly timeless, but definitely a product of its time, particularly because of its problematic construction; a gendered power dynamic complication that, not surprisingly, is handled fairly well here at Canada’s Shaw Festival. This ultimate tale of transformation is centered around their secret bet, to see if they can lift up a young flower girl’s life and pass her off in high society. They believe it will be a great achievement for these men, and, oh yes, greatly improve her life by changing how she speaks (and acts, and dresses). A secret that is, as it turns out, hilariously hard to keep from being revealed when a horse’s ass needs some encouragement. And I’m not talking about “poor Professor Henry Higgins“, played delightfully sharp and true by Tom Rooney (in the part until October 10th when he will be replaced by Allan Louis).
Unlike The Secret Garden (a show I’ve heard of, but never seen), My Fair Lady, adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, is the ultimate classic musical, one that I have known and loved since I was a child listening to the vinyl 1956 Broadway cast recording in my living room. The incomparable Julie Andrews was that show’s lead with Rex Harrison as her Professor, and I played that record a thousand times or more. It’s a difficult show to hear without comparison; vocally and visually (thanks to the gorgeous production design of the 1964 film). It’s all just so darn “loverly.”
But both Tom Rooney (Stratford Festival’s R+J) as the oblivious Professor, and the phenomenal Kristi Frank (who wowed me in last season’s On the Razzle) as Eliza Dolittle, the flower girl who is about to be transformed into a different kind of flower, fulfill all of our wishes within this strongly formulated production, directed with a strong eye and ear by Tim Carroll (Shaw’s A Christmas Carol) and Kimberley Rampersad (Stratford’s King Lear). They, and the cast, deliver the glorious goods with expert grace and care, weaving in the wonderfulness with ease and determination. The beautiful music and lyrics by Lerner and Loewe usher forth the excellent cast inside the strong music direction of Paul Sportelli, elevating the piece as it dances forward perfectly. “I Could Have Danced All Night,” she sings, and we believe it wholeheartedly, sounding as glorious and superb as one remembers and hoped for when entering Shaw’s Festival Theatre.
David Adams as Alfred P. Doolittle with the cast of Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady Shaw Festival, 2024). Photo by David Cooper.
Higgins may be, as he sing-song tells us, just “an ordinary man“, but he, and the Shaw Orchestra, are anything but. It’s a pretty darn perfect rendering of this well-loved musical, finding its feisty heart and soul inside Frank’s Eliza and the gorgeously created production that surrounds her. Designed with a meticulous eye for luscious visuals and details by Lorenzo Savoini (Soulpepper’s De Profundis) with equally lovingly devised lighting by Mikael Kangas (Boldy Productions’ Chris Mrs.) and sound by John Lott (Musical Stage’s Grey Gardens), My Fair Lady flies in quickly, swirling in on its own gorgeously enchanted sharpness. It’s cleverly created, and even if it has a hard time, visually, standing up to George Cukor’s famous film version (starring Audrey Hepburn in Cecil Beaton’s Oscar-winning gowns), the overall transformation is as emotionally pure as ever, sidestepping the problematic misogynistic power dynamics that sometimes can distract even the best production. It gives us an Eliza who magnificently finds herself, saying and singing, with perfect eloquent tones, “The Rain in Spain“. And we are transported.
It’s quite the moment, beautifully rendered, and delivered in an authentic and surprising manner. Frank’s Eliza is a gloriously layered dream, embodying all that this piece needs in its detailed heroine. She is not to be missed, full of self-awareness and drive, pushing on her own limitations in a desperate desire to better her life and maybe those around her. Her heart stands pure and solid, even when engagingly approached by the hard-to-believe instantaneous love and admiration from the young and handsome Freddy Eynsford-Hill, played to vocal perfection by the impressive Taurian Teelucksingh (Shaw’s The Shadow of a Doubt). She sees the altered framework that comes with her transformation and rejects the notion that she is now, basically, trained to sell herself into marriage, rather than the flowers she once sold in front of the Opera House. She discovers, thanks to Higgins, that she is now the flower, and this realignment doesn’t sit well within her soul and her strongly formed morality.
And speaking of strongly formed moralities, a hilariously strong turn is delivered by David Adams (Royal MTC/Theatre Calgary’s Evita) as Eliza’s morality-bending and bankrupt father, Alfred P. Doolittle. He gives it his all, bringing forth another transformation that parallels Eliza’s. “With A Little Bit of Luck“, sung spectacularly well alongside Shane Carty (Stratford’s Crazy for You) as buddy Harry and Drew Plummer (Shaw’s White Christmas) as buddy Jamie, Adams ropes us in completely. Doolittle’s journey of betterment and financial gain, thanks to a surprise intellectual introduction from Higgins, elevates his stature and our collective soul, even as it gloriously forces him into a marital framework he has so far happily avoided. He must now “Get Me to the Church on Time” and we can’t help but grin with pure enjoyment, even as he gets led off to his version of the gallows.
The Shaw Festival‘s revival of this iconic musical, based on Shaw’s 1913 stage play, comes to life exactly where it belongs, in a summer festival that started as an homage to the playwright, George Bernard Shaw. The production feels perfectly situated and aligned, delightfully and meaningfully sweeping us up with its spirited flair and sharp wit. The ending is a bit dodgy, not exactly being obvious about the ultimate choices made by Eliza, regarding Higgins and Freddy, but the wide space that lives between them in the end, and the characterization of their relationship as more platonic seems to sidestep the complicated friction in the book, giving us the freedom to relish in the sweet friendship and care of these two solidly delivered characters, and go home blissfully happy.
(l to r): Rais Clarke-Mendes as Maude Lynn Albans, Ryann Myers as Odette Albans, and Deborah Castrilli as Agnès Albans in The House That Will Not Stand (Shaw Festival, 2024). Photo by David Cooper.
Over at the smaller Studio Theatre, many darker secrets are held mysteriously within the complicated family dynamic that stands firmly inside The House That Will Not Stand, the captivating and tense play by Marcus Gardley (…And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi). A dead white man’s body lies in waiting, ready for some La Veuve picking and prodding, as the world swirls with uncertainty around it, particularly around the struggle that will envelop the women of this house. The tension and drama crackle from beneath, rising up as the determined fight to keep the house from falling away spirals out from the hands of its central figure, the proud and righteous Beartrice Albans, a “free woman of colour” played large and powerfully by Monica Parks (Shaw’s Witness for the Prosecution).
Her place of matriarchal power is rich in meaning and history. She is the dead man’s pseudo-concubine, a product of the plaçage system, the practice that allows a wealthy French-white man to enter into a form of civil union with non-Europeans of African, Native American, and mixed-race descent. These arrangements were recognized among the free people of colour, referred to as left-handed marriages, institutionalized in the South (particularly in New Orleans) with contracts and negotiations that settled property on the woman and her children. In some cases, it gave them protection from enslavement. In this case and in this particular ‘mariages de la main guache‘, the now-dead man laid out before us, covered in black lace, had basically assumed responsibility and control over Beartrice when they came together, setting up a financial arrangement that ultimately gave her some sense of ownership and position in this city. But the house in question stands in New Orleans, just before the Louisiana Purchase, and the Americanization laws are coming fast, biting at these women’s heels and bringing change that definitely will not suit these free women of colour.
Monica Parks as Beartrice Albans, with Deborah Castrilli as Agnès Albans, and Ryann Myers as Odette Albans, in The House That Will Not Stand (Shaw Festival, 2024). Photo by David Cooper.
The headstrong Beartrice is confident that she can hold tight to ‘her’ house and the lifestyle she has created. But the power and stability seem to be built now on shaky ground. A storm is rolling in that will rock the foundations of her hold on this household, despite all her efforts. And against her dead husband’s wishes, she is determined to protect her daughters from becoming as trapped as she was. She is fighting to oppose their entry into these left-handed marriages, which are akin to ‘slavery’ in her twisted mind. But, as directed with force by Philip Akin (Shaw’s Of Marriage and Men), the contradictions blow heavy on the house walls, forcing lies and secrets to be made and challenged. She holds on to her own slave-woman, Makeda, played with solid clarity by Sophia Walker (Soulpepper’s Jitters), forever stalling the signing of the papers that would grant freedom to her after all these years of servitude. Similarly, she holds tight to the reins that she has put on her sister, Marie Josephine, played to hair-raising distraction by Cheryl Mullings (Stage West Calgary’s Little Shop of Horrors). The sister is held firmly in Beartrice’s regale grip, portraying her sister’s fire as too wild and demented to be given freedom and let outside, that is until the wind blows forth a deep drumming that can not be ignored.
But it is in Beartice’s control of her three daughters; Agnès (Deborah Castrilli), Maude Lynn (Rais Clarke-Mendes), and Odette (Ryann Myers), where the inner circle secrets and lies play out in power struggles and schemes for escape. Rifting on Lorca’s masterpiece, The House of Bernarda Alba, and a Southern slice of complicated African-American history, The House That Will Not Stand confines and collides the three daughters up against one another in a harsh thunder and lightning moment. There they ask for secrets to be held but have little-to-no trust in one another to keep them. The faith of siblings becomes tied up in suspicion as the exhilaratingly self-aware melodramatic play unleashes the storm on all those involved. The rules are changing right before their eyes, setting them on a stormy pathway back home, some into a form of misogynistic slavery and others into the historic reclamation of power imbalances and complicated morality. All at a far too high price and low dollar value.
(foreground, l to r): Rais Clarke-Mendes as Maude Lynn Albans, Ryann Myers as Odette Albans, and Deborah Castrilli as Agnès Albans, with (background, l to r) Sophia Walker as Makeda and Nehassaiu Degannes as La Veuve in The House That Will Not Stand (Shaw Festival, 2024). Photo by David Cooper.
The elegant narration is unwound within heightened theatricality, tying together poetic fights and flights of sharpness and betrayal with long-held stories of poisonous battles and intricate bouts of exalted invocations. The idea of murder floats through the parlor, a space far too overcrowded with tables and unnecessary hindrances, crafted together in overindulgence by set and costume designer Sean Mulcahy (Drayton’s A Few Good Men), with solid lighting by Kevin LaMotte (Shaw’s Holiday Inn) bringing focal points to the forefront, and jealousy and destruction to the earth below. “Your house is going to fall,” she is told by the wondrous Nehassaiu deGannes (Woolly Mammoth’s Incendiary) who plays the formidable and thirsty La Veuve. “Soon it will lose its foundations and come crumbling down on you like a boot crushing a fat head cockroach. And then God willing, I will have the sweet pleasure of scraping you from the bottom of my sole.”
In a world where curses and possessions can bring down passing storms and vengeful ghosts, the play finds vague connection to the allegory of the Garden of Eden. The six women who are reigned over by the uncompromising matriarch, a woman who seems bigger than the actor playing her, live in a contracting world, one which might not give them Beartrice’s gravest wish of a life free from bondage. “The only way for a woman to provide for herself decently is for her to be good to some man that can afford to be good to her.” It’s a quote from Bernard Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession, but it speaks volumes to the predicament these women find themselves in and why they tell lies and keep secrets from one another.
Though the play is centered around the powerhouse Beartrice, magnificently embodied by Parks, Makeda’s position becomes something more alive and empowered than the other women on stage. Her fight for freedom parallels Beartrice’s wild mad woman sister, with hair that disrupts more than enhances, and the young sisters’ attempt to escape both their situation and their mother’s declaration for them. The three sisters, crammed up against one another in slices of the stage too small for their framing, give way to a plot for two of them to sneak away. Desperate to star in their own melodrama, the eldest, portrayed coolly and intensely by Castrilli (Shaw’s Brigadoon), sharply defines her stance before the self-delusions transform and descend her into jealousy and bitterness. The sibling rivalry brings down the walls is sisterhood, cutting off her romantic baby sister, played fascinatingly by the wonderful Myers (Shakespeare’s Globe’s Twelfth Night) from the family in a sharply defined scene.
Cheryl Mullings as Marie Josephine and Monica Parks as Beartrice Albans in The House That Will Not Stand (Shaw Festival, 2024). Photo by David Cooper.
The secrets of this family and their sharply defined cruelty and recklessness to one another and the world, are unpacked with wit, vulnerability, and tightness, that bind The House That Will Not Stand and release it into the theatrical world for us to devour with the same hunger that causes Odette to run off into the world. This House is electric and visceral, filled with captivating yearnings built on “sand, lies, and dead bodies.” It overflows with numerous secrets embedded in the spirited tale, laid out for our understanding and engagement. They deepen our connection, but the secret that lives in the last production of Part One is of a different flavor and frame. I’m not going to give you any of it to nibble on, as instructed by the judge at the end of the other play I saw at the Shaw Festival; Agatha Christie’s Witness of the Prosecution. But I will tell you just how fantastically well delivered it is.
(l to r): Shawn Wright as Carter, Kristopher Bowman as Mr. Mayhew, and Marla McLean as Romaine Vole in Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution. Photo by Emily Cooper.
In this film-noir stage play, adapted by the masterful Agatha Christie in 1953 from an earlier short story, and dutifully directed with focus by Alistair Newton (Shaw’s Three Short Plays by Samuel Beckett), the music swells magnificently in a clever nod to that black and white classic framing, courtesy of some fine work done by sound designer Lyon Smith (Factory’s The Waltz) who is also credited with creating the original music for this production at Shaw‘s Royal George Theatre. It’s one of Christie’s most famous stories, with a complicated multi-layered secret at its core that cannot and should not be revealed. Doing so would ruin, not only the ending, but the total experience of being present and trying to untangle the twists and turns the play so masterfully delivers.
In a noir nutshell, a young out-of-work man, Leonard Vole, played with precision by the wonderfully endearing Andrew Lawrie (Shaw’s A Christmas Carol), finds himself at the center of a murder trial. An older wealthy female friend of Leonard has been found dead in her drawing room by her housekeeper, played ingeniously by Monica Parks (Geffen Playhouse’s The First Deep Breath), and all eyes are on Leonard. Not just because the housekeeper, Mrs. MacKenzie, thought she heard his voice through the door talking to the now-deceased woman, but the deceased, a childless widow with few friends, has left all her riches to the young Leonard after only a short friendship. It’s a framing that doesn’t sit well with Leonard. And to the housekeeper who seems to feel that she has been robbed of what was rightfully hers.
Andrew Lawrie as Leonard Vole with members of the cast of Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution. Photo by Emily Cooper.
Leanard turns himself in to the police after reading about the murder and seeing that the police are looking to question him. That intense interaction leaves him more unsettled than before, and even though he has an alibi that he was home at the time of the murder with his wife, Romaine Vole, played outrageously well by Marla McLean (Studio 180/Mirvish’s Oslo), he delivers himself quickly to the office of a lawyer, Sir Wilfrid Robarts, QC, played solidly by Patrick Galligan (Studio 180/Mirvish’s King Charles III), who he hopes will help him if he is actually charged for the murder.
He insists that he is innocent, and Sir Robarts and his staff; Mr. Mayhem, Vole’s solicitor who brings Sir Wilfrid the case, played wonderfully by Kristopher Bowman (Crow’s Middletown); Carter, Sir Robarts’s chief clerk and office manager, played thoughtfully by Shawn Wright (Mirvish’s Harry Potter…); and Greta, the comic secretary, played hilariously well by Fiona Byrne (Soulpepper’s Mother’s Daughter); all believe in his innocence, even if his wife’s alibi is not entirely convincing.
(l to r): Andrew Lawrie as Leonard Vole, Marla McLean as Romaine Vole, Patrick Galligan as Sir Wilfrid Robarts, QC, with the cast of Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution. Photo by Emily Cooper.
The production never loses a beat, finding a film noir essence at every sharp turning junction of the play, with set and projections designed meticulously well by Karyn McCallum (Theatre NorthWest’s Henry and Alice), with expert lighting by Siobhán Sleath (Theatre Aquarius’ The Ladies Foursome) matching the mood and style. The costumes by Judith Bowden (Shaw’s Gaslight) are a brilliant trick of colour and non-colour, unleashing a cool-as-cucumber green that transitions to blood-red when the framework and the scales of justice turn on a wife’s dime. It’s a delightfully wise construct, drawing us inwards into the performative courtroom as the case is meticulously built against the overwrought accused. Revelations are unveiled and unpacked, with details knocked down as others rise up.
The performances never falter or give away a thing, with McLean’s Romaine stealing the spotlight every chance she gets with her wry sharpness and expert colorful delivery. But the secret at its core is where the fun slaps up strong against the British establishment’s smug complacency. The Shaw production is as strong as one could ever hope for, delivering the shocking testimony and the extra solid twist that will remain unsaid, as requested by the well-formed judge, played wonderfully by Shawn Wright.
Patrick Galligan as Sir Wilfrid Robarts, QC, and Marla McLean as Romaine Vole in Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution. Photo by Emily Cooper.
Mr. Justice Wainwright’s request I will obey, and you should too after seeing the Shaw Festival‘s deliciously well-constructed Witness for the Prosecution. But don’t limit yourself to just one solid treat when visiting Niagara-on-the-Lake this summer season. All four of these productions; the glorious and sumptuous classic, Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady; the entertaining and kind-hearted play with songs, The Secret Garden; the fascinatingly deep familial drama, The House That Will Not Stand, and this black and white masterpiece, Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution; are all worthy of your time and your 2024 visitation to the Shaw Festival. And now I can’t wait to dive into Part Two when I will get the fortunate opportunity to see four more productions over a few days in August at the world-class Shaw Festival. Wonder what secrets will be discovered then.
The Royal George Theatre sits on Queen Street in the centre of Niagara-on-the-Lake’s historic district. Photo by Andrée Lanthier.
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The post The Shaw Festival Part One Has a Few Brilliant Secrets to Tell (and Not Tell) inside their Magnificent: My Fair Lady,Witness for the Prosecution,The Secret Garden and The House That Will Not Stand first appeared on Frugals ca.
