Stratford Festival 2010 Season
Sep. 12th, 2010 07:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
garnigalI'm half done my Stratford Festival viewing for 2010. We saw Kiss Me Kate in August, and today Mom and I caught at matinee of King of Thieves.
Kiss Me Kate is a Cole Porter musical. It's a play within a play structure, with a company trying to put on a musical version of Shrew. It was a very bright show in terms of costuming and sets. We were far to the side in the balcony, so that may have influenced my opinion, but... I didn't love it. There were great bits, the music was fantastic, but it was so over the top, so manic, that it was hard to follow despite the very simple story line.
King of Thieves is a brand new musical. It is enjoying its stage debut at Stratford and is taking full advantage of all Stratford has to offer. It's at the Studio Theatre, a small intimate venue with a thrust stage. It has a 4 piece jazz band on stage the whole time, and the narrator, Vinnie, is played by Sean Cullen, who is utterly perfect in this role. It uses The Threepenny Opera as inspiration, and our main characters are Mac and Peachum. It's set in the late 1920's, just before the stock market crash, and definitely speaks to the 2008 crash as well. I can't even describe how wonderful it was. The music, the costumes, the plot and dialogue all blend seamlessly and wonderfully. Nigel Bennett makes his Stratford debut as Agent Brown and is also fantastic, despite a somewhat annoying Southern accent. King of Thieves is only on stage until Sept 18th, so hurry out and get tickets now.
Tomorrow is The Tempest, and I am filled with squee for Christopher Plummer, and then The Winter's Tale on the 19th.
Kiss Me Kate is a Cole Porter musical. It's a play within a play structure, with a company trying to put on a musical version of Shrew. It was a very bright show in terms of costuming and sets. We were far to the side in the balcony, so that may have influenced my opinion, but... I didn't love it. There were great bits, the music was fantastic, but it was so over the top, so manic, that it was hard to follow despite the very simple story line.
King of Thieves is a brand new musical. It is enjoying its stage debut at Stratford and is taking full advantage of all Stratford has to offer. It's at the Studio Theatre, a small intimate venue with a thrust stage. It has a 4 piece jazz band on stage the whole time, and the narrator, Vinnie, is played by Sean Cullen, who is utterly perfect in this role. It uses The Threepenny Opera as inspiration, and our main characters are Mac and Peachum. It's set in the late 1920's, just before the stock market crash, and definitely speaks to the 2008 crash as well. I can't even describe how wonderful it was. The music, the costumes, the plot and dialogue all blend seamlessly and wonderfully. Nigel Bennett makes his Stratford debut as Agent Brown and is also fantastic, despite a somewhat annoying Southern accent. King of Thieves is only on stage until Sept 18th, so hurry out and get tickets now.
Tomorrow is The Tempest, and I am filled with squee for Christopher Plummer, and then The Winter's Tale on the 19th.
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Date: 2010-09-13 01:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-13 02:50 am (UTC)