Oh, Ph-Shaw, it’s just Niagara-on-the-Lake

As part of the ongoing what-I-did-on-my-summer-vacation, I’ll wrap it up with our overnight stay at Niagara-on-the-Lake. Niagara-on-the-Lake is a beautiful small town on Lake Ontario. It is the home of the Shaw Festival, a theater festival where they celebrate George Bernard Shaw‘s
plays, and any other (non-Shaw) play written during Shaw’s considerable
lifetime (1856-1950). The productions are excellent, and the theaters
are small, which makes for some great theater.

Meredith and I went to Stratford, Canada (the Shakespeare Festival) and
to Niagara-on-the-Lake as the first 8 days of our honeymoon (the rest
were spent in romantic Philadelphia with my brother). I know seeing
lots of theater on your honeymoon is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it
worked for us. We have talked about going back lots, but have never
managed it until this one-night stay over vacation. Since we had to be
in Michigan on Saturday for a wedding, Meredith suggested breaking the
Maine-to-Michigan trip up into a Middlebury stage and a
Niagara-on-the-Lake stage, which was a brilliant idea. So, we finally
got back to the Shaw Festival, almost eight years later.

Even though we spent only about 30 hours in town, we went for two walks
along the lake, which is lined with very nice homes. It seems as if all
of the homes in Niagara-on-the-Lake are cute, AND they are all
individual – no housing development cookie-cutter homes here. Both days’
walks were fine, and you could just make out the skyline of Toronto on
the other side of the lake (the CN Tower sure helps with that!).

We also got to wander the cute downtown shops, which I recommend
highly. They had a decent gelato (Italian ice cream) stand in a (wait
for it, Jolene) coffee shop, an Irish import store AND a Scottish
import store. We ate in a pub-ish basement, where we had some good food
(many of the other restaurants are upscale, so I don’t like the food).

But the main reason for us to go was to see plays. We saw two plays – one Thursday night, and one Friday afternoon.

The Thursday play was Shaw’s “Too True to be Good,” an improbable play
about an ex-preacher and his former lover convincing a rich young woman
to be “kidnapped” so all three can share the ransom money, and they all
head off to Arabia where they lounge about a military base with a
private based on Lawrence of Arabia, one of Shaw’s good friends.

Meredith’s concise and witty review was the title – the play was
too true to be good. It had some great one-liners (Shaw is very funny),
but the play was really long and almost nothing happened. It was like
what I have heard about “Waiting for Godot” – lots of talk, and no plot
or action. Add to this that Shaw used the play to squeeze in dozens of
rants that make the Cheerful Ranter
look like an amateur, and the play started to get tedious. I am a huge
theater nut, and even I began to wonder when the play would end. It
could have been a great short play if it were edited down.  Don’t
get me wrong – the production was fantastic; the acting and staging
were first rate. I just think it is not a very good play. One thing
Sonotmu has taught me about improv is that relationships drive scenes,
and that is what audiences find most interesting. I think that is what
is wrong with “To True to Be Good” – the characters are flat,and the
relationships are canned or non-existant. You just don’t care what
happens to these people. It is too much satire to be taken as a serious
play (meaning dealing with serious issues in a serious way – not a
judgement on the nature of satire, which I love), and Shaw breaks the
satire time and again, so it does not make good satire either. Lastly,
the issues Shaw raises are not subtle at all – he preaches at you for
over two hours.

If you want to see an excellent Shaw play that is more consistent, see
“Mrs. Warren’s Profession” – I saw that a few years ago, and I
recommend it.

The play we saw on Friday was a stage adaptation of H.G. Wells
“The Invisible Man” (see picture on left). This play was fantastic. I
was fascinated by how they would stage the production. I saw two
choices: 1) use illusion to portray the Invisible Man, or 2) have the
actor on stage at all times, but have times when the other actors could
not see him. This production chose to use illusion, and it was very
effective. They had things floating on stage, a police man fighting with
an “empty” shirt, a man dragged by his shirt collar across the stage,
and two occasions where a coat was laid over the Invisible Man on stage.
It was most impressive. More impressive was the adaptation. I have not
read Wells’ story, but the play brought up questions about what it
means to be human, the nature of community, the price of power and
knowledge, ideas of loyalty, the dangers of being short sighted, and
other ideas. I was completely sucked in to the story – the plot and
characters were strong, and the acting was magnificent. I loved this
play.

So, that is what we did on vacation. It was great. Now, I’m
back to the reality of network wires, switches, servers, and so on. I
hope to get a few weekends away yet this summer – one to L.A. for my
niece’s baptism, and maybe a weekend in Chicago to see The Flying Buttresses, my brother and his wife’s improv group.

0 thoughts on “Oh, Ph-Shaw, it’s just Niagara-on-the-Lake

  1. Anonymous

    Funny, I was discussing Shaw with my mother today and how much I utterly detest “Man and Superman”.

    “The Invisible Man” seems like it would be a difficult play to adapt to the stage, but it sounds as if the performance crew pulled it off wonderfully.

    Reply
  2. revtransit

    Yeah, very funny with the invisible man joke. I’ll have to remember that. I bet I can work it into a political jibe in 10 seconds: What’s great about Dick Cheney? See pic on left.

    I read Major Barbara some billion years ago and thought it was great! Shaw was an interesting guy, a vegetarian IIRC.

    It’s nice that they had a Scottish import store and an Irish import store. We could ask them to open a Scotch-Irish import store, but I guess America has suffered enough.

    Reply
  3. mriordan

    That is the brilliant part: the Scoth-Irish store would be in Canada!

    My total score with Shaw is:
    1 play disliked (Too True to Be Good)
    1 play okay (John Bull’s Other Island)
    1 play liked (Mrs. Warren’s Profession)
    1 short play liked (The Dark Lady – only 40 minutes long)

    I get to see one more Shaw play this year at a local theater (Arms and the Man, I think), so I’ll have to see how that one goes.

    Reply
  4. revtransit

    Wikipedia says that Shaw was the one who said: “England and America are two countries divided by a common language.” And that Shaw died at 94 when he fell off a ladder.

    Reply
  5. Shurtugal21

    arms and the man was good when i read it, don’t know what the play will be like though.  i can just see/hear it if it was on the news today.  “and today, shaw died of bladder problems…wait, no…im sorry, shaw died today of ladder problems”.

    Reply
  6. SPOOONNN

    The Flying Buttresses are AWESOME!!! They are the funniest thing EVER! Everyone should see them on AUGUST 6TH AT THE BEAT KITCHEN IN CHICAGO!! You wouldn’t want to miss it! You’ll retell stories of the hilarity that ensues for YEARS to come! Come meet Shecky, Morita, Shannon, Peepster, Naomi, and JoJo. They are AMAZING! And you won’t even have to pay for their autographs!! Of course, if you want to, you can force them to take your money because they are THAT AWESOME!!!

    Hey, speaking of coffee…JoJo appears to have had a wee too much today!!!! AWESOME!!!!

    There’s a lovely new coffee shop in Lincoln Square – Cafe Descartes – that serves a lovely gelato – but even BETTER COFFEE!!!

    Reply
  7. sonotmu

    The views expressed by SPOOONNN are not to be taken as necessarily those of the Flying Buttresses, who of course expect to see you, yes, you, at their next show. Failure to comply with Flying Buttresses instructions could result in blindness, liver damage, or death.

    While the views expressed by SPOOONNN are not to be taken as necessarily those of the Flying Buttresses, she is, of course, quite correct. Failure to view SPOOONNN’s comments as anything less than correct may result in blindness, liver damage, or Jo beating you to death with our cat Oscar as he regurgitates his lunch.

    Reply
  8. Anonymous

    wow. i have a lot of reading to do. dad was letting us use counted minutes over vacation, so i did one measly post and didn’t read anyone else’s!

    i am back in town till friday. have to swing down and see my sister in columbus. WANT TO GET TOGETHER WITH YOU AND MEREDITH!!!!

    –jrc

    Reply
  9. Anonymous

    BY THE WAY: I AM ABOUT READY TO HOP IN MY CAR, DRIVE LIKE A MANIAC, PULL INTO YOUR DRIVEWAY WITH A SCREECH OF BREAKS AND A SPRAY OF GRAVEL, LEAVE THE ENGINE RUNNING, AND RUN SCREAMING TO YOUR DOOR, WHICH I WILL THEN PROCEED TO BEAT DOWN WITH MY FRANTIC FISTS. I MUST SEE THE RIORDANS. I MUST SEE THE RIORDANS. WHEREFORE AM I BANISHED? I PROMISE NOT TO ASK MEREDITH HER PASS RATE IF SHE PROMISES THE SAME TO ME (AS I AM GREATLY ABASHED AND CHAGRINED).

    SO . . . YOU HAVE A MERE MATTER OF DAYS BEFORE THE EVENT ALLUDED TO ABOVE OCCURS.

    YOUR FRIEND (AND POTENTIAL STALKER)–JULIE

    Reply
  10. Anonymous

    I have gotten out of the habit of using the phone, but I’ll call and confirm this later. I am suppsed to have coffee in Hudson at 3 o’clock-ish this week, so I was thinking I’d be down at your place around 6 or 6:30? Didn’t know if that worked for you guys or not. Tell me whether or not I should eat dinner first. Tell me, also, if there’s anything I can bring.

    Am very much looking forward to this! –J

    Reply
  11. revtransit

    So, he’ll post that he feels like cake. Maybe he’ll tell us whether he feels like chocolate cake or angel’s food or that yellow cake from Niger or one of those cakes in a urinal.

    Reply
  12. sonotmu

    I don’t believe you, Rev! That would mean our intelligence was WRONG! You French-loving Benedict Al Laden! Why not wrap a gay man in a flag and marry him while you’re at it???

    Reply
  13. Ceril_the_Wanderer

    Crazy people are after me! It’s a parade!
    Oh, if I could go to Chicago, I would. Sounds like fun, actually.

    Oh, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with your mind pebble. Just as long as you don’t make fun of mine where my DNA randomly is mutated and I suddenly acquire the power to sprout wings from my back.

    …I just got an image of a bunch of the improv people as a SUPAH-special super hero team…but Josh still as the epileptic fly. Anyway….

    Is this the 21st comment? Is this a record or something? How’d you get so popular?

    Reply
  14. SPOOONNN

    BTW, Mu – Another Shaw production, _Arms and the Man_ is being performed at my parents’ favorite theater – The American Players Theater in Spring Green, WI (about 3 hours from Chicago).

    http://www.thedailypage.com/going-out/theguide/venue.php?id=71

    They are known for their Shakespeare productions, but, in my parents’ opinion, they have yet to put on a poor performance of anything. Except Cymbelline. My mom HATED that one, more because of the play itself than the Players.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *