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• Canadian theater festivals don't disappoint

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Geraint Wyn Davies (centre) as Julius Caesar with members of the company. Photo: David Hou

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Despite dire predictions fueled by recessions fears and new border crossing regulations, Ontario's world-class theater festivals, The Stratford and Shaw Festivals, are still doing well. The explanation is really a simple one, quality in the performing arts sells and discretionary money

will always go to favored undertakings. Just like Broadway, summer theater in Ontario is in recovery. Here is look at their early openings.

Stratford, Ontario, is about 10 hours driving from east central Illinois and its core playwright, the Bard of Avon himself, is again prominently featured. James MacDonald's production of "Julius Caesar" begins the season with mixed success. There are moments of real clarity in this nearly uncut production, but many critical characters just don't have any resonance. Ben Carlson, normally a sure thing, just cannot nail the real Brutus as he struggles with one of Shakespeare's more elusive characters. This one character is the key to much of this play.

Even with a splendid Julius Caesar from Geraint Wyn Davies, and a fully realized Cassius from Tom Rooney, this "Julius Caesar" just doesn't have the power and clarity of a great production. Nevertheless, for those who have never seen it live, it is not a bad introduction to the complexities and power of this timeless study of power and ambition.

Ben Jonson (1572-1637) is the oft-neglected contemporary of the Bard. His 1614 comedy, "Bartholomew Fair" may well explain some his neglect. No doubt this dated comedy about deception and the seedy atmosphere of the "fairs" of the 17th century was funny 400 years ago. Antonio Cimolino's production is a brave effort to find some meaning in this remnant of four centuries ago. His spirited cast gives it a full effort, but "Bartholomew Fair" to a modern audience is nothing more than a historical curiosity. But, adapt some classic Roman comedy with the skill of Larry Gelbart, Bert Shevelove, and Stephen Sondheim, and the comedies of Plautus from around 200 BC, become "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." Des McAnuff has assembled an ensemble that soars as the laughs and musical numbers arrive at full tilt. This production of "A Funny Thing..." is just that.

Perhaps the real gem of Stratford's early offerings is "Ever, Yours, Oscar." Brian Bedford selected, directed and performs this survey of Oscar Wilde's letters. For 80 uninterrupted minutes of your travel through the great writer's brilliant, but tragic life through his letters.

You discover what a splendid writer of letters Oscar Wilde was, how revealing his letters are, and how splendidly Brian Bedford brings these very personal epistles to life. For 80 minutes we are treated to a life in letters, and we all listened.

130 miles to the east in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, is the Shaw Festival. Its keystone of works by George Bernard Shaw is well represented this season by a fine production of the rarely produced "In Good King Charles's Golden Days." Director Eda Holmes has a field day with this wonderful historical fiction from the reign English monarch King Charles II. What a wonderful way to discover rare Shaw, well done!

Garson Kanin's "Born Yesterday" is best known to through the fine 1950 film, but it was a stage vehicle before it hit the silver screen. If productions are as good as Gina Wilkinson's, this play could have a major revival. From the splendid designs of Sue Lepage

to Ms Wilkinson's sharp directing, you realize what a wonderful script this is in the hands of the right people. From roughly the same era, but hardly the same genre, is Eugene O'Neill's "A Moon for the Misbegotten." This tragic sequel to "Long Day's Journey

Into Night" has a lyric quality that director Joe Ziegler has fully captured. Name actresses notwithstanding, Jenny Young is as fine a Josie Hogan as you will ever experience.

"Sunday in the Park with George", the festival's musical, presents production problems from its design challenges to the acting and singing. The Shaw Festival has opted to stage this in their small Royal George Theater, and theirs is an intimacy in this that is rare where this musical is concerned. Yet, some things just don't work as they should in Alisa Palmer's production. The demanding stage movements do seem camped and some the singing is no better than acceptable. For such a demanding work, that is barely acceptable, but, if you have not been spoiled by top-notch productions, this production may just fill the bill.

It would be extraordinary, if many have seen any of Noel Coward's "Tonight at 8:30," a series of one-act plays he wrote on the 1930's. Each bloc of plays has a theme, and Coward eventually wrote enough one-acts for a bit more than three night's worth. "Brief Encounters," the first installment of three thematically linked one-acts, is simply a triumph. Director Jackie Maxwell brings this long-neglected theatrical experience to life with such fullness that you wonder why are these wonderful one-acts are so little known. Also available now is "Play Orchestra, Play," directed by UI graduate, Christopher Newton. Before the summer is out, three blocs of these plays and a lunchtime production will give you everything Coward created in "Tonight at 8:30," and I cannot wait to get back for more.