Irina Brook Debuts Canterville Ghost at Shakespeare & Company
Oscar Wilde Adaptation has Plenty of Laughs, Not Much Heart
By: Larry Murray - Sep 29, 2008
The Canterville Ghost, Adapted by Irina Brook and Anna Brownsted with the Ensemble from the story by Oscar Wilde. Director: Irina Brook, Assistant Director/Adaptor: Anna Brownsted;, Set Designer: Katy Monthei, Lighting Designer: Tina Louise Jones, Costume Designer: Shelby Rodger, Sound Designer/Operator: Michael Pfeiffer, Technical Director: Robert Brown, Props Designer: Ian Guzzone, Scenic Charge Artist: Cassandra Phillips, Master Electrician: Steven Nardin, Costume Design Assistant/Wardrobe: Kadie Midlam, Stage Manager: Molly Hennighausen, Assistant Stage Manager: Angela Bayler.
With Michael Hammond as Lord Canterville, Mrs. Umney, Sir Simon de Canterville; Dana Harrison as Libby-Boo, Lucretia Otis; Alyssa Hughlett as Virginia 1 (Past), Virginia 2 (Present Day); Alexandra Lincoln as Chastity, Washington Otis; and Michael F. Toomey as Hiram Otis II (Present Day), Hiram B. Otis (Past). At Shakespeare & Company's Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, 70 Kemble St., Lenox, MA. Through November 9. Playing Time: 90 Minutes with no intermission.
In a program note to The Canterville Ghost now playing at Shakespeare & Company, the director, Irena Brook says that her ensemble started off with "just Wilde's short story and no script whatever. "Brook further explains that the magic of theatre "allows us to dream up things which are not really there. Oscar Wilde gave us a wonderful opportunity to "play". We followed his words and spirit faithfully and yet freely, from the page to the stage." And so they did, with mixed results.
Purists and connoisseurs of literature may feel some disappointment at the final result, having wandered far from the book, but they can and should also watch their children laugh their heads off at all the silly happenings on stage. Dumbing down the book while speeding up the action makes it easier for those with short attention spans to digest. So yes, this is a funny and entertaining evening . But if you look closely, the ghost of Wilde himself may be imagined floating above the stage shrieking in horror at what they did to his lovely words. Very little of the original dialog made it through unchanged.
While the plot has its ghosts and ghouls, Irina Brook, her collaborator Anna Brownsted and the ensemble of actors have made goulash of the original story, tearing apart the carefully constructed Wilde tale and replacing it with hilarious slapstick, over-the-top histrionics and carotid-aneurytic acting. The normally calm and considered Michael Hammond has the unenviable task of carrying the bulk of the show on his shoulders, with dozens of costume changes, playing both Sir Simon de Canterville, a man who murdered his wife several centuries ago, and Mrs. Umney the housekeeper of the castle he still inhabits. Five actors play eleven roles with clear and concise characterizations that help the revised and updated story move quickly and surely.
In this telling, the Otis family is from Texas, instead of New York. Michael F. Toomey as the father is no longer a stoic member of the clergy, but the figurehead of a raucous, rambunctous family. Toomey has great fun in his role, as does Dana Harrison as his wife, Libby-Boo. Together they make a nicely matched comedy team, especially as they morph into their forebears, Hiram and Lucretia Otis as the play evolves.
It was a conscious decision to throw out the vast majority of the dialogue that is a hallmark of the original story. They then substituted their own improvised dialog and situations to the narrative bones of the plot. As if one could improve upon Wilde.
That is not to say that adapting works like this to theater, film and dance has to be fussily faithful to the original.
Adaptations can be both quite daring and successful. One that comes to mind is another scary tale, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's famed story. We all know of the film and Broadway versions. But one dance production I saw in 1984 was both brilliant and offbeat. Adapted by Wayne Eagling for the Royal Ballet and presented with a score by Vangelis at Covent Garden it was a spectacular production with no words, just dance and music. It worked.
Wilde's The Canterville Ghost has also been done successfully as ballet, as a recent English National Ballet effort proved. The story is a reliable source of artistic inspiration.
The Wilde novella is a natural choice for Shakespeare & Company both because of its English roots and the fact that Halloween has become the second most profitable holiday in America. Theatre companies have begun searching for an October rainmaker, a show that can be presented each year to help balance the books. December's Nutcracker does it for Ballet Companies and A Christmas Carol does it for a number of theater companies. Besides, the chance to invoke ghouls, goblins and billowing sheets also seems to bring out the ham in theater people, they just can't help it. Really.
Competition for those Halloween dollars is fierce and filmmakers like Tim Burton have multi-million dollar budgets and incredible special effects to play with. But even M. Night Shyamalan is a hell of a lot more subtle than this crew.
Michael Hammond takes on three roles, and one of them, that of Sir Simon, is actually many more as the ghost dons various disguises and personalities to use against the Otis family. It is an astonishing performance. Beyond the ghosts, and the magician, Hammond also plays Mrs. Umney, the housekeeper/cook and last remaining servant. His husky voice became a delightfully raspy and cranky cook, though there was no mistaking the actor underneath.
The result is a raucous, noisy, funny exercise in stage business that also catches the audience off guard with several unexpected and touching scenes. They take place during the few blessed moments when the actors are mute and instead use simple dance, movement and music to advance the story. This is the Irina Brook I looked forward to. These moments were pure genius and joy.
Alyssa Hughlett as Virginia is clearly an accomplished dancer, and her lyrical dance segments provided the most achingly beautiful moments of the evening. (I also applaud her bravery in dancing on a concrete floor.) Brook also inserted several highly successful musical moments into the story, including a delightful version of "Achy, Breaky, Heart" by Billy Ray Cyrus which helped open the show. How this family of Texans ended up at Canterbury Castle in 2008 is just the first of twists that the cast has given Wilde's story.
Their inclusion seems to suggest that Brook has a lot more up her sleeve for the future. Perhaps a musical from Shakespeare & Company? Kiss Me Kate? We have seen Tina Packer's company utilizing more and more musical elements, and this time all the singers were in tune. Progress.
Alexandra Lincoln has superb comic skills, delighting the audience as Chastity and her male alter-ego, while totally annoying both the ghost and us as "the twins", who were played by her hand puppets. As clever as Lincoln was, the substitution of silly puppets for the two boys was a misfire. The conniving brothers are too central to the tale to diminish their role in the story so drastically.
The biggest loss to the telling of this tale was the art of subtlety. Wilde had a keen interest in Americans of the late 19th Century. In reading the story you can tell he found us as interesting and eccentric as the dutiful ghost of the long deceased Sir Simon de Canterville. As with many writers of the period, Wilde used understatement and restraint to make his jibes at people and things. Such restraint clearly would not work too well on stage for a show devised for families. What we won't do for "the children."
So the characters in the book become caricatures, the humor becomes more slapstick and obvious, and the innocence and beauty of the young and trusting Virginia who redeems the tormented Sir Simon loses a great deal in the transition into family theater.
Missed most of all were the words of the prophecy on the library window which explained it all:
Whan a golden girl can win
Prayer from out the lips of sin,
When the barren almond bears,
And a little child give away its tears,
Then shall all the house be still
And peace come to Canterville.
Prayer from out the lips of sin,
When the barren almond bears,
And a little child give away its tears,
Then shall all the house be still
And peace come to Canterville.
Virginia admits: "But I don't know what they mean."
'They mean,' (the ghost) said sadly, 'that you must weep with me for my sins, because I have no tears, and pray with me for my soul, because I have no faith, and then, if you have always been sweet, and good, and gentle, the Angel of Death will have mercy on me. You will see fearful shapes in darkness, and wicked voices will whisper in your ear, but they will not harm you, for against the purity of a little child the powers of Hell cannot prevail.'
So while the play is a wonderful escape into ghouls and goblins that the whole family can enjoy, it may leave some adults unsatisfied. Bearing that in mind, bring any children you know who are old enough to read. They will laugh and gasp at the costumes, the ghosts, rattling chains, the magic tricks, the pretend tea party, the vicious stuffed animals, and especially the running around.
And then, when they are old enough, you can hand them the book to find out what the play was really all about.
As Virginia says at the end of the book: "See what Life is, and what Death signifies, and why Love is stronger than both."
Finally, it should be noted that the second production in the company's new Elayne Bernstein Theatre was a big logistical improvement over the first, with the audience now seated on one side of the hall, and the stage taking up the other half. Access to the seats seemed easier than for the first production there, and with much of the slatboard walls covered up, they were less distracting and it seemed the sound dead spots were gone as well. More progress. The theatre is shaping up nicely.
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