Congratulations to the singers and musicians who performed James Reaney and John Beckwith’s opera “Crazy to Kill” last weekend in Toronto, November 11-12, a Toronto Masque Theatre production. Here’s a rave review from some members of your enthusiastic audience:
We thought the production was fantastic! The opera singers can truly add “puppeteers” to their CV’s.
Loved the way everyone moved about the stage — when Agatha slowly drifted past us, it made us part of the story. A great set, with many levels (“rings”).
Loved the opening sewing scene when Agatha mimed the old treadle — and the sound effect, a great idea! Also loved her expressive face peering through the bed pillow — another great idea. The two musicians, Greg Oh (piano) and Ed Reifel (percussion), sounded like a full orchestra. We loved how they were in costume and part of the story!
You must all be exhausted, but also pleased that it was such a success. Jamie would have been delighted.
Thank you again, Susan, James, and Elizabeth
Two of the puppets from “Crazy to Kill.” The original puppets were designed and made by Anna Wagner Ott in 1989, and were refurbished by Ann and David Powell in 2011.Crazy to Kill: Miss ScarthTim O’Connor, the red-haired asylum guard, was operated by Brendan Wall. Mezzo soprano Kimberly Barber, who played Agatha, operated Miss Scarth.Costume designer Sue LePage chats with John Beckwith after the show, November 12, 2011
Pre-show talk with James Stewart Reaney, Larry Beckwith, and John Beckwith
This month Toronto Masque Theatre presents James Reaney and John Beckwith’s opera Crazy to Kill, which was first performed in 1989.
Based on Ann Cardwell’s 1941 mystery novel about a series of murders in a mental asylum, the opera has 22 roles and requires three singers, two actors, and 18 puppets. In this production, David Ferry directs mezzo-soprano Kimberly Barber as Agatha, soprano Shannon Mercer as Mme. Dupont, Doug MacNaughton as Detective Fry, and actors Ingrid Doucet and Brendan Wall.
Crazy to Kill
Friday, Nov. 11 and Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011 at 8:00 p.m.
Pre-show chat with Artistic Director Larry Beckwith: 7:15 p.m.
Enwave Theatre at Harbourfront Centre 231 Queen’s Quay West
Tickets: $40 regular/$33 senior/$20 under 30
You can order tickets online from Toronto Masque Theatre. See you there!
Thank you all for coming to the lecture on Sunday afternoon to hear composer Peter Denny talk about his collaboration with James Reaney on Terrible Swift Sword, an experimental modern opera. Denny played recordings of some of the music, which requires singer-actors who can improvise melodies to go with Reaney’s words.
Marian Johnson, producer and stage manager of the play, also spoke about her memories of the 1991 week-long workshop production. Actors Dale Bell and Joanne Lubansky read scenes from the play between General Beauregard and Letitia Beauregard.
Our thanks also to the organizers of the lecture at the Stratford Public Library, Charles Mountford, Anne Marie Heckman, and Sam Coghlan.
Join us on Sunday, October 16 at 2:30 pm at TheStratford Public Library Auditorium in Stratford, Ontario, for a talk by composer Peter Denny at the second annual James Reaney Memorial Lecture. Denny, a long-time friend, will speak about his collaboration with James Reaney on Terrible Swift Sword, an experimental modern opera.
James Reaney presented Terrible Swift Sword in a 1991 workshop at the Blyth Festival. The story, set in the defeated South at the end of the American Civil War, parallels the story of King Saul and David. Like the story, the music is also layered, built around a community production of Handel’s oratorio Saul.
In his lecture, Peter Denny will talk about the creative elements behind the 1991 performance of Terrible Swift Sword. He will play recordings of some of the music, and read from the script and from the Biblical source.
The annual lecture is a project developed by The Stratford Public Library and Poetry Stratford, and features a talk by a person who is knowledgeable about the life and work of Stratford poet and playwright James Reaney and of writing in the Southwestern Ontario region, which is such a strong element in Reaney’s writing.
Congratulations to actor David Ferry, who wrote to us earlier this month to share this good news:
June 7/11
I wanted to let you know that today I was honoured with the 2011 Barbara Hamilton Award for excellence in the performing arts. This is one of the five special Dora Mavor Moore awards presented annually at the announcement of the DORA nominations. I am thrilled to be selected by the jury for this honour and humbled to join the extraordinary group of past recipients, all of whom I know or knew and have worked with (as I did with Barbara Hamilton) – a true sign of aging I think.
I have been blessed in the past with eight DORA nominations and have won DORAs for Best Actor, Best Director, and Lighting Design. And doubly fortunate, I was nominated again for Best Actor for my performance in “Blasted” last fall. My wife Kyra Harper was nominated as best actress for her fine work in “Vincent River,” which makes me more happy than does my own fortune.
Congratulations, David, and best wishes for continuing success in the years to come!
David Ferry was one of the original cast members of James Reaney’s The Donnellys Part I, Sticks and Stones, which was first performed at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, Ontario on November 24, 1973. Here are fellow actors Jerry Franken and David Ferry together in the poster from the Tarragon production.
Jerry Franken and David Ferry in The DonnellysDavid Ferry and Jerry Franken, May 30, 2011 in Stratford, Ontario
David Ferry has also recently edited a collection of plays by James Reaney for Playwrights Canada Press: Reaney Days in the West Room: Plays of James Reaney. David’s book includes seven of James Reaney’s plays: The Killdeer, Names and Nicknames, Listen to the Wind, The St.Nicholas Hotel, Gyroscope, Alice Through the Looking-Glass, and Zamorna!
Congratulations to Mrs. Val Smith and her Theatre Partnership class at the Port Dover Composite School on their very successful performance of Sticks and Stones in Port Dover on January 13th and 14th. Val Smith encouraged the cast by pointing out that this was “the most beautiful and most difficult text they had ever dealt with or would ever deal with in high school.”
Val Smith and the cast of Sticks and Stones, Lighthouse Festival Theatre, Port Dover
The students succeeded in both mastering the text and conveying the story to others. “This has been an experience they will remember for the rest of their lives,” says their teacher.
Students of Val Smith’s Theatre Partnership class at Port Dover Composite School will perform The Donnellys: Sticks and Stones on January 13 and 14 at 7 pm at the Lighthouse Theatre in Port Dover. Tickets are $5 and can be bought at the door. For more about what promises to be a lively production, see Daniel Pearce’s story in the Simcoe Reformer.
As a side note to Leith Peterson’s “Jamie and Jay’s 1965 Apple Butter Collaboration”, here is more about James Reaney’s adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood, one of three marionette plays commissioned by Jay Peterson for the Western Fair in September 1965. Greg Curnoe created the Red Riding Hood marionettes and they are now part of the collection at Museum London. Jack Chambers made a film of the play (Little Red Riding Hood (1965)), which is available from the London Public Library.
(Note: This article originally appeared in The London Free Press, Sunday September 7, 2003, page T6.)
Western Fair in 2003 has goat milking, cooking demos, racing pigs, a world-class Neil Diamond impersonator and much more.
For all that, this year’s fall classic has nothing as subversive as Little Red Riding Hood. In 1965, the fair’s lures included a marionette version of the children’s folk tale – a subversive version.
Subversive? Little Red Riding Hood? Yes, Red, on film, still looks unconventional. Back in the 1960s, a big, bad wolf with U.S. flags for ears and a little H-bomb for company stirred the pot a little. Still does.
The fair’s Little Red Riding Hood was avant enough to boast marionettes and sets devised by Greg Curnoe, the late London artist. It was Curnoe’s concept to cast the Wolf as a U.S. imperialist predator and use the Vietnam-charged imagery of the day. Red, the wolf and the other marionettes are being donated to Museum London by Curnoe’s wife Shelia. They will be a terrific addition to the collection.
After its run at the fair, Red Riding Hood was filmed by another London artist, the late Jack Chambers. A copy of Chambers film is available on video from the London Public Library. A viewing of Chambers’ simple, direct and beautiful version last week brought back Western Fair memories and showed off Red’s arty side.
The plot is familiar. On her way to grandma’s house, Little Red Riding Hood is lured off the path into the forest. The evil wolf beats Red to granny’s, swallows up the old woman and then devours Red, too. Granny and Red are saved by a valiant huntsman who slays the wolf. Red – and the children in the audience – learn a valuable lesson about sticking to the straight and narrow.
From Jack Chambers’ 1965 film, Red Riding Hood and her mother.
Red was one of three marionette plays developed by my father and others for the 1965 fair. He’s the James Reaney credited as the “story adapter” in the Chambers film.
London writer and archivist Leith Peterson has mentioned the role played by her mother, Jessie (Jay) Peterson, in commissioning Red and other marionette works for the fair.
“Mom saw these shows as not just entertainment for children, but for adults as well. Red Riding Hood caused quite a bit of controversy because of its anti-Vietnam War message,” Peterson has written. Then a Western Fair board member, Jay Peterson was involved in helping create marionettes for other shows.
At the fair, it seemed dad and the others in the Red troupe were battling expectations that marionettes were the glossy creations seen on prime-time TV. Glossy is not the word for the stars of Red. They were really for prime Chambers, not TV.
The Free Press of September 1965 said Red “is another idiom again” – contrasting it with the other marionette plays at the fair. It calls Curnoe “a strong exponent of pop art” and says his “puppets have all been created out of ordinary kitchen utensils.”
As it says in the library catalogue, these Curnoe creations were “unusual marionettes… Red Riding Hood herself is a block of (brightly painted) wood with a red plastic sandpail for a hood and a (plastic) sieve fastened in front for a basket.”
From Jack Chambers’ 1965 film, Red Riding Hood and her grandmother.
Other characters were assembled from bits and pieces Curnoe had on hand. Granny was “just a teapot” with a teapot lid for a cap because she drank a lot of tea. The kids loved the teapot granny, even if adults saw her as “just a teapot.”
The Chambers film catches Red’s crazy humour. Courtesy of Curnoe, the huntsman had one of those toy guns that make a great rrrrrrr sound when fired. In the film, the huntsman is ready to shoot the buttons off anybody.
In the film’s first five minutes, he fires at a marionette of a hired-man, a character from another of the plays on the bill [Victor Nipchopper from Apple Butter]. The hired man is only there to set the scene and introduce Red’s cast.
Later, the huntsman fires at Red after asking her to put the cake intended for her grandma on her head. The gun-crazy huntsman wonders if she has ever heard of “Wilhelm Tell.” Bang, bang, bang. Rrr, rrr, rrr.
Red is terrified. There is a hole in her hood, she gasps.
“I guess your mother made it oversize,” the huntsman blandly says before pursuing the wolf.
From Jack Chambers’ 1965 film, the Huntsman and Red Riding Hood.
Seeing Red and company at the fair was magical. The young UWO [Western University] types and others pulling the strings were all friendly. John and Gillian Ferns, Chris Faulkner, Jill Bradnock, Ellen Richardson and Alvin Waggener are listed in the film credits. Hearing John’s booming voice and listening to granny singing a Welsh hymn –possibly the voice of his wife, Gillian – recalls an era when town and gown were smaller and closer.
They all worked hard. Red and the other shows were not just a matter of pulling a few strings. Some days, there were four marionette presentations at the Labbatt theatre. Most days, it was hot and noisy. It was never dull on either side of the stage.
Through all that, the collaboration of Curnoe, Chambers and many others endures.
Almost 40 years later, this made-in-London gem is still the best way to see Red.
September 1965 performance of Red Riding Hood at London’s Western Fair. Photo by Arnim Walter.
Stratford Central Secondary School’s new James C. Reaney Auditorium
Thank you all for coming to Friday night’s ceremony at Stratford Central Secondary School to dedicate its old auditorium, now the school’s drama centre, in honour of alumnus James Reaney.
The students gave a wonderful performance of Mimi Lights the Candle, a 1926 Christmas play by Edith Isham Coulter that James Reaney and his classmates put on at the school in 1943. As well as the carols in Mimi, students also sang “The Girls at Swift’s,” a song from King Whistle!, a play James Reaney wrote for the school’s centennial in 1979.
Special thanks to Stephanie Nescier for her excellent direction, and to Anne Swerdfager and the other members of the original 1979 cast of King Whistle! for singing along.
Thanks also to Ron Dodson for organizing this event, and to Lois Tarr, James Reaney’s classmate, for keeping her copy of Mimi Lights the Candle all these years. We know Dad would have been thrilled to be honoured in this way and to see you all enjoying the play.
James Stewart Reaney (James Reaney’s son) and his wife Susan Wallace James Stewart Reaney with Lois Tarr
November 26: The play was performed on the main floor and the audience was seated on the stage and around the performers. (Photo by Leith Peterson)
A scene from the play:
On Christmas Eve, Laura, Mimi’s long-absent mother, returns home.
Mimi: But you came!
Laura: Yes, because it was Christmas. My money was nearly gone, but I managed to pay my fare here. And then Mimi’s candle drew me.
November 26, 2010: Stratford Central Secondary School students in a scene from Mimi Lights the Candle. Photo by Wilma McCaig.
November 26, 2010: Carollers from Mimi Lights the Candle, Stratford Central Secondary School. Photo by Wilma McCaig.
On November 26 in Stratford, Ontario, please join us for a gala celebration at Stratford Central Secondary School to dedicate the James C. Reaney Auditorium. The evening will begin with a brief reception at 7:00 p.m. and the program will begin at 7:30 p.m.
As part of the evening’s celebrations, students will perform a scene from Mimi Lights the Candle, a school Christmas play written by Edith Isham Coulter in 1926, which James Reaney and classmates performed in 1943 when he was a student. Thank you Lois Tarr, a former classmate of James Reaney’s, for preserving your copy of the script all these years!
Admission is free, but seating is limited. Please reserve a seat by sending an email to stratfordcentralss@gmail.com or calling 519.271.4500 and asking for Diane Yausie, Head Secretary.
Stratford Central Secondary’s address is 60 St. Andrew Street, and the auditorium is located on the second floor near the front entrance to the school.
There is limited parking behind the school, and there are quite steep stairs at both the front and back of the school. Hope to see you there!
