Kristian De Angelis as Tom Joad (with Greg Favaro on guitar and Ralph De Coste on ground) are among the cast for The Grapes Of Wrath. The Theatre Antigonish production continues Thursday through Sunday, Feb. 18 to 21. Tickets are available call 867-3333 for reservations.
At the Bauer Theatre on Saturday Feb. 12, Theatre Antigonish performed an adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath to an extremely appreciative audience. For older playgoers a subliminal memory of the novel’s monumental eloquence is perfectly honoured in Frank Galati’s admirable stage version. But how far if at all, one speculated, would its themes resonate for a younger university crowd? Tom Joad’s coming to political class consciousness on Route 66 in the Depression may shrink to an historical curiosity as the years pass, but Steinbeck’s Biblical and dark tragedy will retain a timeless urgency as long as we retain any alert sensitivity to the worst depredations of the profit system now on a global scale—the fatal corrosion to traditional cultures and life ways from the Amazon to the villages of China and India in the ongoing saga of man’s inhumanity to man. Ed Thomason is so assured and confident (even masterly at times) in directing a huge mixed-ability cast and crew of students and community players and eliciting the creative best out of his capable technical assistants Ian Pygott (design) and Paula Brow (wardrobe). His success in demanding from them all a balanced measure of excellence in ensemble work accounts for what was arresting and provocative in this super production. While it is the good highlights that linger in the mind, performances and some design details were not without flaws. Costuming so large a show can be nightmarish which makes it all the more important to distinguish usefully and pointedly the principal protagonists. Theatre ‘in the round,’ while seeming so intimate, still demands the actors ‘project’ beyond the confines suitable to filmed interpretation. Prime among the highlights was the stagecraft, the style and tone adopted for the play—imaginative lighting effects, offstage sound, occasional near-mime and suggestive tableaux. It was an inspired thought to accompany the action with Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads so tenderly performed by Greg Favaro and others, moving the play along, relieving the sorrow and pity as only music and art can do. It transported us to that once living folk culture that existed, the pulse beat perhaps of America that strove to redeem itself in song as do the melodies and sung rhythms of Haiti now. I idly thought the perfect visual match to Woody Guthrie would have been Ben Shahn’s contemporaneous Dust Bowl paintings. Allister MacDonald’s austere woodcut-like projected images served just as well to suggest time and place in the approved Brechtian manner. A distinctly deft touch indeed. It is long enough since I had read the novel or seen the famous film to have quite forgotten the poignancy of Rose Of Sharon—to whose character on Saturday night Ginnie Pottie set out to bring a great deal of truth and focus. Many, many precisely observed characters brought something to this compelling story but, in the end, the logic of it all hinges on the triangle—Tom, Ma Joad, and the preacher man. There was never a doubt about the commitment of Kristian De Angelis and Rob Wolf to their respective roles, in their spirited resolve to grow and evolve over the two and a half hour performance. If they pulled it off it was in no small way owing to the experience and very powerful performance of Carol Anne MacKenzie who, for my money, was perfectly cast, perfectly comfortable, and perfectly essential as Ma Joad. The truth of course is—there is no democracy in theatre. Some actors stand out in large casts playing incidental enough roles simply because they are ‘naturals.’ As such Gregor Boyle and Elizabeth Mochrie adorned a highly recommended production whose run continues this weekend at the Bauer.
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