Scarborough Philharmonic opened their 2026-27 season Friday October 2nd with something of a bombshell announcement.
SPO’s Artistic Director & Conductor Ronald Royer stood before us, disclosing that he’s fighting cancer. He confidently predicted he would beat it, returning fully next year, but for this concert & the next he would share some of his conducting duties.
Ronald Royer (photo: Jamie Way)
He’s undergoing treatment, his hair is thinner, but Ron showed us he is still as energetic, as outgoing in his preamble at the microphone before the SPO plays, as capable of leading as ever.
I’m hopeful, especially watching Ron conduct and listening to the SPO’s excellent sound. Maybe I’m easily distracted but in short order the vibrant live music pushed aside any questions of health.
The concert was titled “Showpieces” at the Salvation Army Scarborough Citadel, Ron offering a bit of a lecture before we started, concerning the debate about program music vs absolute music, a debate that has never been settled except maybe in the competing popularity of different compositions.
Here’s an excerpt from Kye’s program note to About the Trees:
We are now discovering that trees are ‘social creatures’. Through root networks they share water and nutrients and send each other distress signals warning about impending drought and disease. Humans have relied on trees for many things including shelter and fuel and crucially creating the oxygen we need to survive. We also need to trees to build stringed instruments and bows! Canada has a wealth of trees which we often take for granted. Sadly our trees are under threat from the effects of rapid climate change and deforestation. This composition celebrates five of our magnificent Canadian trees and hopefully brings attention to their fragility in a changing world.
Here’s what Kye wrote about the two movements played by the SPO, namely “Pine Tree” and “Poplar”.
The White Pine is the most majestic of trees, growing to a height of 150 feet. It’s wood is highly valued and thus often harvested in it’s prime. This is ‘narrative ‘or program music movement- telling a story. It opens with a proud regal chorale which is interrupted by the timpani and bass drum representing both foresters and elements of climate degradation. Chaos ensues. Protesters try and stop the devastation but are unsuccessful. The movement ends with the opening chorale which is abruptly cut off.
The Poplar This fast growing tree is very useful for winter windbreaks and soil remediation making them a valuable species in forestry and environmental applications. Its graceful, upward-stretching branches and bright leaves seem to touch the sky, while its deep roots connecting it to the earth as may be heard in the orchestra. This tree has oval, heart-shaped leaves that grow close together, fluttering in the wind. One can hear the leaves dancing especially with the tambourine and marimba.
The brass chorale from SPO sounded especially regal, strongly diatonic in a clear representation of something standing up tall & strong. “Poplar”, the second piece, made a lively contrast, in the play of the short fluttering phrases suggesting leaves dancing in the wind.
Ron then led the SPO in a reading of Franz Liszt’s symphonic poem Les Preludes. It’s great to observe how over the past few years the ensemble gets better and better with every outing, the brass & woodwinds especially effective in handling Liszt’s powerful & dramatic themes.
Ron shared the workload with Michael Newnham, our guest conductor for the remainder of the program.
Michael Newnham, shown conducting Peterborough Symphony Orchestra
Michael’s first appearance ended the first half before intermission, an orchestral arrangement of Liszt’s popular 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody, well known at least through the realm of Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck & more.
Michael and the SPO ran the gamut from the slow sombre opening, building to several shattering climaxes, exploiting all the dramatic possibilities in this playful piece.
Getting another person to assist with the conducting may have been necessitated by doctor’s orders, but this is also a genuine opportunity. Guest music directors bring new perspectives, like a visiting professor bringing outside expertise that can help an orchestra learn new things. And the chance for Ron to listen to the SPO playing while led by Michael can also be a useful part of the discovery, insights both for the players and for their artistic director.
After intermission Michael conducted Dvořák’s cello concerto featuring soloist Cameron Crozman.
Cellist Cameron Crozman
The concerto was another short visit to Eastern Europe, as the Czech flavoured cello concerto of Dvořák following the Hungarian Rhapsody of Liszt both include folk music elements.
But this time our focus was largely upon the soulful soloist Cameron, his powerful tone soaring over the orchestra. The audience’s enthusiastic reception to Cameron’s superb performance was rewarded by an encore, his solemn reading of the Sarabande from the 3rd of JS Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites.
Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra return November 7th with Viva España, when Ron Royer will be joined by guest conductor Christóbal Soler, mezzo-soprano Lorena Valero, performing Suites No. 1 and 2 from The Three-Cornered Hat by Manuel de Falla, Sinfonía Sevillana by Joaquín Turino and selections from Spanish zarzuelas. For tickets & information click here.
My new word is “audism“: discrimination or prejudice against deaf individuals.
So if someone practising racism is a racist (practicing discrimination around race), I would add the word audist. When I first tried to type “audist” spellcheck changed it to “audits”, perhaps because there are more bankers than activists for the Deaf. But our world is built for those who can hear while regularly discriminating against those who cannot hear well or who are deaf.
Forgive me for the homonym, but it’s the oddest thing that when I try to say “we live in an audist world” that I will likely be completely misunderstood, unheard by those who can hear. Please excuse me, I am taking my time writing this review, pondering things that I am trying to understand.
One doesn’t need to know sign language to be mesmerized by Erin Shields’s multi-media creation To a Flame (TAF) in the 1s1 Theatre and Nightwood Theatre co-production, in association with Modern Times Stage Company and Why Not Theatre, in the intimate Nancy & Ed Jackman Performance Centre.
It’s bilingual in English and ASL.
Nickeshia Garrick, Dawn Jani Birley and Juliana Monk (photo: Elana Emer)
I came to it as a big fan of Dawn Jani Birley, drawn like a moth to her show TAF as I attempt to understand my experience of the work and its importance. My first encounter with Dawn’s work was back in 2019 watching & having my mind blown by Prince Hamlet, a bilingual adaptation of Shakespeare incorporating American sign language (ASL). I came away from that hungry for another comparable experience, without having really understood what I had seen. Perhaps I can learn from this? In 2019 my typical week had me seeing & reviewing multiple shows, perhaps leading to superficialities, generalizations made through haste & maybe some mistakes. Don’t get me wrong, I wrote rapturously about the show & don’t regret anything I said: yet I don’t think I really understood the depths of what Dawn was doing. I saw her as a brilliant practitioner, the superb adaptation, missing the activist layer.
Dawn Jani Birley (photo: Bronwen Sharp)
TAF is nothing like Prince Hamlet except for the use of ASL & Dawn’s presence. But this time I am delighted to see that Nightwood Theatre shared a great deal about the creation & development of TAF in a study guide found on the Nightwood Theatre website. I wish more producers of original works made this kind of effort! It’s especially welcome watching this play employing ASL (a language that I don’t understand), telling a story about people trying to make sense of the world, a world that, as I suggested off the top, is audist, discriminating against those who cannot hear. The three women onstage in TAF face a fundamental existential predicament. It’s humbling to confront perceptual limitations, reminded of the challenges anyone faces. ASL feels like a magic trick especially when combined with so many other layers as in TAF.
I can’t help comparing the experience of TAF to Prince Hamlet, one of the most powerful adaptations of a familiar work that I’ve ever seen. Part of the power in Prince Hamlet comes from the adaptation of a familiar story, the recognition of parts while seeing some parts getting new treatment. I wonder if it were clearer that we’re seeing a version of the Poe story, if that might be useful to frame our experience, given that I only found this digging in the study guide later. But then again, my perspective may be narrow, not just as someone wanting to analyze & write about a show but also seeking enjoyment & pleasure when that may not be the chief objective of the creative team.
Obvious as it is to say: everyone will come out of this with a different set of takeaways, but TAF is in many ways like a Rorschach test, an existential ink blot, a mirror. I think about adding audism to my mental list of afflictions alongside sexism or racism, that just as there are persons who are sexist or racist in their prejudices or discrimination, one may similarly be an audist. This is especially likely when one has never examined one’s advantages, never noticed the privileges one takes for granted.
I’m especially mindful of my mother’s last years, as her hearing and eyesight faded dramatically while we (her children) did not always show patience when seeking to communicate with her, so busy with logistical issues of her meals & care that we were insensitive & impatient. I’d like to think that I was patient with her, that I didn’t snap at her or talk down to her. To treat a person who is hard of hearing as though you’re smarter and they’re inferior is to be an audist. At 100 years of age it was not an option to learn ASL, even if my mom had mastered several languages earlier in her life. I suspect I will not be the only one watching TAF while remembering family members and perhaps blushing at recollections of audist moments.
It has taken more than a decade so far. The study guide tells us that Erin Shields’s play TAF was originally inspired by The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe. I need to explain why I call it important. In my experience theatre and politics are mutually exclusive. The poetry ceases to be art when it preaches.
I’m not sure I really understood what I saw and heard tonight, that’s not meant to sound harsh or as a critique. There is a parallel between what the three characters experience as they seek to make sense of their world and my attempts to understand their gothic horror story as it unfolds. Don’t let that scare you off. Three women appear to be figuring out the confusing & challenging world about something going over my head. It’s stunning, beautiful, reminding me of one of the operas I saw in childhood before they invented surtitles. Just because I didn’t fully understand never stopped me from having a religious experience.
Maybe it sounds funny to say it’s operatic. I sat with the cello in front of me, played by Beth Silver. As a musician & composer I was perhaps paying more attention to this than the average person might do, watching the player, intrigued by their choices, and always fascinated at the richness of the mix of visual and auditory discourses.
Of course no way would the creatives ever call it operatic, not just because the word conjures images to scare people away. I use it not as someone who thinks “opera is boring” but as someone who loves opera, and sees opera as the prototype for cinema & theatre for at least the last 150 years, an ideal blend of multiple artforms hitting you in different channels, music, movement, words. I think it’s a useful analytical framework even if there’s no singing. You had a live cellist playing throughout, three actors speaking some doing ASL, with vibrant sound design, still & video images projected beside them.
In the talk-back afterwards, Nightwood Artistic Director Andrea Donaldson questioned playwright Erin Shields & English to ASL translator / actor Dawn Jani Birley.
Andrea Donaldson, Erin Shields and Dawn Jani Birley
Dawn spoke of the piece working in “Parallel languages”, as the play unfolds in both English and ASL. I felt guilty to be reminded of other sensory channels employed, not just the physical movement of the actors (at times just standing or lying onstage, sometimes dancing), the video and lighting design, but especially the sound design and the live music, the latter two being channels that aren’t available to Dawn. They may not use words but they’re also a kind of discourse, a sort of story-telling. It doesn’t seem fair. Of course the ASL goes over my head, so I should forget about guilt.
The aforementioned study guide tells us that Erin Shields’s play TAF was originally inspired by Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe. Speaking of opera, Claude Debussy took a crack at adapting the story, a tale of gothic horror with supernatural overtones. I was intrigued by the changes Shields & the team made in Poe’s story.
What I dimly recall from the story was the sense of dread and powerlessness, that’s normal in melodrama. While Poe isn’t exactly melodrama, that medium was big in the 19th century, a style that pervades other forms. I’m mindful because I mentioned melodrama a few days ago in my review of Verdi’s 1850s opera La traviata, an opera where no one has any real agency, where true love is defeated by an inexorable disease. While Poe’s original story has much of the same sort of passivity & helplessness as Verdi’s opera, a pessimism fit for Schopenhauer, the characters in Shields’ play give the story a feministic twist, as they refuse to be passive & helpless. While I won’t spoil the show by disclosing anything further, that aspect is significant and exciting.
The study guide mentions Butoh as a form and as an objective of the work. I was intrigued by this. My experiences of Butoh had been of something far slower & more meditative, both from Sankai Juku and from Lindsay Kemp many decades ago. If the methodology informed the work of choreographer & director Josette Bushell-Mingo, that’s great. All I know is that the bodies both in motion and when still were a joy to watch and to experience, like a living sculpture.
I wonder how others might relate to this dark tale. While the story has elements that are gut-wrenching, it is also empowering and beautiful. I found that discussing the show later, it’s hard to really communicate the experience, that a simple synopsis can’t capture the magic of the visuals, the movement or the music. I must admit though that for a piece of art that has a political position, it still manages to be art rather than a diatribe, no real argument to it. It speaks indirectly, implicitly rather than explicitly. There is no preaching, just making images that make you feel.
Nickeshia Garrick, Dawn Jani Birley and Juliana Monk (photo: Elana Emer)
There are only three performances left in the run (one today October 2nd, two on October 3rd), but I am hopeful that the piece will be revived in another city, and hopefully brought back in Toronto the way Prince Hamlet was revived: a show I saw on its return, having missed it the first time.
There’s a lot of good work that went into the development of TAF, with set & costume design by Jung-Hye Kim, the lighting design by André du Toit and the gorgeous Projection Design by Laura Warren. I found myself pondering the title, and recalled the several times we see a digital animation projected that looks like moths, and then figured out aha that moths are drawn: to a flame. I am still pondering what that means as far as the story, even if I myself felt drawn inexorably to TAF.
As I keep thinking about it, I am hopeful I get another look. I want to see it again. I hope it’s revived.
Juliana Monk and Dawn Jani Birley (photo: Elana Emer)
I am intrigued by Prophetess, a new play from Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho) to open October 7th at Tarragon Theatre, described this way on their website:
Margaret, the Chair of her English Department — and the Queen of Etymology — snaps awake, haunted by a nightmare of spiders. As she confides in her love, Henry, over breakfast, that very same spider from her dream manifests — speaking, growling, and cursing her. And so begins the first day of her term: overrun with eight-legged beasts, sparring words, a battle for the throne, a journey of joyous love, and insatiable prophecies.
Inspired by Shakespeare’s History Plays, Prophetess excavates etymology to ask: What does it mean to curse or bless oneself? What are the words we choose to define ourselves — and our future?
I wanted to know more about the play & its creator Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho) so I asked him some questions.
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BB – What is the best or worst thing about what you do?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): Working in the arts has been a dream (and rigorous work) for a long time, so I am so grateful to get to do this at all. I work as a playwright, performer, dramaturg, educator, and administrator, and each role asks for something different. The best part of this mix of roles, is that it is never boring… there is always some new artistic adventure. I love the challenge of learning, then doing something new. It’s a double edged thing, in that, the waves of adventure can sometimes flat line… there are real ups and downs in a career in the arts, and sometimes there’s a lack of control or agency, or doubt, or instability.
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho)
Another beautiful thing about working in the theatre, is the people. Theatre is such a collaborative form, that I find most theatre artists to be such open hearted, forward thinking, partners in crime.
BB – What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): To be quicker on my feet.
BB –When you’re just relaxing and not working, what is your favourite thing to do?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): Cooking and eating. Spending time with my husband and my two cats. Slowing down and enjoying life against the speed of modern day living.
BB: What was your first performance that you remember?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): The Nutcracker. Some ballet company in Hong Kong. When I was six years old.
BB: When did you discover your true voice as an artist?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): I think I’m still on my way to discover that. I think it’ll take a life time, if I ever get there.
I’ll share a story of when I was nineteen. Theatre school was such a pivotal phase of discovering the beginnings of my “voice.” I studied acting in Montreal but wrote a lot (the clues were always there). There was a project around creating solo shows, and I was a keener, so I wrote two. Nina Lee Aquino (then, AD of Cahoots, before her time at Factory, and before the NAC) was an instructor at the school and I brazenly took her aside to read her this short work.
Nina Lee Aquino
Throughout this reading, I saw Nina looking around the room, and I thought to myself “oh no, I’ve lost her, I must be terribly boring.” Afterwards, when the read was finished, Nina said: “I was looking around the room at the pianos. These pianos are your set, your scene partners, your characters.” I loved that idea. From that moment on, Nina and I collaborated on this solo piece, with two pianos, that eventually became my debut play, trace, at Factory Theatre. Nina taught me that my voice contains music and language in the same breath. This is something I hold true to this day: words as music, or words and music, there’s always something of that in anything I create.
Since trace, I’ve written, staged, and published a few more plays, and I learn something new from writing each one. There’s always a moment of discovery, a true surprise, even to myself, and I find that that new addition reveals something new about “voice.”
It’ll take a lifetime.
BB: Dogs or cats?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): Both. We have cats. We’d love a dog.
BB: Aloud to an audience or reading to yourself?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): Aloud to an audience. Always.
BB: Live performance vs video/film
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): Both. I will always be a theatre animal, but I greatly admire the craft of performing or writing for screen.
BB: Theatre as lab experiment or theatre as sacred temple?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): Both. Theatre as a sacred temple of experimentation. Or theatre as an experimental temple. Or theatre as a warm blanket. Or theatre as a jolt of lightning. Or theatre as a circle of kindness. Or really, theatre is one of those beautiful art forms that shapeshifts and flows into whatever container you can imagine. Theatre as smores by a campfire.
BB: Do you have a favourite Shakespearean quote and favourite role?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): I do not have a favourite Shakespeare quote of the top of my mind. I do love Sonnet 18 very much, so I’ll say that.
My favourite Shakespeare role would be Ophelia, in Why Not Theatre’s Prince Hamlet.
Rehearsing Prince Hamlet (photo: Dahlia Katz)
BB: What influences do you have?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): So many. I feel like life offers influences at every turn: the everyday, to the extraordinary, to the people one meets, to the artists one idolizes. I feel like I’ve started many new plays on trains, because I hear some new wild idea out of some stranger’s mouth.
And then of course, more direct artistic influences (aka. mentors): Yael Farber, Nina Lee Aquino, Mike Payette, Sherry Bie, David Yee, Brian Quirt, and so many more.
So many writers I love reading: Sarah Kane, debbie tucker green, Wajdi Mouawad, Roberto Bolano, Paul Lynch, Hannah Moscovitch, John Mighton, Anusree Roy, Madeleine Thien, Han Kang… far too many others to name.
I also grew up a classical pianist, and as mentioned above, music is so important: Bach, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, Rosalia, Aretha Franklin, Sigur Ros… so many more.
One of my greatest influences in even becoming an artist at all: Sandra Oh. I mustered up the courage to run away from home to become an artist, because of her (from her role in Double Happiness).
BB: What does your ideal teacher do ?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): Inspire curiosity so that the learner can learn to learn for themselves.
BB:Can we reconcile excellence and inclusiveness in our education?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): Yes. I don’t think it’s a matter of reconciling excellence and inclusion. That feels to me an antiquated way of considering arts education.
Excellence is subjective and shaped by many factors. An excellent “performer,” in Canada, would be held quite differently in Hong Kong, or Korea, or Mumbai.
Similarly, even within European arts/literary history, many of the inherited modern day “canonical,” writers, were deemed abominations, vagabonds, or uncouth when they first appeared, the furthest thing from “excellent.” Ibsen, and A Doll’s House. Sarah Kane and Blasted. Van Gogh. Then we can consider other artists, Canadian, or from elsewhere, who are now some of the most accomplished, decorated, and celebrated artists in their field… who also had to push up against antiquated standards of excellence: Judith Thomson and the Crackwalker (to give a Canadian example). Jean Genet. Paul Wong (another Canadian Example). The Blk Art Group. Jimi Hendrix. Miles Davis. The list goes on. So: arts education shouldn’t be about holding on to some firm definition of excellence, it should be to empower individual artists, from all walks of life, in their own authentic skin, to blaze excellence the way only they could, whatever identity they hold. To be inclusive of new forms of excellence, and to be open to it, and to champion it.
Now, on the other hand, take a look at the news, and you’ll see that arts institutions are falling like flies. Schools are closing, and the opportunities for young artists to learn is fraying. It will likely fall to practitioners to become more direct mentors, and organizations to offer greater professional development opportunities. The training will shift. It will still happen, but it will be different.
BB: Does Canadian nationalism (elbows up) help or contradict your activism, can we have solidarity across races- LGBTQ – nationalities – somethingelse..?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): I am an immigrant and a settler, and very grateful to be Canadian. It is a very tough time. We are so steeped in it, that I see such varied reactions to the nationalism on display. I am still making sense of it.
In terms of solidarity: she may not be Canadian, but I am greatly inspired by Yuri Kochiyama’s legacy and work and words. Similarly with Grace Lee Boggs. We inherit the legacy and work of many who continue to fight for solidarity, across identities. Yes. It is possible. It is.
BB: Please tell us about writing Prophetess.
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): It started as a commission at Tarragon Theatre, where I work as the Associate AD as well. So it was a very unique experience. I’ve never had to write a play, with so much context: from marketing, to producing details, to budget conversations, etc. etc. That was, and continues to be, a huge learning.
At times, it’s too much information. It’s not helpful for the writing itself. But I would say, writing this from the vantage point of tech week, that I felt quite shielded, or that I was able to navigate being a playwright, while being a staff member of the company.
Also, my relationship with Tarragon started in 2018 or so, when I was a Playwright in Residence. I was invited into the company by Joanna Falck and Richard Rose, and for that, I am eternally grateful to the both of them.
Richard Rose
Joanna Falck
When Mike Payette stepped into the company, we had some great chats, and he programmed one of my other plays, cockroach, as his season opener of his inaugural season. That was a huge honour. Mike was also the one to commission Prophetess, and the director, and the one who programmed it… so I have him to thank for a lot of this reality.
Mike Payette
When it came to the act of writing. That is always a joy. It gives me such joy to write. I wrote the first draft of Prophetess over ten days, on a retreat with Playwrights Workshop Montreal, in Tadoussac. I was staying in Bill Glassco’s cottage. Bill is the founder of Tarragon. It felt so serendipitous to be there, away from Tarragon, while writing for Tarragon. A stroke of luck and fate.
After that initial first draft. We spent the last year workshopping it, where I would duck away from my admin job to keep honing the draft. I also went to the Banff Playwrights Lab, where I got to work intensively on the script with the guidance of Colleen Murphy, and that was such a dream.
Colleen Murphy (Photo: Adrian Lyons)
It was an incredible masterclass in playwriting (thank you Colleen).
Then I prepared the draft for rehearsals, and here we are now, in tech week, about to open in two weeks time.
Time flies. This writing process has been a joy. It is has been up and down. Writing this. Staging this. Realizing this. It’s all a dream. I am appreciating every second, because I don’t know when I’ll get to do this again.
I realize I wrote about the development process very technically. The truth about the heart, and the core, and soul of the piece, that’s all it’s own process, and one I don’t have much control over. I write vomit drafts, and it spills out, and I don’t try to make sense of the vomit until it’s on stage.
BB: Please tell us about Tarragon’s production of Prophetess
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): This production is a dream. And a lot of hard work, all driven by love.
Starting with the cast. I love love love this whole cast. Karen Robinson, Christine Horne, Rick Roberts, and Natasha Mumba are all incredibly talented STARS of stage and screen. I want to write a little bit about each person because of how much I love them, and also for the fact that I really did tailor these characters to each artist, as best I could.
Karen Robinson (photo: Dahlia Katz)
Karen Robinson is someone I’ve looked up to since theatre school. We took a class trip to the NAC to watch a production of Romeo and Juliet, and Karen played the Nurse. She is this incredible presence on stage, with such range: in her voice, emotions, and sense of comedy and drama. She is gravity. Then, like with Christine and Rick, I had the immense honour of being in Why Not Theatre’s production of Prince Hamlet, which is where I got to share the stage with Karen.
Karen Robinson
There was one moment on tour, where I think, I was out of my light, and Karen, without breaking character, gently guided me to my light, her hand and eyes full of care (professional and personal). I will never forget this moment.
I wrote Margaret for Karen, in hopes to tailor a character that is as full of range, comedy and drama, depth and gravity as she is. I am so grateful she said yes.
Christine Horne is yet another artist I looked up to in school. She is a star, and she floors me with every role I’ve seen her in. Even back in theatre school, I saw all the leading roles she played, and with such varied directors (especially this phase of Toronto theatre where there were a lot of European “auteurs” around… Graham, Jason Byrne, etc… and they all worked with Christine… because she’s the best). Then of course, she played Hamlet in Prince Hamlet.
Christine Horne in Prince Hamlet (photo: Bronwen Sharp)
To this day, in email correspondences, she’ll refer to me as Ophelia… the bond is forever!!! She also read some Juliet at my wedding, as a true guest of honour. I love her.
Christine Horne
I wrote a monster of a role for Christine, because she is one of the nicest, most generous people I know. I wanted to see her dig and bite into a truly vicious character… for the fun of it. And to see her duke it out with Karen on stage again… it’s so much fun to watch.
Rick Roberts is the best. His nickname is Toronto Theatre’s Boyfriend, because it’s true. Everyone adores Rick. He is so immensely gifted as a performer, and also a total hoot in rehearsal… always cracking jokes, always taking care of others, or baking, or taking photos… he’s a magnet of wonderful positivity, while also being a monster of a performer. Like Karen and Christine, we shared many hours on tour in Prince Hamlet. We’ve crossed paths many times at Tarragon and beyond, and I always look forward to seeing Rick.
Rick Roberts
Also, Rick wrote an adaptation of Orestes at Tarragon, directed by Richard Rose, and I was a part of the cast. It ended up pivoting to a digital production, during the height of the pandemic, and it was an experience unlike any other. I am indebted to Rick and Richard for this awesome, experimental opportunity.
Natasha Mumba is someone I know who will win an Emmy or an Oscar one day. I remember thinking this when we went to theatre school together. I was a year ahead of her, and I remember watching her scene study of King Lear, when she was in first year, where she played Goneril. She did this one gesture, and I remember thinking, holy shit, she is amazing. Since graduation theatre school, she has quickly made her mark in the industry, on stage and on screen. Since being in theatre school together, I’ve always wanted to work with her.
Natasha Mumba
Another fun fact about Natasha, is that we both share a core mentor in the incredible Nina Lee Aquino. There used to be this program at Factory Theatre called the Factory Mechanicals, that was an actor training program. There was also the Factory Engineers, which were folks Nina took on as her Assistant Artistic Director. Both Natasha and I went through that program, and we both currently work as Associate AD’s (Natasha at Obsidian). So, not only is Natasha a formidable performer, she is also a dramaturg, and a natural leader.
I’ve already shared lots of words about Mike, but this production is possible because of Mike.
Then the team at Tarragon is a dream. Again, getting to know everyone so deeply as a fellow staff member, has made creating this world, and realizing this play so beautiful. From the crafts people, to the marketing department, to the development team, to Heather, our incredible education and community outreach manager, or to Natasha Parson, the HEART of the theatre… the team at Tarragon is exceptional, and we take the business of sharing new plays seriously, and with a lot of joy.
This section is overlong. Thank you for this chance to share my love for this incredible team.
BB: Well I think it’s admirable & yes totally adorable that given the chance to talk about yourself, what did you do? You opt to talk at length about the team, other people you admire and who inspire you, who make theatre possible. It’s beautiful.What’s next for you this season?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): I return to supporting many other new works at Tarragon, being the production dramaturg on Call Me By My Cousin’s Name, by Anahita Dehbonehie, You’re Still Here by Katherine Gauthier, and Definition by Luke Reece. Also working on a piece with OtM, Musical Stage, and Crow’s for Sick Kids – it’s such a potent piece. And hopefully supporting other new works around the city, for example, Human Cargo’s Ghosts of Mariupol, by Christopher Morris at Crow’s. Lots of other fun adventures, I’m sure.
BB: You won the LAMBDA Award for Best LGBTQ+ Drama. Do you see yourself as an activist in your writing & performing?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): Yes. I do think every little decision we make plays into a large political conversation. Being an artist, and spending time creating, or sharing in conversation with society is a deeply political act. Look at all the Ed Sheeran hubhub right now. Being an artist is to be an activist, no matter what stance you take.
BB: Have you ever felt a challenge reconciling the business side with the art ?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): Yes. It is always a switch in my brain to compartmentalize the business and the art making. For this, I look to my mentor, Anusree Roy, who speaks very candidly about having to treat one’s work as business, as a “brand.” I am not a natural at it. I do not like to think about how much money a piece will make, or how successful a piece of art is, based on how much money it makes, or how commercial its reach is. It is a reality of being an artist in this day and age. I am no longer on social media because I have a very thin skin and I spiral into bad states with it. Leaving social media has done wonders for my mental health. But I know it also affects the business of sharing work in this day and age, especially my books.
There are many cultures of how to behave and treat one’s own art as a business. As Colleen Murphy shared with me, it is up to oneself to choose what culture they wish to participate in.
I am grateful to my formidable manager, Sean Gale-Miller at OAZ who helps me handle this with great humanity, tact, and strategy.
BB: Is there a teacher or an influence you’d care to name that you especially admire or wish to thank?
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho): Yael Farber, Nina Lee Aquino, Colleen Murphy, Judith Thompson, Anusree Roy, Sherry Bie, Tedi Tafel, Jason Byrne, Ravi Jain, Christopher Morris, David Yee, Erika Batdorf, Keira Loughran, Jamie Robinson, Marlis Schweitzer, Paul Wong, Iris Turcott, Brian Quirt.
Many others. My career is only possible because of teachers and mentors.
I feel fortunate that I had the privilege of seeing Verdi’s La Traviata today through the eyes of someone discovering the work for the first time, the Canadian Opera Company matinee at the Four Seasons Centre.
When I arrived Erika was already in her seat, chatting with Doug who was sitting beside us, and that’s how I know it was his first time seeing this work.
I feel sorry for the critics who will sometimes speak as though it’s drudgery to see one of the core operas that make up the standard repertoire. I never tire of these works, and feel especially lucky for the perspective I had today, watching the show and picking up on Doug’s response via my peripheral vision.
The reason these works are so frequently performed, so well-attended, so popular, is because they combine a simple story with music that captures the emotions of the story. While people sometimes take courses to learn about opera (I know because I used to teach them), the best operas work well because they need no explanation. They’re so well composed they work really well with just about any cast any set design any director.
I’m framing my experience via Doug because I had such a powerful experience, loving this cast so much that I want to recognize that at least some of my enjoyment came from getting to see it through his eyes and also via those of Erika, who also enjoyed it very much. While opera happens in your visceral response to a show it can be enlarged by the social aspect of the public performance, the way others are also swept into the experience.
I think the cast for this show was actually the #2 cast. I am a subscriber, so when I go later in October I’ll hear the #1 cast. I wanted to also hear this group, especially because in my experience, just like the ad for Avis Rent a car says, they try harder because they’re #2. I have seen it before, possibly because they have something to prove, possibly because there’s more pressure on the A cast. And it can be illuminating to see the different approaches casts may take.
Here’s how it looks in the program (skipping the people who are in every performance): Violetta Valéry Kathryn Lewek Andriana Chuchman (Sept. 27, Oct. 2, 9)
Alfredo Germont Long Long Luke Norvell (Sept. 27, Oct. 2, 9)
Giorgio Germont Russell Braun Reginald Smith, Jr. (Sept. 27, Oct. 2, 9)
There are seven performances of Traviata remaining. Before today’s matinee, there were two others, so of the ten performances, there’s an alternate cast for the three principals (Violetta, Alfredo & Giorgio) on September 27, October 2nd and October 9th. This was their opening night (at 2:00 pm that is).
I may report on the other cast when I’ve seen it on the 17th, the closing performance.
Each of the three alternates offered something unique that I wanted to report.
Watching and listening to the vulnerability shown by Andriana Chuchman today, I was reminded of soprano Ileana Cotrubas, my favourite Violetta on record, who passed away just over a month ago. Let me digress for a moment to talk about the role of Violetta, doing my adult ed thing sort of like when I was talking to / talking at Doug, sitting beside me. Violetta is such a phenomenally difficult complex role, it’s been observed before that over the course of the work you might want a different singer in different acts, because they call forth a different sort of personality. For Act I especially in the bubbly extroversion of sempre libera, the ideal is vocal, someone like Joan Sutherland. For Act II it’s much more about vulnerable acting, both in her duet with Giorgio and the brief frantic face to face declaration of love to Alfredo (before she runs away, because of Giorgio’s request), where Cotrubas totally slays me. I can barely write about it without going a little wonky, and that’s what I heard from Andriana, where she mixes singing with speech, sounding a bit overwhelmed with emotion. OMG it works really well. For the last act when she’s faltering and dying perhaps one wants someone who can best do the desperation of oncoming death..? Callas in this act is the one I think of, although Cotrubas is also good. But you see what I’m getting at? Violetta is challenging vocally and dramatically. Maybe Andriana felt she had something to prove today, working hard. I was certainly blown away.
Soprano Andriana Chuchman
Luke Norvell is the Alfredo I have always wanted to see. I think the last one I saw at the COC had better high notes, the polished Matthew Polenzani, including a high C in the cabaletta to the big Act II aria. Opera can be a bit like a spectator sport, where we’re sitting there, hurling a bravo after the big aria to show our love & appreciation, and in the process really being fairly distant from the story. When I watch and do the traditional applause thing I am probably more alien in the Brechtian sense, distant and not seduced by the illusion. I am getting to Luke now. I have never previously seen an Alfredo that fully hung together for me. I watch the film for example –Stratas & Domingo in Zeffirelli’s 1982 film– and never really feel that I can reconcile the jerk who throws money he won playing cards at Violetta, with the one who falls for her at the beginning. Sure, that’s the way the role is written: but I want to like the character, and rarely do I like the Alfredo I see, with his fatuous displays of ego. Somehow this vulnerable portrayal from Luke, seeming so tentative in his approach rather than pushy or demanding, makes his freaking out over the money Violetta has spent on him in the 2nd act more believable and consistent to the character, and thereby helps me forgive & understand his over-reaction. The fact that Luke also sang really well helps a lot too. While he didn’t hit me with the aforementioned high C in “Oh mio rimorso”, an aria I have never particularly liked, that aria made a whole lot more sense suddenly. I felt that Luke’s portrayal hung together, Alfredo less as a series of high notes & dramatic takes than a relatable character, and yes, a likeable Alfredo. That makes the story much more enjoyable.
Tenor Luke Norvell (photo: Morgan Horell)
So that’s two excellent portrayals, and I haven’t got to my favourite yet.
Reginald Smith, Jr. is new to me, a singer who came out onstage as Giorgio Germont more or less in the usual way for the first few lines, loudly challenging Violetta on behalf of his daughter’s honour. And before too many pages had been turned, I saw a very different Giorgio. The character, broadly speaking, usually goes in two directions from what I’ve seen. Of the two directions, one of them is usually wrong, ambitious but wrong. While it may not be something sopranos love, the ideal in Verdi’s time, I believe, was melodramatic. A big loud strong baritone such as Quinn Kelsey would in effect take over the opera as far as agency, and he’s doing it right please note. This is what the role calls for, even if people may think the soprano & tenor are the stars. Maybe I’m clear about this because I’ve been staring at the score of this opera for such a long time. Remember that melodrama was a popular dramatic form in the 19th century and likely a huge influence on the dramaturgy of Verdi and the way his singers approached characterization. Agency doesn’t come into it, cannot come into it, not when forces beyond your control –such as storms, bankruptcy, war or a nasty villain like an incurable illness–are arrayed against you. Violetta is sick and is going to die. Her happiness was always going to be limited, and then Giorgio walks into her life and destroys everything by demanding that she give up the love of her life, Giorgio’s son Alfredo. However much actors try to inject agency into the story (either of the lovers) papa Giorgio is the one who rules the story, blindly messing everything up because he doesn’t realize how sick Violetta really is. So while Quinn’s Giorgio is powerful and a bit scary, and used to be the ideal for me, Reginald showed me something new. I have to remember, Giorgio too has no real agency. Tuberculosis is taking Violetta no matter what anyone does. Ahh but there’s no reason for Giorgio to be cruel. He is conservative, he is from the provinces so he’s limited in what he knows. But he can be a nice person, a kind loving parent. Reginald is breath-taking in a role I thought I understood inside out. I’ve been accompanying my brother in this music for maybe half a century (I’m 71, we first did the aria “di provenza” when I was maybe 14 or 15). The gentle way Reginald sang so much of the role, such as the second verse of the aria, then grabbing his son by the lapel, a firm but loving gesture…! I was stunned. His singing is beautiful, unexpectedly subtle. The big notes are there, but when he decides to sing softly he is uncanny, magical. And he’s a powerful actor with presence.
Baritone Reginald Smith Jr
So having said that, I want to offer thanks to the other stars of the show.
Conductor Paolo Carignani gave us a tight reading of this familiar score, the orchestra sounding beautiful, the singers given lots of firm support yet without any sense of the coercion conductors sometimes impose on singers especially one with cadenzas & coloratura. The COC Chorus do a lot of heavy lifting in the two acts with big crowd scenes, even though they do not get credit as soloists. Sitting up close (where I love to sit) I was delighted by their ability to make the parties look like parties, in spite of the fact that they’re working hard.
Emma Pennell surprised me. I was already an admirer of that big voice, but I didn’t expect to be so captivated by the portrayal of Annina, Violetta’s maid, particularly in the last scene. Emma is a fine actor.
Violetta (Kathryn Lewek) and Annina (Emma Pennell; photo: Michael Cooper)
The COC’s production of La Traviata continues until October 17th at the Four Seasons Centre.
The Tafelmusik concert I heard Friday night at Koerner Hall makes an interesting chaser to the Toronto Symphony Concert I saw Thursday, my previous lengthy rapturous review. Yes there’s a lot going on in Toronto, and these two concerts on consecutive nights were irresistible for more than one reason.
Thursday I saw the World Premiere of Linda Catlin Smith’s piece The Horizon. Friday I saw what was assumed to be at least one Canadian premiere of a two hundred year old piece, Sophie Gail’s Overture to La Sérénade (1818) neglected surely because of the gender of its composer, not the quality of the composition.
Sophie Gail (1775 – 1819)
We also heard Louise Farranc’s Symphony #3 (1849), a work likely being heard for the first time in Toronto, possibly even another Canadian premiere.
Louise Farrenc (1804 – 1875)
Perhaps the world is changing, as there are more opportunities to hear music from women, whether the piece is new music or a rediscovered work previously neglected & forgotten.
What was different was not just the choice of music but the approach.
I went back to listen to Bruno Weil leading Tafelmusik in Beethoven’s 7th, which confirmed for me that this was different. Some of the difference may be skills of the orchestra, who are sounding ever better especially when it comes to the brass & woodwinds of a brash piece like the 7th. But I feel Weil’s reading pales beside what Jakob Lehmann showed us, a young conductor who seemed to light a fire under the orchestra, even as he led with discipline & firm control. Some of the loud dramatic exchanges in the first movement land with violence, but with a strong sense of intention & purpose. Our experience of Beethoven was beyond inspiring, not just because we couldn’t sit still, watching and listening. A familiar piece sounded brand new.
In passages where there’s a dialogue between voices, Jakob played up the drama, almost seeming to tell the orchestra “what do you say now” and turning to the answering group with an expression seeming to say “and how do you answer that”, clear gestures, remarkable energy in his body, and clarity above all. It was a bit like watching Jakob give a TED talk to the orchestra, who seemed to be inspired to play better than I have ever heard them play.
The audience seemed eager, ready to embrace what we heard, louder and more boisterous in response than any Tafelmusik audience I have ever seen. Full disclosure, I used to be very careful because literally every time I would go to Tafelmusik and bravo loudly some person in front turns to look at me with a look of scorn as if to say “shut up”. There’s a former Tafelmusik violinist with whom I dialogued awhile back who had the same experience, being shushed by a repressed person behind them. Ah but last night was different. I wasn’t the loudest, even if I did bravo a great deal. But Ann Cooper Gay beside me was every bit as enthusiastic, the chap beside her was also making a big response, as was a boisterous fellow in front of us. Maybe Tafelmusik should embrace the romantic rep, given the wild response we all made, responses to Beethoven and to Jakob.
Jakob Lehmann (photo by Sercan Sevindik)
Ann and I were trying to figure out how old Jakob might be. No I don’t mean to be age-ist or to discriminate. Far from it. But in the musical world age can be understood at least two ways. When you’re young there’s something special about a prodigy. I recall the aura with which we listened to Jan Lisiecki when he was younger, and maybe the same thing applied at one time to Yuja Wang. I wonder, is it an asset to be young when you come to conduct in a new country, perhaps with dazzling press & reviews to aid in making an impact? I think I’m more impressed if all this energy & creativity comes from a young conductor, and no I don’t need to know his credentials to see the chemistry. There’s no mistaking it, when you hear the music played so beautifully, so intelligibly, with so much clarity. He is very musical.
Jakob showed us something remarkable, both in the unknown works and the familiar one. He didn’t use a baton although I see a baton in some of his YouTube videos. The young conductor showed a lot of humility in what he said before the concert and in how he acted accepting applause generously with the orchestra and even holding up the score, to share credit with the deceased composers. He seems like a really nice person.
I was not surprised to discover that Jakob is a bit of a Rossini expert, listening to Sophie Gail’s Overture to La Sérénade. There were passages where the orchestra happily offered up a melody, that sounded decidedly bel canto. I didn’t feel we were hearing something new or radical, but something congenial, indeed something that the orchestra had understood, the way they played it with so much charm & charisma.
And when we came to Farranc’s Symphony, there was no sense that the newness of the work was in any way a challenge to the orchestra. The G-minor work started slowly, building great drama in the urgent unison string passages. There’s a lovely Adagio cantabile slow movement in E-flat, reminding me a bit of the Beethoven 4th (although the relationship there is not quite the same, as the symphony is in B-flat rather than G-minor, although they have the same key signature).
The scherzo is subtle as quicksilver, reminding me a bit of Mendelssohn & his faery music (thinking of Midsummernight’s Dream overture). There’s a trio with lovely winds accompanied by delicate pizzicato strings. For the concluding movement I was again thinking of Mendelssohn, the loudest passages always disciplined & never excessive.
I recall seeing somewhere that violist Patrick Jordan said on social media that he wished that he could hear this concert. I sense that this is very exciting for some of the orchestra’s players, that they’re pushing the envelope even if it’s far earlier than what we usually hear from the TSO.
Am I foolish to speculate as to why Farranc is not better known? nevermind about writing something like this in 1849, the last year of Frederic Chopin’s life, when the edgiest works of that time were for example, Richard Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman (1843) & Tannhäuser (1845), of course her gender is the key factor. Yes some women succeeded as composers, thinking for example of Pauline Viardot, but she also made a name as a soprano as well. That was also the pathway for Sophie Gail earlier in the 19th century.
And at least we can listen to them now. Better late than never.
I can’t help thinking about context for the two concerts, Friday’s with Tafelmusik and Thursday’s with Yuja Wang and the Toronto Symphony. They are more than orchestras, they’re institutions that mean so much more. They represent different lenses through which we understand music of the past. Sometimes their purview is very distinct, given that Tafelmusik are known as a baroque orchestra playing older repertoire on original instruments while the TSO are modern through and through, Gustavo Gimeno boldly leading them in recordings of Bartók or Stravinsky. The oldest items on their current concert date from the early 20th century from Prokofiev & Debussy. They seem to have a clear understanding of their identities, seizing upon their skills & strengths to pursue objectives as far as image & a brand.
But sometimes their programming overlaps, as when the TSO does Messiah on modern instruments with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir or when Tafelmusik venture past Mozart & Haydn into the 19th century: as they did Friday night, playing rare music from two women composers of the early romantic era, plus Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. Maybe this will continue to be a rarity, a venture by Tafelmusik out of their usual comfort zone.
I have been like a kid wanting to see Santa Claus but sensing that maybe the big guy in the red suit will never come, waiting for Tafelmusik to play and embrace romantic composers for literally decades. And so while I may have written a rapturous review of Yuja & the TSO, admittedly a superb concert, I am trying to figure out how to properly frame my report of the Tafelmusik concert I saw & heard at Koerner Hall.
This was Tafelmusik’s most exciting venture yet beyond the classical period. Last year they played Christopher Bagan’s re-orchestrated Pelléas et Mélisande for Opera Atelier, Debussy sounding very congenial under the baton of David Fallis, whom I saw last night at Koerner. David was also at the helm for Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz 14 years ago. As a lover of romantic composers such as Berlioz, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Schubert, let alone Wagner & Mahler, I feel like a recovering addict vouchsafed a cigarette every few years. And btw the TSO who could be playing Harold in Italy or Midsummernight’s Dream don’t cover this rep either. All we ever seem to get is Symphonie Fantastique, never anything else.
Yes I’m writing about a concert but I am also wishing for the future to hear Jakob return to Toronto to conduct Tafelmusik in something by a romantic, particularly if it’s Berlioz, my favourite composer. To be a Berlioz lover in this town is a bit like being a hockey fan, somewhere between hopeful and heart-broken knowing that there are happy people in other cities enjoying what we never seem to enjoy in Toronto. Yes I know it sounds pathetic.
I have to think there’s an audience for this music, given the way the audience greeted Tafelmusik on this occasion.
“Yuja Wang Plays Prokofiev” might be the title of the Toronto Symphony’s opening concert of the 2026-27 season Thursday September 24th, but we heard a great deal more last night.
Yuja also played four brilliant encores in a breath-taking display for a rapturous audience who didn’t want it to end. The applause erupted, and part of the drama was wondering: would she be willing to play more? And what would she play?
Yuja Wang among TSO players (Photo: Allan Cabral/Courtesy of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra)
She rewarded the applause first with Dave Brubeck – Blue Rondo à la Turk.
After lots more applause, we heard Arturo Marquez – Danzon No. 2 (for solo piano), as each piece was a shift, a change of mood.
Yuja Wang among TSO players (Photo: Allan Cabral/Courtesy of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra)
More applause was rewarded by a stunning arrangement of Shostakovich – String Quartet No. 8, Op. 110 – Mvt. 2. Where the first was jazzy, the second with a Latin flavour, this time we heard a stunning display, something comparable to the concerto.
Yuja Wang among TSO players (Photo: Allan Cabral/Courtesy of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra)
And for a fourth encore, we heard one of Mendelssohn’s Songs without words, a softer gentler pianism, that I thought might be meant as a hint to the audience to let the concert be finished. I’m overflowing with gratitude for her generosity, the encores almost like a whole other recital.
Yuja Wang among TSO players (Photo: Allan Cabral/Courtesy of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra)
If the orchestra had not stood up, would she have played a fifth encore for us, her greedy fans? I wasn’t sure how to read that, except that Yuja seemed to genuinely be in a zone, her playing especially in the Mendelssohn, speaking softly across the space of Roy Thomson Hall, to an audience so silent as to seem reverent: that is until the next explosion of cheers.
Pianist Yuja Wang
Toronto Symphony gave us a concert in two parts that seems to embody something their Music Director Gustavo Gimeno said in a program note. “The creation of contrast is at the heart of what I believe about concert programming,” and that’s exactly what we heard to begin the fall season. The performances before intermission were in some respects the exact opposite to Yuja. I’ll come back to that in a moment.
Gustavo Gimeno, Yuja Wang & TSO players (Photo: Allan Cabral/Courtesy of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra)
Is Yuja the fittest virtuoso we’ve ever seen? Her bows upon entry are themselves a bit of a feat, speaking as someone who worries that she’s going to bump her head. The gesture is a sign of generosity & seems vulnerable rather than ostentatious.
But obviously she is in great physical condition. Aging artists worry about repetitive strain, fading eyesight, physical changes. Yuja seems to be an athlete, rather than a frail artist.
We may think of the virtuoso as a species of show-off, developing their skill to take it before an adoring public. Yet Yuja seems to be a in a genuine pursuit of art. I see humility not showmanship in this photo.
Photo shared by Michael Schefold in the Yuja Wang Archives on Facebook And by the way, happy birthday Glenn Gould! Born September 25
I wish Yuja would go on Saturday Night Live as a musical guest, playing a solo piece like one of the encores we heard last night. There are lots of people who might become classical music lovers if they heard her play. I remember the way the three tenors popularized opera (especially Nessun dorma) when they had their special concert televised worldwide. Pavarotti also went on SNL long ago. Why not Yuja? Somebody needs to make it happen, she could open eyes & ears to a whole other musical world by going on a show with such a huge audience. Or am I wrong to think she would do that? Her devotion to music seems genuine.
I realize I said nothing about the concerto, one of the toughest one can hear.
Yuja Wang, Gustavo Gimeno conducts TSO(Photo: Allan Cabral/Courtesy of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra)
The first movement has that soft slow beginning before suddenly taking off to the races. The second movement is like a suite, a series of variations on a theme, sometimes with the pianist in a reflective space, sometimes with the orchestra offering the peace & tranquility of that gentle gavotte, a suggestion of something old even if nobody dances the gavotte anymore, least of all Russians or Soviets in the 1920s. In that last movement we’re again watching as much as listening, Yuja articulating with phenomenal clarity. I don’t think of Roy Thomson Hall as a place with perfect acoustics, although for such a big hall one hears quite well: but I mention that for Yuja’s performance it’s as though our ears are working better. People are quiet, attentive, respectful, no phones going off, no whispers. The piano sounds better than I’ve ever heard it in this space. Or perhaps it’s simply altered reality, as though I were on a drug, we were all hearing differently, leaning forward in our seats.
I’m going in multiple directions writing about this delightful concert, to be repeated Saturday night & Sunday afternoon. Given that I couldn’t see any empty seats anywhere, neither in the loft behind the stage nor in the sections around me, I’m sure tickets for the weekend concerts will be even harder to get. Yuja is a phenomenon whose stage presence is beyond mere skill. Today September 25th is Glenn Gould’s birthday, a reminder of another sort of virtuosity, devoted to performances without any public present: if we recall that Gould stopped playing for the public, only playing in a recording studio. Yuja seems to reconcile the impossible split between private intimate beauty of pianism with the flamboyance of public performance. I wonder what Glenn Gould might have said, had they met.
Let me talk about the other contrasting segment of the concert before intermission.
In some respects Gould might be closer in spirit to the first part of the concert. We heard two pieces played without interruption, becoming effectively one seamless unit. Before hearing the first of the three movements of Debussy’s La Mer, the TSO gave the world premiere of Linda Catlin Smith’s The Horizon.
Linda Catlin Smith
I’m tempted to see the title of Linda’s piece two ways, especially when it’s played as a kind of prelude to the Debussy work.
The first one is the obvious literal meaning of the word. What is a picture of the sea without a horizon? And so Linda’s work makes sense in that context.
The program note invites us to see it another way, in the spirit of an audience’s horizon of expectation.
Linda wrote “The “horizon” is not a real place, it’s an idea: hovering mutating elusive (Music too is elusive, always vanishing…)….The horizon is what lies ahead, but is never reached, a symbol for the “unattainable“. “
That word “symbol” caught my eye, possibly because I prefer to think of Debussy as a symbolist rather than an impressionist. While we are captivated by the suggestiveness of the orchestration in La Mer, it can’t be mistaken for what Monet was doing, attempts to capture a moment in splashes of colour that seemed almost random & accidental, a descriptor meant originally as an insult rather than a compliment. I prefer to align Debussy with Gaugin, Van Gogh & the post-impressionist painters, not least because of the chronology. Maurice Denis, Gaugin’s colleague, another of the Nabis painters, designed the cover of the programme for the premiere of Pelléas et Mélisande in 1893. The Debussy whose first of three Nocturnes, Nuages, might be the prototype for minimalist composers of the 20th century, would connect to what Linda is saying. The symbolists believed not in blatancy but in nuanced expression, hinting at something rather than saying it. While the word “minimalist” is a label that often takes us into the pattern music of a Philip Glass, it doesn’t feel wrong if we look instead at something like Nuages, rather than the busier late- 20th century sounds you get in something like Glass’s Koyaanisqatsi soundtrack.
That idea of a horizon applies to the way we listen. I feel Linda is writing something that is almost like meta-orchestration, a thoughtful piece to contemplate orchestral music while listening to some gently beautiful orchestral sounds. We are not hearing someone displaying ego in their writing. The orchestra or music might be more from the realm of symbol than reality. The composer’s persona is invisible. This is surely the softest & subtlest use of an 80-piece orchestra piece I’ve ever heard.
We went from the contemplative softness of The Horizon into La Mer without a segue, just Debussy’s quiet opening, where we’re in a realm of sound effects as much as music. Gustavo Gimeno brought us gently from the softness of Linda’s Horizon, to the soft dawning Debussy offers to open La Mer. There was a gradual build-up, the orchestra finally letting loose in the final powerful passages.
Gustavo Gimeno & TSO players (Photo: Allan Cabral/Courtesy of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra)
I want to briefly speak of the contrast I saw in the concert, between our focus upon a soloist and how we listen in Yuja’s half of the concert vs. the orchestral half. It’s worth thinking about why virtuosity is important. Beethoven, Liszt, Rachmaninoff & Prokofiev each in their way explore the possibilities of the piano, expanding an instrument’s expressive vocabulary. And meanwhile they draw in audiences with the showmanship and drama of a risky piece, as we wonder: can they play this tricky music? Sometimes the reason for the concert is to see the soloist, sometimes to hear the music. Fortunately in this concert with Yuja and the TSO, we had it both ways.
Yuka Wang plays Prokofiev will be repeated Saturday night and Sunday afternoon at Roy Thomson Hall.
Measure for Measure is one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays”. It straddles genre boundaries, enigmatic & challenging, darkly funny. Yes it’s still considered a comedy even though we hear a lot about executions & life in prison, offering glimpses of a nasty world that’s scary, unfair, dangerous.
Christopher Manousos’ brilliant adaptation of M4M (as it’s often abbreviated) captures all those contradictions. The revival opened Saturday at Crow’s Theatre.
Christopher Manousos speaking before the performance. The microphone in the foreground is part of the minimalist set design
I watched five people making a live radio play. In radio you don’t see the actors, you hear them. But we got to se them: making sound effects, reading lines, interacting, using microphones. In the intimate space of Crow’s Studio Theatre that means we get to have it both ways.
(L to R) Katherine Gauthier, Sébastien Heins, Beck Lloyd, and Danté Prince in Measure for Measure (photo by Kendra Epik)
The set puts us into a studio: which for the purposes of the play means we could be anywhere. It’s a virtual world where the imagination is free to see whatever it wants. Our director and adaptor Christopher Manousos explained his thinking: “The inspiration to set the play within a play inside a contemporary sound studio seemed to offer endless creative opportunities. To explore the tension between what is seen and what is heard, and to give the audience a contemporary point of entry into the play, where they get to watch one story while hearing another. It’s an opportunity to stretch their senses while leaning into the complexity of the original play.”
Beck Lloyd and Danté Prince in Measure for Measure (photo by Kendra Epik)
It feels very authentic in the way the usual balance shifts. In the Studio Theatre it’s as if we were groundlings in 1603, because we’re so intimately close, listening. And because of this adaptation, putting our radio players in modern attire, it disrupts our usual modern cinematic visual fetish, enticing us to listen, seeing the story through our minds’ eyes.
Jamie Cavanagh and Danté Prince in Measure for Measure (photo by Kendra Epik)
We enter the world of the story through our ears rather than our eyes.
We go back to the past riding Shakespeare’s language even as we see modern actors playing the parts.
Five actors –James Cavanagh, Katherine Gauthier, Beck Lloyd, Danté Prince and Sébastien Heins– portray the over twenty personages of the original. That’s a recipe for something wildly theatrical, engaging our imaginations. We see the sound effects employed and created onstage. We even get to see Danté go back and forth between two different portrayals, altering the voice while signalling to us with a visual cue like sunglasses on or off that they’re alternating between one personage and another.
I noticed too another way in which we get to have it both ways. If this were just a radio play, the physical appearance of the players wouldn’t matter. Young or old, tall or short, fit or chubby, so long as the voice is the right sound, domineering or submissive, spiritual, seductive, silly or strong they can look like any shape under the sun. But this is actually quite an attractive group of voice actors, their interactions irresistible to watch.
Of all Shakespeare’s comedies this one is especially apt for this sort of adaptation, a story involving questions of identity and authority, laws that are enforced differently depending on who you are. It’s handy that in a story concerned with the person under the clothes, that it’s so easy to do disguises and assumed identities in a radio play. I’ve always found the denouement of this comedy a bit troubling, the arbitrariness of the happy ending suggesting to me that we are only as safe as the whims of the tyrant in charge. And yes it’s never been more timely.
I enjoyed looking across the narrow playing space at the other half of the audience, watching the reactions & responses of fellow audience members, often laughing riotously, always engrossed and sometimes with mouths open in awe.
Manousos’s magnificent Measure for Measure must not be missed, at Crow’s Studio Theatre until October 11th (tickets & information).
Linda Catlin Smith is a composer I’m pleased to interview, as a couple of her works are about to be premiered, including one by the Toronto Symphony next week. Her music is heard and acclaimed around the world, whether it’s for solo piano, chamber music or larger scale compositions. I admire the clarity of her compositional voice, and the way she talks about music making. I’m going to quote from one of her online biographies, at least as a matter of showing respect for a great artist & teacher.
“Linda Catlin Smith was born in New York, and lives in Toronto… Drawn to an ambiguity of harmony and narrative, her work is informed by her deep appreciation of the work of writers and painters, such as Virginia Woolf, Cormac McCarthy, Cy Twombly, Giorgio Morandi, Mark Rothko, Agnes Martin, and Joseph Cornell, among many others. Her works have been commissioned and performed by many soloists and ensembles in Canada, the US and abroad, including: BBC Proms (BBC Scottish Orchestra), Victoria, Vancouver and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphonies, Tapestry New Opera Works, Arraymusic, Vancouver New Music, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Evergreen Club Gamelan, Societe de Musique Contemporaine du Quebec, Bozzini, Del Sol and Penderecki Quartets, Fibonacci Trio, Duke Trio, Sabat/Clarke Duo, and many soloists including Eve Egoyan, Louis Goldstein, Philip Thomas, Colin Tilney, and others. Her works have been recorded by: Another Timbre, World Edition, Arraymusic, Eve Egoyan, Evergreen Club Gamelan, Barbara Pritchard, Les Coucous Bénévoles, others. Her lecture “Composing Identity: What is a Woman Composer?” is published in Descant Magazine (#107) and Musicworks (#80).”
There’s so much more, but I’m just so happy to share her responses to a few questions, in anticipation of her upcoming premieres.
Linda Catlin Smith
Barczablog– What is the best or worst thing about what you do?
Linda Catlin Smith: The best thing about composing is that moment of finding one’s way into the piece, finding new material that makes me happy to be exploring. That’s at the beginning of the process. Then at the end, another wonderful thing is being in rehearsal with the musicians, working together on the interpretation of a new work. The very best thing is hearing it for the first time – it’s where you find out if everything will sound ok, and it’s such a joy to finally hear it.
BB – What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?
Linda Catlin Smith: I would love to be fluent in French.
BB –When you’re just relaxing and not working, what is your favourite thing to do?
Linda Catlin Smith: In spring, summer and fall, I’m happy to be in the garden, planting, weeding, watering. Doing these things is the best way to really see everything in the garden, and sometimes I find things I didn’t plant, volunteer plants that just appear.
BB: “Volunteer plants!” What a concept.
Linda Catlin Smith: I find when I’m gardening it’s like an extension of composing – I’m still thinking about the piece I’m working on, and being occupied with my hands gives a kind of space, allowing my thoughts to go in new directions. In the winter, I tend to do a bit more playing of piano, more reading, more research (listening). And there is nothing better than having a coffee with a good friend.
Linda Catlin Smith
BB: What was your first performance that you remember?
Linda Catlin Smith: My mother took me to the NY Philharmonic when I was quite young – maybe 5 or 6 years old. I remember how big the hall was, and how there were so many musicians on stage, and so many people in the audience, and the music was really big, too.
BB: When did you discover your true voice as an artist?
Linda Catlin Smith: I think one’s voice is always developing. At university, I wrote a number of pieces, but it was my graduation piece that was a breakthrough piece for me – by working slowly and really listening, I found a way to work with melody and harmony that felt like new territory for me, that truly intrigued me. I felt closer to material than I had before. This sense of discovery is one of the things that excites me most about composing. I like to feel that I am finding something new for myself. Every piece has that hope, that there will be something new, something I don’t quite understand, something that has the feeling of stepping into the next new world.
BB: Dogs or cats?
Linda Catlin Smith: Both
BB: paper & pencil scoring or digital?
Linda Catlin Smith: I compose in pencil at the piano, and put the finished piece on computer at the end.
Linda Catlin Smith at work
BB: what was the last tune you heard?
Linda Catlin Smith: It’s a melody from the piece I’m working on. It keeps looping and changing in my head, a constant variation. I often float through the day with some kind of melody winding around in the background.
BB: “What is a woman composer?” :quoting your own words from an essay you wrote long ago, inviting you to comment on the way our understanding has changed in the nearly 3 decades since you asked this.
Linda Catlin Smith: There are many more women programmed on concerts now, including in orchestras and operas, and that’s a very real change.
It would be great to see more conductors who are women, especially in our larger orchestras. This is already starting to happen, but we’re still in the early stages of these advancements. I sometimes think about myself as a child at orchestra concerts, where the musicians were mostly men, and the composers were all men. Somehow, I ended up thinking I belonged there, I don’t know why. Thinking about today’s children, I believe it’s so important that they see people like themselves on stage, so they know they can belong there too.
BB: As a composer who has several titles that mention plants, I was intrigued to read( fromyour programme note to Morning Glory) when you say “As an amateur gardener, I intersperse my composing time with small excursions into the back garden for daily weeding and watering.OftenI’ve thought about melody as a winding vine, the twists and wrappings around a beat, the curves and contours of tunes.” Could you expand a bit upon the relationship between your gardening & composition practice?
Linda Catlin Smith: I mentioned earlier that gardening gives me a place to think about my work-in-progress away from the actual composing process – a kind of meditation on the piece at hand. This form of occupation, of doing something (weeding, walking) that still allows thought, is really helpful to me; somehow, I feel the mind becomes less tight, things flow, ideas come.
Linda Catlin Smith
But there is another aspect of nature that I find really helpful to think about. I’m inspired by the way a vine wraps itself around a fence, or the way branches intertwine – these are images that relate to melody, or to counterpoint, to a kind of subtle irregularity that is everywhere in nature. It’s the same with looking at water – its supple rhythm, its gentle undulation – these have really informed my sense of rhythm. This is why so many of my titles are drawn from nature – these images resonate with the kind of sound worlds I try to create.
BB: do you still sometimes like to perform your works?
Linda Catlin Smith: It’s better when really good musicians play it. I don’t consider myself a performer, though there are a few composers whose work I very occasionally perform. But I prefer to be a listener.
BB: Do you mind when someone calls you a “minimalist” composer?
Linda Catlin Smith: I think it’s a bit confusing, as the word minimalist has more often been used for composers like Phillip Glass, Steve Reich and others who use repetition and patterning as the basis of their work. My work doesn’t do that. But I understand the use of the term, as my work is plain and spare by contrast with others, maybe less dramatic too, and so has a kind of minimal aspect to it.
BB: Please tell us more about The Horizon, the piece getting its world premiere at TSO Sept 24-26-27.
Linda Catlin Smith: The Horizon was commissioned by the Toronto Symphony. My writing for orchestra comes out of my love of slow movements in the classical repertoire. It’s always so amazing to have the opportunity to write for orchestra, to have so many colours and textures to think about.
When I finished it, and was beginning to copy it out on computer, I started to think of the opening melody as a faint horizon line in the distance. This sense of melodic line as horizon continues throughout the work, sometimes as melody, sometimes as a long, sustained note. The horizon is always changing, it is always out there, slightly beyond reach.
Linda Catlin Smith
BB: What is the process like, when you’re commissioned by the TSO?
Linda Catlin Smith: The orchestra approached me in June of 2025, so I had about a year to write it, which was good as I had some other projects I had to do as well. I worked steadily from June to October, then had to take a break for two months, which was really great, as I could then go back to the piece with fresh eyes and ears. I then worked from January to May, and then moved on to the final copying of the score. Once I finished the score I worked with a copyist for the parts and final touches on the score – it’s so helpful to have an extra pair of eyes on everything. I also attended symphony concerts when I could, to hear the orchestra, in that hall, giving me a greater sense of the reality of the sound. Then before the concert, there are the rehearsals, where final aspects of the interpretation by the orchestra are realized. And finally, the concert!
In general, my process is to work most days, at the piano, generating ideas and material, listening to it, playing with it. Then, away from the piano, hearing it in my mind, thinking about it, asking a lot of questions. Then back to the piano, trying things, going over my questions and ideas. I often think about my pieces as I am falling asleep. The work is always with me.
BB: In October mezzo-sopranoEmaNikolovskawill be singing “Dark Light” in a programme including vocal works by JohnDowland, Laurie Anderson, ThomasAdèsand Bob Dylan. Please tell us about the song.
Linda Catlin Smith: Yes, Ema Nikolovska and Sean Shibe asked me to contribute a short work to their Orlando project. The text is made up of a few very small excerpts from Virginia Woolf’s book Orlando. Throughout that novel there are many images of light and darkness, reflected in the fragments I chose. These texts also gave me the feeling of a state of being where one is seeing things as though for the very first time…I so look forward to hearing their concert. (In Toronto the concert is October 29th)
BB: If you could tell the institutions how to train future artists, what would you change?
Linda Catlin Smith: I would suggest they give artists more hands-on experiences – for composers it means giving them more opportunities to write for musicians and to hear their pieces in concert; you learn everything from working with musicians in rehearsal, and then from the feedback from friends and listeners. Artists learn so much by doing – trying things, getting feedback, changing things. It all goes into your back pocket for the next piece.
BB: Is there a teacher or an influence you’d care to name that you especially admire or wish to thank?
Linda Catlin Smith: I am very grateful for all my teachers and my fellow composer/friends – I’ve learned so much from them, truly. All the hours sitting with composers over coffee, talking about music, about working, about process, about art… This sense of community helps so much, as we’re all mostly working on our own; but to share the problems and questions and thoughts with others is a wonderful thing. Art is always a conversation with others – other listeners, other artists. These conversations always shine a new light on what one is doing.
Linda Catlin Smith
*******
September 24, 26 & 27 the Toronto Symphony concert at Roy Thomson Hall includes Yuja Wang playing Prokofiev Piano Concerto #3, Debussy’s La Mer and the world premiere of Linda Catlin Smith’s The Horizon.
October 29th Mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska returns to Koerner Hall with acclaimed guitarist Sean Shibe including Linda Catlin Smith’s newly commissioned work “Dark Light”.
One can find out more about Linda’s music & teaching, including selected writings on her website.
I think it’s the first time I was at a concert program like this, consisting entirely of classical music composed by women.
To begin English composer Ethel Smyth (1858–1944) greeted us from the stage, introducing each piece that she played on the Steinway at Heliconian Hall Friday September 11th.
Of course having died over 70 years ago we were watching a dramatic portrayal, Jennifer King playing the piano and adding an English accent to her whimsical feministic commentary. While it must have been fun to dress up as an advocate for women and then to tell us how women need to stick together, the message made a lot of sense. A century later, we still don’t hear nearly enough of this superb music.
Jennifer King as English composer Ethel Smyth (photo: Lesley Evison)
Ethel (Jennifer) used a word that was new to me, namely “suffragist”. The word I have always used is “suffragette”, a word coined as disparagement by a journalist that was eventually embraced. It reminds me of “impressionist”, another descriptor first meant as a kind of insult that we continue to use today. My online research tells me that the difference between the two comes from the kind of activism. A suffragist was peaceful, while a suffragette would be more militant.
Ethel (Jennifer) played a series of piano pieces for us, including a compelling series of biographical commentaries on the composers.
In the second half of the concert, when Jennifer was no longer attired in her black & silver wig nor with her suffragist colours across her shoulders, we heard a bit about the origins of the portrayal. In 2019 or so, conversations between Jennifer and collaborators (sorry I don’t know their names) led to the creation of a Fringe type show, a combination of the portrayal of Ethel Smyth with a series of performances of piano music. I’m paraphrasing from what I heard Friday, but indeed I heard some of this info before, when I interviewed Jennifer, in anticipation of her CD Souvenance.
At the time of the interview in March 2025 I was vaguely aware of her intention to play in Toronto sometime in the future: the concert that just transpired. And Jennifer will be back next March 22nd playing a concert with Piano Lunaire.
But first I want to say a bit more about this concert.
Ethel (Jennifer) told us about herself, the composer of the first opera by a female composer to be produced by the Metropolitan Opera. She told us of her meeting with Queen Victoria, the experience of playing & singing her Mass at the piano for the Queen, who was so impressed that she arranged to have the work performed with orchestra & a full chorus at the Royal Albert Hall.
And Ethel (Jennifer) played two of her piano pieces for us, a prelude in C Major and a Nocturne in C minor.
Ethel (Jennifer) went on to tell us of other composers, playing examples of their music for us. We heard of Clara Schumann and her busy life as mother, teacher, performer and also composer. We heard about Fanny Mendelssohn, and heard one of her charming pieces.
I heard some names that were new to me, such as Delphine von Schauroth, reputedly a great beauty as well as a superb pianist & composer, and heard a powerful piece, fiery and romantic.
In the second half of the concert Jennifer simply played without the costume or the accent. We heard music from Mel Bonis, Cecile Chaminade, the brilliant Jazz Nocturne of Dana Suesse and Jennifer’s own improvisation based on Joni Mitchell’s Blue.
Jennifer also told us of a commission from one of her former students, a piece for piano including some vocalization, from Carmen Braden titled “night thoughts are not so dark in June.” The title makes sense when I hear that Carmen Braden lives in Yellowknife, where daylight on the summer solstice lasts over 20 hours.
Speaking as a classical music lover who attends lots of concerts this was different on so many levels. We had the portrayal in costume to start, the commentaries between the pieces, and superb performances. And I can’t forget the whole question of women composers, that their music is superb and deserves to be heard, and not just as the single token piece on a program of male composers.
When I asked her a bit about the concert afterwards, Jennifer was glad to hear that I had had “a new experience. That’s what I am going for – shaking up HOW we enjoy this “classical” music tradition and just rattling the cage of formality.”
Not only was the cage of formality successfully rattled, the piano playing was superb, stunning works.
I have to somehow get my hands on these pieces. No I won’t be portraying Ethel Smyth, but I must find this music. Off to the library…
I loved it and the audience were vocal in their adoration.
In reviewing the September 9th premiere performance of A Fine Balance at Crow’s Theatre, I want to look at what’s so special about Anosh Irani’s new adaptation & the production directed by Chris Abraham. You must go see this wonderful show.
I read Rohinton Mistry’s 1995 novel over the past month, a McClelland & Stewart hard cover from University of Toronto Library that’s 748 pages long. While I love to say that I couldn’t put it down, it’s such a heavy volume that it was always a relief to set the big book down, especially when I was juggling it on my elliptical trainer. But Mistry’s story-telling grabbed me right away.
One can find reviews of an earlier adaptation of Mistry’s novel adapted by Sudha Bhuchar and Kristine Landon -Smith for Hampstead Theatre in 2006, revived again in 2007. From what I gather they emphasized the politics of the story. While there’s great enthusiasm over the production, I saw comments that seem to be critical of that earlier adaptation: 1-“the bare bones of Rohinton Mistry’s book, yet it conveys superbly the gist of social and economic misery and the personal hardship“(British Theatre Guide) or 2-“There is a lot to cram in – the book runs to more than 600 pages – and Kristine Landon-Smith’s production ultimately falls prey to one of the basic pitfalls of adapting a big novel for the stage: it tells the story, covering all the events it can, at the expense of going deeply enough into the characters to engage us fully through those events.” (Financial Times)
One of the reviewers said that the earlier adaptation was two hours long. The new Irani adaptation I saw last night was two hours and 45 minutes, taking us past the three hour mark when we add 15-20 minutes of intermission, although the time flew by on the wings of the production: but more about that below.
One may ask: how long should a stage or cinematic adaptation of a novel be? As I recall my mother liked the longer more detailed adaptation of Pride & Prejudice (where she & so many others eagerly ogled Colin Firth), rather than the shorter cinematic versions. It’s exciting to see that there’s talk of a mini-series of A Fine Balance that I’d eagerly watch, details still TBA.
But I just want to speculate that the newer longer version from Irani, directed by Chris Abraham at Crow’s Theatre likely delves more deeply into the interior lives of the protagonists.
I will try to avoid giving spoilers for anyone seeing the play who hasn’t read the book.
Where the earlier adaptation had more players & characters, Irani zeroes in on the key scenes. We don’t meet Beggarmaster or Avinash (two of my favourite characters from the book) but do hear a little about them. I’m not sure if we even heard about monkey-man but he is one of several peripheral players in the drama who are not really missed.
The central drama revolves around four people. Three of them meet on a train, not realizing that they would soon meet again.
(L to R) Sugith Varughese (facing back) Ishvar (Anand Rajaram), Maneck (Siddharth Sharma), and Om (Ben Yoganathan) in A Fine Balance (photo: Dahlia Katz)
Ishvar (Anand Rajaram) and his nephew Omprakash (Ben Yoganathan) are tailors, hoping to get work from Dina. Maneck (Siddharth Sharma) is a young student who’s on his way to visit her. Maneck is not related to her but as the son of a friend of Dina’s sometimes would call her “Aunty”.
Dina (Zorana Sadiq) in A Fine Balance (photo: Dahlia Katz)
The transformations in all four over the course of many years are what makes this such a spectacular novel, captured wonderfully in this adaptation.
In the book Dina loses her husband in a bicycle accident. She must make a series of adjustments to preserve her precarious independence, depending at times on financial help from her brother Nusswan, bending the rules of her rental, as she employs Ishvar & Om to sew for her.
Om (Ben Yoganathan), Dina (Zorana Sadiq), and Ishvar (Anand Rajaram) in A Fine Balance (photo: Dahlia Katz)
Om and Ishvar are of a caste once known as “untouchable”. Their place at the bottom of the social hierarchy makes their prospects for happy lives limited, especially when confronted by authority. The more corrupt elements in society, both those working withing the law such as Ibrahim the rent collector or a hired thug (known as a goonda) would have the greatest freedom to prey upon them, people who felt they had no rights.
Om (Ben Yoganathan) and Ishvar (Anand Rajaram) in A Fine Balance (photo: Dahlia Katz)
During the State of Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India in the mid-1970s, the rights of many people were compromised, especially the lowest strata of society.
In the latter part of the play we see their lives violated & nearly destroyed, yet they carry on. We have only a few glimpses of the extreme poverty that is central to the novel, but see enough, especially at the end of the play.
Ishvar (Anand Rajaram), Om (Ben Yoganathan) smelling what Ramjaran (Sugith Varughese) carries in A Fine Balance (photo: Dahlia Katz)
Shankar (Husein Madhavji) and Ishvar (Anand Rajaram) in A Fine Balance (photo: Dahlia Katz)
Two members of the creative team deserve a lot of credit for the effectiveness of this production.
Thomas Ryder Payne
Thomas Ryder Payne is sound designer, a title that sometimes includes musical composition, but on this occasion was far more like cinematic foley, sound effects. The sounds made by trains are a key element of this show, although there’s much more one might mention. However I want to speak of the train-sounds alongside the brilliant set design by Michael Gianfrancesco, which had a compulsive energy that frankly scared me a few times, as there’s a part of the set on rails that comes roaring across the stage with some of the scene changes, while the actors scramble out of the way.
Michael Gianfrancesco (photo: David Cooper)
I wondered about the rehearsals, when the actors had to learn how to work with the set to keep safe. That’s inevitable when a huge book is being distilled down to two hours and 45 minutes of action, with no time for leisurely movements of parts of the set. Upstage we have Dina’s home, with the door to the outside world stage right where people enter, and incidents taking place outside used the extreme downstage ribbon of real estate. The panorama before us was used with great effectiveness by the cast and director Chris Abraham.
I’ve been reminded of one of the reasons for adaptations, namely the way they show us depths & nuances in a story that we may miss. Berlioz’s Romeo & Juliet shows us different aspects of the story & the characters than that of Prokofiev, different again from that of Gounod. If we only have the original we are missing the dimensions brought to life by a new artist’s understanding. I never expected so much laughter, so much sweetness & comedy particularly from those most oppressed in this society. You may think you know a book or a story, until an adaptation shows it to you in a new way.
I think Irani’s adaptation simplifies the novel beautifully. We have four main characters.
Omprakash and his uncle Ishvar can be seen as the protagonists even though the plot-line makes them victims of violence & corruption. How they choose to respond to their oppression is at least a part of our understanding of the title of the novel. The “Fine Balance” is a response to the precarity of their lives, although in the novel everyone has some challenges finding balance in a precarious world.
As they lead their own lives, Dina (Zorana Sadiq) and Maneck (Siddharth Sharma) observe and respond to Ishvar & Om. Dina is at the centre of the story, a difficult woman when we first meet her, as she negotiates her way through a world that seems determined to take her down. But she shows more and more compassion and kindness as the play goes on. Where Om & Ishvar might be the creatures who illustrate this moral tale (like the Prodigal Son), the key to any sort of parable would be how Dina and Maneck each observe and respond in their own way (like the Prodigal Son’s father). When Dina loses her business she must move in with her brother Nusswan. Maneck goes away for a few years, returning in the novel’s Epilogue set in 1984. While earlier we only saw train travel he’s coming back on a plane. Maneck’s interior dialogue is subtle, hard to discern except from his actions.
I’m not sure whether the adaptation is written with this assumption, but what I saw was that Ben Yoganathan (as Om) and Anand Rajaram (as Ishvar) are called upon to be flamboyant, because of their vulnerable status in the world. When we first see Ishvar extolling the skills of his nephew, he’s over-selling like a street-performer. Ben is at times restrained, sullen & quiet in his uncle’s shadow, careful and restrained, but sometimes becoming almost explosive in his passionate delivery. Ishvar is the one who picks up their spirits, a relentlessly positive voice regardless of what he’s endured. I found their last scene devastatingly beautiful to watch.
Husein Madhavji sparkled in three very different roles in addition to being an Ensemble player. Nusswan is Dina’s brother, overbearing & controlling in his offers of assistance, interrupting her frequently in conversation; I think we’ve all met someone like this. Ibrahim is the corrupt rent-collecter bringing trouble to Dina’s door. Shankar is the crippled beggar protected by his anonymous benefactor Beggarmaster, never knowing the reason for the generosity but relentlessly positive.
Sugith Varughese also displayed remarkable range in his portrayals as well as as being an Ensemble player. Rajaram is himself a bit of a chameleon in the book, a pragmatist changing at least a couple of times in the book, collecting hair and possibly doing something far more sinister. Thakur Dharamsi is a corrupt official involved in sterilization, openly contemptuous of the poor. And in the violent confrontation scene (different from the novel as I recall there are plural goondas or thugs, not a single one as in this adaptation) he wrecks Dina’s sewing business and assaults the sewers.
(L to R) Goonda (Sugith Varughese), Maneck (Siddharth Sharma), Om (Ben Yoganathan), Ibrahim (Husein Madhavji), Anand Rajaram, and Zorana Sadiq in A Fine Balance (photo: Dahlia Katz)
I’ve said nothing about Chris Abraham so far, the artistic director of Crow’s Theatre, the director of this amazing show, and a participant in the play’s development. A Fine Balance is a well-oiled machine with its heart worn clearly on its sleeve.
Chris Abraham
It must feel so gratifying to watch a theatre full of people scream their approval for a new show. I understand they’ve extended the run.
