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“We Few, We Happy Few”*
Visits the Shakespeare and Shaw Festivals
In Stratford, and Niagara-On-the-Lake, Ontario.
*Henry the Fifth.
By Hal Drucker
haldrucker@mykindofholiday.com |
The phone call came last January. The voice was that of Joanna Glass. She had exciting news. Her new play Palmer Park had been chosen to be premiered in the hallowed confines of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. After wishing her well, I said to my wife Alice, “You know, I’ve always wanted to visit Stratford. Joanna has certainly given us a good reason to pick up and go.” OK, so the U. S. Dollar is one-on-one with the Canadian dollar. (When last I visited Canada, the dollar was worth $1.30 Canadian.)
So I got in touch with the Stratford Festival’s Media Manager Anne Swerdfager and her assistant, Kate Sanouris, and with the intent of sandwiching a few days around the opening of Joanna’s play in mid-August, by good fortune, I found out we could build in visits to Christopher Plummer in Caesar and Cleopatra and Brian Dennehy in All’s Well That End’s Well in addition to Palmer Park, and add Love’s Labour’s Lost in the process.
When friends of ours, Elise and Len Elman, theater buffs both, evinced interest in accompanying us, we said, sure. Then I added, “Let me take care of the arrangements.” Big mistake, I called every top-ranked hotel in Stratford. Though it was February, we learned to our chagrin that they were all completely sold out for the days we had chosen. However the general manager of the most prestigious hotel in Stratford suggested that we look into a lovely inn in St. Mary’s, Ontario, about a half-hour drive from Stratford. It’s called the Westover Inn. "Oh, by the way," he said, "it’s where Christopher Plummer stays." Wow, I thought to myself, what an opportunity to interview Canada’s most eminent actor, in familiar surroundings. I was also told it has an excellent restaurant. So I checked the web site and spoke to a most accommodating general manager, Stephen McCotter, and raised the possibility of a Plummer interview. He said, "I don’t see why not. He’s been staying here for years, in a room that literally has his name next to the entrance." So I cheerfully sent in our deposit. While doing so, one of my friends, Burt Simon said, "You mean you’re going to Stratford and not going to Niagara-on-the-Lake? You’ll love it and you’ve got to stay at the Prince of Wales." Alice had never been to Niagara Falls, so this seemed like a good opportunity. And while I was in touch with the Prince of Wales GM Michelle Miller, who readily accommodated us and upgraded us, I was informed that N-O-L had its own theater festival, the Shaw Festival. I immediately contacted Odette Yazbeck, Director of Public Relations and Patti Broughton, Public Relations Co-ordinator for the Shaw Festival Theater and, sure enough, we booked for two plays in a single day. With our Stratford complement, that meant seeing six shows in three days with three days of touring and traveling in between. |
FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 2008
We left on an early morning flight from JFK to Buffalo Airport, rented a Hertz car, stopping along the way at a pleasant outdoor restaurant off Lake Ontario, where I made the mistake of heeding the advice of an altogether helpful waitress who advised that my AAA Triptik did not take into account a special new motorway which would cut out many miles. Well, it had the opposite effect. We traveled 50 miles out of the way heading Southwest rather than Northwest. In spite of that, we arrived at Joanna Glass’s home for tea, precisely at 3:30 PM, a very short walk to the Studio Theater where Palmer Park was appearing. |

At home with Joanna McClelland Glass. Photo: Hal Drucker |
When we drove up the driveway, I was struck by the charm of Joanna’s home, the kind of place you could envision on a HOME SWEET HOME sampler. Built in 1910, Joanna patiently and steadfastly did a make-over of the interior and showed us around the entire house, as happy as a schoolgirl. We had come for tea and scones, but Joanna had large platters of fish, dairy and jam delicacies, an advance celebration of Saturday night’s opening. Along with the Elmans and us, were Joanna’s daughter Jennifer Glass, her beau Don Guyton and a friend of many years, Marcia Meisel. Joanna and I recalled how we had first met, when I interviewed her in conjunction with her playTrying, which has had more than 40 productions in Canada and the U. S., about her days as personal secretary to Francis Biddle, from Franklin Roosevelt’s cabinet.
She recalled to my wife and friends, “I was a green young girl from the Canadian Prairie. My native city Saskatoon, Saskatchewan was incorporated in 1906, the same year Francis Biddle was an undergraduate at Harvard. Biddle’s first American ancestor, William Biddle, purchased 43,000 acres of what is now New Jersey from William Penn.
“On my first day of employment in the Autumn of 1967, he told me quite emphatically that he was certain he was in this final year of life. He died in October of 1968.”
In Joanna’s play, Biddle chides his new hire in a Machiavellian manner for being early, almost daring her to resign on the spot. He was an imperious employer, demanding adherence to such set rules from the proper placement of mail and coffee tray to the taboo of adjusting the gas heaters. He hadn’t counted on her being so unflappable and so intent on his concentrating on his memoirs. Her pluckiness stemmed in large part from abuse at the hands of an alcoholic father.
“Judge Biddle and I spent our months together ‘trying’ to negotiate and span our enormous differences of youth and age, of class and culture. He reserved his deepest rage for the way in which his once-brilliant mind now betrayed him, fluctuating between ‘lucidity and senility’ as he says in my play. He was frequently in a state of aggravation over articles and journals that had been destroyed in a fire caused by a secretary who left the gas heaters on. He was obsessed by the deaths of his father who died when he was six years old and a son Garrison Chapin Biddle, who died at age seven.
“A vigilant grammarian, he resorted to tirades against my use of split infinitives. Occasionally he drove me to tears, but I knew that I was witnessing a man of great intellectual stature doing battle fiercely, with his mortality.”
Glass told of how, as a young mother of three she moved into Palmer Park in 1968 with her husband, who had taken a teaching job at Wayne State University. The community consisted of 1,100 beautiful homes built in the 1920s for wealthy white people. After the Detroit race riots, property values plunged and new owners moved in: well-educated, upwardly mobile, young professionals, white and black. It was a time and place of shared aspirations and inter-racial friendships, all converging on the thing that is most special about Palmer Park: Hampton Elementary School. Within a Detroit public school system beleaguered by overcrowding and heavy debt, the black and white parents of Palmer Park labored to keep Hampton well supplied, classes small, the academic standard high. The effort paid off -- until the city's surrounding sea of hardship ultimately swamped Palmer Park. |
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Our intrepid fellow travelers were The Elmans. |

The Westover’s prize guest, C. Plummer chose this year to purchase a place in Stratford. I’ll try catching up with him by phone. |
Westover Inn
August 15-18
300 Thomas Street
St. Marys, ON
N4X 1B1
1-800-268-8243
519-284-2977
www.westoverinn.com
Overall Impression –    
Historic Victorian Estate in bucolic setting, on 19 acres of beautifully landscaped grounds. Only 12 miles from Stratford, I would heartily recommend the Inn to any one reading these pages.
Accommodations –  
Spacious rooms with great views. Comfortable bed. Dim lighting made reading difficult. Threadbare wallpaper. Paint peeling in spots. Bathroom towels are not plush. Shower water became ankle deep. Advised desk, not fixed.
Dining –   
Dinner our first night was first-rate and beautifully served. I had a delectable, seared Chilean Sea Bass with Smoked Tomato and Chive Sauce on a Wehani and Jasmine Rice Pilaf. |
SATURDAY, AUGUST 16

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Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame
386 Church St. S. - museum
St. Marys, ON N4X 1C2
Phone: 519-284-1838
Toll-free: 877-250-2255
www.baseballhalloffame.ca/
Who would have imagined that the quiet, charming town of St. Mary’s sported its very own baseball hall of fame? Well, at least I was able to show off some knowledge about North of the Border diamond stars. Where is Ferguson Jenkins’ glass case, I asked? Sure enough the star pitcher’s Cy Young Award ring was on display. I saw a room devoted to my hero Jackie Robinson, when he played for the Montreal Royals. On leaving, I thanked our docent for his kindness and predicted that outfielder Larry Walker would soon be inducted, and perhaps some day, Jason Bay of the Red Sox. |

We strolled along the Avon River to our first destination, the Tom Patterson Theater where there was ample parking for our car. To be doubly sure, the Visitors Center off York Street and Veterans Way provided a Free Parking pass. |

Love's Labour's Lost. (Standing, L-R) Lord Longaville ( Jesse Aaron Dwyre); King of Navarre (Trent Pardy); Berowne (Ian Lake); Dumaine (Jon de Leon); (Seated, L-R) Maria (Melanie Keller); Katharine (Michelle Monteith); Princess of France (Alana Hawley); Rosaline (Dalal Badr). All Shakespeare Festival photos by: David Hou. |
 
August 16 Matinee
William Shakespeare’s
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Tom Patterson Theater
111 Lakeside Drive
Stratford, Ont.
1-800-567-1600
http://www.stratfordfestival.ca/
Through Oct. 4
This was our first exposure to a Stratford Festival play, and by far the least winning among the four we saw during this maiden journey. L3 is such an unremarkable example of one of Shakespeare’s earliest comedies, that I forgot – until the opening scene - that I had seen a contemporaneous musical version directed by Kenneth Branagh at a movie screening in 2000 that had insufferable performances by Alicia Silverstone as the French Princess and Nathan Lane as the clown, Costard. The one thing that his production had in common with that ill-fated movie was a serious case of the cutes. Given the in-jokes that the Globe Theater’s groundlings undoubtedly guffawed over, Director Michael Langham must have felt compelled to one-up the Bard with anachronistic sight gags, bawdiness and excessive playing for laughs. The unvarnished plot is intriguing: The King of Navarre (Trent Pardy) has persuaded his three best pals, Lords all, to join him in a three-year vow of chastity in favor of intellectual study, which is quickly tested by the arrival of the French princess (Alana Hawley) and her three luscious ladies-in-waiting. Less intriguing is a love sonnet from Lord Berowne, (played with panache by Ian Lake) to Lady Rosaline (Dalal Badr) that is misdirected to a village milkmaid. The stage is a "runway thrust," with seating for 480 tiered on three sides. |

The Belfry
Church Restaurant
70 Brunswick St.
Stratford, Ontario NSA 6V6
519-273-3424
With time to kill before Palmer Park, we happened upon a place that looked suspiciously like a church in close proximity to Studio Theater. Having had just a frozen yogurt to tide us over until dinner, the four of us were famished. I was sent as an advance scout of one to explore if indeed it was a restaurant. When the captain showed me a prix fixe menu beginning at $90, I was about to unceremoniously take my leave. He then advised that upstairs was a more modestly priced restaurant, The Belfry. Why yes, the drinks were ample, and the a la carte entrees less costly. However the sizes of our entrees were not much larger than a plate of tapas or hors d’oeuvres. You can’t win them all. Well YOU can, if you heed our advice not to Get You to the Church On Time. |

Palmer Park. Clockwise from top left, David W. Keeley (Phil Lamont); Yanna McIntosh (Linda Hazelton); Nigel Shawn Williams (Fletcher Hazelton); Dan Chameroy (Martin Townsend) and Kelli Fox (Kate Townsend). |

August 16
Opening Night of
Joanna McClelland Glass’s
Palmer Park
Studio Theater
34 George St. E
Stratford, Ont.
1-800-567-1600
Through Sept. 21
Canadian-born playwright Joanna McClelland Glass has a peculiar facility for capturing a snatch of history as eyewitness, and transmuting it from coarse reality to pure gold as a piece of stagecraft. In her penultimate drama Trying, from the propitious vantage point of personal secretary to one-time Attorney General Francis Biddle of FDR’s cabinet, she shed light on historic tidbits that weighed on the irascible octogenarian’s conscience and increasingly failing memory, such as the internment of the Nisei (Japanese-Americans) during WWII, or overseeing the post-war Nuremberg trials as primary judge. Glass brilliantly humanized the conflicted man, arousing in us requisite measures of empathy, pity and fear with Aristotelian cunning.
Palmer Park returns Glass to the days in which she lived in a middle-to-upper income suburb of Detroit, soon after the city was ravaged by the race riots of 1967. It is a fascinating tableau of a community that tries – truly tries – white and black alike, to invite and nurture what we euphemistically refer to today as “ethnic diversity,” the pragmatic ratio being 65/35 white to black in neighborhood and public school alike. The protagonists of the piece are Martin and Kate Townsend, a young white couple (he a physics professor) who buy a house next door to Fletch and Linda Hazelton, a young black couple (he a pediatrician). Like a Ken Burns exploratory piece on PBS, one is absorbed by the subject, indelibly dispensed, documentary-style, with narrative asides by the individual players, who not always succeed in mining a revelatory performance inherent in the text. The flesh-and-blood interplay on-stage is augmented by a giant rear screen (at times a scrim), that succeeds intermittently in reinforcing the heated exchange, the fearsome anxiety, the heroic resolve, the warm embrace, the tension that can raise the hairs on the back of your neck. The Studio Theater’s intimate construction features a thrust stage, 260 tiered seats and superior sight-lines. |
SUNDAY, AUGUST 17

View of the Festival Theater from Lakeside Drive. The theater reminds me of the LA Music Center. I liked the fact we could obtain inexpensive sandwiches and beverages in the lobby and listen to chamber music or arias until the matinee doors opened. |

All's Well that Ends Well. Brian Dennehy (right) as the King of France, with Daniela Vlaskalic as Helena and Jeff Lillico as Bertram, Count of Rossillion. |

August 17 Matinee
Shakespeare’s
All’s Well that Ends Well.
Festival Theater
55 Queen St.
Stratford, Ont.
1-800-567-1600
Closed August 23.
The question before the court is whether I would be seeing the hand-wringing, brow-mopping Brian Dennehy who tore a passion to tatters as Willy Loman in the revival of Death of a Salesman OR the laudatory, under-control James Tyrone of Long Day’s Journey into Night OR the efficient Matthew Brady of Inherit the Wind, in which he played opposite Christopher Plummer’s Henry Drummond. Happily, as the King of France, Dennehy had all the right resources going for him. I was pleasantly surprised that he had such a relatively large role, while performing in a twin bill of O’Neill’s Hughie and Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape.
Credit the rich, beautifully crafted directorial job by Marti Maraden of Shakespeare’s so-called “problem play,” that in the wrong hands could be hackneyed, given its fanciful plot. In brief, Helena , orphan daughter of a famed physician, has been brought up in the house of the Countess of Rossilon (Martha Henry) and falls in love with Bertram (Jeff Lillico), son of the countess. At the French Court, on his way to war, Bertram finds the King of France dangerously ill of a supposedly incurable disease. Hearing of this, Helena hies to the court and offers to cure the king with one of her father’s remedies, on condition that, when cured, he will give her hand in marriage to the man of her choice. Once curing the king, she chooses Bertram as her husband. As the king’s ward, Bertram must obey, but he accepts grudgingly. And thereby hangs this oft-told tale. Complementing Dennehy is an equally notable performance by Martha Henry. |

Pazzo Ristorante
70 Ontario Street,
Stratford, Ontario. Canada N5A 3H2
519-273-6666
Without a reservation we hit upon a restaurant that was the polar opposite of the Belfry in ambience and portions. Among us we heartily recommend the Antipasti- a selection of locally cured meats, Monteforte dairy cheese and house-preserved vegetables. Rigatoni with wild mushrooms, fresh thyme, oregano and tomato chili sauce. Also, house-made ravioli stuffed with goat cheese, roasted garlic and pine nuts with an arugula pesto. It too, is close to the Studio Theater. |

Christopher Plummer and Nikki M. James in the title roles of Bernard Shaw’s classic comedy. |
   
August 17
Opening Night of
George Bernard Shaw’s
Caesar & Cleopatra
Festival Theater
55 Queen St.
Stratford, Ont.
1-800-567-1600
Through Nov. 8
Christopher Plummer’s regal bearing has never been more in evidence than when he takes the hand of Nikki M. James, a half-century or so his junior, her eyes welling up, and sweeps her magesterially around the thrust stage of the Festival Theater as the opening night audience detonates in thunderous applause. Though this was merely the “curtain call,” I’ve not experienced a stage moment more enthralling than this stylishly elegant, deferential gesture on the part of Canada’s (make that, North America’s) greatest actor. To Plummer’s Iago, Lear, Henry Drummond and a solo turn as John Barrymore, add Caesar, the classic Shavian contrarian, as the nonpareil of roles I have been privileged to witness in more than seven decades of theater-going. And mark this: On Christmas break from college in 1951, I was privileged to see Olivier as Shaw’s Caesar opposite Vivien Leigh on the stage of the Ziegfeld Theater at the matinee in tandem with the couple’s Anthony and Cleopatra by Shakespeare that very evening. Plummer’s opening scene sets the tone, in which the conquering Caesar’s monologue before a sphinx is interrupted by the sudden appearance of what? – a frightened Nubian slave? No - a coquettish girl -barely out of her teens, who professes her fear of being eaten by a Roman invader. The diverting, toga-clad warrior with self-deprecating remarks about his age and balding pate, has a high old time jousting with Shaw’s delicious prose, dispensing Henry Higginesque insights and intervening in the monarchal struggle between the child-like Cleopatra and her insipid kid brother Ptolemy. Irrespective of what I’m told were critically scathing reviews for her Juliet in this year’s Festival, James is irresistibly enticing as the Queen of the Nile. Credit the Festival’s Artistic Director Des McAnuf, who staged this epic production of Shaw seamlessly, with pitch-perfect wit, and disciplined prose-pruning. Other performances of note are Diane D'Aquila as Cleopatra’s domineering maidservant Ftatateeta, Peter Donaldson as Caesar’s irreverent chief officer Rufio and Steven Sutcliffe as his secretary Britannus who gives Shaw the wherewithal to joust with British mores and sensibilities a la W. S. Gilbert. The theater seats 1,838 people – although no seat is further than 65 feet from the stage. The stage includes trap doors, nine acting levels and eight major entrances, an intelligent reinvention of the Globe Theater. |
MONDAY, AUGUST 18
Checking out of The Westover Inn, we had a pleasant, uneventful ride to Niagara-On-The-Lake. The weather was spectacular every day. The sights were lovely, most particularly the symmetrical grape vines that punctuated the countryside, We checked in … then checked out the town, which had much of the charm of Stratford, but was a bit more touristy. |

The Prince of Wales |
PRINCE OF WALES
Aug.18-20
6 Picton (& King St.)
Niagara On The Lake, ON L0S 1J0
905-468-1362
www.vintage-hotels.com/niagara-on-the-lake/hotels/prince-of-wales.php
Overall Impression –    
Its elegant lobby and furnishing reminded me for all the world of its namesake, The Prince de Galles on Avenue George V in Paris.
Accommodations –   
We were delighted with our upgraded suite. I do love those hot towel holder pipes in the bathroom. However, again, it was almost impossible to read in bed without a flashlight, which by the way we always carry when we travel in case of a blackout or – Heaven forbid – a fire. The Elmans discovered an impressive pool and spa. They had their bathing suits. I didn’t pack one, so I checked out the stores on Queen Street and finally found one for $40. What the heck, it was a leisure day. Well, I eased my way into a Jacuzzi and pool and read a New York Times in the sauna. Still not an Elman in sight.
Service –   
We complained on two successive nights, that turn-down service was not accomplished as requested. Housekeeping stated incorrectly that we had a “Do Not Disturb” on our doorknob. On the contrary, we had “Please make up room.” |
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Dining at the Prince of Wales
Escabèche –   
Although we have heard uniformly good things about the dinner cuisine from a number of friends, we stuck to a hot breakfast, consistently excellent and well-served throughout our stay.
Drawing Room –     
The appointments are exquisite, the Victorian décor, impeccable.
We indulged in high tea between matinee and evening performances at the Royal George Theater, nibbling on delicate finger sandwiches and delicious fruit pastries. High tea is daily from noon to 6 p.m. Dare I say that our experience was akin to that of London’s Fortnum and Mason (without the 45-minute wait)? I do dare.
Click here: THE FIRST TIME I SAW LONDON By Zachary Drucker
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Looking up Queen Street. |
  
Zee’s Restaurant
92 Picton St.
Niagara on the Lake, ON
1-800-511-7070
905-468-5715
This very pleasant outdoor restaurant is a short walk from the hotel. We all had the house-made gazpacho with chilled Chardonnay and chili grilled shrimp and shared a bunch of chips. It was so delicious and filling that Alice and I decided to pass on dinner for that evening. |
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
Breakfast Meeting at Escabèche – After several years of contact solely by phone or email, it was a pleasure meeting face-to-face with a fine and talented client and syndicator, Don Wall, Editor of Canada’s Forever Young.
4 p.m. Tea at The Drawing Room
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Niagara Falls
Niagara on the Lake
Chamber of Commerce
905-468-1950
A 25-minute drive on the Niagara Parkway, we avoided a lot of traffic by leaving at 10 a.m. I hadn’t been to the Falls since I traveled with my mother and dad and sister, and crowded into the Maid of the Mist. This was Alice’s maiden voyage. |

As for the mist, it prevented us from seeing the falls optimally. |

I knew things had changed drastically in the 60-plus years when I was last here. But I was staggered to see so many hotels accessible only by funiculas. |

Lailey Vineyard
15940 Niagara Parkway
Niagara on the Lake ON LOS 1JO
905-468-0503
Returning from the Falls we passed 17 distinctive wineries. This one looked interesting so we stopped and sampled a bit of Riesling Icewine. Icewine is a type of dessert wine produced from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine. The sugars and other dissolved solids do not freeze, but the water does, allowing a more concentrated grape. With ice wines, the freezing happens before the fermentation, not afterwards. Oh yes, we bought a bottle and arrived back at the hotel in ample time for our Matinee. |

Deborah Hay as Joan Scott-Fowler and Patrick Galligan as David Scott-Fowler in After the Dance. Photo: Emily Cooper. |

August 19 Matinee
Terrence Rattigan’s
After the Dance
Royal George Theater
85 Queen St.
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
1-800-511-Shaw
http://www.shawfest.com/
Through Oct. 5
After a heady tasting of the riches of a notable troupe of major league players in Stratford, I was prepared to adjust to at best a Triple A ensemble at the Shaw Festival. I was swiftly disabused of this miscalculation within the first 10 minutes of a comedy/drama, with which I was totally unfamiliar, though it was written in 1939 by one of my favorite playwrights, Terrence Rattigan, author of The Browning Version, The Winslow Boy and Separate Tables. Rattigan ran the anchor leg of the barbed-tongue wordsmiths from Wilde, to Maugham to Coward.
The action is set ominously in Mayfair before Britain’s entry in WWII. It is 1938 and the well-heeled David and Joan Scott-Fowler (Deborah Hay) are not the so-called Bright Young Things they once were. A failed writer, he is of the generation of Scott-Fowlers who just missed the horrors of World War I and enjoyed the fun and excesses of the Twenties. If the Twenties were roaring, the Thirties are far from boring, with parties and parties and more parties all over London. Helen (Marla McLean), a young woman of the new generation, tries to convince David to get back on the wagon, to get real and to deep-six his sorry attempt to write the Great British Novel and start all over. In doing so, she declares her love for him, and his wife compliantly accepts this reality, much to the chagrin of Scott-Fowler’s cheeky star boarder and erstwhile drinking companion, John Reid. Canadians Patrick Galligan as David and Neil Barclay as John Reid would be standouts in any theatrical troupe. The portly actor Barclay, with 19 years under his ample belt at the Shaw Festival, is a consummate player, who blends compassion, loyalty and droll wit. Part Robert Benchley, part Sydney Greenstreet, I would dearly love to see him as Sheridan Whiteside or Falstaff. The stalwart staging is by Christopher Newton. The Royal George is a 328-seat proscenium. |

The Charles Inn
209 Queen St.
905-468-4588
www.charlesinn.com
This restaurant in a charming inn was recommended to the Elmans, and I must say, it was a culinary highlight of our trip. I had the Pan Seared Jumbo Divers Scallops which sit atop a Salad of white Asparagus and Frissée Lettuce dressed with a Vinaigrette of Roasted Hazelnuts, Black Truffle and Fine Herbs. Our companions had the Crisp Roasted French Hen set alongside a Risotto Cake Enhanced with Celery Root Purée & Black Truffle paired with Baby Bok choy & Simple Pan Juices. Gustatorily sated, we strolled leisurely to our final theatrical highlight of our journey. |

Laurie Paton as Regina Giddens, Sharry Flett as Birdie Hubbard, David Jansen as Horace Giddens and Peter Krantz as Oscar Hubbard in The Little Foxes. Photo: David Cooper. |

August 19 Evening
Lillian Hellman’s
The Little Foxes
Royal George Theater
85 Queen St.
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
1-800-511-Shaw
Through Nov. 1
I last saw The Little Foxes 11 years ago, with Stockard Channing as Regina Giddens in a Lincoln Center production in New York. Tallulah Bankhead originated the role on Broadway in 1939 (the same year as After the Dance), and Bette Davis did the 1941 movie. Marc Blitzstein added an operatic version entitled Regina with Jane Pickens in a Broadway house in 1949.
Director Eda Holmes and the entire cast did an exemplary job in making this familiar melodrama about the conniving, mendacious Hubbard brothers, scions of a southern family at the turn of the last century, fresh, brilliantly paced and edge-of-the-seat arresting. Special praise to Laurie Paton as the manipulative Regina, sister to Ric Reid’s Ben Hubbard and Peter Krantz’s Oscar Hubbard. And kudos to David Jansen’s Horace Giddens as Regina’s out-maneuvering husband, and the marvelous Sharry Flatt as Regina’s dithering sister-in-law Birdie Hubbard. What did I learn from this almost-total immersion in north-of-the-border theatricals? That Christopher Plummer, great as he is, isn’t the be-all or end-all of Canadian actors. There are a tantalizing couple of dozen more, waiting in the wings. |
AUGUST 20, 2008
After checkout, we drove to Buffalo in short order and took time to visit
an outstanding modern art museum, with a requisite number of impressionist and avant-garde renderings. Amazingly we got to the Buffalo Airport early enough to catch an earlier Jet Blue to JFK, with absolutely no take-off or arrival delays. |

Albright-Knox Art Gallery
1285 Elmwood Ave.
Buffalo, NY 14222-1086
716-882-8700
http://www.albrightknox.org/ |
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