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Stratford's 2022 production of All's Well that Ends Well, in which Nigel appears, is now available for subscribers on the Festival's streaming platform Stratfest@Home.

Nigel is in one play of the 2022 season of the Stratford Festival in Ontario.
In All's Well That Ends Well he plays Reynaldo, the Stewart of the Countess of Roussillon.

Other FK alumni:

Colm Feore will play Richard III and Harper in Molière's The Miser.

Lucy Peacock will play Queen Elizabeth in Richard III and Fay in The Miser.

Source: Stratford Festival

Note: This entry has been updated since it was originally posted in February 2022.

Don't miss Geraint Wyn Davies in Stratford's 2014 production of Antony and Cleopatra! It's a feast for the eye.




Available until July 23!

Also interesting is the Meet the Festival, where several cast members including Ger talk about the play.




And the pre-show chat with Yanna McIntosh who plays Cleopatra. Geraint appears at the end to introduce the play.

Here's another lively chat with Geraint Wyn Davies interviewing Seana McKenna and Scott Wentworth.



While theatres are closed, the Stratford Festival offers online screenings of some of their filmed productions. So far I've watched King Lear and Coriolanus.

King Lear (2014)



FK alumni include Colm Feore (Blood Money) as the king.

Available until May 14.


Coriolanus (2018)



This is Robert Lepage's stunning production set in modern times. Produced like a film, it was amazing to see this live on stage. Some of the effects are lost when viewed as a film.

FK alumni include Lucy Peacock (The Human Factor) who is an oustanding Volumnia. Other familiar faces, not from FK, but Canadian television are Graham Abbey as Aufidius and Tom McCamus as Menenius. And Tom Rooney and Stephen Ouimette are always a delight to watch.

Available until May 21

The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake and the Stratford Festival have announced their 2020 casting.

Stratford:
Geraint Wyn Davies will play Thomas Cromwell in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. He will also co-direct the play.
Source: Stratford Festival

Shaw:
Nigel Bennett will be on stage in J.M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World and C.S. Lewis' Prince Caspian.
Source: Shaw Festival

Both, Geraint and Nigel are currently on stage in Stratford, Ontario, and received excellent reviews.

Geraint Wyn Davies plays Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare and Sir Peter Teazle in The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

A collection of reviews is available here for Twelfth Night and The School for Scandal. The Globe and Mail wrote about School for Scandal that Ger gives one of his most charmingly permeable performances ever.

(Some links are wrong, but if you type the play's name into the newspaper's search box, you'll get there)

Nigel Bennett plays Kadmos in what has been called a jawdropping production of Bakkhai by Euripides and Ted in the novel mystery thriller The Virgin Trial by Kate Hennig. The character he portraits in the latter has been described as deliciously devious...

A collection of reviews is available here for Bakkhai and The Virgin Trial.

Other FK alumni currently appearing at the Stratford Festival are Lucy Peacock (The Human Factor) in Twelfth Night and Bakkhai and Joseph Ziegler (The Code) in Timon of Athens and The School for Scandal.

With opening week coming up, it's about time to announce the FK-relevant highlights of this year's season in Stratford.

Geraint Wyn Davies:

Geraint plays Claudius and the Ghost in Hamlet by William Shakespeare (May 1 - October 11, 2015, Festival Theatre).

In Friedrich Dürrenmatt's comedy The Physicists Geraint plays Johann Wilhelm Möbius (May 12 - September 27, 2015, Tom Patterson Theatre).

Nigel Bennett:

Nigel appears as Sir Charles Marlow, sr. in the 18th century comedy She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith (May 16 - October 10, 2015, Avon Theatre).

In the classic Greek drama Oedipus Rex by Sophocles Nigel plays Teiresias and the Shepherd (June 30 - September 18, 2015, Tom Patterson Theatre).

Others:

Joseph Ziegler (Patrick Delehanty, The Code) plays Mr. Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank, Mr. Richard Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer and Henry in The Last Wife.

Lucy Peacock (Peggy Bolger, Human Factor) plays Mrs. Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank and Mrs. Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer.

It's been a while since my last post. So it's about time that I share my impressions on this year's season in Stratford, Ontario. I've seen 4 plays in total: The Thrill, The Three Musketeers, Mary Stuart and Measure for Measure. Let's start with a review of The Thrill which I had the pleasure of seeing twice. When someone in the B&B I stayed in heard that I was going to see it twice, he asked if I enjoy stomping my foot with a pole. Well, all I can say is, although it was not a light topic, it was well worth seeing it twice. Of course, the wonderful cast contributed a lot to that effect.

"The Thrill" is a new play written by Judith Thompson. It was commissioned by the Stratford Festival and had its world premiere at the Studio Theatre during the 2013 season. The cast included Lucy Peacock as Elora, Nigel Bennett as Julian, Patricia Collins as Hanna and Robert Persichini as Frances. They were all brilliant!

Set in Charleston, "The Thrill" focuses on Elora, played by Lucy Peacock, who is confined to a wheelchair since her birth because she is suffering from a degenerative muscle disease. However, this handicap doesn't stop her from enjoying life to the fullest within her limitations. Elora has become a successful lawyer. Her best friend and confidant is Frances, her gay caregiver, played by Robert Persichini.

When Elora reads about the upcoming visit of activist Julian, she becomes very upset. In her view he is the impersonated devil because he advocates giving parents a choice to decide the fate of their children when they are born with an incurable disease. He is on a tour promoting his book "Wheelbarrow" in which he describes the fate of his sister who died in childhood after years of suffering from a painful disease. Elora regards him as a threat to her existence because she wouldn't be alive had her parents acted according to Julian's view. She plans to interrupt Julian's book-reading at the university with a protest of her own.

In the next scene we learn that Julian, played by Nigel Bennett, is not the devil as he was described by Elora. He is caring deeply for his mother Hanna, played by Patricia Collins, who is suffering from dementia.

In the lecture hall, when Julian is talking about his sister and explains his views, Elora runs him over with her wheelchair. In the next scene he visits her at home bringing a cake as a gift. Much to her surprise he apologizes and asks her to join him in a panel discussion. She refuses at first but when Frances asks her which scarf she intends to wear it's clear that she would accept the challenge.

During the debate Julian and Elora both point out their views. Later they meet in a restaurant. She is fashionably late. She convinces him to join her in her campaign to get "her" people out of nursing homes which she calls "gulag" and enable them to receive appropriate homecare. He is clearly struck by her beauty and her spirit and she by his charisma. He admires her eyes and her hair and asks for permission to kiss her which she allows. Passions rise and his hand finds his way under her skirt. The following passionate scene was very effective. The lights went down and only their silhouettes were visible in front of a screen. Her accelerated breathing implied what was going on. Then it went completely dark and it was intermission.

After the intermission 6 months had passed. Julian and Elora have stayed in contact via skype while he went on a world tour to promote his book. However, Elora's state has deteriorated during this time and she's now on a feeding tube. Hanna has also taken a turn to the worse, leaving Julian no choice but to send her to a nursing home in order to prevent her from harming herself at home. Elora is angry at him because he made hardly any progress with their mutual project and her time is running out. She asks sarcastically if anyone bought his book in Sansibar. She feels used by him as if he had merely studied her to gain material for a new book, but Frances assures her that Julian's feelings for her are honest.

Meanwhile Hanna has passed away. She comes on stage with a walking frame and talks in a chilling monologue about her ordinary life.

When Julian visits Elora again she asks him to kiss her deeply until she suffocates. He refuses at first but she begs him to do for her what he couldn't do for his sister. Finally he gives in and, kneeling in front of her, initiates the "kiss of death". After a while she begins to struggle, but he continues. After what seems a gripping eternity, he lets go, saying he can't do it. Elora recovers and thanks him for not making her the exception. He wants to stay with her, but she refuses, telling him that Frances will stay with her until the end and see her out. In the final scene she's with Frances alone on the stage. Music is heard through the window. For a while she moves with her wheelchair in tune to the sounds. Then she asks Frances to pour a little bit of wine into her feeding tube.

"The Thrill" is certainly one of those plays that stay with you long after the performance is over. It touches topics which everyone is reluctant to talk about. What I liked in particular about the play is the balance of conflicting emotions. While there was a lot of drama the dialogues were interlaced with lots of humour, prompting the audience to laugh which felt like a relief from all the pent up emotions.

And the cast was exceptional. Lucy Peacock gave a stunning portrayal of a strong-willed woman confined to a wheelchair. The joy for life she exudes in the first scene is clearly palpable. Her labouring breathing after an asthma attack was as believable as the posture of her limbs that wouldn't always respond the way she wished. Nigel Bennett gave a very emotional performance as Julian. He was the loving, caring and patient son in the scenes with his mother. He conveyed despair when he talked about the fate of his sister, and he was utterly charming in the scenes with Elora. Since his character was of Irish origin, he used an Irish accent throughout the play. I certainly wish he would get more major roles in Stratford.

This week was the first opening week at the Stratford Festival. A compilation of the reviews for all plays is provided by the Festival here. GWD received a lot of praise for his roles as Duke Vincentio in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure and as the Earl of Leicester in Schiller's Mary Stuart.

In particular I liked this phrase from the Toronto Star: Geraint Wyn Davies has the ability to charm one moment, then go for the throat in the next and that quality is on splendid display here. Couldn't help but finding this very inspiring for the story I'm currently writing for fkficfest. :) A precise description of how I like Nick best. :)

Production photos of Measure for Measure and Mary Stuart are offered here (Nigel is seen in one, too) and here, respectively.

A video of Mary Stuart with GWD in it (although he doesn't say anything in this scene) is available here.

The third FK-related play The Thrill featuring Nigel Bennett opens in August.