Great Expectations in Canada

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III

The Grand Theater Company, London, Ont.

When Robin Phillips was 15 and a student at Britain's Bristol Old Vic, his impoverished rural parents provided him -L- 1 a week for pocket money, obtained "by selling things from the house, including their wedding presents." The sacrifice bore fruit. At 20, Phillips was acting with Laurence Olivier; by the time he was 30, he was an established director in London's West End (Tiny Alice), on Broadway (Abelard and Heloise) and, by preference, in Britain's regional repertory theaters. His success was certified in 1973 when, at age 31, he won one of the most prestigious repertory-theater posts in North America, as artistic director of Canada's Stratford Festival.

Phillips built a justified following at Stratford for his venturesome direction of more than 30 productions. But after seven years there led to "utter exhaustion," he quit and, amid acrimony over his abrupt departure, resumed the roving life of a guest director. Friends predicted that he would find himself longing for a home, and they were right. Last month, in sedate, affluent London, Ont. (pop. 255,000), about 40 miles from Stratford, Phillips launched a new troupe that is as ambitious as its title: the Grand Theater Company.

The ensemble--named for its performing space, a chastely remodeled former grand-opera house--is mounting productions ranging from Hamlet to Godspell, from a transvestite Arsenic and Old Lace to a studiously Edwardian The Doctor's Dilemma. Phillips will direct four of the nine main stage productions and co-direct three more. (The schedule also includes five children's shows, adapted from stories by Paul Gallico.) The actors, many of them veterans of the Phillips era at Stratford, work in true repertory: a weekend visitor can see four plays in two days; at its peak during December, the Grand will offer seven main stage shows and three children's plays. With only modest government and corporate support, the company is counting on ticket sales to defray an optimistic 73% of the $3.5 million budget (in U.S. dollars).

Artistically, the company already seems secure. The first four productions, although they tend toward the conventional and ingratiating, all have a high gloss, especially in design. Phillips and Phillip Silver have created a standing set: a streamlined, frame-and-window contraption that can look like a temple, a skyscraper or the wall of a conservatory. It neatly frames an all but impeccable The Doctor's Dilemma, Shaw's affectionate satire of medical theories, artistic pretensions and the absurd complexities brought on by love. The plot, a wittily constructed but logically dubious foofaraw, about a physician who must decide whether to save the life of a mediocre yet decent colleague or that of a gifted yet wicked artist, is taken just seriously enough to display the talents of the cast. Even the smallest performances are persuasive, and one is exceptional: as the artist's devoted wife, a woman so blind to her husband's sins that she might easily seem pathetic, Martha Henry radiates strength, grace and throbbing-voiced appeal. In Dilemma's other exacting role, Brent Carver finds the scapegrace charm and wit of the dying young artist but just misses the offhand incandescence that would fit the repeated description of him as a genius. Phillips has acted the part himself, to acclaim, and knows that the character's simultaneous power to seduce and appall an audience is vital to the play's debate.

Carver is also a little shy of star quality as Jesus in the musical Godspell, although his singing voice is sweet and true, his movement is crisp, and his line readings are intelligent. The rest of the ensemble has a more spontaneous energy, and one player, Neil Foster, almost explodes in the up-tempo We Beseech Thee. The slight plot and Stephen Schwartz's exuberant score, which in the 1971 premiere seemed purely a product of flower power, hold up surprisingly well: the youths who eventually join up with Jesus have been reconceived by Director Gregory Peterson as 1980s punk rockers with spiky hair, stiletto heels and spooky makeup, and their menacing manner lends urgency to the effort to convert them to righteousness.

Waiting for the Parade is less a play than a series of review sketches, mostly comic, about the women left behind when Canada's men went off to World War II. Director Phillips and a standout cast, notably Carole Shelley, Sheila McCarthy and Susan Wright, almost overcome the predictability of the stories.

For the Grand to live up to its name, it must produce difficult plays in provocative ways. Phillips has faced up to that challenge by staging Timon of Athens, Shakespeare's relentlessly cynical story of a generous man who lavishes his fortune on friends, finds himself deserted by them, then retreats into the wilderness and vows to destroy his native city. The production is deft and vividly detailed, but takes too detached an approach to the play's excesses of vengeance. Timon's disillusionment should amount to more than a rage at betrayal--he should make an unbearable discovery about human nature--yet William Hutt, although forceful and majestic, does not attain that philosophical dimension. In the almost unplayable part of Timon's rebel ally Alcibiades (a role so ill explained that Phillips apologizes for it in the program), Maurice Good fails : utterly. Moreover, Phillips' resetting of the show from ancient Athens to the turn of the 20th century seems arbitrary; during what should be a horrific conclusion--the conquest of the city--the olive drab of the soldiers and the formal dinner clothes of the city fathers are distracting and pointless. Still, the rendition compares favorably with the BBC'S in its Shakespeare series.

Warts and all, Timon demonstrates the value of a repertory theater: it does not depend upon the popularity of a single production and is therefore free to experiment. Phillips has mounted a season with much of the style of his past world-class efforts. He gives ample reason to hope for future grandeur. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.