Now, fair Hippolyta

In 1976 Stratford was bursting with Canadian and International theatrical royalty - Kate Reid, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Gordon Pinsent, Jeremy Brett, William Hutt, Martha Henry, Brian Bedford and Maggie Smith. Several were to be visiting for the season but others like Hutt, Henry, Bedford and Smith became members of a company that gave some of the most exciting and memorable performances and theatre experiences of the period.

It was at Stratford that Smith and Beford were to forge a partnership that flowered in The Guardsman, Much Ado About Nothing and Private Lives.  And over five seasons Smith spread her wings in many of the great classical roles:  Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth, Rosalind, Marsha, Milliament, Elizabeth Gray, Beatrice, Madame Arkadina, Judith Bliss  and in 1977 the duel role of Hippolyta/Titania in a gorgeous A Midsummer Night's Dream set as an Elizabethan court masque*.

Susan Benson's costume sketch for Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1977.

It was a revival of the production from the previous year with Maggie Smith replaced Jessica Tandy as the earthly and fairy queens.  Designer Susan Benson created new costumes for Smith - Titania in flowing white, silver and gold floating through the woods almost mocking the stiff black, silver and gold of the court bound Athenian bride.

Maggie Smith as Hippolyta - every inch the image of Gloriana.  And a rollover will reveal her alter-ego  Fairy Queen Titania.  Perhaps the real Gloriana wished she could have been so free-spirited.

The work that goes into the costumes for any production at Stratford is remarkable - whither it is  a sequined cowgirl outfit for a dancer in Crazy for You or the Chaplain's stained and worn shirt in Mother Courage.  As part of a Festival display at the Stratford Perth County Museum (a delightful side trip that is definitely "worth the detour") several designers thoughts on how to dress Gloriana on the stage were on display.  And as with any costumes made in the workshops at Stratford they were stunning examples of the craftsmanship that has become one of the trademarks of the Festival.

One of those displayed was Hippolyta's first costume from that 1977 production. To get a closer look either left click on the hot spots at various points on the costume or left click on one of the titles below the picture.

Neck ruff | Necklace | Bodice | Panels | Border trim | Cuff and Sleeve | Collar | Image Map

A dress fit for a queen!  Fair Hippolyta indeed.

* The first production of A Midsummer Night's Dream I saw at Stratford in 1960 also had Elizabethan costuming though the fairies were dressed à la Turque.

August 28 - 1879:  Cetshwayo, last king of the Zulus, is captured by the British.

Lunedi Lunacy

Back when I was a mere stripling, as it where, there was nothing quite as funny as the old Carry On movies. Sid James, Hattie Jacuqes, Barbie Windsor (pre-East Enders), Charles Hawtrey but especially Kenneth Williams. He was pencil thin, beautifully groomed and spoke in that nasal posh accent that made the double-entendre sound more double and even more entendre! Those roles in these wonderfully silly movies and his camp Sandy and Julian sketches on Round the Horne often obscured the real talent that was Williams.

Right down to the crooning vibrato of the diseur - that Brelish-Aznavourish Gaelic nasality - he captures the essence of every popular French singer of the period.  And the lyrics - well I'm dedicating them to my darling Lara - she can use them on French Friday and impress the hell out of Monique, Benoit, Jean-Louis and the gang!

Maggie Smith once admitted that Ken Williams was the greatest influences in her life as a comic actress; from him she learned the technique that has kept her in the forefront of performers to this day - as witness her brilliant performances in Downton Abbey and recently in the The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  They had a special relationship and it showed not only on stage but when they appeared on shows like Parkinson - trading banter, barbs and sometimes arguing like an old married couple.  One night they got into a spate about politics but minutes later were reading an early poem by Sir John Betjeman, then Poet Laureate and another of Parky's guests that night.  Sir John is obviously moved by the simple, sincere reading they give of Death in Leamington.

Williams was never really a happy man - for all his wit, talent and intelligence he could never reconcile himself to being gay.  Given the characters he was famous for playing it was a sad irony. In a particularly revealing entry in his diary he wrote, "All problems have to be solved eventually by ONESELF, and that's where all your lovely John Donne stuff turns out to be a load of crap because, in the last analysis, A MAN IS AN ISLAND."  On April 15, 1988 Williams was found dead, apparently from a lethal drug overdose.  No suicide note was found but it is now widely believed that he had decided to solve his problem himself.

29 October - 1889: Stanley Park dedicated in Vancouver, BC

Mercoledi Musicale

Back in 1963 Joan Littewood, a driving force in London alternate theatre, and her company tackled World War I. Oh What A Lovely War took it title from a song of the period and using other songs, letters and historical facts it traced the trajectory of death from 1914 to 1918. Littlewood staged her show as a sea side Pierrot entertainment with the death tolls continually being toted up on a cricket score board. It was as much a bitter satire of war in general as the Great War to End All Wars.

In 1969 Richard Attenborough decided to try his hand at film directing and choose Oh What a Lovely War as his first film. Filming at Brighton Pier, a garbage dump in Eastbourne and in the Sussex Downs and keeping many of the conceits from Littlewood's stage production including the infamous score board he created a film as critical of the on-going Vietnam War as it was of World War I.

Most of the established English acting community rallied to support "Dickie" who most of them had worked with in one way or another since 1942. John Mills, Michael Redgrave and Laurence Oliver played major roles, Vanessa Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Dirk Bogarde, John Clements, Jack Hawkins (stricken with throat cancer he offered to play a silent Emperor Franz Josef,) Susanna York, Ian Holm, Jean-Pierre Cassel and Maggie Smith all make cameo appearances in vignettes of life on the home-front and in the trenches.

One of the most disturbing scenes is Maggie Smith's (yes we're on a theme here this week) turn as a Music Hall star using her wiles to conscript young men into the army. Pauline Kael referred to her performance as being "all lure with no allure." Watch for the not-so subtle change in make-up but subtle change in attitude when she pulls a young man up onto the stage.



I saw the film on my first trip to London back in 1969 at the Odeon Leicester Square and it immediately became one of my favorites. I watched it again last night on DVD and almost 40 years later it still remains a fascinating piece of film making and a burning indictment of war.

02 aprile - San Franceso di Padua

Lunedi Lunacy

Its was a Golden Age of TV Comedy: Carol, Harvey, Tim and a Guest.



Most people don't realize that Maggie Smith got her start in Revue comedy as a singer/dancer/sketch performer. I was fortunate to see her both in London (Hedda Gabler directed by Ingmar Bergman) and later when she decided to live in Stratford, Ontario and become a member of the famed Shakespeare company there. For 10 seasons she played everything - Chekhov, Congreve, Coward, Cross, Shakespeare. Her Lady Macbeth was outstanding, her Rosalind in As You Like It one of the finest comedy performances I've ever seen and even though she could do star turns she just as easily became a member of an ensemble. To this day I remember a frighteningly beautiful Three Sisters with arguably a group of the finest actors in North American at that time. It was another Golden Age.

31 marzo - San Beniamino