Back to the Stratford Festival for Another Dose of ‘Rough Magic’ – front mezz junkies, Theater News

Frontmezzjunkies reports: Stratford Festival Welcomes The Importance of Being Earnest and Othello

By Ross

After experiencing my favourite opening week of the year, seven openings in the last week of May, I find myself on the way back to Stratford, returning for the second batch of opening nights at the Stratford Festival. This is where the whole ‘Rough Magic‘ excitement truly lies, not only in seeing great theatre, but in discovering how familiar stories become entirely new experiences in different hands. This year’s second set of openings feels especially enticing, bringing together two plays that have already left very different marks on my theatrical memory: Oscar Wilde’s sparkling comedy The Importance of Being Earnest and Shakespeare’s devastating tragedy Othello.

Few plays have delighted me as consistently over the past year as The Importance of Being Earnest. I was fortunate enough to see both the Grand Theatre production in London, Ontario, and the recent National Theatre production in the other London that transferred to the West End, and each found its own delicious rhythm within Wilde’s endless wit. That makes the Stratford Festival‘s new production, directed by Krista Jackson, particularly irresistible. With Carter Gulseth as Algernon Moncrieff, Joe Perry as John Worthing, Fiona Reid as the formidable Lady Bracknell, Allison Lynch as Gwendolen Fairfax, Marissa Orjalo as Cecily Cardew, Lucy Peacock as Miss Prism, and Ben Carlson as Canon Chasuble, the production promises to embrace both the elegance and the mischief that have kept Wilde’s comedy alive for generations.

At the centre of Wilde’s masterpiece are two young men who invent alternate identities in order to escape the expectations of polite society and pursue love on their own terms. The resulting avalanche of mistaken identities, elaborate deceptions, and perfectly timed handbag revelations creates one of the theatre’s great comedies, while quietly exposing the absurdities of Victorian convention. Director Krista Jackson (StratFest’s The Diviners) has described the play as celebrating “the freedom to live as deliciously as our hearts and minds will allow,” an idea that feels entirely in keeping with Wilde’s playful irreverence. It also feels perfectly suited to Stratford‘s embrace of ‘Rough Magic‘.

If Earnest arrives carrying joyful anticipation, Othello comes with a different kind of curiosity. My own experiences with Shakespeare’s tragedy could hardly have been more divided. One production remains among the most powerful evenings I have spent in a theatre with this play (NYTW’s 2016 production), while another, a 2009 off-Broadway production starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, became one of the longest three hours I can remember enduring. Few plays seem capable of producing such opposite reactions, which is precisely why I continue returning to it. When it works, its exploration of jealousy, manipulation, trust, and vulnerability can become almost unbearable in its emotional force.

The Stratford Festival‘s new production, directed by Haysam Kadri, brings together André Sills as Othello, Evan Buliung as the manipulative Iago, and Krystin Pellerin as Desdemona. Shakespeare’s tragedy follows the slow poisoning of a marriage through insinuation and deceit, as Iago carefully exploits insecurity until certainty gives way to suspicion and catastrophe. Kadri has spoken about how “a word here, a pause there, a subtle idea planted” can transform truth into uncertainty, a perspective that highlights the frightening psychological precision of the play and, unfortunately, the modern world at large.

The production also features Jordin Hall as Cassio, Jessica B. Hill as Emilia, and Rylan Wilkie as Roderigo, with design by Brian Dudkiewicz, costumes by Gillian Gallow, lighting by Siobhán Sleath, and music and sound by Thomas Ryder Payne. Together, the creative team promises a staging that emphasizes both the intimacy and the devastating consequences of Shakespeare’s tragedy.

Part of the joy of returning to Stratford each summer is the opportunity to revisit stories that already carry memories while remaining completely open to surprise. One play invites laughter through wit and invention; the other descends into suspicion and heartbreak, yet both ask audiences to examine the fragile distance between appearance and reality. That is exactly the kind of theatrical journey that makes my return to the Stratford Festival for its second round of openings worth its weight in theatrical gold.