THEATRE REVIEW:
THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON
11 JUL/11

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 4 out of 5


NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE - It's not hard to see The Admirable Crichton — which opened last weekend at Shaw's Festival Theatre — as a sort of sibling to Peter Pan. And not just because both were authored by the admirable J.M. Barrie.

Consider: Both are firmly anchored in the jolly olde reality of the Britain of Barrie's day, albeit a reality largely devoid of the grit and grime, poverty and pathos that marked the lives of the lower classes in Victorian England. Then, having established the characters in both plays within the context of the British upper classes, Barrie whisks us away to alternate realities where things are neither as safe nor as predictable as they might be in the world in which we began these theatrical voyages.

But where Peter Pan leads Barrie's audiences into a world of childish adventure, Crichton puts us in a world more adult, although only slightly less fanciful than Neverland. Crichton starts out in the home of the affable Earl of Loam (David Schurmann), a well-known, somewhat impractical humanitarian with very strange (for his day) attitudes about universal equality.

But he is a man who lives by his principles, insisting his three daughters (Lady Agatha played by Cherissa Richards, Lady Catherine played by Moya O'Connell and Lady Mary played by Nicole Underhay) join him at monthly teas with his household staff — functions where everyone pretends to be equal. It's a practice that appalls the family's butler, the Crichton of title (played with saintly patience by Steven Sutcliffe), a man who believes there is a place for everyone and everyone should stay in their place.

But if Crichton thinks the Earl is turning the world upside down with monthly doses of egalitarianism and tea, he ain't, as they say, seen nothing yet. Suddenly, the butler, the Earl, the daughters, a cousin played by Kyle Blair and an errant and affable vicar played by Martin Happer find themselves marooned on a deserted island, where a new social order quickly emerges.

It is fanciful, silly stuff, albeit silly stuff with an edge, for Barrie takes aim at the hidebound British class system of his day and scores a direct, if now dated, hit in the process. That class system is much less powerful today and that has done a fair bit to dampen the power of the play's social commentary — a fact that hasn't seem to have disturbed director Morris Panych and his creative teams (sets by Ken MacDonald, costumes by Charlotte Dean and lighting by Alan Brodie) at all.

In the face of the play's dated social commentary, they simply ramp up the whimsy of the piece, injecting an anthropomorphic chorus of forest creatures who combine Barrie's written stage directions with a songlist of '20s music and the choreography of Valerie Moore in such a way as to make one think A.A. Milne might have served as a script consultant.

The conceit creates a brittle enough surface that the extensive cast can skate over the tale with impressive skill without ruffling too many feathers, but ultimately it fails to disguise the fact that the world it reflects and chastises has ceased to exist.

And while the work fairly shimmers with the high creative gloss Panych brings to all his work, one can't help but suspect a director as concerned with performance as concept might have helped the hugely talented Sutcliffe find and develop the darker notes the second act demands of him. And finally, such a director would never, ever, stage a curtain call that, while delightful as all get out, ultimately walks all over an ending that should leave its audience in a reflective mood.