THEATRE REVIEW: LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN


Pictured: Martin Happer, Tara Rosling

JOHN COULBOURN, Special to TorSun
10 JUNE 2013
R: 5/5

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE — Director Peter Hinton and his design team tackle the Shaw Festival’s production Oscar Wilde’s comedy, LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN: A PLAY ABOUT A GOOD WOMAN, with such spit, polish and enthusiasm they earn the trust they need to pull it off in style.

Indeed, as Hinton’s shifting tableau of Victorian women flirting with fans gives way to the opening scene on the Festival Theatre stage, glimpsed through the aperture curtain developed by Hal Prince in Kiss Of the Spider Woman, this is a feast — flawlessly crafted characters, beautifully costumed by William Schmuck, each living an illusion of a wonderful life while speaking wonderful witty lines, brought together to underscore Wilde’s indulgent affection for the foibles of the human race as represented by Victorian society.

Marla McLean is the Lady of title, although whether she is the ‘Good Woman’ is open to debate. Married to the wealthy Lord Windermere (a letter-perfect Martin Happer), with whom she has a six-month old child, she is celebrating her 21st birthday as the show begins, playing with the fan her husband has given her and playing at being a grande dame too. But, while she is entertaining a fan of another sort — Gray Powell’s edgy, seductive Lord Darlington — the Duchess of Berwick (Corrine Koslo, auditioning for Lady Bracknell in subsequent productions of Wilde’s Earnest) drops by with news that Lord Windermere has not only been keeping company with the mysterious Mrs. Erlynne (Tara Rosling) but perhaps has been supplying the continental lady of mystery with money, too. Reeling from these revelations, Lady Windermere is driven to despair when her husband demands Mrs. Erlynne be invited to the birthday celebration planned for the evening.

Featuring an elaborate, melodramatic plot almost impossible to discuss without spoiling the fun, this is a Wilde play that offers a stable of wild characters that Hinton serves up with relish — dissolutes like Patrick McManus’s Mr. Dumby, faded beauties like Sharry Flett’s Lady Plymdale, timid ingenues like Kate Besworth’s Lady Carlisle and delightful dolts like Jim Mezon’s Lord Lorton, even the by-now-obligatory Wilde stand-in (a page-bouyed Kyle Blair as Cecil Graham, dropping bon mottes like fairy dust). They inhabit a series of sets pieces, wistfully inspired by great artists of the period — Whistler, Gaugin, Boldini and Cassatt , all evoked in breathtaking fashion by designers Teresa Przybylski (sets) and Louise Guinand (lighting) — before blossoming into a complete own world as the story closes.

Hinton’s inspiration is not purely historical either, and while he marks everything with a theatrical Victorian reserve that borders on the stilted, he livens things up with contemporary musical references ranging from Rufus Wainwright to Katy Perry with a few classical stops in between. In what amounts to a flawless production, Hinton’s only misstep is his failure to trust his audience (or perhaps his playwright) sufficiently and his series of often fuzzy projected Wildean epigrams adds up to little more (and a lot less) than gilding on a lily that is already golden.