THEATRE REVIEW: THE THREE MUSKETEERS


Pictured: Jonathan Goad, Graham Abbey, Mike Shara, Luke Humphrey

JOHN COULBOURN, Special to LFPress
03 JUNE 2013
R: 1.5/5

STRATFORD - It’s something most of us don’t want to see on a highway, let alone in a theatre. But if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like sit in a theatre and watch the effect of a slow leak on a perfectly good tire, you might want to consider the Stratford Festival’s production of THE THREE MUSKETEERS, which opened in the Festival Theatre Saturday.

And yes, that would be Peter Raby’s adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ novel of the same name, an adaptation which has graced this stage in triumph on three previous occasions — premiering in 1968, and reprised in 1988 and most recently in 2000. And, under the direction of Miles Potter, it starts out this time in pretty smashing fashion, too, with a swashbuckling sword fight between the young D’Artagnan (an easygoing Luke Humphrey) and his father (Wayne Best) as the former, an aspiring musketeer, prepares to leave, with his father’s blessing, to seek fame, fortune and adventure in Paris. But the trip is barely underway and young D’Artagnan’s voyage begins to lose steam as Potter struggles to keep the theatrical action-adventure ball in the air and all eyes upon it.

Problems are evident almost from the get-go, as young D’Artagnan encounters the evil Comte de Rocheford (Michael Blake), lieutenant to the evil Cardinal Richelieu (Steven Sutcliffe). It’s a chance encounter meant to set up a long-running feud, but Potter and fight director John Stead serve up a particularly savage beating instead, setting the tone for a violent production which frankly, would fare better propelled by more derring-do than brute force.

Recovered and finally in Paris, young D’Artagnan finds himself in the midst of a ill-conceived theatrical funhouse, largely inhabited by cartoon characters like Louis XIII (Keith Dinicol), his apparently bone-headed queen (Nehassaiu deGannes) and, most particularly, by the evil Milady De Winter (the usually-watchable Deborah Hay in what one can only hope will be the worst performance of her career).

He also falls in with the three musketeers of title — the vain Porthos (Jonathan Goad in a too-obvious fat suit), the aesthete Aramis (the always-watchable Mike Shara) and the world-weary Athos (Graham Abbey, who played D’Artagnan in the 2000 production.) And though the four of them act and interact well, Potter fails to forge them into a force powerful enough to carry the episodic tale, instead allowing his production to bog down on Douglas Paraschuk’s overly-elaborate set, squandering virtually all the promise of the Festival’s newly-restored thrust stage.

With most of the performances hitting the stage DOA, and only Gillian Gallow’s costumes and Michael Walton’s superb lighting to enliven it, the first act feels interminable, its brevity only obvious in the wasteland that Potter allows the second act to become. Working with an impressive cast and a problematic script, which has proven nonetheless to be wonderfully stageable, Potter cobbles together a show which is, at its best, utterly forgettable. And sadly, it starts with its best — and goes downhill from there.