Thoughts On the 2024 Season
Well, the OntarioStage Awards have been posted and I am back in centuries old Connecticut, “where tradition is a way of life™,” reminiscing.
At this time of year, my beloved wife and I would indulge in a conversation about which of the two major festivals, Stratford or Shaw, had the stronger season, stronger of course being a loaded term and open to dispute. The last two seasons, if memory serves, the verdict came down in Shaw’s favor.
This year the picture is somewhat different, not least because my wife has departed for the undiscovered country and I am left to my own devices.
A glance at the OntarioStage Awards would suggest that the two big festivals dominated the season. But that’s a bit misleading.
Stratford had some major successes with Something Rotten, La Cage Aux Folles, and Salesman in China. Its also mounted three disappointing Shakespeares, normally its strong suit.
Shaw, too, had big hits with My Fair Lady and One Man, Two Guvnors, but the remainder of their season was middling, Candida a notable exception.
For me the real news of the 2024 season was the dominance, artistically speaking, of the Blyth Festival and Here For Now Theatre (HFN).
These two “lesser” festivals mounted “perfect” seasons, by which I mean that every show they presented was at the very least very good. In many cases they were exceptional.
For sheer consistency they simply could not be beat. Good, sometimes great plays, wonderful casts, and terrific directors. Winner after winner. Not a loser in the bunch.
Blyth and HFN benefit from having very clearly defined missions: “new Canadian plays on rural themes” in the case of Blyth and feminist theatre that “centers” (a term I loathe but find myself using more and more) plays by and about women.
Shaw and Stratford on the other hand (and understandably so) have to take into account the sociopolitical trends that are roiling the contemporary theatre world, and that takes its toll.
I am reminded of a great line from The Goon Show of the 1950s:
“Caesar is all things to all people.”
“It must be hell in there!”
Unfortunately, theatergoers who make an annual pilgrimage to Stratford for a week or two cannot fully appreciate what Blyth and HFN have to offer because they present their shows sequentially and do not operate on the same repertory schedule as Stratford and Shaw, which lets you see as many as eight plays in a week. (Shaw is a bit too remote to make a visit to Blyth or HFN feasible.) At best they might see one, perhaps two shows.
Even so, I would encourage regular Stratford Festival visitors next year to find time to take in at least a HFN show. They are, after all, in the same town. This past season I prevailed upon visiting friends to do just that and they were thankful for the experience.
The other great joy for me in 2024 was the opportunity to see six plays by Norm Foster, both premieres and revivals. The revivals of Halfway There and Doris and Ivy in the Home at Drayton were especially enjoyable. I take a certain quiet pride in being instrumental in convincing an amateur group in Manhattan to mount Halfway There this December.
I hope that as time goes by more and more Americans will discover the pleasures of Norm Foster’s plays. He’s frequently compared to Neil Simon, although I find his work much less hard-edged.
He does get produced in the U.S. but on closer examination I realized that most of those productions were aimed at Canadian snowbirds in Florida!
Looking forward, I note that Paul Gross and Martha Burns who starred in Slings & Arrows, the TV show that first lured me to Stratford, will be starring in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf in Toronto this coming January.
I’m hoping to make it. You?
