New Dubin Play
Premiers At JET

67

The Real
King David . . ..... 68

FRAN HELLER
Special to the Jewish News

"The Two Noble Kinsmen"• Rami Posner as Palamon, Michelle Giroux as Emilia and Brendan Murray as Arcite.

TEE THING

In its first season, the Stratford Festival was
a. six-week summer event comprising two
Shakespearean productions under one leaky tent.
Today, in its 50th year, it offers 17 varied
productions in four venues over a six-month
period, and retains the distinction of being
the largest repertory theater in North America.

he specter of World War
II was less than a decade
old when, 50 years ago,
the idea for the Stratford
Festival as a mecca for the healing
power of the arts was born. In the
wake of Sept. 11, that healing power
remains more important than ever.
In times of trouble, people turn to
music and words, notes Stratford's
artistic director, Richard Monette,
and Shakespeare's words have a par-
ticular.power
.
to heal and help us
understand the human condition.
Productions of more than half a
dozen of the Bard's works — from
King Lear and Romeo and Juliet to
All Well That Ends Well and a pail- of
Henry VI plays — fill this year's
schedule.
In 1952, Stratford, Ontario, resi-
dent Tom Patterson pursued his
dream of creating a theater festival in
his hometown as a way of helping
the local economy.
On July 13, 1953, Sir Alec
Guinness walked out onto the then
revolutionary thrust stage designed
by Tanya Moiseiwitsch. Under the
direction of Sir Tyrone Guthrie, the
festival's first artistic director (1953-
55), he appeared in the first Stratford
Festival performance of Richard III, a
play which returns to the Stratford
stage this season.
Though Shakespeare has remained
at the core of the festival's mission,
the company; from the second season
onward, went outside the
Shakespearean canon to draw from
the entire opus of theatrical history.
This year's non-Shakespearean ros-
ter includes a first-time production of
The Scarlet Pimpernel. The play was
written by Beverley Cross and adapt-
ed from the popular novel by
Baroness Orczy, whose swashbuckling
tale of adventure and romance, set in
the time of the French Revolution,
has held tremendous appeal over the
years for young readers.
Musical theater has always played
a significant part in the Stratford
tradition as well, beginning with

STRATFORD on page 72

al*

5 / 3
2002

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