'Eat

On Stage In Canada

Barenaked Ladies at Stratford; strippers at Shaw.

The music o
Barenaked
Ladies
graces the
Stratford
Festival's
production o
Shakespeare's
`As You Like
It": Jewish
lead singer-
guitarist
Steven Page
is at left.

DIANA LIEBERMAN
Special to the Jewish News

B

e the first on your block to hear the latest
songs written by Canadian pop group
Barenaked Ladies — at the Stratford Festival
of Canada.
The five-man group, fronted by Jewish lead
singer-guitarist Steven Page, has composed inciden-
tal music and five complete song settings for the fes-
tival's production of Shakespeare's comedy As You
Like It.
"Barenaked Ladies are the perfect collaborators for
this project," said Stratford executive director
Antoni Cimolino. "Their wit and energy are posi-
tively Shakespearean."
Song and dance have always been an integral part
of Shakespeare's plays, said Harvard University pro-
fessor Stephen Greenblatt, author of Will in the
World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (see
accompanying sidebar).
"All the plays, not just the comedies, are one step
from being musicals," Greenblatt said. "In his own
time, it was not uncommon for characters who had
just died the most bloody deaths to pick themselves

up after the last act, dust themselves off, join hands
and dance."
Page said writing music to Shakespeare's words
was ca. gift."
"It's hard to ask for a better co-writer, really, even
if he is a little unbending in his approach to collabo-
ration," Page said.
As You Like It, which began in previews April 27
and runs through Oct. 30, is one of 14 plays on
Stratford's 2005 schedule. These include two other
works by Shakespeare, Measure for Measure and The
Tempest. The Ontario repertory company also fea-
tures two modern musicals this summer: Hello,
Dolly, by Jerry Herman, and Into the Woods, written
by James Lapine with music and lyrics by Stephen
Sondheim.
Among the nonmusical offerings is a new drama-
tization of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov by
noted Canadian Jewish playwright Jason Sherman.
Each actor in the Stratford repertory company
performs in several plays throughout the season, and
many return year after year to the Ontario festival.
In addition to the plays themselves, the Stratford
Festival offers tours, concerts, lectures, talk-backs
with cast members and other activities.

At The Shaw

As the music of pop group Barenaked Ladies makes
its Stratford debut, the Shaw Festival, in Niagara-
on-the-Lake, Ontario, presents the story of a real-
live naked lady with the musical Gypsy.
Born of the talents of an all-Jewish creative team
— writer Arthur Laurents, composer Jule Styne and
lyricist Stephen Sondheim — this fictionalized
biography of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee runs April 12-
Oct. 30 at the Shaw's Festival Theatre. It's the block-
buster presentation for the festival, which presents
plays by George Bernard Shaw and his contempo-
raries.
Since Shaw lived from 1856-1950, that covers a
lot of dramatists, and the 2005 season includes 10
works in all, along with a generous schedule of read-
ings, seminars, tours and other events.
Along with Shaw's You Never Can Tell and Major
Barbara, these include The Autumn Garden, by
Jewish playwright Lillian Hellman, and Happy Ene4
with music by Kurt Weill, the son of a German can-
tor, and lyrics by non-Jewish German refugee
Bertold Brecht.

ON STAGE IN CANADA on page 51

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