Colm!

[desoto_hia873]

My father saw Colm Feore playing Fagin in Oliver! at the Stratford Festival a few weeks ago. Upon reflection, I decided that this was something I just had to see: one of my favourite actors in one of my favourite musicals. So, I just bought tickets for the evening performance on Friday, September 15. :-) I'm in Row E, which is plenty close enough to enjoy the Colmy goodness.

ETA: I made a Colm Feore icon. :-)

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[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

The Grosse Pointe News has a theatre critic :
More, please — 'Oliver!' at Stratford
State of the Arts


Alex Suczek









06/29/2006 - Starring Colm Feore as Fagin, The Stratford Festival's revival of the great British musical, "Oliver," has a lot of appeal.

Feore with his lean, angular features, unkempt, wispy hair, sweeping coat tails and superb acting skills certainly fills the role with outstanding conviction, albeit he is a comparatively genteel version of the notorious boss of a gang of child pickpockets.

But who can compete with the smiling, cherubic faces of curly headed boys who exult in their roles as agile, mischievous cutpurses and sing "Food, Wonderful Food!" and "Where is Love?" with the purity of a choir from the nearest cathedral?

There are, for example, the absolutely perfect good manners and honesty of 10-year -old Tyler Pearse in spite of the fact that, as Oliver, he grew up in a workhouse and mingles with thieves having no one to teach him manners and ethics.

Nonetheless, he surmounts all the risks that threaten his young existence with a level of equanimity that can be achieved only in the wonderful world of musical comedy. And he shares the limelight with the slightly older and considerably more suave Scott Beaudin in the role of the Artful Dodger, whose self-confidence and exuberant performance win your heart the moment he steps on stage. In other words, the children do pretty much steal the show even though it has plenty of other attractive features.

Bruce Dow and Mary Ellen Mahoney, as Mr. Bumble and Widow Corney, managers of the workhouse, provide a hilarious caricature of a courtship between Victorian charity functionaries. But that is only prelude to the famous disposal of Oliver (after he asks for more) to become a child coffin follower for a fawning undertaker.

The boy's subsequent and prompt escape to the streets of London then brings into full realization the underlying nature of the show as a very sympathetic view of old time London with its colorful street vendors, conscientious bobbies and teeming underclass of thieves and scoundrels. Their picturesque costumes create a vivid impression of the era represented in Dickens' original book and their milling around the marketplace impresses as an artfully choreographed dance giving attractive life to the moment.

It is a colorful scene with the added high interest of Dodger's discovery of Oliver alone on the streets, which leads — with their ingenuously captivating duet, "Consider yourself at home" — to Oliver's recruitment into Fagin's fraternity. Here, as Fagin displays his skill at winning the hearts and minds of his cutpurse recruits in a dismal warehouse hideout, Feore reveals an impressive musical talent as he sings and prances his basic lesson in handkerchief snatching: "You"ve Got to Pick a Pocket, or Two."

Only in retrospect do you remember that in reality this is a scene of sinister criminality, teaching children to steal. Instead in the true musical comedy tradition, it is a charming, prankish romp.

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

This is the moment also when we meet the pivotal figure of Nancy, in the person of Blyth Wilson, who brings to her character the conflicting combination of tenderness for Oliver and hard bitten grit of life in the world of thieves and introduces us to her tough boy friend, Bill Sykes.

Her hard side, too, is surmounted by good spirits as she displays her considerable singing talent and somewhat brash voice with Nancy's famous tavern performance of "Oom Pah Pah" for the gang at the local pub. Sykes, of course, is the one irretrievably evil figure in the show against whose dark image, the basic goodness and happy ending gleam happily.

At this point, the suspense builds seriously when Oliver is taken by police and turned over to a respectable family. It is another moment of London local color as Oliver, propped up in a comfortable bed, listens through the window to the cries of the morning street vendors in an interlude recreating a charming tradition that is long lost from the life of the city. It is beautifully costumed, choreographed and musically accompanied — a shining gem of an interlude and a welcome pause in the progress of the show.

The suspense that follows is occasioned by Oliver's recapture by Fagin and Sykes, and his attempted rescue by Nancy, which brings Sykes' wrath down on her. The bobbies at last break up the gang. Fagin does not escape with his miser's hoard for his old age, and Sykes dies ignominiously as he tries to get away.

With all problems resolved and Oliver safe in the arms of his grandfather, the performance comes to an extended close with a curtain call reprise of many of the most loved musical numbers. It makes a fitting and upbeat conclusion to an absolutely first rate revival of one of England's most popular musicals.

[fishsanwitt]

Your icon *rocks* :)

Let us know how he is? Jim and I are still pissed that we couldn't see him as Coriolanus.

[desoto-hia873.livejournal.com]

My father saw Coriolanus, too, but he didn't like it much. Not, I'm sure, because of Colm Feore--I think it just wasn't to his taste.

[fishsanwitt]

The Globe and Mail had *terrible* reviews of the shows at Stratford and Shaw this year. I think the critic's on crack - we saw one of the shows he trashed and, as far as we're concerned, he's full of shit.

I'm still contemplating writing to the G&M and telling them that.