Toronto Sun, June 27, 2005
A too high-falutin' 'Orpheus Descending'
By: John Coulbourn
Sometimes it's best to just forget who wrote it and get on with it. Certainly, that approach could only enhance the Stratford Festival's ambitious production of Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending that opened Thursday on the stage of the Tom Patterson Theatre.
It remains, nonetheless, a production with much to recommend it, marked, under the direction of Miles Potter, by moments of compelling dramatic power and filled with beautifully crafted performances.
But in a story that is essentially all about a community gone horribly wrong, Potter ultimately fails to fuse those moments and those performances into a believable world that can contain Williams' compelling, tragic and ultimately flawed tale.
It's almost as though, faced with the magnitude of telling this story, Potter and his extensive cast of 17 can't quite shake off the full weight of Williams' reputation -- its never-ending Southern langour -- and simply get on with telling his story.
It all begins when charismatic drifter Val Xavier (Jonathan Goad) pulls into a small Southern town and ends up working for Lady Torrance (Seana McKenna) in her husband's store.
As he watches the straight-forward and tragic Lady struggle with the impending death of her husband (David Francis) and the pressures of a small town, Val finds himself inadvertantly drawn into a tangled web that has already ensnared not only Lady, but the tragic wild child, Carol Cutrere (Dana Green, not quite wild enough) as well.
In the central roles, Goad and McKenna give strong individual performances, but together, they fail to generate the sexual electricity needed to fire the story. Indeed, the entire production seems oddly asexual as Potter relies on Williams to tell us of the effect Val is having on the distaff instead of showing us.
Things are further impeded by Potter's willingness to turn even the smallest supporting turn into a classic Williams' role.
While one appreciates the fine work done by Fiona Reid, Dixie Seatle, Sarah McVie, Walter Borden, Brigit Wilson and several others, one can't help but wish they'd been encouraged to blend more thoroughly into the background created by designer Peter Hartwell in the way that Thom Marriott and Scott Wentworth do, stepping to the fore only when dramatic punch demands.
What this Orpheus Descending needs is a chance to get down and dirty.