The venerable Stage Centre Productions has been presenting comedies, dramas, thrillers, and musicals alike for over 45 years. Their seasons offer eclectic works with classic favourites like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Miracle on 34th Street” to more obscure offerings like “The Actress” and “Blue Stockings”. The company is well known for its high production values, wonderful period costumes and authentic furnishings. Their most recent production of Neil Bartlett’s adaptation of Camille by Alexandre Dumas fils (the younger, his renowned father the author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo) upholds their solid reputation as a company devoted to providing audiences a theatrical experience with impact.
Camille is a sensuous yet gritty 19th century love story centering around Parisian prostitute Marguerite Gautier (an elegant and exuberant Heather Goodal) who, despite suffering from tuberculosis lives a glittering, moneyed life of aristocratic parties and balls. She lives life to the fullest until she throws it all away for the reckless, headstrong, and not-nearly rich enough Armand Duval (a melancholic Holm Bradwell), with whom she has fallen desperately in love.
Director Elaine O’Neal has assembled a talented cast who rise to the challenge of reviving this classic love story for a modern audience. O’Neal’s program notes decry her desire to expose “the restricted roles women were and still are allowed to fulfil in our society”. Her desire to tell this story from a distinctly feminine perspective is both refreshing and revealing. She illuminates in Marguerite the incongruity of a woman who markets herself very well but whose very profession denies her the right to her own sexuality. Though chased by misery, humiliation and inexorable tragedy, her love is powerful, her impact on society indelible.
The play begins at the auction of Marguerite Gautier’s possessions shortly after her death. Former lovers, business associates, rivals and others attend to pilfer, reminisce, and attest to her scandalous irresistibility to men and women alike. The set, by designer Pierre Rajotte (doing triple duty by also designing the costumes and playing flamboyant aristocrat Gaston Rieux) is a wonderfully authentic bilevel drawing room replete with lush settees, gilded high-backed chairs, oriental rugs, coffee tables, oil portraits, loveseats, even a full-sized grand piano illuminated by an ornate chandelier suspended majestically above. Larger furniture pieces adorned with various trinkets (provided by Shannon Breedon) were spot on. An excellent introduction to the world of the play and means to easily keep us there.
Pierre Rajotte’s sumptuous costumes evoke the sensuous excess of the Parisian high class. Finely detailed gowns, poofy dresses, wide-brimmed bonnets with feathers, top hats and tails enrich the tapestry of the era with its myriad of fabrics and textures. Superb!
Lighting design by Marc Siversky transports us from the Paris opera to a drawing room to a summer home in the country. His dramatically stylized blue moonlight streaming through the window in the piano area is coolly sensual. A subtle projection of the Paris skyline is a nice touch. From a very bright centre stage area, Siversky succeeds in producing depth and dimension in adjacent areas of the set.
John Palmieri’s well placed sound design manifests a palpable sense of foreboding.
Heather Goodal plays Marguerite as a larger-than-life party girl, seemingly unaware at the outset that despite her opulent lifestyle, her “business” is floundering while her debts are devouring. Despite occasionally letting her voice drop in volume, she is beautiful, graceful and mysterious, convincingly juggling her feelings of angst, love, and sacrifice.
Holm Bradwell plays Armand Duval like a love-sick schoolboy. He nicely captures the immaturity and earnestness of the character, though his motives and passions seem somehow muddled at first as he proclaims in his first few lines that making a whore fall in love with him is a challenge “spectacularly worth doing”. What is he revealing about his tortured soul? Bradwell works hard building chemistry with Goodall. More inflection and lilt in his vocal delivery will ensure the audience’s continued enjoyment of his performance.
As Prudence Duvernoy, Marguerite’s loyal and dedicated friend and neighbour, understudy Marisa King gives a poised and charming performance. Her expressions, timing and strong speaking voice are a joy to experience and utterly convincing.
Another fine performance is offered by Christine Dick as Nanine, Marguerite’s hard-working and obsequious housemaid. Continually flustered and run off her feet, Dick plays the devoted servant with an expressive face and moments of humour which contrast beautifully with her feelings of despair as she witnesses the slow decline of her mistress.
Supporting cast members portray their characters with aplomb. Lindsay Woodford is having much fun as the comedically coquettish “Olympe”, while Jamie Salloum is a caring Dr. Korreff. Pierre Rajotte provides a foppishly comedic portrayal as Gaston. Joseph van Veen is the self-righteous Baron de Varville and Scott Griffin as M Duval is quietly menacing.
Kudos to Stage Centre for its thoroughly enjoyable staging of this complex story of love, loss, sacrifice, societal roles of 19th century women and what has changed and what hasn’t. Don’t miss this fine production!
