Pentecost

By: David Edgar

Directed By: Mladen Kiselov

Stratford Festival Of Canada

www.stratfordfestival.ca

Runs: August 3^rd to September 21^st 2007

Studio Theatre

5 Stars

Reviewed By: Kindah Mardam Bey

Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant! ‘okey dokey’ as the character Gabriella Pecs (played by Lucy Peacock) might say as an appendage to a comment, in the highly acclaimed and much anticipated Pentecost. I have heard of David Edgar’s plays, but never been privy to one until seeing this highly charged, unbelievably intelligent, and emotive production of Edgar’s most famous play, at The Stratford Festival Of Canada this year. My entire body hummed after seeing Pentecost, my mind was racing with thoughts and one of them was ‘this is exactly why we go to theatre.’

A profound telling of the dissent of Eastern Europe to struggle, boundary crumbling, political turbulence and the human struggle. Edgar has been quoted as wanting a new theatre that would ‘take our times by the throat,’ and so to Pentecost has. In fact, a rather large sized lump hung in my throat for sometime after seeing the production. Pentecost is thought-provoking, cerebral fodder, emotional catharsis, messy and ugly as life so often can be, and quite possibly more effective a tool than the United Nations.

Gabriella Pec’s has made a discovery, it is a painting on the wall of a building that has had multiple transformations throughout history, not just any painting though, one that could change the balance of six hundred years worth of art history as we know it to be. Pec’s stands on a paramount historical discovery that she seeks to restore and show to the world; she invites Oliver Davenport (John Koensgen) to help assist with her discovery when art historian and American maverick Leo Katz (Jonathon Goad) decides the painting should remain where it is, left to naturally decay as time passes. In an Eastern European country, always vaguely undefined, Katz and Pec’s fight judicially as to what the paintings validity and destiny is. Already an evocative story questioning history, and religious symbolism, a shocking event occurs partway through the production; a group of refugees seeking asylum descends upon the building encasing the fresco and takes art historians Pec, Katz and Davenport as hostages to gain ground with the army encapsulating the building outside.

The play, barely sixteen years old, speaks to the soul of the world; Edgar doesn’t just ‘take our times by the throat’ he also delivers a punching blow to the audiences gut. Why have we become so distant from such struggle that Edgar speaks of in Pentecost? Is it because we are so comfortable now? Have we forgot who we are descendents of?

Possibly the most intelligent move on director Kiselov’s part was to stage this production in The Studio Theatre, small and an intimate stage that seats only a few hundred people, the audience felt like hostages to the unravelling story. The confined space and huge cast made for a strong and immediate response from the overwhelmed audience. I still haven’t managed to figure out how they put a jeep on the stage with all the cast! The audience participated in being the face of the fresco. Often the actors looked up into the faces of the audience describing the artwork; being an audience member you felt part of the story and invested in the characters. The audience literally felt as though they had participated in the event.

Even though Pentecost is a vibrantly complex and a thick subject matter of tangled bureaucracy, had you no knowledge of Eastern European politics, of art history, of the ripe dialogue pouring from every characters lips, of the dozen different languages presented on the stage, you would still respond passionately to the human struggle, to the inconclusive direction these refugees seek, to the painting hanging in a delicate balance of being destroyed. The cast pour their hearts out into the characters they play. Adrienne Gould was harrowing and heartbreaking as Yasmin, and her offstage husband Jonathon Goad as Leo Katz was innumerably as intense in Pentecost as he was playing Iago in Othello this year. Lucy Peacock, the grand dame of the Stratford stage seems to never loose her bloom, every time she performs in something new she is transformed and resplendent.

Aside from the entire cast being incredibly strong and unified in performance, garnering an overall high standard; quite possibly the only complete surprise to me was Dan Chameroy. I had seen him as the laidback Howard Keel type as Curly in Oklahoma! this year and although he had no dramatic physical change from Curly into Father Petr Karolyi in Pentecost I did not recognize him until three quarters of the way through Pentecost. Chameroy was fantastic in both productions, but he seemed an entirely different person in Pentecost then in Oklahoma!; truly an incredible actor.

Even with the actors speaking different languages, they seemed natural, blurring words together, ranting without anyone understanding, all those little ‘isms’ of language that a native people do that when others translate a language don’t. In Pentecost the cast must have taken an awfully long time and commitment to learning and perfecting the ‘ism,’ conveying realism to their performances.

I feel quite struck by Pentecost and not readily prepared to commit a review to paper as I find myself still ‘processing’ this production (however deadlines continue). The ending is heart wrenching, and even hopeless and hopeful at the same time. Consider this the ‘must see’ play of the year as it is intense, timely, and almost as relevant today as it was over sixteen years ago.

Artistic credits
Director / MLADEN KISELOV

Designer / EO SHARP
Lighting Designer / ROBERT THOMSON
Fight Director / JOHN STEAD
Sound Designer / PETER McBOYLE The cast
Father Petr Karolyi / DAN CHAMEROY
Amira / LAURA CONDLLN
Abdul / AIDAN deSALAIZ
Fatima / BARBARA FULTON
Leo Katz / JONATHAN GOAD
Yasmin / ADRIENNE GOULD
Mikhail Czaba / BRIAN HAMMAN
Cleopatra / CLAIRE JULLIEN
Nico / ROBERT KING
Oliver Davenport / JOHN KOENSGEN
Anna Jedlikova / NORA McLELLAN
Hryhoryi Korolenko / GORDON S. MILLER
Gabriella Pecs / LUCY PEACOCK
Raif / BRAD RUDY
Father Sergei Bojovic / STEPHEN RUSSELL
Antonio / ANDRÉ SILLS
Toni Newsome / TOVA SMITH

Also Appearing:
MATT CASSIDY, DANIEL ROBERTS, BRENDAN ROWLAND, NICOLAS VAN BUREK, BARRIE WOOD

Dramaturge / KALINA STEFANOVA
Assistant Director / MADD HAROLD

Stage Manager / MARTINE BELAND
Assistant Stage Manager / JOY PRIME
Apprentice Stage Manager / EMMA LAIRD
Production Assistant / LUCY MARTIN
Production Stage Manager / MARYLU MOYER