Tom McCamus, Chick Reid (5/07 The Ideal Husband)
Excerpt from The Record 5/17/07: Tom McCamus (Picture at NNW)
THE BUZZ AT STRATFORD
ROBERT REID (May 17, 2007)
Outgoing artistic director Richard Monette has chosen the theme of the outsider to tie together his last season at the helm of the Stratford Festival. "Artists by definition are outsiders," Monette observes in a recent interview. The theme emerged as he put together his 2007 playbill, which includes works he has wanted to present from the beginning of his tenure in 1994. "Outsiders appear in almost all of the plays we're doing," he says of this year's offerings. The festival's 55th season opens May 28 at the Festival Theatre with Brian Bedford directing and performing the title role in King Lear.
....
Monette directs Tom McCamus and David Snelgrove in An Ideal Husband, which opens Aug. 11 at the Festival Theatre. The set is designed by Cambridge native Michael Gianfrancesco.
© The Record
Excerpt from The Toronto Star 8/13/07: Tom McCamus
Monette bows out with hollow Husband
By: Richard Ouzounian Theatre Critic, Published on Mon Aug 13 2007
Tom McCamus broods darkly as Sir Robert Chiltern, the "ideal husband" whose perfect marriage is about to be destroyed by the revelation that he practised a 19th-century form of insider trading and built his career upon it. But McCamus is so rigorously gloomy from the start that it's hard to believe he was ever really happy.
© Toronto Star
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail 8/14/07: Tom McCamus
You might want to leave this Husband
KAMAL AL-SOLAYLEE Published Tuesday, Aug. 14 2007, 12:00 AM EDT
An Ideal Husband Written by Oscar Wilde
Directed by Richard Monette
Starring Tom McCamus, David Snelgrove and Brigit Wilson
At the Festival Theatre in Stratford, Ont., until Oct. 27 (1-800-567-1600).
Monette is trying a kind of restrained melodrama that is oxymoronic in theory and in practice. The cast, on the other hand, seems to have a different idea altogether. McCamus is Chekhovian; Wilson is all Shavian and Snelgrove, in his best outing in years, Monettian - that is, he aims to please.
© The Globe and Mail
Excerpt from The Record 8/14/07: Tom McCamus, Chick Reid (Nicole Carter in "Blood Ties")
Bard-like take on Wilde a triumph: Outgoing artistic director Monette chooses Ideal Husband, with themes of scandal, corruption, for his final Stratford production
August 14, 2007 ROBERT REID RECORD STAFF STRATFORD
Richard Monette took scandal as the theme for the final production he would direct as artistic director of the Stratford Festival. The Ideal Husband is also the last production to open during Monette's last of 14 seasons.
....
The story revolves around Sir Robert Chiltern, a politician beyond reproach, and his adoring wife, Lady Chiltern. The couple are enjoying social and matrimonial bliss in posh London until the sinister Mrs. Cheveley arrives from Vienna with blackmail on her mind. The dastardly Mrs. Cheveley has evidence that Sir Robert got his leg up the socio-political ladder as a young man by selling cabinet secrets to a stockbroker. Sir Robert's political bacon is saved by none other than his best friend, Lord Arthur Goring, a notorious philanderer and witty layabout -- at least according to his father, the Earl of Caversham. Tom McManus and Brigit Wilson do a nice job of fleshing out the characters of Sir Robert and Lady Chiltern. Meanwhile, David Snelgrove works within his artistic comfort zone as Lord Arthur. Chick Reid's Lady Markby and Brian Tree's Earl of Caversham are especially proficient supporting roles.
....
The cast was enjoying a standing ovation when Monette was handed a bouquet of red roses and gingerly escorted on stage by a couple of actors. The applause continued as Monette, with tears in his eyes, extended a series of kisses to cast members and then gave one big kiss to the audience. Then he walked into the darkness under the famous balcony, leaving cast members on stage. It was a brief, yet moving, farewell to a man who has given so much to the place that will always be his creative and artistic home.
An Ideal Husband continues through Oct. 27 at the Festival Theatre. Tickets available by phone at 519-273-1600 or by e-mail at orders@stratfordfestival.ca
© The Record
Excerpt from The Hamilton Spectator 8/18/07: Tom McCamus
Wilde deserves better
Hamilton Spectator (Aug 18, 2007)
At Stratford, matters are less felicitous in Richard Monette's rather obvious, over-the-top production in which Dixie Seatle plays Mrs. Cheveley like some wicked stepsister in heat and Tom McCamus is all but unintelligible as Sir Robert.
© Hamilton Spectator
Excerpt from Ottawa Citizen 8/23/07: Tom McCamus, Chick Reid
Cast stumbles on uneven Wilde plot
By The Ottawa Citizen August 23, 2007
McCamus is never less than convincing with his portrait of a man who finds his integrity under siege because of a morally questionable act long ago.
....
Chick Reid's garrulous society matron is so low-key and fluttery that she blunts the barbs she's supposed to be throwing around her social circle.
© Ottawa Citizen
Excerpt from Pride Source 8/30/07: Tom McCamus
A man who loves, a woman who learns
By Robert W. Bethune Originally printed 08/30/2007 (Issue 1535 - Between The Lines News)
Dixie Seatle gives a perfectly wicked amoral edge to Mrs. Cheveley, while Tom McCamus and Brigit Wilson bring a more sober, yet still sparkling verbal dexterity to Sir Robert and Lady Chiltern - the two who must learn who they really are and what they really value in order to learn how to love each other as they deserve.
© Pride Source
Excerpt from Stage Door 9/3/07: Tom McCamus, Chick Reid
"Not So Wilde"
2007-09-03 Christopher Hoile
Oscar Wilde’s comedy “An Ideal Husband” is the last play directed by Richard Monette during his tenure as Artistic Director of the Stratford Festival.
....
Only a few actors--Sara Topham as Mabel Chiltern, Chick Reid as Lady Bracknell-like Lady Markby, Severn Thompson as the Countess of Basildon, Bruce Dow as Gorling’s butler Phipps and especially Brian Tree as Lord Goring’s father the Earl of Caverson--have any sense of the refined artificiality required in a Wildean comedy. Otherwise, Tom McCamus’s dour naturalistic style as Sir Robert clashes with it completely.
© Stage Door
Excerpt from Southwestern Ontario 9/6/07: Tom McCamus, Chick Reid
An ideal ending: Monette triumphs with An Ideal Husband
Thursday, September, 06, 2007 - 12:12:59 PM
The coolly charming Sir Robert is played with natural cadence by Tom McCamus.
....
Other performances that deserve a word include Chick Reid as the happily nattering and oblivious Lady Markby, and the aforementioned Brian Tree (who shares Brian Bedford's talent for comic timing) as the Earl of Caversham, the long-suffering father of Lord Arthur.
© Southwestern Ontario
Excerpt from Classical 963 FM 11/15/07: Tom McCamus
Stratford Festival 2007 - Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband
by Stefan Di Iorio | Nov 15, 2007
Tom McCamus as the erring Sir Robert Chiltern has the part nailed, except words are lost at high passion.
© Classical 963 FM