Tom McCamus (11/01 Threepenny Opera)
Excerpt from Playbill 11/14/01: Tom McCamus
McCarthy, Donaldson, Blendick, Bedford, MacGregor, Hutt Share Stratford Playbill in 2002
14 Nov 2001
It'll be old home week all summer at the Stratford Festival in 2002 when favorite performers of the past perform on the prestigious fest's four stages in its 50th anniversary year.
....
Peter Donaldson will act opposite wife Sheila McCarthy in the Beverley Cross' non-musical adaptation, The Scarlet Pimpernel (he as Percy, she as wife Marguerite). They'll also sing together as J.J. Peachum and wife Mrs. Celia Peachum in the Brecht-Weill classic, The Threepenny Opera, adapted by Marc Blitzstein. Tom McCamus will play Macheath.
© Playbill
Excerpt from The Retired Teachers of Ontario 1/02: Tom McCamus
Day Trips
Below is a listing of Theatre day trips for members of District 16 and their friends.
....
Wed. Oct. 30, 2002 “Three Penny Opera” (performed in the renovated Avon Theatre)
Meet Tom McCamus as “Mack-the-Knife” in this musical production directed by the well-known Stephen Ouimette. Cost for each Stratford trip is $90.00 (all inclusive).
© The Retired Teachers of Ontario
Excerpts from The Globe and Mail 5/18/02: Tom McCamus
Homecoming kings and queens: Most of Stratford's stars have moved on to bigger paycheques over the years. But its 50th anniversary has brought them back
KATE TAYLOR Saturday, May 18, 2002 - Page R5
And this summer, he is back at Stratford, lending a bit of that star power to the 50th season that opens May 27. He is one of several successful alumni returning for a party with a guest list that includes Christopher Plummer, Brent Carver, Tom McCamus, Stephen Ouimette, Sheila McCarthy and Geraint Wyn Davies. If you take the half-full view, actors like these are fantastic ambassadors for the Shakespearean festival as they prove the value of a classical education on film sets across the continent. If you take the half-empty view, they are a serious loss to a theatre company that has problems retaining mature talent.
....
During a recent break in shooting on a film set in London where he was playing an evil geneticist in a low-budget Canadian movie, McCamus, for example, took the opportunity to see Shakespeare staged in ways he would never have experienced in his years at Stratford. "You learn other things," agreed Ouimette, who returns after a three-year absence spent on other stages and in television to direct McCamus in the role of Macheath in The Threepenny Opera.
....
At Stratford, when a Carver or a Feore stays away, the festival is losing both some fine acting and some box-office buzz. "Like most places, they do sell shows based on certain people's names," said Ouimette, who gets stopped on the street in Stratford and asked why he and McCamus, who appeared together in the festival's acclaimed 1998 production of Waiting for Godot, have been absent. "People are very loyal and faithful to the people they like."
....
McCamus recounts how, after shooting a movie recently with Montreal actor Luc Picard, he went out for a drink with him to find the Quebecker surrounded by autograph seekers. "What are you [I asked], a hockey player? We can't do that in English Canada because the American stars are so huge and you have to play in their playground. . . . We don't need that kind of star system but we do need recognition for our work."
© The Globe and Mail
Excerpt from Canoe Jam Theatre 5/31/02: Tom McCamus
Penny pincher: The Threepenny Opera has value, but it's cold as a coin
By JOHN COULBOURN May 31 2002
It proved a sometimes entertaining choice for an opening-night audience as Tom McCamus (cast as the criminally charismatic Macheath) led the company through Brecht's twisted tale, translated by Marc Blitzstein.
....
McCamus' Macheath has the necessary charisma -- but there's a forced archness to his performance that holds his audience at a distance. He lacks the playfulness found in the performances of Peter Donaldson, Sheila McCarthy and Diana Coatsworth, cast respectively as J.J. Peachum, the king of London's beggars, his chain-smoking wife and their daughter Polly, who just happens to be Macheath's latest conquest.
....
Happily, Blythe Wilson shows up later as another of Macheath's conquests to add further musical depth to the show -- and it's all underscored by some truly magnificent choral work. But McCamus can't sing, a fact acknowledged with good nature by some obvious lip-synching when the going really gets tough.
© Canoe Jam
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail 5/31/02: Tom McCamus
Brecht that doesn't come cheap
Kate Taylor Published Friday, May. 31 2002, 12:00 AM EDT
The Threepenny Opera
Written by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill
Directed by Stephen Ouimette
Starring Tom McCamus, Diana Coatsworth, Peter Donaldson, Sheila McCarthy and Susan Gilmour
....
The people in Brecht's script merely flirt with full characterization; they are mainly dark cartoons and the cast, lead by Tom McCamus's delicious work in the role of murderous thief Macheath, capture that fully. With the sly smile of the master seducer, McCamus tries on his part like a disguise, repeatedly reminding us that he is a showman playing a showman.
....
In this hard musical universe, McCamus's vocal work is satisfyingly muscular, far surpassing the last musical role he sang at Stratford in Camelot in 1997.
© The Globe and Mail
Excerpt from Stage Door 6/30/02: Tom McCamus
The Threepenny Opera
2002-06-30 Christopher Hoile
Tom McCamus (Macheath, i.e. Mack the Knife) is good at showing a kind of callous world-weariness but doesn’t really give us sense of utter evil lurking beneath cheap elegance.
© Stage Door
Excerpt from Pittsburgh Post Gazette 7/14/02: Tom McCamus
Brush up your Shakespeare, Shaw in Canada
"The Threepenny Opera"
Tom McCamus plays Macheath with a cool, matter-of-fact distance that is perfectly calculated to disappoint anyone expecting the glamour of either romance or vice.
© Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Excerpt from Echo Germanica 8/02: Tom McCamus
Stratford Festival and Threepenny Opera.
Irena Wandschneider
July 19 I happened to be at the Avon Theatre, thoroughly enjoying myself at Bertold Brecht’s "The Threepenny Opera".
....
The highest applause was directed to Tom McCamus as Mackheath, Peter Donaldson as J.J.Peachum and Sheila McCarthy as Mrs.Peachum. It always amazes me that actors - who are not singers - given the roles, can sing and they sang well.
© Echo World
Excerpt from Aisle Say 8/02: Tom McCamus
HIGH-GRAVEL-BLIND, ETERNAL HYDRA, HENRY VI (REVENGE IN FRANCE), HENRY VI (REVOLT IN ENGLAND), RICHARD III, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, THE THREEPENNY OPERA, and THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
Reviewed by Robin Breon
And yet the production thrives purely on the strength of its material with Tom McCamus as a fine Macheath backed by a sterling cast of musical performers with superb performances from Susan Gilmour as Jenny, Diana Coatsworth as Polly Peachum and Blythe Wilson as a domineering Lucy Brown.
© Aisle Say
Excerpt from Northern Life 9/4/02: Tom McCamus
Some hits, many misses at 2002 Stratford Festival
Every year at Stratford there is anticipation of great pleasures and the season's surprises. And 2002 is no exception. We watched the Threepenny Opera up close and personal to the orchestra and though Brecht and Weill wrote this political musical back in 1927, it still sounds fresh and modern. This is not a musical for Rodgers and Hammerstein fans, but Stephen Ouimette directs to balance the strength of lead actor Tom McCamus with the depth of the rest of the cast to convey the complexities of life in the gutter as Queen Victoria's coronation coach drives past. It isn't pretty, but it is good theatre.
© Northern Life