Tom McCamus (4/00 Mill on the Floss)
Excerpt from Playbill 4/10/00: Tom McCamus
du Maurier World Stage Festival Begins in Toronto April 10; Peter Brook Booked
10 Apr 2000
Also from Canada, Soulpepper Theatre Company brings the North American premiere of The Mill on the Floss, directed by Robin Phillips. The innovative new adaptation of George Eliot's beloved novel is brought to the stage by a company that is one of Canada's leading interpreters of the classics. Featured are Roberta Maxwell, Tom McCamus, Stephen Ouimette, Brenda Robins and Steven Sutcliffe.
© Playbill
Excerpt from Canoe Jam!TV 4/13/00: Tom McCamus
Immature Mill shines
By JOHN COULBOURN
And while a supporting cast that includes Stephen Ouimette, Oliver Dennis, Roberta Maxwell, Diana Leblanc, Jack Wetherall, Anna Hagan and Terence Kelly bring life to the village around her, Steven Sutcliffe and Tom McCamus bring love, the first deeply touching as a deformed artist, the latter swaggeringly impressive as a wealthy rake.
© Canoe
Excerpt from The Eye Weekly 4/13/00: Tom McCamus
Triple-play carries Eliot adaptation: THE MILL ON THE FLOSS
BY KAMAL AL-SOLAYLEE
Featuring Julia Arkos, Tom McCamus, Stephen Ouimette. Adapted by Helen Edmundson from the novel by George Eliot. Directed by Robin Phillips. April 13-16 & 25-30. $25-$45. Premiere Dance Theatre, 207 Queens Quay W. 973-4000.
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Edmundson's 1994 adaptation made its North American debut last night at the Premiere Dance Theatre (apparently renamed Groome Capital.com Stage for the World Stage Festival) in a Soulpepper Theatre Company production, directed by Robin Phillips. Set in rural England, The Mill on the Floss explores the intertwining lives of Maggie Tulliver, a precocious child and intellectually gifted woman, and her implacable older brother Tom. You'll be forgiven for thinking of them as the Lisa and Bart Simpson of their day, but this is a remarkably intense adaptation that, overall, remains faithful to the essence of the original. "What's so great about this adaptation," says cast member Tom McCamus, "is that they don't try to just tell the story. They chose to take aspects of the book and dramatize them."
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The task of reawakening Maggie's passionate nature rests on McCamus' character, Stephen Guest. A member of the upper class, Stephen is instantly attracted to Maggie -- a woman who is his social inferior but his moral superior. "It's her independent spirit," McCamus says, explaining Stephen's attraction to Maggie. "I truly think he loves her with all his heart and soul. But he's still a member of a privileged class, and if they were to get married, he would have his way and stop her from being the thing that he actually loves." The Maggie and Stephen affair is one of several models for romantic relationships The Mill on the Floss examines.
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"There's the inner life of Maggie, but Phillips also makes you aware of everything around her," says McCamus on the eve of technical rehearsals. "We really can't tell until we see the whole of it, but it does feel like there's going to be a constant awareness of the world outside that finally comes and takes them away."
© Eye Weekly
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail 4/17/00: Tom McCamus
Middle-class drama merely picturesque
Kate Taylor Published Monday, Apr. 17 2000, 12:00 AM EDT
Maggie buries herself more deeply in religion and self-denial -- the less said about Tom McCamus's brief appearance as a loin-clad Christ figure, the better.
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Should she remain faithful to the ever-patient Philip, played with suitable sensitivity and pathos by Sutcliffe, or should she succumb to the charms of the witty but arrogant Stephen? A fully clothed McCamus plays that role, luxuriating in Stephen's slightly suspicious charm. With Robins successfully deepening Maggie's character and its conflicts (despite an unflattering wig) and Sutcliffe balancing the triangle, this production belatedly starts to reveal why these artists might have been drawn to the project. In the ball scene where Stephen makes his first moves on Maggie, Phillips creates a deliciously moody arena filled with hints of the sexual repression and unforgiving moral code that form this society's bitter heart. Yet it is only McCamus's twinkling eyes -- and the comically rigid backbone of Anna Hagan in the role of the tyrannical Aunt Clegg -- that ever give any hint of the much lighter notes in the novel.
© The Globe and Mail
Excerpt from Stage Door 4/29/00: Tom McCamus
The Mill on the Floss
Stage Door Guest Review by Christopher Hoile
Premiere Dance Theatre, Toronto, April and June 2000
Tom McCamus as the tutor, Mr. Stelling, was pretty much a blank. However, in his second role as Stephen Guest, Maggie's best friend's betrothed who falls in love with Maggie, McCamus was back in form because here, for once, there was a subtext to his character's words and actions, even if it was the conventional smouldering fire that finally bursts into flames.
© Stage Door
Excerpt from The Buffalo News 6/18/00: Tom McCamus
HEART AND SOUL
June 18, 2000 | JENIVA BERGER
Renowned director Robin Phillips returns to the company after directing two critically acclaimed productions during the company's inaugural season in 1998. The stellar cast includes Roberta Maxwell, Stephen Ouimette, Tom McCamus and Brenda Robins. The show runs in repertoire from July 4 to July 27 at the Premiere Dance Theatre, Harbourfront
© The Buffalo News
Excerpt from Canoe Jam Theatre 7/7/00: Tom McCamus
Mill On The Floss cooks to perfection
July 7 2000 By JOHN COULBOURN
But it is in the performances that Phillips draws from his hugely talented cast that the work makes its most amazing strides. From Torri Higginson, Julia Arkos and Robins, cast as the three incarnations of Mill's heroine, Maggie; from Sutcliffe, as the deformed young man with whom she falls in love; from McCamus, as the raffish man who steals her heart; from Ouimette as her twisted brother; from Maxwell, as both her mother and her cousin and from Oliver Dennis, Anna Hagan, Terence Kelly and Jack Wetherall in supporting roles, Phillips draws performances of amazing depth and simplicity, each perfectly balanced with the other.
© Canoe Jam
Excerpt from Now Toronto 7/20/00: Tom McCamus
Another run at the Mill
By Glenn Sumi | July 20-27, 2000
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS, adapted from George Eliot’s novel by Helen Edmundson, directed by Robin Phillips, with Julia Arkos, Torri Higginson, Terence Kelly, Roberta Maxwell, Tom McCamus, Stephen Ouimette, Brenda Robins, Steven Sutcliffe and Jack Wetherall. Presented by Soulpepper at the Premiere Dance Theatre (207 Queen’s Quay West). Runs to July 22, Thursday-Friday at 8 pm, matinee Saturday 2 pm. 973-4000.
© Now Toronto
Excerpt from Backstage 7/25/01: Tom McCamus
REGIONAL ROUNDUP: Newman's Own
By Jon Kaplan | Posted July 25, 2001, midnight
In a production to be revived later in the summer, Soulpepper Theatre Company staged Helen Edmundson's adaptation of Eliot's The Mill on the Floss at the Premiere Dance Theatre, directed in too cerebral a fashion by Robin Phillips, but featuring first-rate Canadian performers Tom McCamus, Stephen Ouimette, and Brenda Robins.
© Backstage