Andrew Gillies, David Fox, Deborah Grover, Hardee Lineham (11/07 Stuff Happens)
The Toronto Star 11/7/07: Andrew Gillies (Dr. Ken Harrison), Deborah Grover & David Fox (Virginia Beals & Gerald Gilbert in "Crossroads of the Soul"), Hardee T. Lineham (Martin Freeman in "Reawakening")
Local actors get political
By Richard Ouzounian November 07, 2007
Maybe the cast should all get danger pay. David Hare's controversial drama about the war in Iraq, Stuff Happens, is finally going to open as a Studio 180 production at the Berkeley Street Downstairs Theatre from Feb. 29 to March 29. Some of the most beloved actors in Canada are playing some of the most hated politicians in the world.
The genial Barry Flatman, a popular character actor, tackles the unenviable role of Dubya himself.
David Fox, great as the mentally challenged Angus in The Drawer Boy, brings that lack of clarity to former secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld.
Hardee T. Lineham, who has made a career of portraying loose cannons, tackles the wobbliest of all, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.
And silver-tongued Nigel Shawn Williams will illuminate the oratorical skills of former secretary of state Colin Powell.
Current secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is played by the volcanic Yanna McIntosh, more recently seen as queen Mary Stuart.
And the dapper but spiky British actor Andrew Gillies will be playing the dapper but spiky former British prime minister, Tony Blair.
Stuff Happens will be directed by Joel Greenberg. Tickets are available online at stuffhappens.ca and by phone at 416-368-3110.
Just don't tell `em Dubya sent you.
© The Toronto Star
Excerpt from Toronto Stage 2/08: Andrew Gillies
Surrendering to Hare’s Theatrical Brand of Mass Consumption
Review by Steven Berketo
Stuff Happens by David Hare February 29 - March 29, 2008 Berkeley Street Theatre, 26 Berkeley Street, Toronto, Ontario Tickets $20.00 - $45.00 (416) 368-3110 Cast Guy Bannerman, Ian D. Clark, Paul Essiembre, Barry Flatman, Neil Foster, David Fox, Andrew Gillies, Deborah Grover, Michael Healey, Sam Kalilieh, Hardee T. Lineham, Mark McGrinder, Yanna McIntosh, Sarah Orenstein, and Nigel Shawn Williams Director Joel Greenberg Set and Costumes Michael Gianfrancesco Lighting Kimberly Purtell Stage Manager Robert Harding
....
Studio 180’s staging of Stuff Happens is swift, powerful, and spine-tingling. Was it timing that allowed director Joel Greenberg to get his hands on a cast with enough vigour that could easily take on Off-Broadway and dazzle U.S. audiences? It’s a rare event for a group of such high calibre performers to take the stage for a single theatrical offering but the experience is one that will linger in your mind for months to come.
Barry Flatman’s George W. Bush is played out with seemingly less dimwittedness than the real life Commander in Chief but also with a level of covert good intent. Andrew Gillies knows how to put a real face to political survival as Tony Blair and his stage mannerisms can’t be too far off from what the British Prime Minister was demonstrating in the months leading up to the war.
As Donald Rumsfeld, David Fox has fewer lines than one would hope but even in his brief moments, the actor’s magic is as vivid as ever. Yanna McIntosh’s perpetually arbitrating Condoleezza Rice is aural and visual candy to watch in action. And as the knads-of-steel Dick Cheney, Hardee T. Lineham perfectly embodies American hard-line ideology.
Yet little compares to Nigel Shawn Williams as Colin Powell, the apparent moving target to the story. The character is crafted with moral authority that most in front of the scenes would not have witnessed. Nigel Shawn Williams firm and fragile interpretation of the man who would take the fall for the Bush Administration’s callous decision making leaves little to the imagination.
While history will ultimately dictate how future generations view those instrumental in the messy liberation of Iraq, David Hare’s Stuff Happens is an acute perspective easily capable of winning over converts.
© Toronto Stage
Toronto Star 3/5/08: Andrew Gillies
Waging war on Bush and Co.
Toronto Star Theatre
Richard Ouzounian, Theatre Critic, Toronto Star
Mar 05, 2008
Stuff Happens
By David Hare. Directed by Joel Greenberg. Until Mar. 29 at Berkeley St. Downstairs Theatre, 26 Berkeley St.
-------------------------------
There are many memorable moments in the frighteningly good Studio 180 production of Stuff Happens, David Hare's examination of how the war in Iraq came to happen, which opened at the Berkeley St. Theatre last night.
Let me recommend one to you in particular.
It comes at the end of the first act when George W. Bush is well on his way toward declaring war in Iraq. His Secretary of State, Colin Powell, comes to plead with him for decency, honour and trust in dealing with the rest of the world.
Thirty years of frustrations well up in Powell and a volcano of missed chances, compromised ideals and pointless battles pour forth from him. Nigel Shawn Williams is almost painfully vulnerable in capturing the way that this smart, sensitive man has been used by those far dimmer than him.
Bush sits in the middle, pretending to listen, but understanding little. Barry Flatman gets the surface cordiality hiding an ocean of stupidity underneath. And off to the other side is the elegantly Sphinx-like Condoleezza Rice of Yanna McIntosh, smiling tightly, saying nothing.
It's a perfect metaphor. The passionate idealists on one flank, the elegant compromisers on the other and the dumb but clever leader who made it all happen in between.
Hare is out to show us the trajectory of events that began with Bush's inauguration in January, 2001 and ended with the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003 - events that were given a lethal kick by the tragedy of 9/11, which poured reactionary lighter fuel on an already blazing barbecue of self-entitlement.
We meet all the usual suspects: the aggressively nasty Dick Cheney (Hardee T. Lineham at his slimiest), the blithely bellicose Donald Rumsfeld (David Fox at his crustiest) and the joylessly malevolent Paul Wolfowitz (Neil Foster at his nastiest).
Director Joel Greenberg keeps them all gliding around skilfully on their slickly wheeled desk chairs, moving in and out of positions of power that change as fast as the rules governing them.
You will weep for the destruction of those who believe in goodness, like Powell or Tony Blair, brought to passionate life by the eloquent Andrew Gillies.
You will gasp at the manipulative deviousness of career politicians like Paul Essiembre's silken Dominique De Villepin. And you will cheer for the simple, stolid virtue of Guy Bannerman's Hans Blix.
There are also skilfully written speeches for the anonymous watchers of this battle: Sarah Orenstein barely containing her rage as a Palestinian Academic, Deborah Grover as a blisteringly outraged Labour Politician and Essiembre again, doubling as an Angry Journalist who wonders why no one else can see the truth that is so plain to him.
Because Hare is the author, the piece is often slashingly funny and unexpectedly touching. But throughout, it moves with the dogged determination of Diogenes, holding out his lantern and looking for an honest man in a world where the power grid is down and the villains hold all the cards.
A company of 15 amazing actors, led with skill by Greenberg, offer us a compelling story whose ending has not yet been written.
If you don't care about the world you live in, then you might not like Stuff Happens. Otherwise, you can't afford to miss it.
© Toronto.com
Public Broadcasting 3/08: Andrew Gillies
Stuff Happens...
Stuff Happens is an angry, potent, fast piece of theatre that convincingly explores the players and events leading up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq by US forces.
Key players in this David Hare-penned piece are Presidents, Prime Ministers, and other politicos whose influence, motives, personality, and histories all intertwine to give a theoretical look into the highest halls of power.
Barry Flatman gives a wonderfully convincing portrait of George W. Bush, playing him as a man who glibly gallops around world politics while never immersing himself in any one thing. So long as he can go back to the ranch, sing, barbeque, and do puzzles, he's happy.
Yanna MacIntosh is a wonderfully slinky Condoleeza Rice, playing up those elegant-but-not-quite-trustworthy qualities the general public has come to know her for. David Fox is crusty, angry, and perfectly out-of-touch as Donald Rumsfeld, portraying him as a fossil well past his expiry date. As General Colin Powell, Nigel Shawn Williams gives us a man who is at odds with his conscience, his past, his present, his country and his President. His interactions within and without the halls of power allows for much of the dramatic tension and fascinating characterization of the piece to shine through.
The casting of Stuff Happens (the title taken from one of Rumsfeld's famous speeches on Iraq) couldn't be more perfect, with Andrew Gillies giving a standout performance as a frustrated, floundering Tony Blair; here is a man who knows he could lose the support of his country and Parliament, and yet desperately wants to believe he is doing the right thing.
Joel Greenberg's direction is sharp and angular, as simple, clean, and efficient as a corporate executive -and the image carries through, as each cast member is dressed, for the most part, in grey uniforms of suits, ties, skirts and jackets. Many with rotating roles (Sarah Orenstein as Joyce Rumsfeld, a suffering Palestinian,a Journalist, and a narrator, for instance) need only a shawl and/or a shift in body language, lighting, and accent to convey a myriad of emotions and experiences.
Stuff Happens may be Hare's angry polemic on the insanity of the War of Terror, but for Studio 180, the company producing this current piece, it is also a tour-de-force of fantastic acting and sharp directing coming together.
If you love your theatre on the emotional, sentimental side, you might find this isn't for you.
If, however, smart, challenging theatre that explores the historical and political contexts of the time is your thing, run -don't walk -to see Stuff Happens.
Stuff Happens is playing at The Berkeley Street Theatre (Downstairs) now through March 29th.
For more information, to go www.stuffhappens.ca
© Public Broadcasting
Studio 180 Theatre 11/09: Andrew Gillies (Dr. Ken Harrison), Deborah Grover & David Fox (Virginia Beals & Gerald Gilbert in "Crossroads of the Soul"), Hardee T. Lineham (Martin Freeman in "Reawakening")
STUFF HAPPENS by David Hare
PLAYING NOV 14 - DEC 23, 2009 • The Royal Alexandra Theatre • 260 King Street West, Toronto
David Mirvish presents the Studio 180 production
“Stuff happens… And it’s untidy, and freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.”
(Donald Rumsfeld, April 11, 2003)
Beginning in the first days of the Bush administration and following its march into war, Stuff Happens is a dramatic speculation, authenticated from multiple real-life sources, on the behind-closed-doors proceedings that have shaped recent world events.
Renowned playwright David Hare blends documented public-record information and theatrical invention to create a riveting drama that centres on still-living history. The Canadian premiere, presented by Studio 180 in 2008, played to tremendous critical acclaim and sold-out houses. In their year-end highlights, seven prominent writers from the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, NOW Magazine and National Post listed Stuff Happens among the top theatre productions of 2008.
As part of Mirvish Productions’ 2009/10 season, Studio 180 has again brought together an outstanding ensemble of Canada’s most celebrated actors for an encore presentation, this time at the prestigious Royal Alexandra Theatre.
DIRECTED BY Joel Greenberg
FEATURING Guy Bannerman, Anthony Bekenn, Richard Binsley, Ian D. Clark, Paul Essiembre, David Fox, Andrew Gillies, Deborah Grover, Michael Healey, Sam Kalilieh, Hardee T. Lineham, Mark McGrinder, Sarah Orenstein, Karen Robinson & Nigel Shawn Williams
SET & COSTUME DESIGN Michael Gianfrancesco
ASSOCIATE COSTUME DESIGNER Katherine Lubienski
LIGHTING DESIGN Kimberly Purtell
ASSOCIATE LIGHTING DESIGNER Daniel McIlmoyl
SOUND DESIGN Michael Laird
ASSOCIATE SOUND DESIGNER Derek Bruce
STAGE MANAGER Robert Harding
ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGERS Liz Campbell & Emma Laird
© Studio 180 Theatre