Andrew Gillies (5/96 Devil's Disciple)
Excerpt from CANDRAMA Canadian Theatre Research 5/24/96: Andrew Gillies
REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE
by David Akin
The Devil's Disciple. By George Bernard Shaw. Directed by Glynis Leyshon.
The Shaw Festival.
With Gordon Rand (Dick Dudgeon)
Peter Hutt (Anthony Anderson)
Sarah Orenstein (Judith Anderson)
Andrew Gillies.(Burgoyne)
NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ont. - Every spring, you can be sure that two things will happen in Niagara-on-the-Lake. The trees that line the main boulevard of this quaint village will burst into pink and white blossoms and the theatre company that makes its home here will kick off its season with an entertaining production of a George Bernard Shaw classic.
The trees have, indeed, blossomed and, with the same annual precision, The Shaw Festival has opened with a crowd-pleasing production. This year, the festival leads off with Shaw's fourth play, The Devil's Disciple, which had its gala opening Wednesday night in front of a full house.
....
In this production, Rand seems to be a symbol of nothing more than an angst-ridden teenager. He is little more than a rebel without a cause, raising a middle finger to anyone who will gainsay him.
Hutt, on the other hand, seems bored beyond belief to find himself playing a colonial pastor. So, when he must galvanize himself to become a firebrand who will win the day for the Americas, it is little more than hollow posturing.
The other players in this melodrama, though, acquit themselves with humor and conviction. Sarah Orenstein's Judith is full-blooded and compassionate; William Webster's Major Swindon is full of bluster, silliness and appropriate self-pity; and Andrew Gillies turn at General Burgoyne is suave, urbane, and humane.
But unless director Glynis Leyshon can re-direct the dramatic focus of her two leading men, her turn to open a festival season will remain a pleasant, pleasing but unremarkable event.
© CANDRAMA
Excerpt from The Stage Door 1996: Andrew Gillies
Versatility and perfection, hallmarks of the Shaw Festival
A Stage Door Review by Jim Lingerfelt and Roger Kershaw
The Devil's Disciple
by George Bernard Shaw, directed by Glynis Leyshon
- and -
Mr Cinders
music by Vivian Ellis & Richard Myers, libretto by Clifford Grey & Greatrex Newman,
directed by Christopher Newton
The Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario
April/May to October, 1996
From the opening scene, a dream sequence that was to foreshadow the entire play, we were immediately swept back into the magic of the Shaw Festival, as they recreate Bernard Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple on the Festival Theatre stage.
-----This is an old-style yarn of an adventure story, described by Shaw as a melodrama, but also a dark comedy and a critique of war. It’s set in the middle of the American Revolution, favourably interpreting the rebel cause and ridiculing the idiocies of London’s civil servants and officers with purchased commissions. Yet the rebel Americans are not all cut of the same cloth, even within one Puritan family, as is apparent when devil-may-care Dick Dudgeon appears to inherit everything and blaspheme all.
-----This was Shaw’s eighth play, and the first to make its world premiere in North America, in New York in 1897. It made Shaw so much money he gave up his day job as a critic, and never looked back. A film version in 1959 starred Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster and Laurence Olivier.
-----The current production at Niagara-on-the-Lake stars Gordon Rand as Dick Dudgeon, Neil Barclay as his half-wit brother Christy, Andrew Gillies as the historically-based General "Gentlemanly Johnny" Burgoyne , William Webster as his nit-wit Major Swindon, Peter Hutt as the Reverend Anthony Anderson, Sarah Orenstein as his fickle-witted wife Judith, and Nora McLellan as the grasping matriarch of the disgraced Dudgeon family. The play is directed by Glynis Leyshon, and designed by Peter Hartwell.
-----As with any Shaw Festival play experience for me, it is often the little things that make it so special, so perfect. The acting, the sets, even the incidental music, are always so impeccably executed that you tend to focus on the minutia that is often overlooked by other theatres. Like the many set changes, in this case executed with military precision by marching Redcoats, reminiscent of the opening dream scene. Like the mincing sycophant Major Swindon soundly rapping his knuckles on the table in defiance, and the nearly imperceptible grimace of pain that followed. Like the stirring drama of the closing scene with now-hero Dudgeon raised high on the shoulders of his countrymen, fist in the air, with Old Glory waving proudly behind him. Perfect, in every detail.
© Stage Door