Andrew Gillies (7/95 Cavalcade)
Excerpt from The Record 7/12/95: Andrew Gillies
Cast brings Cavalcade back to life : Breath-taking presentation of 1985 recreated faithfully for current season
The Record - Kitchener, Ont. Author: Jamie Portman Date: Jul 12, 1995
The epic background of Cavalcade, which runs until Oct. 28, is immense. What ensures the show its intimacy is that the foreground focuses on the lives of two families, the upper-class Marryots (Andrew Gillies and Fiona Reid) and the working-class Bridges family (David Schurmann and Wendy Thatcher). One thinks of Reid's emotionally naked portrayal of Jane Marryot, a wife and mother whose resilience is stretched to the breaking point by the horrors of war. Or Gillies' touching portrait of Robert Marryot, a good and honorable man whose values and certainties are put under siege by the whirlwinds of change. Fiona Reid as Jane Marryot and Andrew Gillies as Robert Marryot in the Shaw Festival production of Cavalcade.
© The Record
Excerpt from Toronto Star 5/22/11: Tom McCamus, Andrew Gillies
Shaw at 50: Guts and glory in the 1980s
Richard Ouzounian Published On Sun May 22 2011
Under the artistic directorship of Christopher Newton, the Shaw Festival reached new heights during the 1980s, mounting a series of epic productions that are still spoken of with awe 30 years later. Heath Lamberts' virtuoso turn in Cyrano de Bergerac and the astonishing ensemble work of Cavalcade, led by Fiona Reid and Andrew Gillies, raised the bar for Canadian theatre to a new height.
....
1985 ANDREW GILLIES (Cavalcade)
It is hard for me to imagine anything to rival the experience of playing in the Shaw Festival's 1985 production of Noel Coward's Cavalcade, directed by artistic director Christopher Newton. This production epitomized the ensemble ethic that was at the core of Christopher's idea of a great theatre company and to that end, virtually the entire acting company was involved in this production, playing the more than 200 characters in the play. I will never forget the audience response on the opening night in particular. Prolonged applause and cheering, mixed with tears and laughter that continued long after the curtain dropped. Truly this was a moment of Canadian theatre history.
© Toronto Star