Stratford Festival shows Daniel Craig how it’s done

After an onslaught of shaky Shakespeare plays in New York, Canada’s Stratford Festival felt like an oasis in Ontario.

It was a much-needed palate cleanser to wipe away the foul taste left by Daniel Craig’s rank Broadway “Macbeth,” in which the entire cast spoke in monotone, wore plaid and waved smoke machines. And the 71-year-old fest helped turn around my summer of discontent, marred by Shakespeare In The Park’s misguided “Richard III.”

I’ve been going to Stratford — a fun and easy destination trip for New Yorkers, with lovely boutique hotels and fabulous restaurants — for 15 years, and their actors are, for my money, some of the best at delivering classical text in the world. The experienced, earthy company makes Shakespeare look and sound easy. (It’s not.)

The festival’s comeback season ends this weekend, but its exciting lineup for 2023 includes the musicals “Rent”and “Monty Python’s Spamalot” as well as Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and “Much Ado About Nothing,” among others. Their well-received 2021 production of Edward Albee’s “Three Tall Women” just became available to stream internationally as well.

“Richard III” is among the marquee offerings at Stratford, led by festival mainstay Colm Feore, who American audiences will recognize from his extensive film career.

There are many ways to tackle the murderous, power-hungry, tricky Dick, but Feore lands on a sinuous, peripheral, smirking schemer — genuinely charming and then suddenly ferocious — who is noticed only when he wants to be. We relish spending time with Feore’s Richie, and our affection is every bit as dangerous as a dagger.

Also passionate and focused are Seana McKenna, Lucy Peacock and Diana Leblanc as Queen Margaret, Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of York, respectively. McKenna’s Margaret, not blind to Richard’s evil, is especially from-the-gut.

Staged in the intimate, thrust-stage Tom Patterson Theatre, which was just gorgeously rebuilt, “Richard III” would normally be put on in the larger Festival Theatre down the road. But the long room, in which a whisper is clearly audible, allows Richard to coerce, cajole and ruin plausibly. Ideal.

Director Antoni Cimolino keeps his excellent production simple, although his opening with the dead king first stepping out of a hole in a parking lot (where his grave was found hundreds of years later) is a clever twist. Richard’s victims returning to haunt him is another striking moment. 

Feore trades Richard’s kingdom for a stash of cash in “The Miser” over at the Festival Theatre. It’s a shrewd switcheroo for the actor from killer king to a very funny Squidward-type — Harper, an aging, money-obsessed pop whose children, Eleanor (Alexandra Lainfiesta) and Charlie (Qasim Khan), want to marry against his wishes. Harper is dead-set on protecting the greatest love of his life — dough.

What results are exploded, farcical antics, which Cimolino has always had a flair for. I’m sure broad jokes and slammed doors are a nice break from “King Lear” and “Hamlet.”

Ranjit Bolt’s new adaptation allows the actors to toss in up-to-the-minute references to news, local or otherwise, which feels appropriately Moliere-y.

An off-beat Bard at the Patterson is “All’s Well That Ends Well,” a notoriously difficult play to rally around, this time directed by Scott Wentworth. It’s a loveless love story that isn’t produced often and is made somewhat more appealing by its autumnal atmosphere and the clown Paroles (terrific understudy Jonathan Mason on the night I saw it).

Even though, once again, I did not care if whiny Bertram (Jordin Hall) and Helen (Jessica B. Hill) got together in the end, scattered idyllic and poignant moments featuring McKenna as the Countess of Rossillion and Ben Carlson as the King of France give the dusty dramedy a lift.

Flatter than “Richard III” or “All’s Well,” weirdly is “Hamlet,” Stratford’s least successful production of the Bard’s tragedy for a long stretch, directed by Peter Paysk. As the down-in-the-dumps Dane, Amaka Umeh pumps so much adrenaline into the part that Hamlet’s transition to madness (real or not) never really occurs. The entire show is non-stop, exhausting madness.

However, the actress is the stand-out of “Death and the King’s Horseman,” playwright Wole Soyinka’s critique of imperialism. The play can drag 47 years after it was written, but Umeh as the Praise Singer enlivens the piece with vigorous song and dance.

Stratford has a splendid track record with musicals (its production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” transferred to Broadway in 2012) and Donna Feore’s vivacious staging of “Chicago” is a rarity. It’s likely one of the few chances you’ll have to see a production of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s 1920s murderess musical that isn’t the current Broadway revival. 

I was struck by the 1920s-style costumes and hair, as opposed to modern tight-fitting black, and by how hilarious the show can be. Velma’s (Jennifer Rider-Shaw) “I Can Do It Alone,” Mary Sunshine’s (R. Markus) “A Little Bit Of Good” and Amos’ (Steve Ross) “Mr. Cellophane” excavated laughs I didn’t know were there, like old British kings buried under parking lots.

The dancing, choreographed by Feore, is also top-notch, nodding to Bob Fosse while going in new, flashier directions.

Feore, whose “Music Man” at Stratford in 2018 was better than what’s on Broadway right now, is expected to come to New York soon with the new musical comedy “The Griswold’s Broadway Vacation.” The director is a thrilling talent who always finds the heart of whatever she touches.

That’s a quality Broadway could always use more of.