I could have gone to Niagara Falls. It's only about an hour and a half from Toronto, and it is, I always tell people, one of very few famous tourist sights that truly does not disappoint. Stonehenge and the Statue of Liberty are smaller in person, lots of Washington is blocked off to thwart terrorists, the Sphinx had a very bad nose job. But two natural wonders, despite being cliche destinations and, admittedly, overrun with camera-wielding tourists in RVs, live up to the hype: the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls.
You can't die without seeing the Falls. Brave the crowds, pay for the parking, walk past the crap souvenir shops, find a good vantage point and just stare at that massive cascade. It beggars description. The sheer size of the hole in the ground, the height from which the water falls, and all that glassy, surging, foaming torrent ... it takes your breath away. The sheer volume of water is boggling to contemplate. And do the Maid of the Mist. Don the poncho and ride out there toward the rocks and into the spray, and hear the story of the little boy who went over and survived, and all the unfortunates who didn't.
I could also have gone to Niagara-on-the-Lake for the Shaw Festival. The only reason I didn't is that I've done it many times before. Why? Because it's terrific, that's why. The Shaw Festival serves up a varied menu of top-notch theater every summer, and there's a little bit of everything: Shaw plays, obviously, but also musicals, comedies, dramas, older, modern ... and the town just couldn't be more charming. If you go in high season you may have to crowd-surf a bit, but they're there because there's so much to see and do. If it's too crowded or touristy in NOTL for your tastes, you can taste wine at the many wineries around the Niagara region. The countryside is just gorgeous.
But it happens that on the particular day I had free to take in some theater, I was drawn instead to the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario. (How lucky Torontonians are to be within two hours of both the Shaw and the Stratford!) They had a production of "Hamlet," and I'm a Shakespeare fan who'd never actually seen that play live. And although I'd been often to the Shaw, I'd never been to Stratford. Time to broaden my horizons!
Once you get out of the Greater Toronto Metropolitan Area, which takes nearly an hour in exhilarating traffic (I like a challenge), and you get out toward Kitchener, you are suddenly engulfed in delightful rolling farmland, green and cow-bedecked and beautiful. The drive into Stratford is very pretty, and the theater nestles among beautiful gardens full, at this time of year, of gently waving flowers of many kinds and colors.
I've been so sleep-deprived, I was terribly afraid I wouldn't make it through a three-hour play. Sitting in a plush chair, in the dark ... I dreaded nodding off sometime after "oh my prophetic soul" and waking up to see bodies all over the stage.
But I hardly needed all the coffee I slurped: The play was remarkable. All the principals were wonderful -- Ben Carlson as Hamlet, Scott Wentworth and Maria Ricossa as Claudius and Gertrude, Geraint Wyn Davies as Polonius, Adrienne Gould as a childlike and then animal Ophelia -- and I loved the 1910 Edwardian costumes, all browns and grays and whites to convey mourning and desolation and cold Scandinavian winter. The sets and effects were minimal but very evocative; in outdoor scenes it would occasionally snow, but instead of having buckets of fake flakes, just a sparse sprinkling would flutter down now and then, as on a day when an overcast sky can't make up its mind (hmmm ... just like a certain title character).
The most amazing thing to me was how conversational and natural Shakespeare's dialogue sounded. There were laughs! More than a few! Nobody ever gets Shakespeare's jokes anymore. But you know he leavened even his tragedies with some lighter moments. This production really let them come out, and I never realized how many funny lines there are in Hamlet -- granted, a lot of the comedy is in the delivery. The actors and director have the work and the credit. I've never seen a funnier, more real "Hamlet," and any actor or theater-goer who's been intimidated by Shakespeare or "Hamlet" would find this production a real eye-opener.
And so back to Toronto in the golden evening, back through the farms and the suburbs until the CN Tower was back in sight, and a night in the venerable and luxurious Fairmont Royal York Hotel. It's an oldie, but a goodie, smack in the middle of downtown and across from Union Station. For a long time, it was the tallest building in Toronto, and its massiveness still holds its own against the metal-and-glass towers that now surround it. The health club is surprisingly large for an older hotel, and it includes a pool and whirlpool, where I soaked away the chill of open graves in Elsinore and the tension of Toronto traffic.
It's hard to believe that a few scant hours after leaving the Royal York, I was landing in Pittsburgh. So we come to the end of this two-week odyssey. I'll close with an epilogue and the last batch of pictures soon.
You can't die without seeing the Falls. Brave the crowds, pay for the parking, walk past the crap souvenir shops, find a good vantage point and just stare at that massive cascade. It beggars description. The sheer size of the hole in the ground, the height from which the water falls, and all that glassy, surging, foaming torrent ... it takes your breath away. The sheer volume of water is boggling to contemplate. And do the Maid of the Mist. Don the poncho and ride out there toward the rocks and into the spray, and hear the story of the little boy who went over and survived, and all the unfortunates who didn't.
I could also have gone to Niagara-on-the-Lake for the Shaw Festival. The only reason I didn't is that I've done it many times before. Why? Because it's terrific, that's why. The Shaw Festival serves up a varied menu of top-notch theater every summer, and there's a little bit of everything: Shaw plays, obviously, but also musicals, comedies, dramas, older, modern ... and the town just couldn't be more charming. If you go in high season you may have to crowd-surf a bit, but they're there because there's so much to see and do. If it's too crowded or touristy in NOTL for your tastes, you can taste wine at the many wineries around the Niagara region. The countryside is just gorgeous.
But it happens that on the particular day I had free to take in some theater, I was drawn instead to the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario. (How lucky Torontonians are to be within two hours of both the Shaw and the Stratford!) They had a production of "Hamlet," and I'm a Shakespeare fan who'd never actually seen that play live. And although I'd been often to the Shaw, I'd never been to Stratford. Time to broaden my horizons!
Once you get out of the Greater Toronto Metropolitan Area, which takes nearly an hour in exhilarating traffic (I like a challenge), and you get out toward Kitchener, you are suddenly engulfed in delightful rolling farmland, green and cow-bedecked and beautiful. The drive into Stratford is very pretty, and the theater nestles among beautiful gardens full, at this time of year, of gently waving flowers of many kinds and colors.
I've been so sleep-deprived, I was terribly afraid I wouldn't make it through a three-hour play. Sitting in a plush chair, in the dark ... I dreaded nodding off sometime after "oh my prophetic soul" and waking up to see bodies all over the stage.
But I hardly needed all the coffee I slurped: The play was remarkable. All the principals were wonderful -- Ben Carlson as Hamlet, Scott Wentworth and Maria Ricossa as Claudius and Gertrude, Geraint Wyn Davies as Polonius, Adrienne Gould as a childlike and then animal Ophelia -- and I loved the 1910 Edwardian costumes, all browns and grays and whites to convey mourning and desolation and cold Scandinavian winter. The sets and effects were minimal but very evocative; in outdoor scenes it would occasionally snow, but instead of having buckets of fake flakes, just a sparse sprinkling would flutter down now and then, as on a day when an overcast sky can't make up its mind (hmmm ... just like a certain title character).
The most amazing thing to me was how conversational and natural Shakespeare's dialogue sounded. There were laughs! More than a few! Nobody ever gets Shakespeare's jokes anymore. But you know he leavened even his tragedies with some lighter moments. This production really let them come out, and I never realized how many funny lines there are in Hamlet -- granted, a lot of the comedy is in the delivery. The actors and director have the work and the credit. I've never seen a funnier, more real "Hamlet," and any actor or theater-goer who's been intimidated by Shakespeare or "Hamlet" would find this production a real eye-opener.
And so back to Toronto in the golden evening, back through the farms and the suburbs until the CN Tower was back in sight, and a night in the venerable and luxurious Fairmont Royal York Hotel. It's an oldie, but a goodie, smack in the middle of downtown and across from Union Station. For a long time, it was the tallest building in Toronto, and its massiveness still holds its own against the metal-and-glass towers that now surround it. The health club is surprisingly large for an older hotel, and it includes a pool and whirlpool, where I soaked away the chill of open graves in Elsinore and the tension of Toronto traffic.
It's hard to believe that a few scant hours after leaving the Royal York, I was landing in Pittsburgh. So we come to the end of this two-week odyssey. I'll close with an epilogue and the last batch of pictures soon.
1 comment:
Samantha: Thanks for the kind comment about my home town, and the Festival. One little gem as you make your way toward Stratford is totally unknown ... unless you know about it, of course.
In New Hamburg there is a retail plaza on the south side of Highway 7 at Bleams Road. These days the MacDonalds might fool you into passing by, but one of the shops across the plaza is Kaeseman Cheese, which sells locally produced cheeses.
If you're lucky, they will have at least a few bricks of their seven year old cheddar. Right ... seven. It is so tangy and crumbly, yet without the "chemically" edge of fake cheddar It is by far my favourite cheddar, although a 2-year raw milk cheddar from Quebec comes close.
Back to Stratford ... the Festival theatre is amazing, its construction being one of the reasons (apart from the abilities of the actors) that the dialog is so easy to discern. On a dark day, I once was able to stand on the stage and view the theatre from the players' perspective. Once you have done that and understand that the construction makes this 2200 seat facility intimate in spite of its size, you get another clue as to how the productions can be so wonderful.
It appears that you may not have been able to dine in Stratford after the play. In addition to "fine" dining at places such as Rundles, The Old Prune, The Church, etc., my top recommendation is Bentley's pub at 99 Ontario Street. The fare ranges from "pub grub" to fine casual creations, all of it normally very good. But with a nice selection of good brews and a wonderful crowd, it's such an easy place to just relax.
Bentley's is also a hangout for the actors and other illuminati; you can run into folk like Loreena McKennitt having a night out with friends.
Now I feel homesick.
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