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Review: Shaw Festival’s ‘The Apple Cart’ is a game of ideas

The Apple cart

By George Bernard Shaw, directed by Eda Holmes. Until October 7 at the Shaw Festival’s Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre, 10 Queen’s Parade. shawfest.com or 1-800-511-7429

The term “versatile actor” appears, perhaps too freely, in the biographies of many talented performers today. But for Tom Rooney, whose Canadian Theater Encyclopedia entry literally starts with those two words, the descriptor totally deserves it.

You don’t have to look beyond some of Rooney’s recent appearances to understand his versatility. Last fall at Crow’s Theater he played the misanthropic protagonist in Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya.” A few months later, at the same theater, the Dora-winning actor got on all fours like a poodle in “Fifteen Dogs.” And now, at the Shaw Festival, he’s transformed into an idealistic British monarch facing an institutional crisis in George Bernard Shaw’s The Apple Cart.

Regardless of the play, Rooney is like an old-fashioned detective. He sifts through the material presented to him, finding and using the tiniest details to create performances that feel positively unexpected, unique and deeply realized.

In director Eda Holmes’ production of “The Apple Cart,” Rooney delivers virtuoso restraint as King Magnus, an intelligent, philosophical and introspective British ruler whose prime minister, Joe Proteus (an intense Graeme Somerville), tries to dispossess him. all the last remnants of power and turn the ruler into a rubber stamp.

The constitutional crisis, Proteus explains, stems from a speech Magnus made arguing for his use of a royal veto, “the only remaining defense of the people against corrupt legislation”.

Shaw’s 1928 comedy, a speculative fiction set in 1967, is a rich play of ideas: largely the playwright’s musings on political philosophies, power, and the role of the state and private enterprise.

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The little of a plot revolves around Proteus’ attempts to persuade the king to sign an ultimatum, which the monarch says will make him a doormat: “Half the country expects me to sweep my perfectly polished boots on the closet, and the the other half expects me to let the cabinet wipe its muddy boots on me,” complains the politically minded Magnus.

In Magnus’ long monologues, Shaw argues as strongly as you can find on stage for the merits of a constitutional monarchy. That these speeches are always compelling is a testament to Rooney’s skill.

He delivers these monologues with a soft rhythmic cadence, setting out his arguments (and by extension Shaw’s, for Magnus is written in the likeness of the playwright) one by one. The Benevolent King of Rooney is a monarch chained to a cage, unable to fully contribute to the society he cares so deeply about.

What also makes this piece compelling is how it reflects our current political system. Though written nearly a century ago and set over five decades in an alternate reality, some of Shaw’s predictions for the future ring eerily true.

The Britain of “The Apple Cart” is one of “solid mid-range comfort”. The general population is socially detached and largely relies on cheap offshore labour. And it’s not just the monarchy and legislators fighting for relevance. Both are confronted with the rising tide of the fictional global conglomerate Breakages Ltd., which wants to substantially influence the political discussion.

It is from this framework that Shaw asks important questions: If we live in a society where legislators care only about their power and political survival, and where big business has invaded the political arena, who will pay attention to the common people? And, by extension, is there a place for the monarchy to help fulfill the role of last defense against corrupt law?

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Although Shaw has his own beliefs, he does not answer many of these questions. Ideas are pushed into the forum, explored, discussed – often with sharp humor – but left to the public to draw their own conclusions.

Holmes’ production balances the comedic levity with the philosophical seriousness, even if some of her in-the-round staging at the Jackie Maxwell Studio Theater feels somewhat static. (Depending on where you sit, you might find yourself staring at Rooney’s back for an extended period of time.) Judith Bowden’s clinically white set, with a large pillar in the middle, also obscures some lines of sight.

However, Ryan deSouza’s original compositions bring urgency to the political procedure. And Bowden’s costumes – with lighter shades for Magnus and darker ones for the ministers – accentuate the ideological differences between the characters.

But while “The Apple Cart” is thought-provoking, you don’t notice Shaw’s self-indulgence in this work, clocking in at nearly three hours. Some of his predictions for the future are too fantastical, most notably a hilarious scene where a talkative American diplomat, Vanhattan (André Morin), gleefully announces that the US is rejoining the British Empire. Other tangential stories, such as Magnus’ relationship with his mistress, Orinthia (Sochi Fried, in a magnetic performance), are introduced briefly before being quickly broken up and never mentioned again.

Still, the Homes production is a formidable showcase for this Shaw ensemble that, in addition to Rooney and Somerville, also boasts strong supporting performances from Martin Happer and Sharry Flett. As Cabinet Secretary Lysistrata, Flett in particular delivers a blistering cry of a monologue late in the first act, bemoaning the state of affairs and the growing influence of powerful corporations influencing the public interest.

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It’s scenes like these that you come to appreciate “The Apple Cart” for what it is: a political warning about the fragility of our democratic institutions, both to today’s audiences and to those who saw this comedy-drama close to a century ago. Indeed, do not upset the apple cart.

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