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August 28, 2008 (07:57 am)
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For
almost a century now Ottawa has been blessed
with an icon in the Arts community. Between
Rideau St and Bessesser St. on the busy
thoroughfare of King Edward Ave. you will
find a theatre company like no other. The
Ottawa Little Theatre. has been the centre
for community theatre in Ottawa since they
were established as the Ottawa Drama League
way back in 1913.
A
community theatre since its inception the
OLT is proud of the fact that it has been
the centre of amateur theatre influencing
this art form Canada wide since before World
War I. With time, the theatre has built
up a reputation for quality which results
in a subscription base of 6500 patrons.
If you speak with Robin Riddihough, President
of the theatre, (an interview with the
man follows this article) you will
hear the pride in his voice when he states
that the theatre is financed through subscriptions
and ticket sales without funding by any
government body.
The
theatre itself, which was built in the early ‘70s
from insurance money and private donations after
a fire gutted the theatre’s original home
(a church that was transformed into a working
theatre), is a spectacle in itself. Where
most companies would declare bankruptcy and move
on after a devastating fire, the OLT with the
help of the community treated the fire as a blessing
in disguise. As a church is built with worship
and prayer in mind it is not surprising that its
structure could lead to limitations when it is
converted into a theatre. But with it gone, the
company was released from any limitation the church
provided and built a theatre which is now the
envy of many professional theatre groups.
The
theatre seats 510. The stage is large and can
be seen unobstructed, without aids, from any of
the seats. The lobby is large and has a bar with
soft and hard drinks (all very reasonably
priced) that give patrons both the leg room
to stretch and wander and the comfort of quenching
their thirst.
If
you are privy to a tour of the theatre (they
give Open House tours occasionally) you will
see that below the stage they have a carpentry
shop. The designs for the stage are built and
through a trap door the finished work can moved
up through the ceiling (or floor depending
on you vertical location) and placed on the
stage. Other rooms of interest are a Green Room
with a built in kitchen, a prop room, and a costume
design room, a make up room, a laundry room, a
hair salon and a practice room where the actors
rehearse for upcoming performances.
Although
the center of all theatre companies is the staging
of performances, a community theatre is much more
than that. The OLT supports local artists through
the Ottawa Art Association. Before a performance
or during intermission in the lobby you will see
paintings and drawings from the members of the
association for sale. They range in price from
70 dollars to a few hundred.
Other
services include costume and prop rentals, drama
classes for young and old, director classes, musical
theatre classes and even a drama camp in the summertime.
To
support the playwriting community, the OLT has
an annual competition. The Canadian One Act Playwriting
Competition is entering its 65th year. There are
four prizes starting at $500 to $1000 for the
winner.
Other
than the paintings and artwork from the Ottawa
Art Association, you will see two works (not
for sale) by artist Bruce Garner. When you
approach the main doors on King Edward you will
see the first piece. Located to the right of the
doors attached to the brick is “Theatre
Masks” a metal sculpture depicting the two
masks (one happy, one sad) that has been
associated symbolically with theatre from its
beginning as an art form. It was donated to the
theatre from the friends and family of Mr. and
Mrs. James K. Murray. The second piece was placed
on the wall of the stairwell leading up to the
theatre lobby area. “Prelude” a donation
by Garner in 1988 to celebrate the theatre’s
75th anniversary, is also sculptured in metal
and shows what looks like a performer in costume
as Peter Pan may have dressed.
If you wish to learn more details about the upcoming
performances or the theatre’s history just
visit their website at: www.o-l-t.com |
by
Scott D. Brown |
| Photo
Gallery: |
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Items of interest mentioned:
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Title:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream |
| Year:
1999 |
| Director:
Michael Hoffman |
| Writing
Credits: William Shakespeare |
| Main
Cast: Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer,
Stanley Tucci, Rupert Everett and Calista Flockhart |
| Run
Time:
116 minutes |
| Rating:
3.5/5 |
| Review |
| Michael
Hoffman (Soap Dish, One Fine Day, Restoration),
with this film, has joined a long list of directors
who have adapted Shakespeare’s funniest play
to film. We can look as far back as film’s
silent era for J. Stuart Blackton and Charles Kent’s
version in 1909 for the beginnings of the adaptation.
But the 1935 version directed by William Dieterle
and Max Reinhardt and staring a young Mickey Rooney
as Puck is the best version of the play; this version
by Hoffman falls somewhere in the middle. Shot in
Tuscany with elaborate detail to the visual aspects
of the film, it is a beauty to watch. The setting
is late 18th century with as much detail to costumes
as with scenery, you come to wonder why Hoffman
didn’t put as much work in the actual story
of the film. Hoffman wrote this screenplay and it
seems that he relied on the all star cast to bring
the story to life. Except for Kline’s brilliance
and some moments from Tucci (a favourite actor of
mine) the rest of the cast were usually just adequate.
The most enjoyable
part of the film comes at its end where the comedy
of errors Pyramus and Thisbe is enacted. It makes
fun of Shakespeare’s love tragedy Romeo
and Juliet to hilarious results. It outshines
the rest of the film for pure fun, which is in
a way, disappointing. You want the main character’s
parts to be the most humorous, as they should
be (how can people changing love alliances at
the sprinkling of fairy dust not be), but they
fail to compete with the lesser parts of this
“play within a play”.
The musical
score, like the scenery, is gorgeous. Simon Boswell
is responsible for the film’s score, but
with Felix Mendelssohn, Puccini and Verdi adding
to the acoustic beauty of the film, he had help
to make the soundtrack worth a purchase.
I will suggest
that you familiarise yourself with the play before
watching this film as it will be difficult to
follow. The actors speed through the script to
sometimes dizzying effect. Also Hoffman, it seems,
assumes you know the story since he spends little
time in an explanation of what you see on the
screen. Although he usually would be correct in
this assumption, those who are ignorant of Shakespeare
will not enjoy this film.
Overall,
Hoffman did a credible job brining Shakespeare
alive on film. But he seemed to concentrate his
efforts on the visual aspects of the film sometimes
ignoring character development and plot explanation;
beautiful scenery, beautiful costumes, beautiful
music, beautiful actors (Especially Flockhart
and Pfeiffer) plainly a beautiful film but hard
to follow with confusion its largest flaw. You
will be rewarded in watching this film more than
once as a second and third viewing lessens the
confusion making the beauty of the film come to
the fore.
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Title:
The Alexandria Quartet |
| Author:
Lawrence Durrell |
| Published:
1957-1960 (4 vol.) |
| Rating:
4/5 |
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| Review |
| The
Alexandria Quartet is actually not a book, but four
books. They are: Justine (1957), Balthazar (1958),
Mountolive (1958) and Clea (1960). All four books
are set in Alexandria, Egypt in the 1940s. The books
mostly center on L.G. Darley, a British expatriate.
Justine, named after Darley’s love, is a novel
that starts the tetrology, and tells of Darley’s
attempt to explain and understand their break-up.
The second novel, Balthazar, tells the same story,
but through Balthazar’s eyes. Balthazar, a
friend of Darley, is a mystic and doctor so he colours
the events in Darley’s life from a more philosophical
point of view. Mountolive, the third novel, switches
styles where it tells of events from the third person.
The forth novel, Clea, moves the story along where
Darley meets his true love Clea Montis and WWII
begins. Durrell,
with this tetralogy, joins Hemmingway, Miller
and Fitzgerald as expatriate Americans telling
of sensuous love stories in exotic places. Durrell’s
books can be beautifully written but if you wish
to have a fast placed plot, you are looking in
the wrong place. The Alexandria Quartet is at
its heart a love story told from the male perspective
and therefore can be read and enjoyed by men as
well as women. You just have to be interested
in a love story and have the fortitude to spend
the time that four novels worth of reading entails.
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Title:
Songs For Swingin’ Lovers |
| Artist:
Frank Sinatra |
| Original
Release Year:
1955 |
| Label:
Capitol |
| Rating:
4.5/5 |
| |
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| Track
Listing: |
01.
You Make Me Feel So Young (Gordon/Myrow) - 2:57
02.
It Happened in Monterey (Rose/Wayne) - 2:36
03.
You're Getting to Be a Habit with Me (Dubin/Warren)
- 2:19
04.
You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me (Fain/Kahal/Norman)
- 2:48
05.
Too Marvelous for Words (Mercer/Whiting) - 2:29
06.
Old Devil Moon (Harburg/Lane) - 3:56
07.
Pennies from Heaven (Burke/Johnston) - 2:44
08.
Love Is Here to Stay (Gershwin/Gershwin) - 2:42
09.
I've Got You Under My Skin (Porter) - 3:43
10.
I Thought About You (Mercer/VanHeusen) - 2:30
11.
We'll Be Together Again (Fischer/Laine) - 4:26
12.
Makin' Whoopee (Donaldson/Kahn) - 3:06
13.
Swingin' Down the Lane (Jones/Kahn) - 2:54
14.
Anything Goes (Porter) - 2:43
15. How
About You? (Freed/Lane) - 2:45 |
| Review |
| Considered
Sinatra’s best up tempo album, he takes on
a variety of material from Gershwin to Porter. Working
with Nelson Riddle (arrangements) Sinatra becomes
one of the greatest vocalists in American music
history. Riddle, because of this partnership became
legendary also. Riddle’s interpretations of
various songs, some over 20 years old at the time,
became staples in Sinatra’s canon from his
‘50s Capitol years. Highlights include “Pennies
From Heaven” and “Love Is Here To Stay”
and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”.
Songs For Swingin’ Lovers takes swing music
to its apex and can be considered one of the best
swing albums from the ‘50s. Riddle doesn’t
hold back making use of a full orchestra that participates
smoothly. A great album that has been re-issued
on to CD as the album cover indicates. |
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Location
Ottawa Little Theatre
400 King Edward
Ottawa, Ontario
K1N-7M7
Office:
233-8948
Back Stage:
235-4290
Wardrobe Dept:
565-5716
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| Interview
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January
12, 2004 |
with
Robin Riddihough
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Position
Title: President
Place of Birth:
London,
England
Education:
University
Degree in Science
Interests:
Painting,
Community Theater, Science, Literature
Quote:
“Now I got freedom to do something that
I always wanted to do all my life.” |
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| Scott
Brown:
So, Robin, Can you tell me how you ended up becoming
associated with the Ottawa little theatre? |
| Robin
Riddihough:
Yeah well, as a child my parents were involved with
theatre, amateur theatre in England. As a child
I started out with a little puppet theatre, and
they gave me a little puppet theatre to play with.
So I had this little toy theatre and puppets and
I was always fascinated by theatre. So as I grew
up and went through school, I was always kind of
associated with theatre and when I went to university
in London, England, I thought I would like to get
into theatre and in fact I spent a lot of time;
I played in a band I performed on stage and for
a year after I got my first degree I in fact tried
to make a living in Cabaret in London, England.
This was in the early sixties about the time of
Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and you know the fringe…
it was tough. We were doing similar kind of stuff.
Anyway, after a year of doing that I realized it
was a pretty hard work to go through and it was
easier to make a living using my degree which was
in science; and to become a scientist. I’d
also got involved at that point in making sets and
painting sets for some of the university productions
around London, England. So I’d done a lot
of painting for sets. So I went off to be a scientist
but wherever I was in the world and I worked in
Italy and Ireland and Canada, Britain and all over
the world. I always got involved in community theatre.
And started designing sets, designing sets for theatre
and taking them and building them. So when I finally
I came to Canada about 26 years ago, lived on the
west coast for 10 years, and came back to Ottawa;
and all that time very much associated with community
theatre. So I retired from the government, the federal
government about 2-3 years ago and miraculously
they paid me a pension for the amount of work I’ve
been doing with them. So, all of a sudden now, I
have the ability to spend all my time doing theatre.
So I’m still now designing sets. I design
3 or 4 sets a year here at this theatre. I’ve
got into the management of the theatre through being
first one of the directors and then on the board.
So in a way I see my federal pension, my government
pension, like a federal grant to the arts. Now I
got freedom to do something that I always wanted
to do all my life. But now, I finally got the freedom
to do it. |
| SB:
How long have you been President? |
| RR:
About three years now. |
| SB:
So the election just came through in at the end
of December and they reinstated you? |
| RR:
They did. |
| SB:
For your second term? |
| RR:
Yeah, that’s right yes. |
| SB:
Maybe we can talk a bit about the history of the
theatre. It’s been here since… |
| RR:
Well the theatre itself as an organization has been
here since 1910 -1912 when it started out it didn’t
have its own building or anything; it used to perform
in various places including the auditorium of what
is now the Natural History museum. A little auditorium
and it performed in there. It eventually got a hold
of church which was a part of this site at the corner
of King Edward and Bessesser and that was converted
into a theatre and that was its home for a number
of years and eventually that burned down it burned
down in 1971 I think it was and they raised the
money and built the current building which opened
I think in 1972 so we’ve been here on this
corner for quite a long time but only in this building
for about 30, 32, 33 years. |
| SB:
Now it’s always been a community theatre.
It’s never been professional… |
| RR:
No but its unusual in that as a community theatre
its sufficiently successful that we have a lot of
permanent staff so for instance we have a technical
director, we have a master carpenter…we have
a general manager, box office clerk, a subscription
clerk… a person who looks after costumes.
We have in total about ten full time professional
staff. So, although the people on the stage, and
the directors and the actors and the designers are
all volunteers, in fact the whole building is run
by professionals. So, although its community theatre
in so far as the actors and everyone performing
is community it has a lot of professional help. |
| SB:
It’s never been thought to go into the professionalizing
it? It kind of changes the whole philosophy of the
place? |
| RR:
Well it’s a question of analyzing the success
of this theatre. The success of this theatre is
that you have this incredibly dedicated group of
7000 subscribers who subscribe to our season…
who put down their money and come regularly. We
put on the kind of middle of the road but excellent
accessible theatre which people want to see. You
know the past we probably did a lot of English comedies…
now we do many more Canadian plays. Last season
we had 4 Canadian plays, I think, this year we have
3 or 4 plays by Canadian authors. So we are trying
to make sure that we are putting on community theatre
but never the less it’s not edgy theatre.
We are not doing experimental theatre… we
are doing solid accessible quality theatre. We have
a steady subscription base and that’s what
keeps us going. I think if we moved toward a professional;
and start paying actors and start paying directors…
immediately the cost of a ticket would probably
double. So we are able now to offer our subscribers
essentially 12 dollars a ticket which is pretty
good for a subscription to a performance in a theatre
like this. So we would have to double it unless
we were to go out, at the minute we have no grants,
no foundation money involved, no city money involved,
there’s nothing it’s entirely run on
those subscriptions and the box office sales. |
| SB:
The yearly subscription is 83 dollars. |
| RR:
That’s right at the moment, its going up to
96 I think next year. |
| SB:
Which isn’t bad? |
| RR:
Compare it with a movie house or any of the other
theatres and the other theatres in town do get big
grants either from the city or federal governments
so they are able to keep their prices, even then
they are probably double ours, but nevertheless
there are able to keep them down. But yes there
has been discussions over the years about turning
professional but from time to time we hire a professional
director to maintain the standards here… but
its just a one off thing to try and keep our standards
up. |
| SB:
So early on you moved to King Edward into a church
first, to repeat what you were saying, into a church
first. The church burnt down according to the picture
downstairs on July 1st 1970 and then how did this
(moving his hand around the theatre) end up coming
about? |
| RR:
Well at the time in 1970, Ottawa Little Theatre
was at that time a very important theatre in Ottawa
with an incredible amount of support from the CBC…
so there was an enormous rallying of community support
in fact what happened was with the insurance on
the building and an enormous amount of community
support they raised the money to build this building.
So, this building was built entirely on the existing
assets of the theatre. It was done on enormous public
support for the Ottawa Little Theatre and what it
had been. When the OLT started back in 1910, 1912,
it was really the only theatre in Ottawa. It had
the backing of the Governor General who was very
interested in that type of thing and so everybody
came. Another name associated with the theatre was
Yousuf Karsh, the photographer. He came, an immigrant
to Canada, didn’t really know anybody. He
came down to the theatre and met the person who
became his first wife here. She was an an actress
here. Then he became the official photographer for
the OLT. In many ways, go back in his memoirs; he
said a lot of what he learned about photography,
he learned here. You will see that his lighting
in his photographs is very stage… stage type
lighting because he essentially learned his photography
here. But he was a great supporter of the theatre.
And it was very much in the social, what should
I say, I don‘t know, it was very much ‘the’
place to be in the theatre in Ottawa. So when it
burned down there was an enormous ground swell of
community support to make sure it continued… |
| SB:
Basically, the church might have not been exactly
how everybody wanted it. You kind of had to adjust
to the dynamics of the church. Then when it burned
down you could actually put it exactly the way a
theatre should be. |
| RR:
Exactly, we were able to build a theatre which,
as you’ve seen, has remarkable facilities.
There are not many theatres were you got a rehearsal
room as big as the stage which is always available
and you got enormous dressing rooms and green rooms
and a workshop under the stage; all of those kind
of things. We really have superb facilities and
a very large welcoming lobby. When the 500 people
come out of the auditorium and mill around in the
lobby its not really that crowded its just nice
for the people to walk and look at the pictures.
It’s been very well designed. It works very
well. |
| SB:
Now we will go on to a more of a personal bend.
Most of the people I will be interviewing will be
giving me their favorite book, their favorite movie,
and their favorite maybe we should do a play, we
are in a theatre company, and their favorite music
CD or album. Let’s first, since we are in
a theatre company, of all the plays you have come
in contact with what’s your favorite play? |
| RR:
Well I think my favorite play is probably A Midsummer
Night’s Dream by Shakespeare. When I was a
child I was brought up on English pantomime. I don’t
know if you know about English pantomime. It’s
a very strange theatre form which evolves out of
Comedie Del Arte and involves a lot present scenery
and funny people and lovers and cross-dressing,
men dress up as women, and women dress as men. I
was brought up on that because I like pantomime.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream when I lived in
England we lived near Stratford in the middle of
England …. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
to be almost like a pantomime. There’s everything
in there. Completely silly, you know, filled with
magic and people cross-dress and… and you
can interpret so many different ways. One of the
things I did about four or five years ago while
I was here I did my first set design for A Midsummer
Night’s Dream. That was really fun. I just
did it like an English pantomime. It had completely
crazy scenery and it all changed and looked silly
like cartoons and stuff like that. I really loved
that play it was kind of a fun play. So everybody
that does it, does it in a different way you know
when you see the film with Calista Flockhart in
it or whatever it is I mean that’s fun… |
| SB:
When I was in high school I saw the Penguin Theatre….they
were a traveling band and went around all of, I
don’t know, I guess Ontario, but they came
to the school I was in and they did that and I had
to leave because it was too funny. I had to leave
the theatre or actually it was a gym because I was
laughing too hard and I was disturbing everyone
else but yeah it was a great play. The thing about
it was… in Shakespeare’s time, women
weren’t allowed on stage so all the women
parts were played by men and with the, I can’t
remember the name of the person, but he had to play
a women on stage but then dress up as a man in order
to attract another woman. |
| RR:
That’s right Shakespeare had real fun with
that kind of thing. I recently saw a ballet on TV.
Ballet British Columbia did a version of it - a
thing called The Fairy Queen and then Puck sort
of shaking the flowers in people’s eyes so
that the first person they see they fall in love
with. Emilia Arnold, she did in The Ballet of British
Columbia production, shakes it on the girls and
she wakes up and sees the other girl. So suddenly
the two girls fall in love with each other and the
two guys are totally shut out they don’t know
what to do: “hey, hey what do we do?”
It’s quite fun. |
| SB:
What is your favorite book? |
| RR:
Oh, my favorite book, well when I look back the
thing with books is they sort of change if you change
over the years but I suppose my all time favorite
book is a thing called The Alexandria Quartet by
Laurence Durrell which I read when I was impressionable
and a student…… and then my first job
was on a ship working in the Mediterranean which
was about 1962 when I was going around on the ship
as a scientist and we kept visiting the places that
Durrell used to live in and I was reading the book
at the same (time) and we went to Alexandria and
it was just great. That book and the fact that in
that book you read one book and you think you know
the story and then you read another book and learn
that somebody has a totally different angle on the
same story and then you read the third book and
you think oh my God I didn’t understand anything
from these first two books. Three different versions
of the same set of events, I find that fascinating.
In many ways, looking back, I think that’s
still my favorite book. |
| SB:
Music, what is the CD you listen to when your driving…. |
| RR:
I suppose almost anything by Frank Sinatra at his
peak. Frank Sinatra in the fifties when he is kind
of at the peak of his powers to really swing and
had that sort of vulnerable bit but could really
swing and punch a number… like Songs for Swingin’
Lovers or something like that are ones that I’ll
always put on because it is my favorite. I once
saw Sinatra, I used to work selling ice cream at
Hammersmith … in London and we had a Sinatra
concert once and he came with just, knowing you
kind of see Sinatra in front of an enormous Nelson
Riddle Orchestra and all of this kind of thing,
he came with just a piano, and base and drums and
himself. For three hours, just incredible; I mean
you didn’t miss the orchestra at all, he was
just fabulous. So yeah, I suppose I’m a real
child of the fifties and sixties. |
| SB:
Frank Sinatra is good. What I would like to do is
thank you for spending probably about an hour with
me and showing me around and letting me pick your
brain. |
| RR:
Ok, that’s great. |
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