A comedy of manners

NAC ends theatrical season with Restoration drama

Shara: "Language was used for everything in that strict society, words were used to make love"

“I admire a director with a strong aesthetic and conceptual sense of a piece. One who isn’t afraid to really put his fingerprints all over a production. Strong artists are always needed,” Caroline Cave’s voice pushes through my crackly mobile phone connection as strong and dry as sunlight, “and this is a really strong artistic team.” She’s in town as part of the NAC’s latest work: a co-production of William Congreve’s The Way of the World with the venerable and respected Soulpepper Theatre group of Toronto.

Congreve’s work is an exemplar of the late-Restoration era comedy of manners. It was a very particular and unique time in literature when language was adored and lofty, but the sexual and violent urges of society were erupting from their Puritan confinement. Congreve and his compatriots were often brutal, dirty and vulgar, but also alive and vibrant in a very celebratory fashion. This dichotomy comes out when talking to Ms. Cave and her fellow cast member Mike Shara. “It takes a lot of time and skill to immerse yourself in these words,” says Shara. “Language was used for everything in that strict society, words were used to make love.”

NAC artistic director Peter Hinton continues to delight the living hell out of me with his innovative stagings and fascinating period choices. The Way of the World is to be set in a post-war reminiscence of 1950s and ’60s America, where the parallels with the Restoration age are undeniable. “There is a sense of recovery, and of celebration” in both periods, according to Ms. Cave. Clothing, sex, gender and language were being reborn, finding a new balance as a new human spirit sweeps the world clean like a great stage, ready for the future.

As appeared in the Ottawa XPress – May 15, 2008
http://www.ottawaxpress.ca/stage/stage.aspx?iIDArticle=14668