Review:The Shaw Festival Production of Waterloo/Peter Calamai
This review of the play "Waterloo", directed by Ian Prinsloo was written by Peter Calamai and published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 8, 1998).
Review
Reviewed by Peter Calamai
The Shaw Festival Production of Waterloo
When Henry Irving acted the final scene as Corporal Brewster in Waterloo, turn-of-the-century audiences were so teary-eyed that stage managers kept the curtain down longer than usual to allow the men and women time to recover their composure before Irving took his bows.
Not today. It's not that present times are any less melodramatic — as a glance at the legal and medical dramas on television will attest — but today's audiences are far more cynical, especially about heroism.
When someone is portrayed as larger than life at the start of the drama, many now expect the reason to be so that he, or she, can be brought low later on. The kindly priest will be unmasked as a sexual predator; the open-handed philanthropist as a tax cheat, made rich by child labour in the Third World; the war hero as a fraud whose dubious exploits were embellished for official propaganda. And war heroes of any ilk are out of fashion anyhow in post-Somalia Canada, where the anti-hero movie, Saving Private Ryan, was a summer hit.
So the revival of Waterloo this summer at the Shaw Festival had to deal with this fundamental shift in society's attitudes in presenting Arthur Conan Doyle's jingoistic one-acter about a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo. It is gratifying to report that those responsible largely succeeded in meeting the challenge.
Much of the credit for making Waterloo more than a mere museum piece goes to Tony Van Bridge, the 81-year-old Shaw veteran who plays Corporal Gregory Brewster, decorated for valour at the 1815 Battle of Waterloo. The year is now 1881 and the Corporal, in his mid-80s, is the last living Waterloo veteran from his regiment, the 3rd Guards. The setting is the front room of Brewster's modest house in Woolwich, a garrison town.
Mr Van Bridge sets the tone for the production even though he does not come on stage until the short play is nearly one-third over. The first portion of the play is largely devoted to a monologue by Brewster's grandniece Norah (played by Shauna Black), who provides the necessary historical background. She is helped in this essential exposition by an artillery sergeant based locally who drops by to check up on the famous corporal 'who fought against Napoleon Boneypart'.
In one of the play's several poignant touches, Sergeant Archie MacDonald (Gordon Rand) reads Norah the details of Brewster's award from a framed newspaper clipping which the young woman calls 'a piece of print... small print', leaving the distinct impression that she is illiterate (highly likely at the time, since it was not until 1880 that education for children up to the age of 10 was made compulsory in England; and Norah later says that she's been on a farm all of her life).
From the reading, the audience learns the details of Corporal Brewster's Waterloo heroism-driving a wagon of essential musket powder through enemy fire to besieged British troops at a farmhouse at Hougoumont, a vital position. Along the way, we've also learned that the 'old gentleman' was being neglected by his housekeeper. But even that hint doesn't fully prepare us for the appearance of Van Bridge — shuffling, hacking, disoriented, and complaining that he wants 'his rations'.
From this point on, the stage belongs to the aged corporal. A modern play-goer (or, at least, this play-goer) keeps expecting something to happen, some plot development. There isn't any. What Conan Doyle gives us instead is a succession of vignettes designed to reinforce the image of Brewster as an unheroic hero, almost a hero by accident, who recalls every detail of his finest moment but is at heart modest and unassuming.
Poignant moments abound: Brewster sunning himself in the door- way, with Norah seated on the floor beside; his dismay at breaking his clay pipe, and joy at being given a replacement briar with an amber mouthpiece by the sergeant; his vicarious excitement as troops march by outside. In less sure hands than those of Van Bridge and director Ian Pinsloo, these moments could easily have been reduced to bathos and banality. Instead they are underplayed by all involved.
The only notable weakness in the Shaw production was Al Kozlik's portrayal of James Midwinter, the present-day colonel of Brewster's regiment. Although Conan Doyle specified civilian clothes for the colonel, Kozlik was costumed more like a racecourse tout than a senior officer; even more distracting was his unplaceable stage accent: it was presumably meant to be Scottish.
It is from this caricature of a Guards' Colonel that Corporal Brewster requests his only real favour as the hero of Hougoumont. When he is called to the regiment's final muster, he says, 'you won't grudge me a flag and a firing party. I'm not a civilian. I'm a Guardsman, and I should like to think as two lines of bearskins would be walkin' after my coffin.'
Even an audience raised on modern televised melodrama catches. such telegraphing, so Corporal Brewster's death a few minutes later is not that much of a shock. And wisely, the Shaw production does not attempt to emulate the milking of the corporal's final words, which Irving employed to wring tears from Victorian and Edwardian eyes. Reliving the battle as he dozes, Brewster wakes up saying, 'The Guards need powder. The Guards need powder.' Straightening up, he repeats, 'The Guards need powder.'
Irving is reported to have raised his voice on each repetition, virtually shouting the final words ('And, by God, they shall have it!) before expiring. The Shaw production dropped this final melodramatic phrase entirely, and Van Bridge lowered the volume on the third repetition of 'The Guards need powder.'
This reinterpretation succeeded. Members of the audience may not have lost their composure at the Shaw Festival, but I heard a lot of nose-blowing and saw more than a few dab at their eyes.
Peter Calamai
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
