After leaving Stratford and achieving a higher profile in films and on television, Colm Feore returns this season in star-actor form, displaying his versatility by playing Shakespeare's Coriolanus, Moliere's Don Juan (in English and in French) and Dickens' Fagin [acted, sung and danced in Lionel Bart's Oliver!]. If he was put off by losing the limelight to a tiny, baby-faced tot in this production, he didn't show it. Seemingly delighted with the little scene-stealer, Feore lifted him from behind at the end of the opening night curtain calls, and set him downstage in the spotlight, then sneaked off to leave the child alone onstage to acknowledge a wildly cheering audience.
Stratford's two musicals this season reach a level not quite achieved there since the heyday of Brian Macdonald's classic stagings. Oliver! plays better than it has any right to on the big Festival Theater stage, splendidly directed and choreographed by Donna Feore, designed by Broadway master Santo Loquasto, and cast with Stratford's usual pros but also an amazing group of child performers.
And then there's this little natural. Surprisingly fine child-actors have been famously exciting in this musical, starting on London's West End with Leonard Whiting (later the film Romeo most notable for his bare behind) and David Jones (sensational enough to earn a Tony Award nomination when the show went to Broadway before Jones joined The Monkees). But they were young teens playing the Artful Dodger. Tyler Pearse, an Ontario choirboy whose first ever audition landed him this title role went into previews for this first stage role at the age of nine and turned ten just before opening night. He sings beautifully, but he is also dead-on the choreography, delightful as an actor, and completely spontaneous and natural looking throughout. This is a gamble that really paid off.
Lionel Bart softened Dickens' villainous Fagin to become more likable for a happy ending. Colm Feore gets what hints of pedophilia, meanness and mercenary manipulation he can while leaving his Fagin open to suggestions that he might really care for the little pickpockets and is greedy and miserly out of neediness. His "Pick A Pocket or Two" is a showstopper, and his "Reviewing the Situation" is more a rich soliloquy than the usual comic number. Brad Rudy, a Stratford factotum invaluable as a Shakespearean character actor, dance captain, and much else, is an unusually scroungy, menacing Bill Sikes, who even sings well. Bruce Dow plays The Beadle unsurprisingly but does make him a comic character to pay attention to. And Blythe Wilson acts Nancy touchingly but is perhaps too good (in a seemingly inappropriate Broadway belter way) at selling her songs. The singing, dancing kids are a treat.
