by Sarah B. Hood

Cheers,pageants and  Shakespeare's songs

If you haven't yet tasted the pleasures of the remodeled Distillery Historic District, you have one more reason to explore it. From October 8 to 26 the intriguing red rose theatre presents Joan, a pageant production about Joan of Arc that features puppets, live music and even a burning at the stake. The cast includes Christine Brubaker, Patrick McManus and the hugely talent Karin Randoja, formerly a member of Winnipeg's Primus Theatre.

The songs and most of the musical accompaniment are by composer John Millard. "I guess most of it is a capella, accompanied by my latest instrument, the cittern," he says. This ancient instrument "has five courses of double strings tuned in unison" and resembles "a very large, arch-topped mandolin". When he's not performing in Joan, Millard may be found at folk festivals with his band John Millard and Happy Day (their new CD is called "Citizens Awake!"). He's also working on a musical version of Cyrano with performer Martin Julien for British Columbia's Caravan Farm Theatre and writing music for Simpl, which plays at Tarragon Theatre next spring. In mid-November he'll be workshopping Brecht's seldom-seen Caucasian Chalk Circle with Richard Greenblatt and Ross Manson.

Another upcoming outdoor show that incorporates music, puppets and pageantry is Clay and Paper Theatre's 4th Annual Night of Dread, to be held on Saturday, October 25 in Dufferin Grove Park. It's an evening set aside to let people imagine their most terrible fears and make them real, then banish them and send them on their way. Call 416-537-9105 or visit www. clayandpapertheatre.org to find how to participate, or even help put the festival together ahead of time.

SHOW TUNES: THE EARLY DAYS
Some of us who like musical theatre have a tendency to pepper our conversations with lyrics. Apparently this is an old habit.  On October 17 and 18 the Toronto Consort is performing a concert called Shakespeare's Songbook - which is also, not coincidentally, the title of a new book by music historian Ross Duffin that explores the 200 or more song references in Shakespeare.

"There are maybe six or eight songs that scholars have generally agreed are from the original productions," says Toronto Consort artistic director David Fallis. So if you can hum "It Was a Lover and His Lass" or "Full Fathom Five" or "Where the Bee Sucks, There Suck I", you're singing one of Shakespeare's original hits. But many tunes for lyrics in the plays (like "How Shall I My True Love Know" and "When That I Was A Little Tiny Boy") were probably written much later.

"Then there are some examples of songs that people sing onstage that we know referred to songs in Shakespeare's day," says Fallis. "For instance, when Ophelia [in Hamlet] is going mad, she sings 'Bonny Sweet Robin'." It would have been unseemly for an unmarried girl to perform such a bawdy song in public so "it's used in the play to show how she's becoming unhinged," Fallis explains. On the other hand, it would have been quite acceptable for Desdemona in Othello to sing "The Willow Song" in private with her gentlewoman. "Everybody would have known those songs, and Shakespeare  has the actors use those songs... in very dramatic ways," Fallis says.

There are also places where people refer to well-known songs. Pistol in Henry IV says in passing "O death, rock me to sleep", the title of a consort song, while "in Much Ado About Nothing, one of the characters says she'll sit around and sigh "hey ho for a husband," which was also a familiar song title.

Whether penned, borrowed or merely nodded to by the Bard,   "I think it's safe to say all the pieces on the program, [he] knew," says Fallis.

BLACK GIRL RETURNS
To the delight of many, the Mirvishes are bringing back Djanet Sears' The Adventures Of A Black Girl In Search Of God from October 28, 2003 to March 2004 in its original home at the du Maurier Theatre Centre. "Our aim is to go further than we did before," says Sears. "The basic core, the essence of the play is the same, but we have brand new text, brand new a capella music, brand new choreography." The play has already won a Dora Award for choreographer Vivine Scarlett.

OUT OF TOWN
Finally, the autumn may be upon us, but the summer festivals continue. At the Shaw Festival, Brecht's Happy End closes on October 31, while On the Twentieth Century runs until November 2. Meanwhile, Stratford's Gigi bids audiences adieu on November 1 and preparations begin for next summer's Guys and Dolls and Anything Goes.

Sarah B. Hood's new book Toronto: The Unknown City, is now available.