Theatre review: White Fang

When the Park announced its winter season, an adaptation of White Fang in the studio space seemed easy to skip until I noticed it was written and directed by Jethro Compton – after The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance became a surprise favourite of mine a few years ago, another trip to the 19th century North American frontiers suddenly seemed more appealing. This is described as “inspired by” rather than “adapted from” Jack London’s novel, and although I haven’t read it a look at the Wikipedia page suggests that’s fair, the story bears little resemblance beyond the setting – Canada’s Yukon Territory during the Gold Rush – and some of the characters. Lyzbet Scott (Mariska Ariya) is a young Native American girl whose entire tribe was massacred in a dispute with wolf hunters when she was a child; one of the hunters, Weedon Scott (Robert G. Slade,) rescued her and adopted her as his granddaughter.

Theatre review: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Some genres barely ever get seen on stage, and you can definitely count the Western among them. So even though I've never really been a fan of Western films, spaghetti or otherwise, I was interested to see what Jethro Compton would do with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and it turned out to be a great decision. When young lawyer Ransome Foster (Oliver Lansley) embarks on an ill-thought-out journey to the West, he ends up beaten up by outlaws in the middle of nowhere, and needing rescuing. Rance ends up recuperating in a saloon in the tiny town of Twotrees, where he falls for the landlady, Hallie (Niamh Walsh.) As an excuse to stay for a while, he agrees to teach Hallie and some of the locals to read, but his top student is Jim (Lanre Malaolu,) and the local outlaw gang led by Liberty Valance (James Marlowe) aren't too happy about a black man getting an education.