This handsome revival of The Heiress is impeccably acted by a typically adept Shaw Festival cast, except that, as in their Arms and the Man, I'm disappointed with the female lead. The physical production is wonderfully realistic, yet richly suggestive. But, at least in the first act, I don't believe most of Catherine's emotions and even find Tara Rosling's behavior in the title role to be anachronistic and inappropriately lower class. Rosling looks remarkably like Cherry Jones in this role, but it would be unkind to compare the two performances.
This Heiress plays well throughout but seems colder than I think it needs to be. Director Joseph Ziegler played Morris in a highly regarded 1986 Toronto production of this play; I'd like to know how that version approached these roles.
Michael Ball, seeming to emerge directly from New York's upper middle class ca.1850, anchors the drama playing Dr. Sloper. All his contradictory nuances make Ball's widowed Dr. Sloper an immensely complex character. He bitterly resents the daughter whose birth robbed him of his beloved wife, and he compares Catherine's gracelessness with her mother's beauty and charm. But he also has an upright sense of fairness in trying to behave honorably toward his unloved daughter and look to her well-being. Do we feel sorry for him when his daughter finally turns on him as he is dying?
Nora McLellan in the small role of Dr. Sloper's sister brings a reflection of Sloper's partly lost humanity in their shared understandings and her concern for him and remembrance of his love for, and loss of, his wife. McLellan can't appear neutral or colorless onstage, so her restrained performance here still injects some life into the somber doctor's background.
Similarly, Mike Shara's carefully controlled performance as Morris Townsend -- only occasionally warming to seem unguardedly real in his enthusiasms -- is not only a handsome fortune hunter but a man of genuine charm. When sharing his real love of refinements that he cannot afford, and later as a study in sheer neediness, he suggests that he could offer rewarding affection. We can understand and even sympathize with Catherine's and her giddy aunt's attraction to him.
At the end, Rosling's Catherine is interestingly strong, cold and mean-spirited. But the role is a lot better than what she makes of it. A fairly grabbing evening in the theater, nonetheless. And a clearly "A list" production.
