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The theme of this exhibition, painters from the past inspired by theater, seems a natural for a summer art show. That it took this long to bring the idea to reality is amazing when one thinks about it. Drama and Desire now at the AGO is the result of an inspired moment by Guy Cogeval, current president of the Musee D'Orsay, Paris during his tenure at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. It took, however, fruition only after his return to Paris in 2006, where he was born in 1955.

The original exhibit ran at the Musée Cantini in Marseille from October 2009 to January 2010. From there it moved to the Museo di arte moderne e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Italy, from February to May of this year. It is in Rovereto, a tiny city of about 38,000 south of Trento (famous for the 16^th century Council of Trent) that AGO director Matthew Teitelbaum and his deputy director of research, and curator of prints and drawings, Katherine Lochnan, encountered the exhibit. Its character differed there from the Toronto show, according to Teitelbaum and Lochman. It had none of the add-ons that are on view at the AGO.

Teitelbaum and Lochnan wanted the AGO exhibit to have a more coherent character than they saw in the Italian institution. Hence, the show attempts to display itself to the audience almost like the scenes from a play. Its protagonist, it can be said, is the 'theater'. The 'play's' scenes unfold through the more than 100 works that are grouped either by era, theme, style, or artist. At the AGO these themes have been augmented by theatrical props provided by some of Canada's most well known theater companies, which include Stratford Festival, Shaw Festival and Opera Atelier. It is from the latter that the AGO borrowed stage designer Gerard Gauci to turn this show of paintings into one that is hoped will make theater come alive in the exhibit.

In one section, the voices of Stratford actors Geraint Wyn Davies, James Blendick, Sara Topham and Yvanna McIntosh can be heard in recorded speeches from A Midsummer's Night Dream, King Lear and Macbeth. These are meant to clarify or complement paintings that feature scenes from these Shakespearian plays.

It is not far fetched to claim that A Midsummer's Night Dream embodies this exhibit. Like the play Drama and Desire contains moments of serious thought, and at other times hilarity because of the seeming disconnects that occur when an exhibit attempts to meld such diverse ideas as Neoclassicism with Impressionism and Art Nouveau.

At the time of the media preview some paintings had not yet been hung, and not all of the re-creation of the stage set by the famous designer Edward Gordon Craig (son of Ellen Terry) for a 1911 production of Hamlet had been erected. This incomplete exhibit left one somewhat at a disadvantage, especially as the usual list of paintings a reviewer relies on did not materialize. Consequently, a painstaking effort to take notes and make observations hampered the observer. So, can one really express an honest opinion on an incomplete exhibit? Yes! There was enough of the show to make a judgment of the whole from the pieces.

The artworks are fascinating. They vary in style and manner, as well as quality since the paintings reflect the response of artists to plays and history from prior to the French Revolution to just prior to World War I. Represented are artists from a number of countries who are household names, and those who are more obscure or are only well known in their native environment.

The exhibition's poster child is Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth. The actress was painted by John Singer Sargent in 1889, in a special costume which was bedecked with shiny metal beetles, some of which are on display. The image is ideal for the posters and the pamphlets that promote the show, but perhaps only for those who know who she was, i.e., theater buffs. Yet, she is striking enough in a colorful dress and long tresses to catch the eye of the uninitiated and hopefully draw them into the AGO.

The entrance to the exhibit is through columns that emphasize the theatricality of this show. One of the first views that demands attention is that of a painting by Joseph Wright of Derby, Antigonus in the Storm from Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale (1792). Lightning flashes on the painting and the wall behind it, and visitors are able to activate a soundtrack of thunder, wind and rain. This once famous English painter, also represented by a painting from a scene in Romeo and Juliet, only lately has been attracting attention again after years of neglect.

Some of the other lesser known painters represented in the show are the French Neoclassicist Pierre Narcisse Guerin with such paintings Andromaque et Pyrrhus (1813) and Phedre et Hippolyte (1815); the Italian Francesco Hayes with I Due Foscari (1844), which reflects his romantic, grand historical style; the French Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau, who was one of Henri Matisse's teachers, with paintings of Salome (1874) and Helen of Troy (1880); the Swiss-English Romanticist John Henry Fuseli, who favored the supernatural, with paintings from King Lear from around 1780-4; and Anthelme-Francois Lagrenee with a painting of the actor Talma in the role of Hamlet (1745).

The French painter James Tissot, acknowledged for his careful and vivid realism, and more known for his religious work, painted a series based on Goethe's Faust with a focus on Marguerite. He is represented in this show by a lesser work in this Faust series owned by the Musée d'Orsay: The Meeting of Faust and Marguerite. If it had not been for the elaborate frame boldly proclaiming his name, I would not have recognized it as a Tissot.

The actor David Garrick and the actress Susannah Maria Cibber were painted by the Neoclassicist and Royal Academician Johann Zoffany in a scene from a Thomas Otway play at the Drury Lane Theatre (1762-3). It is a good example of how strongly painters were affected by the stage.

It is impossible to escape seeing the dramatic painting, The Oath of the Horatii (1784) by Jacques Louis David. It is part of a re-created 18^th century theater in one of the many set-scenes of this show. It depicts a moment from Corneille's play, Horace, which played in Paris at the time of the painting's commission. In the Neoclassic style, it is one of the better-known works by the artist who is, however, most famous for his painting of The Death of Marat (in his bath). David, along with Marat and Robespierre, had been a member of the Committee of General Security during the French Revolution and so had contributed directly to the Reign of Terror. But unlike his two confreres, he had escaped assassination or execution when the revolutionary tide turned toward moderation. Having been responsible for the dramatic staging of Voltaire's entombment in the Pantheon, Marat' s funeral and other grand revolutionary processions, David is seen by some historians as the forefather of the bombast employed in the 20^th century by the likes of Lenin, Mussolini and Hitler.

Two rooms designed to house two very different artists feature the works of the Impressionist Edgar Degas, and the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley. They are worthy of  intense attention. A number of Degas paintings, including Le Orchestre de l'Opera (ca.1870) and Dancer with Bouquet (ca. 1895-1900), are hung up in an environment that gives the visitor the impression of a small salon in which a dancer might have received a patron. It is a restful room that allows contemplation of the Degas works.

The Beardsley Room is far more dramatic. Its centerpiece is the severed head of John the Baptist (a prop from the Canadian Opera Company). Hung on dark blue walls, interspersed by flickering fairy lights, are framed ink drawings from Beardsley's illustration of Oscar Wilde's Salome, as well as the tableau for Das Rheingold and Tristan and Isolde. Beardsley, in his rather brief career (he was not quite 26 when he died of tuberculosis) became a moving force behind Art Nouveau through his drawings and cartoons, and even today still has stylistic imitators.

In one sectioned area hangs a painting of Titania and Bottom from A Midsummer' s Night Dream, by Sir Edwin Landseer. The Lions at the foot of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square are among Landseer's claim to fame. At the AGO his interpretation of the Shakespeare comedy resulted in an enchanting work that is, however, overshadowed here by the head of an ass that appears to be too close to it. This prop came from Stratford from a past production of A Midsummer's Night Dream, and once graced the head of the late Hume Cronyn.

There are many more paintings to see, among them works by Ingres, Vuillard, Rossetti, and Toulouse-Lautrec. There are also happenings to experience. On certain days there will be dancers from Opera Atelier performing as well as actors from this summer's CanStage production of Romeo and Juliet. Also, on most days a summer student from George Brown College will perform short scenes featured in the paintings in the exhibit.

Having said all this, I have to admit that I found the actors' voice-overs annoying at times, the flashing of the lightening on Wright of Derby's painting attention-getting, but it prevented one from really studying the work. At the same time, the thunder and lightening proved to be the ultimate in kitsch. All this hustle and bustle did nothing really to enhance—at least for me—the value of the show and what it attempts to do. Never mind Lochnan's claim that these theatrics mimic a past period when people went to the theater to be entertained and to have a laugh. People still go to the theater to be entertained and to have a laugh or we would not have shows like the Jersey Boys, Mama Mia, Phantom at the Opera etc. The reality is that when going to see a painting, one comes to look, to enjoy and to learn. There is a nice section that invites the visitors to try their hand at drawing the various emotions expressed in the face as studied by artists in the 1700s. These are Rapture, Weeping, Anger, and Terror. I have to admit I feel terror when I have to go to a museum to face the same gimmickry that is found in the flashing lights of rap concerts devoid of any other substance.

My thoughts are that Drama and Desire: Artists and the Theatre has plenty of substance. Which beg these questions: Does all this gimmickry say something about today's museum goers, whose attention span appears to be the length of a nanosecond? Do they need these gimmicks, but not the substance to be entertained? Or is a general lack of confidence in today's museum goers on the part of cash-strapped museums at the bottom of this exhibition?

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