“Antoni Cimolino’s Stratford staging is joyous, relishing the characters, telling the story clearly, and exploding into periodic bouts of high farcical invention…It all hangs together, more tidily than we expect in Restoration comedy…”

“Feore and Shara are as funny as they are dashing. Feore gleefully bounds about the stage, whispering sweet nothings in the ladies’ ears, and Shara, well, I dare say that the physical comedy of Mike Shara is pretty much unrivaled. He is delightfully funny, but never over-the-top.”

“If I had to choose one Colm Feore performance to see at the Stratford Festival this season, I’d catch his Archer in The Beaux’ Stratagem…here is perhaps no Canadian actor living as well-suited for the particular demands of Restoration comedy. His cool, cerebral charm and general sense of insouciance are just right for the period’s plays and certainly for the role of Archer”

The play’s hands-down scene stealer is clearly the multi-talented Martha Henry, whose sword wielding Lady Bountiful is simply brilliant and guaranteed to lighten up even the most sombre of audience members. It is a character to remember well past the evening’s end.”

“While the play doesn’t boast the dramatic heft of a King Lear or the political underpinnings of a Mother Courage — despite some commentary about the social mores of the time — The Beaux’ Stratagem may be the most purely entertaining production of the 2014 season.”

Ouzounian praises the entire company adding “We’re not even two minutes into the show when Mike Shara takes a sip of some industrial strength ale and kicks his leg up so high that the National Ballet’s talent scouts should be paying attention. Shara is a wonder throughout, the kind of comic sparkplug a show like this needs.”