Labels: reviews
Emmy
Award winners Holland Taylor and Buck Henry starred in Mother
by Lisa Ebersole, which played at The Wild Project in New York during
July and August 2009. Photo credit: Alison Cartwright
Labels: reviews
The principal pleasure of the Roundtable Ensemble's current production of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew is the cast's ability to convince us that the whole play is being improvised. Director Andrew Grosso's concept that the whole thing is being played out backstage at a USO show as a sort of competition between military officers and entertainers gives the actors a good excuse to madly switch off characters, and seemingly riff off each other's cues... it's a great showcase for this acting talent.
The basic story is well-known: As a joke, a group of men convince the drunken Christopher Sly that he actually is a nobleman and perform a play for him. The play involves a Signor Baptista's two daughters: ill-tempered Katherina and beautiful Bianca. Lucentio wants to marry Bianca, as do two other suitors, but Baptista won't marry Bianca off until Katherina is married first. Petruchio, seeking a wife who will make him rich, arrives and agrees to woo Kate. She puts up quite a fight, demeaning him with volley after volley of invective, but Petruchio still announces they will be married. Her insults are returned when he shows up late to the wedding and then proceeds to deprive her of food, claiming that it isn't good enough for her. Bianca and Lucentio are married after a series of incidents involving disguises and mistaken identity, and Hortensio marries a widow (in this production Christopher Sly is inspired to jump into the on-stage action to portray the widow), and all are surprised that it is Bianca, not Kate, that is uncooperative at the group wedding banquet.
The production moves quickly and is performed in one 90-minute act... The size of the cast is economical, too: each of the actors (aside from Kate, Petruchio, and Sly) plays multiple roles and often they are frantically switching between characters... the cast does a very good job of keeping it clear who is who, even when performing several roles within one scene! They excel at putting on various accents and genders, not to mention costume pieces, and it's all done to great comic effect.
Each of the players is worth mentioning. Tom Butler's Petruchio is a swaggering soldier at the beginning, but layers of depth are revealed as he pursues and "tames" Kate. Paul Whitthorne is a prissy, sour Kate, which is appropriate, but he makes his journey to her final submission a believable one and becomes a much warmer presence. Autumn Dornfeld is terrific in several roles including Bianca and Gremio. Jonathan Kells Phillips has come up with some very funny characterizations, including a Pedant who seems to owe something to Jim Backus of Gilligan's Island. B. Brian Argotsinger puts his nebbishy persona to good use throughout and Alex Smith proves to be the most chameleonic, taking on no less than 9 roles, sometimes switching characters from line to line.
Ironically, however, it is the actor with the least stage time who makes the most lasting impression. Arthur Aulisi is genuinely touching as the drunkard Sly, who watches the whole play from the first row of the audience and is so moved and enchanted by the spell of the storytelling that he joins the actors on stage to play the widow in the final scene. For the conclusion of the play, Aulisi plays Sly as more childlike than drunk, and Grosso adds in Rosalind's epilogue from As You Like It for Sly to deliver following his "performance" as the widow. Again, Aulisi is gentle and touching in this humorous "apology" for the bad behavior of both men and women in Shrew:
I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you: and I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women—as I perceive by your simpering, none of you hates them—that between you and the women the play may please.
The staging includes a good deal of expertly-executed slapstick (Teddy Cañez is credited as fight coordinator). The set mostly consists of the Chernuchin Theatre's permanent catwalk which is smartly used, and there are some appropriate period props on the stage. Becky Lasky's costumes communicate character clearly, and she has dug up some very funny, very over-the-top costume pieces, for the actors to relish and play with.
-January 20, 2007, Matt Schicker, nytheatre.com review
The actors putting on this “Shrew” are variety
players in a USO show who pass the time backstage playing cards and
annoying each other with their warm-ups until a drunk (Arthur Aulisi)
stumbles in. They throw him in a robe, start calling him
“Lord” and plant him in the front row of the
audience for the duration – or at least until he makes his
own stage debut in the final act. Complicit in the duplicity, the
audience is roped along into the show, with six actors tackling 23
parts (with the help of identifying props and accents).
It makes sense that for the play-within-a-play to work, there has to be some doubling. And the double casting sets up some interesting juxtapositions: If the same actor (in this case Alex Smith) plays Bianca’s father Baptista and her eventually successful suitor, Lucentio, then her eventual choice of him is both natural – after all, it’s a type she knows and of which he must approve – and slightly alarming, in its confirmation of Baptista’s power over her. (She couldn’t have made it work with the suitor Gremio, whose part actress Autumn Dornfeld takes with a pair of thick glasses and an old man’s affect.)
But the most surprising change about
the Roundtable’s adaptation is the male player who takes the
role of Katarina – or is forced into it, having assigned all
the other parts. Once we’ve gotten over actor Paul
Whitthorne’s mustache and his player’s disdain for
the role, it presents us with a series of questions about the
shrew’s own nature. Having seen her state, why does Petruchio
(the swaggering Tom Butler) continue to pursue her? Is
“shrewish” just a synonym for “too much
like a man?” (Whitthorne drapes himself with a blue checked
apron but makes no pretense of raising his voice to play her,
foregrounding the difference.)
And it changes the titular taming: With a man in Katarina’s shoes, the struggle between her and Petruchio takes on an erotic subtext which was present in the original play when all the parts were played by men, but which our modern castings have allowed us to forget. Instead of being physically overpowered by him, the implication is that she chooses to submit. There is no pretense at unending love here: Katarina’s final speech to her fellow wives seems like a performance, rather than a lecture, and is thus easier to swallow.
The play ends on an unresolved chord; we’re left pondering Butler’s rendition of “You Belong To Me” and wondering how much truth there is in it for Baptista’s daughters.
-Ellen Wernecke, New Theatre Corps
Labels: reviews
August 2006, The
September 2006, FringeNYC Encores Series @ The
Perfect
Harmony is sharp as a blade. The performances are
magnificently hilarious. The harmonies — typically absurd
versions of pop songs — range from lovely to ridiculous to
riotous. They help to make Perfect Harmony as close to perfect as any
Fringe show can be.
- August 24, 2006, Leonard Jacobs, Backstage
Pitch perfect! A hysterical look
inside the high-pressure world of high school a cappella singing, Perfect Harmony reminds us of why we
have the prolific Fringe Festival: to find the plays that deserve
bigger stages and, if possible, a longer applause.
-August 23 2006,
Rachel Wynn, Show Business
Weekl
Well-nigh
perfection, as the title promises!
August 22, 2006 David Finkle, TheatreMania
Perfect
Harmony is a charming mockumentary. Terrific.
It was a joy to watch such sensational performers!
- September 4th, 2006, David Hurst, Next Magazine
Labels: reviews
December 2004, The Belt
Theater,
“It's a
high-spirited, feel-good rock show interspersed with pop, blues,
excursions into larynx-wrenching Broadway-type ballads, and miniature
mock production numbers. ... a gritty, freewheeling version of "
-Ron Cohen,
BACKSTAGE
”This
show—the most fun I've had at a new musical in months, maybe
years—is all about the jubilation that comes from figuring
out and then following your path. The actors, musicians, and audience
share in the sheer joy of the thing and when it's over, just about
everybody is in a great mood. What Mamma Mia! And
-
Martin Denton, NYTHEATRE.COM
The cast of
- Jessica Cogan, NEWYORKCOOL.COM
I couldn’t have
chosen a better show. Wrong
Way Up’s high energy cast are accomplished performers who can
make an audience laugh or cry with their inspired commitment to a
song’s heart tugging poignancy then quickly turn around and
deliver witty lyrics that make Andrew Grosso’s direction
worthy of his reputation”.
-
Labels: reviews
Labels: reviews
“Director Grosso,
confronted with a crumbling, badly disintegrating East River
Amphitheater … proves that “Waiting for
Godot” will work anywhere, anytime, and under any
circumstance imaginable… The integration of the East River
Amphitheater into the very heart of the play itself comes as both a
surprise and an indicator of the care with which this production was
put together. Make no mistake: this is a solid, decidedly worthwhile
production of the play, well cast and universally well
performed.” - Joseph Hurley, IRISH ECHO
Labels: reviews
“Director
Grosso should be commended for his wise and ruthless choices he makes
here. He’s created a brisk, no-frills evening that brings
Shakespeare’s central themes into sharp relief.” - Eric Grode, Backstage
Labels: reviews
“Director Grosso
sustains a cracking pace and extracts wry humor from the
quintessentially American passion play hostage drama that ensues. Three people that you
wouldn’t want to get involved with end up making for an
enjoyable evening.”
- Charles Godfrey-Faussett, TIME OUT
“Outstanding
performances and superb direction make this one of the best evenings I
have ever spent in the theater.”
- Jane Marlow, HAM & HIGH,
“A
triumph of style … the standard of acting is
impressive”
- Andrew Aldridge, THE STAGE,
Labels: reviews