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August 12, 2005
TT: The old razzle-dazzle
I drove up to Massachusetts last Sunday to see the Williamstown Theatre Festival's big-budget production of Tom Stoppard's On the Razzle. The night before I went uptown to Harlem to see a free outdoor performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Both shows gave me great pleasure, and I've written about them in today's Wall Street Journal drama column.In brief:
"On the Razzle" is Mr. Stoppard's English-language adaptation of Johann Nestroy's "Einen jux will er sich machen," the same 1842 play whose subplot Thornton Wilder borrowed for "The Matchmaker," which in turn became "Hello, Dolly!" Any way you dish it up, it's a lunatic spree in which Herr Zangler (Michael McKean, lately of "Hairspray" and "A Mighty Wind"), purveyor of expensive foodstuffs, travels to Vienna in search of romance and promptly sticks his head into a noose of comic chaos tied and tightened by his thrill-seeking assistants Weinberl (Robert Stanton) and Christopher (John Lavelle)....
With 22 speaking parts and a hell of a lot of sets, "On the Razzle" is hard to produce save at a festival, and Roger Rees, Williamstown's new artistic director, is to be commended for giving it the deluxe treatment (Neil Patel's décor is Viennese to the hilt). Alas, the near-mathematical exactitude necessary to bring such precisely calculated theatrical craziness to life is not always evident in David Jones' agreeably energetic staging. Visible error is the death of farce, and the matinée I saw suffered from an uncertain scene change, a premature blackout and a certain looseness of timing here and there.
On the other hand, it's churlish to expect perfection out of a festival production of "On the Razzle," especially so early in its too-short run. I'm sure the show will have tightened up by the time these words see print...
I took the bus up to Riverbank State Park the other night to watch Pulse Ensemble Theatre, augmented by eight neighborhood artists, perform "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in one of the Harlem park's many playgrounds, and the results couldn't have been more engaging.
Alexa Kelly, the director, has given us an urban-style modern-dress staging in which Oberon (Steve Lloyd), Titania (Shirine Babb) and the denizens of their fairy kingdom hail from the Caribbean and frolic to steel-band music. The North Playground of Riverbank Park doubles as a circular amphitheater with three tiers of concrete benches, and Ruben Arana Downs, the designer, has cunningly placed the unit set on top of the playground equipment (shrewd use is made of the sliding board). The acting is variable, but everyone is good enough and a few performers are first-rate, especially Nicole Bowman, who is splendidly lithe and vibrant as Hermia....
No link. To read the whole thing, pick up a copy of today's Journal at your local newsstand and turn to the Weekend Journal section, or go here to subscribe to the Online Journal, which will allow you to read my column more or less instantaneously (along with a plenitude of other good stuff).
Posted August 12, 2005 12:03 PM
