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Friday, June 24, 2005
Tavern finds music in ‘As You Like It’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “As You Like It.”
The Atlanta Shakespeare Company overcomes the difficulties of the long and daunting “As You Like It” with dollops of music and rapid-fire comic timing.
Shakespeare’s pastoral romp through Arden Forest, where characters exiled from court encounter a bewildering assortment of rustic types and find love, merriment and freedom, seems hopelessly dated one moment, astonishingly of our world the next.
Directed by Maurice Ralston at the New American Shakespeare Tavern, the production’s quick scene changes and multiple characters can confuse those not familiar with the play. No scenery or props convey Arden Forest, demanding a lot of the audience’s imagination. But those willing to remain lost in the wilderness are rewarded with an exciting musical finish in which all becomes clear.
The performance takes full advantage of one of Shakespeare’s most musical works. Along with beautiful performances of the five songs of Shakespeare from within the play are two contemporary numbers. Matthew Trautwein’s lovely tenor singing and lute playing give an appropriately Tudor flair to the bard’s lyrics.
“Lord, Don’t Forsake Me,” a contemporary spiritual sung by the entire cast to launch the performance, is stunningly apt for the play’s themes of exile and redemption. The original folk ballad “You You You You You” magnifies the joy and excitement of the closing celebration of love and marriage.
During the comedy of dualities and dichotomies, the characters essentially pair up in teams that deliver a series of rich vaudeville sketches —- like Elizabethan-era Abbotts and Costellos.
Rosalind, one of Shakespeare’s most complex and memorable characters, dominates the play, and Tavern stalwart Laura Cole rises to the role’s demands with a signature performance. Disguised with chopped hair as a boy of the forest, she glides across the stage, a Peter Pan who seems to fly without need of strings. Engaging in witty duets with her partner, Celia (Mary Russell), she’s a brassy boy one moment, a tender, romantically perplexed woman the next.
As her love interest, Orlando, David Weber also displays theatrical range, growing from whimpering, love-struck adolescent to emotionally mature adult under the disguised Rosalind’s tutelage.
Drew Reeves gives a sensitive, nuanced performance as the melancholy cynic Jaques, a prototype for succeeding Western literature, from Dostoevski’s Raskolnikov to J.D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield. Brooding, teasing, spying, challenging —- showing maddening flashes of sweetness —- Reeves fully explores the role, which anticipates Hamlet. Reeves’ delivery of the famous “All the world’s a stage” speech takes the performance into higher ranges of eloquence.
Resident madman Jeff McKerley rockets around the stage as the fool Touchstone with his usual over-the-top antics, jesting with the crowd and displaying consummate physical dexterity.
At times, the stunts grow tiresome, but when he’s on target, the laughs are riotous. Veronika Duerr as his love interest, Audrey, “a country wench,” is a perfect slapstick foil for him, her expressive face registering shades of dismay, anger, sympathy and joy.
Like Orlando defeating the burly Charles the wrestler, the cast scores a triumph over the challenges of Shakespeare’s bulky, outsize, flamboyant extravaganza.
THE VERDICT: An entertaining journey through Arden Forest.
THE 411: ”As You Like It.” 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 6:30 p.m. Sundays. Through July 3. $19.50-$24.50. Atlanta Shakespeare Company at the New American Shakespeare Tavern, 499 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-874-5299, www.shakespearetavern.com.
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‘Da Vinci!’ a splendid revival
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “Avanti, Da Vinci! The Secret Adventures of Leonardo Da Vinci.” Through July 3.
Our superhero doesn’t wear skintight rubber. Nor does he own a sports car so magnificent that it leaves skid marks on the hearts of legions of covetous fans.
Instead, he conceals his identity (but not his flowing white whiskers) under a beaklike mask and drives an assortment of kerplunky jalopies that make his romantic quests and crime-squashing adventures the stuff of comic bedlam and smart satire.
No wonder Leonardo da Vinci rarely finished his paintings. In the imagination of the Center for Puppetry Arts’ Jon Ludwig and Jason Hines, the Renaissance genius was an early Batman who wasted most of the sand in his hourglass foiling the evil shenanigans of Pope Alexander VI and his depraved children, Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia.
After a sold-out run last year, these deranged puppeteers have brought back their divinely inspired, adult-rated puppet operetta for a limited, 17-day engagement. Recent world events —- including a change at the court of St. Peter and a new Batman flick —- have only heightened the tingly subversiveness of this uber-inventive comic masterpiece.
As ambitious as a Cecil B. De Mille epic, this fastidiously crafted show employs an ensemble of five to operate what appears to be a cast of thousands.
There’s a play-within-a-play involving a production of Leonardo’s “Icarus” and an audience of drunken hecklers; a signature Ludwig underwater sequence, with shimmering fish and a clam with a basso profundo voice (Ludwig); and a high-speed chase around Florence’s duomo, staged on two scales to create the illusion of close-ups and pans.
Oh, did we mention that composer John Cerreta wrote an original score with catchy songs in English and Italian? (I was humming all the way home, which is more than I can say for a lot of musicals.)
Hines, who came up with the comics-inspired premise and built the puppets, also plays the lead, imbuing the hapless, moonstruck Leonardo with a patina of sweetness, patience and yearning.
When vile Cesare (Ludwig) announces plans to marry the shy Mona Lisa (Reay Kaplan), Leonardo must go to battle with the murderous pope (Michael Haverty) and his twisted, incestuous offspring. (Lorna Howley plays the whip-flicking Lucrezia).
Maybe it was opening-night jitters. But it seemed that the “Last Supper” re-enactment should’ve been slowed down a bit so the audience could relish the zingers, and the final scenes (showcasing an underwater crisis and a Vatican blast) could use better transitions —- not that there’s anything approaching logic here.
Ever wondered why Newsweek hailed the puppetry center as “one of the most exciting companies in American theater”? Or why it’s won a record 10 puppet Oscars (as the UNIMA-USA Citations of Excellence are known)? This show will explain it all.
Panel by panel, “Avanti, Da Vinci!” is a bawdy, brainy joy ride that hits the highs and lows of Western culture over these last 500 years. Italian opera, Old Master paintings, comics, high-speed chases, potty humor, soft-core porn: It’s impossible to say whether it’s a marriage of genres —- or a deconstruction. And therein lies the delight.
THE VERDICT: Laughing all the way to the Vatican.
THE 411: “Avanti, Da Vinci! The Secret Adventures of Leonardo Da Vinci.” 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays. Through July 3. Recommended for ages 18 and older. $18-$22 (includes museum admission). Center for Puppetry Arts, 1404 Spring St. N.W., Atlanta. 404-873-3089, www.puppet.org.
