30
Jun
2015
Genesius Guild's The Merry Wives of Windsor is a study in comedic styles, particularly in comparing the portrayals of Bob Hanske's lothario Falstaff and Andy Curtiss' hot-headed Ford. Hanske offers a vocally robust - and, thanks to costume designer Ellen Dixon, physically robust - performance that's delightfully buffoonish in his mannerisms and goofball inflections. Curtiss, on the other hand, plays his part of the jealous husband whose wife is coveted by Falstaff almost without accentuating its humor, choosing instead to allow his fluctuating anger to carry the comedy. And both actors are hilarious in their roles, stealing the show every moment they're on stage.
Three hours goes by quite quickly during Genesius Guild's well-paced, oftentimes hilarious production of William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. While the piece is considered a "problem play," as the script defies the expectations of a traditional comedy, director Jeff Coussens highlights the work's ample amounts of humor, particularly in the production's first half. And with Coussens and his cast punching up every punchline through inflection and a sort of "nudge-nudge, wink-wink" attitude, I ended up laughing harder at Saturday's presentation, I believe, than I've ever laughed while watching a Shakespeare performance.
Many cast members in the Prenzie Players' current offering, Titus Andronicus, are at their best expressing physical and emotional pain. There's Aaron E. Sullivan's shift from utter despair to cackling insanity as the title character, Catie Osborn's post-rape brokenness as his daughter Lavinia, and Jessica White's shrieks as she watches her character's son slaughtered. The desperation is so penetrating in its realism and sincerity that I was often uncomfortable during Friday night's performance - which is to say that the production is shockingly effective at delivering the darkness of Shakespeare's work. I walked away in awe.
There may be some of you who hear the title King Lear and, knowing only of the play's reputation as the mack daddy of all Shakespeare tragedies, immediately presume that any evening production of the piece will last well into the next morning. Allow me, then, to quell your fears: Saturday's Genesius Guild staging of the Bard's opus began promptly at eight o'clock, and after the night's presentation had concluded, I was back in my car by 10:55.
The Playcrafters Barn Theatre's production of Rehearsal for Murder suffers from poor pacing, but excels in its sincere sentiment and charm. The actors, for the most part, tend to take too many beats between lines, which leads to sometimes-clunky dialogue progression. Still, Friday night's performance was appealing for its overall emotional effect, and likable for the cast's ability to move the audience to sympathetic sorrow for the main character's heartache.
I've enjoyed every Prenzie Players production I've seen to date, but perhaps none more so than Pericles, Prince of Tyre. That's actually odd to say, since William Shakespeare's tale of the world's luckiest unlucky prince - a seafarer who really should just avoid the sea altogether - wouldn't necessarily be called "fun." Director Andy Koski and his cast, however, manage to find the humor in the script and bring it to the forefront, embellishing it and even adding quips of their own, and elicited lots of laughs from Saturday night's audience.
The Prenzie Players' presentation of Euripides' The Trojan Women, adapted by Richard Lattimore, runs just over an hour, and I can't imagine who would want it to last longer than that. There's so much anguish and grief on display, and the material appears so deeply felt by director Jill Sullivan-Bennin's cast, that the production leaves you not just haunted, but shaken; it's questionable whether either the actors or the audience could endure two hours of such extreme emotional states.
