Word: amblad
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...script itself falls short of supreme comic genius, the premise is redeemed in last weekend's production at the Loeb Ex. Actors Erik Amblad '99, Adam "Waka" Green '99 and Sabrina Howells (B.U.) recite the play's more lackluster puns with sarcasm, making a parody of the parody...
Green and Howells are well picked challengers whose different comic sensibilities play well off one another in a multiplicity of dramatic situations. Amblad's strength is in the physical dimension of his caricature while Green's is more verbal and prop-oriented. Howells plays a great straight man whose misguided traditionalism is artfully thwarted by the other characters' antics. Though all of the parts they play are similarly ridiculous, the ability of the three actors to cover in one form or another the pantheon of Shakespearean roles without becoming excessively confused is no small feat. Amblad goes from flight attendant...
...Amblad's specialty is looking smashingly absurd in spandex, Green does beautifully in the muumuu/wig roles. His falsetto is worthy of John Klees in all its incarnations--whether doing tongues (as Lavinia), being clueless (Juliet) or portraying Gen X Ophelia drowning herself in a cup of water. When not occupied with his feminine side, Green breaks down the traditional audience/performer boundaries by involving everyone in a "workshoping Ophelia" wherein the crowd chants the various mantras of her id, ego and superego in preparation for her dramatic demise. If there is a prop to be used, Green...
While both Augustine and Siemens give excellent and highly amusing performances, Erik Amblad '98 quickly steals the scene as Aleksii Antedilluvianovich Prelapsarianov, or, as he claims to be, "the world's oldest living Bolshevik." Although Amblad's monologue grows a bit monotonous after a while, he still brings the essence of Aleksii, and of all of Kushner's characters--knee-slapping irony and witticisms combined with genuine emotional depth--to life. He leaves the audience giggling uncontrollably with lines such as "You're practically bugging me," spoken to the closely-following and nearly-blind Serge; and "God is a Menshevik...
...even more frightening than when she was silent), they all contemplate the purpose of one's existence and the use of fighting for beliefs in a world that, ultimately, leaves almost all of its inhabitants asking, "What is to be done?" Leaving that question hanging in the air, Amblad, Siemens and Shapiro stare at the audience for a good while before leaving the stage, and thus ending the play. To be smacked in the face with such despondency--and the proof that it is unfortunately universal--leaves a bitter taste at the end of the otherwise absurdly delightful Slavs...