Word: arzhang
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...makes the most of the play's hilarious characterization of Emperor Joseph II as a benign fool. More troublesome are the Venticelli, played by Howie Axelrod and Eleanor Kincaid, and the three nobles, Baron von Strack (Alfred di Venturi), Count Orsini-Rosen-berg (Peter Galatin) and Baron von Swieten (Arzhang Kameri). The Venticelli are cold and supercilious while the nobles are earnest and straightforward in their delivery: thoughtful characterization would have thing the other way around. Finally, overacting is a recurring problem with these roles, since minor disputes and even neutral exchanges inevitably explode into shouting-matches, threatening to detract...
...difficult philosophical problems--"Is freedom chaos?"--they call on the "audience" for help. To their rescue comes Doris Levine, a blonde, boppy philosophy student from Wellesley, played with convincing ditziness by Isabelle Hurtubise. In the course of the action other fatuous students are called to the stage: Lorenzo Miller (Arzhang Kamarei), the pompous playwright, Trichinosis (Joel Pulliam), another Greek who invents the ridiculous deus ex machina to save the play and a regal but spacy Queen (Elizabeth Price) who strolls in with a roast beef sandwich. Woody Allen himself even phones in a few times to give advice...