Word: ayckbourn
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...soap opera in the future, actors have been replaced by robots, or "actoids," and one of them is acting up--showing signs of a human-like sense of humor. In the Manhattan Theatre Club's U.S. premiere of Ayckbourn's West End success, Janie Dee reprises her astonishing London performance as a robot whose emotions are an amalgam of all the bad scenes she's ever played. The play is astonishing too: at once a shrewd satire of TV, a warming love story and a potent meditation on the nature of humanity...
...mental institutions. But Blue/Orange is in pitifully small company when it comes to innovative new works. The word around Andrew Lloyd Weber's upcoming The Beautiful Game is that it will be less than ground-breaking. And the two new plays from the pen of millionaire writer-director Alan Ayckbourn, House and Garden (two interconnected pieces performed by the same cast simultaneously on two different stages at the National Theater) are all concept and no content. In fact, the best piece of original, recent English writing in London today is probably Passion Play by Peter Nichols. Nichols' new work...
...circus act it is, though a highly enjoyable one. Ayckbourn turns the troubles of married life into a high speed adventure, and Ruiz takes him up on every challenge. Aristotle might not have been pleased, but so what? The three unities can be left for classics majors to ponder...
...with little in the way of an enchanting melody to anchor his flights of dexterity. What makes Ruiz's production so successful is that for all its high-speed antics, it keeps its feet planted firmly on the ground. The sets of Glenn Reisch '99 manage to keep Ayckbourn's experiments with time and place under control. Reisch essentially designs two sets, one for each home. Remarkably, they are different enough so that the audience never loses its bearings as the action shifts from home to home and back again. At the same time they are similar enough so that...
...most outrageous of this trio, though suitably so. She breathes cold-blooded temptress through every line. Kate Agresta '02 as Teresa Phillips and Rabbit as Mary Detweiller provide the backbone of the ensemble. Stressed out and overwhelmed, respectively, they provide glimpses from outside the crazy world that Ayckbourn creates, giving a somewhat more reasoned (or at least reasonable) response to the circus act that their life has become...