Word: belches
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John Waldman has gathered bits of incidental music together--some traditional, some not--and scored them effectively. But why organ music at Sir Toby Belch's entrance--unless to be intentionally incongruous...
...comic scenes delight in visual as well as verbal madness. Heads pop wildly from behind a screen of evergreens during Malvolio's undoing and Sir Andrew Aguecheek mouthes Sir Toby Belch's speech simultaneously from the opposite end of the stage. Even the propmen are carried away, hamming it up as they wander in to change scenes...
Such airs, though, are drunken sport for Sir Toby Belch and company as they plot to entangle the most self-righteous courtier ever created. "Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?" thunders Sir Toby to puritanical Malvolio, who, for his pains, ends up locked up and abused as a madman...
...characters are well-conceived. Although some of them go slightly overboard and become too heavy handed--particularly in the opening and closing scenes--this is a weakness more than compensated for by the quality of other performances. Richard Hope, a bull-headed, red-nosed, raucous Sir Toby Belch, dominates the comic scenes, but his presence is well supported by Linda Dobb's sharp Maria and Locke Bowman's fussy Sir Andrew. Sunny Tufts carries off the difficult part of Viola with grace and Mark Daniels as a quivering chinned Malvolio is inspired...
...habit of dumping their sewage into the canals and depending on the tides to flush the city clean. To stop the filth at its source, Venice will now build its first sewage system. In addition the law provides funds to help homeowners convert their oil heating systems -which now belch sulfur oxides into the air-to nonpolluting methane gas. The switch is necessary because the sulfurous fumes mix with the salty air and rot Venice's marble balconies and statues, causing the stone to crumble like Gorgonzola cheese...