Word: bergreen
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EVERYBODY'S got problems. Leonard Bernstein has problems, Samuel P. Huntngton has problems. A director seeking to adapt the Canterbury Tales for the stage has his share of headaches, too. But Laurence Bergreen, director of the Loeb Experimental Theatre production of Canterbury Tales has managed to deal with his problems in a way others might envy...
...Bergreen's case,, he was faced with the fact that drama imposes limits that no other literary form is forced to meet. The dramatist must work within the limits of dialogue and characterization, and cannot, like the novelist or poet, rely on narrative or third person of character to create his world. Fortunately, the Canterbury Tales are inherently dramatic, but there are symbols in them that are too large for an actor to handle because of the limitations of the human presence...
...production, under the direction of Laurence Bergreen, exaggerates the comedy and practically explodes with motion and exuberance which create both setting and character in the absence of props and costumes. In the opening scene, the ship caught in the tempest in depicted by the men in the cast standing in a circle with arms linked tossing about as the women create the waves and wind that rock the ship. This ingenuity characterizes the rest of the play...
...scenes in which Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo, the King of Naples' drunken jester (slightly overplayed by Dan Hermann), conspire to wrest the island from Prospero's control are especially humorous. Since Bergreen has chosen to direct the play as a comedy, the celebration of Ferdinand and Miranda's marriage in the fourth act, at which Prospero displays his magical powers by creating a host of spirits, is played in a light and frivolous vein, Iris and Ceres reciting their lines like girls in a sixth-grade English class. This parody of the wedding hymn, necessary to maintain the exaggerated acting...