Word: brecht
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Mayer has placed an enormous burden on his cast, his technical crews and himself, and none of the three is able to sustain it for any protracted length of time. Brecht's play, as Mayer presents it, is a visual extravaganza. For once in a Loeb production the costumes--fiery red for the Gods, warm tans, greens and yellows for everyone else--have some relevance to the set's color scheme. But the set shakes frighteningly. The set, like the ensemble scenes in the first and second acts still needs a few day's work...
...Brecht's story is simple. A trio of God's in search of good people are introduced by a water seller (Steve Kaplan) to Shen Te (Trish Archer) a prostitute who is a good people. The Gods pay her for their night's lodging with enough money to start a small tobacco shop. Screaming freeloaders move in; she falls in love with a worthless unemployed flyer; her every good deed brings ruin. To save herself, she invents a businesslike, ruthless alter ego, Shui Ta, who is successful and dastardly. How to reconcile goodness and survival? Shen Te can't manage...
...always in control are Kaplan and Miss Archer. Kaplan's Wong has a strongly Yiddish flavor, much like Sholom Alcichem's dairyman Tevye before Broadway got to him. But the resemblance--the good humor in despair, the pleading with the marvelously impotent gods, the befuddled good intentions--is in Brecht's script as well as Kaplan's portrayal. Miss Archer has warmth, a versatile vocal range, the ability to switch swiftly between the two parts she must play, and good legs...
Spaethling's specialty is German literature of the 19th and 20th centuries last spring he taught a course on Bertolt Brecht, and he will teach a course on Brecht, Kafka, and Junger in this year's summer school...
...chorus of soldiers war led by Weil himself, who remained offstage for virtually the entire play and turned in a impeccably monotonous performance, more or less as Brecht intended...