Word: burg
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...FITCH BURG, MASS., Lake Whalom Playhouse. Tom Ewell plays the put-upon psychiatrist who understands everyone but his own teen-age terribles going through The Impossible Years...
...plays this summer at Agassiz have all been refreshingly irreverent. Aristophanes got new music and lyrics. The Trojan Women became twentieth century refugees. Measure for Measure was liberated from standard period staging. The Agassiz directors, Thom Babe and Timothy Mayer have cut, adapted, rewritten. Composer Bradley Burg has scored electric guitars in a domain usually restricted to recorders...
...where we're all supposed to be aware we're in a theater. But Mayer has put too many realistic props in his settings, and too many crossbars in his machinery. The first few of the ten-minute set chages are uproariously funny as everything topples into place. Composer Burg, also afraid to tamper with Brecht, accompanies each little comedy with imitation Kurt Weil orchestrations of imitation Kurt Weil melodies. But it's not that funny after a while and it blows to hell all hope of growing impact...
...that it shows off passion without self-consciousness, and we extend our sympathy to meet it half way. It uses a passionate form of music, rock and roll, so naturally and so well that it may be that long-awaited theatrical millenium--a real rock and roll musical. Bradley Burg's score, which, when it is not playing off organ beeps against tympani thumps, is airing subtle and poignant melodies, may well be the best music he has written...
...Bradley Burg's score is very much a saving-grace, with its unswervingly melodic line and its sweet harmonies. Mayer's lyrics show signs of being dashed off, except for the last, very beautiful one, and the lyricist doesn't seem to be able to make a rhyme without using enjambement, a device which should always be used very sparingly. The score keeps the show flowing when the accumulation of gag-lines that have fallen flat start to clog...