Word: cenci
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Such a play is Percy Bysshe Shelley's 1886 drama, The Cenci, a work which proves the point that romantic poetry looks a lot better on the page than on the stage...
...Cenci...
...play merely as an exercise in ridiculousness, need not worry. Artaud wrote occasionally about the similarity between all strong emotional reactions, and he would certainly understand the thin line between dark laughter and somber rapture. The Mather House production spans the line with ease. At the very least, The Cenci is not pompous or boring, and as we approach Reading Period, what other company of speakers can talk to you for an hour and make that claim...
...EVEN though Monsieur Artaud was a strange and rather tortured fellow--a French poet-actor who equated sex with eviceration and spent most of his life following the 1935 debut of The Cenci in an insane asylum--and although he wrote a strange and rather tortuous play, his work has been redeemed as more than a curiosity by this Mather House group. Cenci is frequently longwinded, but Wingrove takes stage with sweeping and dynamic gestures, booming tones, and a demonic glint, effectively conveying the sickly obsession of the protagonist. Like her father, Susan Kelly's Beatrice is wronged...
Similarly, when two bungling assassins bounce across the stage, or Cenci's partygoers do a ritual dance to the strains of avant-garde rock, the audience is happy to perceive the action on two levels. Those who understand exactly what Artaud meant by his elliptical dialogue appreciate the refined symbolism, while the rest of us can chuckle in relief along with the tongue-in-cheek directors...