Word: cenci
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Cenci is Shelley's dramatization of the 16th century legend of Count Cenci, an evil old man who, as Percy Bysshe Shelley (Matt Schuerman) tells the audience at the opening of Nick Moschovakis' production, "having spent his life in debauchery and wickedness, conceived at length an implacable hatred towards his children...
...this is not a professional cast. Although a few actors--Nick Raposo (Cenci), Jim Marino (Orsino) and Schuerman--make noble attempts to salvage the performance, most others have difficulty escaping the tendency to recite rather than act their lines...
Mona Karim, who plays Cenci's daughter, Beatrice, falls all too often into this trap. While Shelley's play is intended to be a tragedy, Karim fails to convey believable anger in her accusations. There is so little emotion in her portrayal of Beatrice that when she reveals the incest forced upon her by her father, one may be uncertain of exactly what has happened to her. Were it not for Shelley's plot summary in the opening scene, the main tension of the play might go undiscovered...
Karim's interaction with Lina Bryan-Toledo, who plays Cenci's wife, Lucretia, is stilted as well. There is no rapport between the only female characters in The Cenci; in fact, as Lucretia paces mechanically back and forth across the set, she seems to be quite unaware that Beatrice is standing, raped, violated and stiff-shouldered, in the center of the stage...
...performance, additionally hampered by technical problems. The action was slowed down enormously by laborious scene changes, which involved repositioning the black and white flats that composed the set. And the lighting was so poorly designed that actors not infrequently recited their lines while standing halfway in the dark. The Cenci's fundamental weakness is its script, and the talent of the cast did not succeed in overcoming...