Word: comics
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Bonnie Anne DeLorme as Aunt Eller played her part like a wise old woman of 22 with a Western accent that seemed to be borrowed from a Eugene O'Neill seaplay. William Falk and Patricia Low as Will Parker and Ado Annie both sang and danced with comic talent and lots of energy, but their characters had the depth of colorforms. Laura Jean Esserman as Gertie Cummings read every line as though she were doing an opera without music. Her laugh haunted me through three nights of horrifying dreams. Richard Rosomoff's nut-colored Ali Hakim was very, very funny...
George Hunt is particularly entertaining as Prince Dauntless the Drab, the weak-willed mother's boy in search of a wife and a way to untie the apron strings. Hunt doesn't sting all that well, but his comic sense is more than adequate, and he manages to stop the show a few times with broad gestures and a bewildered, hapless expression...
...sings the famous "A policeman's lot is not a happy one" with a straight-faced sincerity that makes his an appropriate foil to the zany police chorus. Of all the major performances, only Gregrey Gorden's Pirate King sounds a sour note. Gorden lacks the bellowing bass and comic belligerence to sustain his caricature of the English peer gone wrong. Perhaps some fiercer make-up would have helped...
ALTHOUGH PUNCTUATED with terrific bangs of comic energy, the current Winthrop House production of The Taming of the Shrew trips and falls over the unmasking of its Kate. By accenting the fast-biting moments of Elizabethan wit, director Leah Rosovsky has left the meaning of the play unclear. The actors, dressed in a hodge-podge of costumes and too often blocked like isolated commentators on the action, come up each with their own interpretations. Jennifer Marre's shrew submits to her husband with an attempt at audience-directed irony. But Jonathan Epstein's Petruchio tries to woo her sincerely with...
...production, like a comic character, somersaults after its stumble and, standing again, brushes itself off, relatively unharmed. One reason for this is the broad comic talents of three of the actors. John Bacquie intelligently plays Gremio, Bianca's overaged suitor. Richard Price (as Lucentio's impersonating servant Tranio) effortlessly outwits better men. And John Cooper turns in a commanding performance as Grumio, Petruchio's spluttering servant. His attempt to unpeel layers and layers of clothing while telling the story of Petruchio's and Kate's trek through the snow, practically steals the production...