Word: dudgeons
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...Summer School Repertory Theater's spirited production does it ample justice. With the help of a distinguished cast, director Richard Edelman has mounted a very funny, generally convincing version of Shaw's unwitting paen to the U.S. bicentennial, though even Edelman and company can't quite make Dudgeon's transformation into a man of the cloth...
John Glover as Dudgeon certainly does his best, remaining comfortable with Shaw's script even when the script itself lets him down. Exuding energy and contempt for the fusty and hypocritical Puritanism of his elders, Glover makes his entrance early in the action with dramatic flair, twirling his cape flamboyantly, strutting around the stage and insulting everyone in sight. Edelman's spitfire pacing and clever use of props, together with Glover's easy stage presence, make this scene--in which the relatives gather to hear Dudgeon pere's will--a comic gem that sets the tone for the rest...
Playing opposite Dudgeon, Robert Murch makes a virtuous and likeable Anderson. As Dudgeon less convincingly ascends to martyrdom, Murch, everworldy, acts his own transformation from tranquil pastor to booted man of war in a high comic vein...
...Devil's Disciple, Shaw's misogyny is in plain view; the two leading female characters are depicted mainly as obstacles to the fulfillment of worthwhile male goals. While Martha Farrar as Mrs. Dudgeon satisfactorily avoids caricaturing the crotchety old woman, Wendy Fulton is less successful as Judith Anderson...
Part of her problem stems from the difficulty of the role: if the minister's wife is too appealing, Dudgeon's eventual rejection of her will seem neither understandable nor sympathetic, distorting the comic balance of the play. For that reason, director Edelman has made Fulton's performance the most stylized in the production. Although Fulton has some good moments--when her face is transfigured by the memory of Dudgeon's heroism, for example--for the most part, she ends up playing Judith as a stock comic character, a foolish, romantic female who inhabits an entirely different theatrical world than...