Word: lebow
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Despite this long-held assumption, I was still inspired and impressed by my experience this week observing the English as a Second Language class taught by Erica J. LeBow '01. Lebow, a joint English and Sociology concentrator, is one of 35 Harvard students involved in Partners for Empowering Neighborhoods (PEN). This Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) program offers free adult education classes in English as a second language (ESL), computers, math and reading/writing to residents of the Fresh Pond Housing Development in Cambridge and the Bromley Heath neighborhood in Jamaica Plain...
...Defrost." This translation stumped even the most advanced students. LeBow creatively darted to a refrigerator conveniently located in this quasi-classroom, quasi-community center and compared the ice cube's solid state to the running water flowing from a spigot. Teaching ESL often requires a modicum of acting talent. Frequently, LeBow found herself improvising, role-playing and relying on extemporaneous examples and analogies...
...Derrah mumbles his way convincingly through Margaret's stroke-victim husband Paul's virtually incomprehensible speeches. In contrast to Margaret Brennan's fruitless and overeager attempts to raise a normal family, Boo's parents, Karl and Soot, are the archetypal alcoholic husband and seriously oppressed sex-toy wife. Will Lebow, playing Boo's father, spurts a stream of obscene jokes, sexist comments and alcohol-induced insults, deftly making you want to strangle him; and Paula Plum, playing Boo's mother, giggles her way adeptly into our sympathies as Soot descends further and further into flamboyant madness...
Unmatched in the entire production, however, is the delicious comic relief found between Kadmos (Alvin Epstein) and Tiresias (Will LeBow) at the start of the play. One cannot help but love the funny old men as they prepare to dance in the mountains near the Bacchae, particularly Kadmos in his dress straight out of "Prom Night Horror." When they have to, however, both can instantly become powerful leaders on the brink of destruction. LeBow's Tiresias sends chills through the audience with his dark fore-shadowings to the giggling Maenads. Likewise, the perpetually-talented Epstein manages to make his bitter...
...same with the stage. Comfortable and at ease with the silliness with the lyrics, he sings with the glee of a Puck and the energy to match the Klezmer Band's clarinet. Also exceptional are the buffoon Gronam Ox and his wife Yenta Pesha (Marilyn Sokol). Shlemiel himself (Will LeBow) is shlemiely enough and improves in the second act when his role becomes more dynamic...