Word: malfi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Nicholas Nickleby and Strange Interlude, and Ian McKellen, a Tony winner for his portrayal of the jealous composer Salieri in Amadeus. Each production in Chicago has showcased the two principals and three comparably talented colleagues, Greg Hicks, Eleanor Bron and Jonathan Hyde. The stand opened with The Duchess of Malfi in a faithfully Grand Guignol rendition of Webster's Jacobean tragedy. Actors clad in funereal black moved menacingly amid the stately but decaying gray palatial sets; virtually the only color was a frequent splash of blood. The ensemble followed with an energetic rendition of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard...
...sweet reserve to her playing, and a sense that despite her temporary befuddlements, her Anne is on the way to becoming a woman of genuine, and entrancing, character. Having her conduct her relationship with Edward while they are involved in a drama club production of The Duchess of Malfi puts them in logical touch with a group of eccentrically orbiting minor characters and imparts a resonance, narrative richness and a range of human interest extraordinary to find in a film by young people...
...MALFI DOESN't EXIST in this production of The Duchess of Malfi. The turgid program note warns that Webster's seventeenth-century tragedy is a "waking dream." An empty lavender platform represents the ducal palace of Malfi; in Laura Shiels and Cynthia Raymond's stylized production, this psychological drama could take place anywhere or anytime within one's imagination. Shiels and Raymond interpolate dance and mime into the story to indicate the tensions beneath the Renaissance rhetoric. A veil hangs at the back of the stage, behind which a "Duchess of Imagination" flirts while the real Duchess in front disclaims...
...responsibilities of her social position and of the danger in which her marriage will place her. At one moment, Bendheim skips for joy; at another, she dismisses her servants with a single high-handed gesture. The Duchess is a strong character, able bravely to state "I am Duchess of Malfi still" when all the trappings of rank have been taken from...
...dance and mime does not fully compensate for the narrowness of Shiels and Raymond's interpretation. Regarded merely as a nightmare, The Duchess of Malfi loses coherence and power. Though Shiels and Raymond have taken great liberties with the play--the plot is so tightly constructed that it survives. Horror after horror piles up and our interest never flags. Nevertheless, we don't believe in what happens. Bendheim's is the only performance approaching credibility. By removing The Duchess of Malfi from a gossip-ridden palace and situating it in the dark recesses of the mind, Shiels and Raymond have...