Word: mayers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...less thoughtful hands the tale of Aladdin has been a dandy thriller, "an adolescent's dream of revenge," as Mayer points out in a program note. But Mayer eliminates much of the suspense: Aladdin's difficulties are solved handily by two genies, and the lad swiftly and stoically executes the evil magician, who has been drugged by the Princess. So what's the point? Aladdin, the Sultan explains at the end of the play, got lucky. But he measured up to his luck, he gave it a good home. Throughout the play. Aladdin's spirit is large and independent enough...
...Mayer's script is a farrago of styles, all of them challenging, from the evil magician's bloated Miltonian opening speech to the Scholar Wu's delicate (and suitably alcoholic) Eastern lyricism in a poem called "Kite Fight," which he recites while being whipped. (The scene is stylized and relatively painless, the Scolar Wu seeming to leave his body far behind, the onlookers emitting the sound of the lash.) Our bodies are kites in a kite fight, he says--the kites a long...
...PRODUCTION IS, in spots, sloppily executed, with lack of rehearsal, perhaps, contributing to an aura of tentativeness, the performers occasionally sagging like the deadly Persian rugs that hang over the stage. Mayer has staged his play in a series of tableaux, the colorfully costumed actors moving dutifully into position, one character usually wandering aimlessly in the middle. Act One has a lot of exposition, a lot of aimless wandering: in Act Two the plot perks up and Mayer's comic invention peaks. Certainly this is sped along by the appearance of the Genie of the Lamp, whose entrances and exits...
...ensemble, clearly under-rehearsed, doesn't really gel, but there is nice work by lots of capable actors. Among Mayer's previous collaborators, Woodward Wickham is an unmagical magician and Andrea Portago a plebian Lady, but Francis Gitter has a compelling presence, rivetingly sad eyes, and moments of gaunt, tranquil beauty as Aladdin's mother, and Vincent Canzoneri is a wittily forthright Scholar Wu. As the Grand Wazir, David Prum reveals a precious comic style, a sublimely funny blend of ham and deadpan, and Jenny Cornuelle, a most impudently regal actress, is a flashing, mesmerizing Sultan. Maybe best...
...shame that Mayer was too busy trying to finish his script to spend more time rehearsing his actors, but--hell--I can sympathize with slow, thoughtful writers--this review was scheduled to run yesterday. Though the production is untidy and the play unfinished (Mayer might fill out his protagonist and tighten in particular the first act). Aladdin is an exhilarating reminder that theatrical magic is most wondrous when it is achieved without tricks...