Word: mimes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...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 interest in men. This division of the play, though clever, imposes severe restrictions on the actors...
...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...
...panache smoothly implies a production of a production--actors playing actors. Madden's effect is boosted here by the equally stylized sets, always smaller than the stage, parading their artificiality, masterfully created by Andrew Jackness. The Terry of Terry Won't Talk is more metaphsyical than physical, but master mime Mark Linn-Baker brings him to life, sometimes with a tilt of his head, sometimes with a peculiarly appropriate shuffle of a walk. Richard Grustin is just as effective as Terry's father, turning in a suitably theatrical and vivacious performance...
...music lending a touch of formal majesty, the performers move from discord to concord in a progress that sinks deep into the layers of Shakespeare's meanings, to emerge restored and invigorated. Stage movement as much as language becomes a spade they use to unearth poetic ambiguities, in several mimes enacted to bits of Purcell's score: while a soprano sings a mournful aria, Stephen Rowe's Demetrius and Lisa Sloan's Helena wander about in a ghostly love-dance, with Helena reaching for and grasping Demetrius just as he turns away; after the night of illusion in the forest...
...ghostly interpretation Sellon brings to his part, mostly mime except for his songs, helps tie the carefree world of the cabaret to the despairing lives of the characters. the frenetic chase of pleasure, which first draws people to the cabaret, slowly creeps into their lives outside it. The middle-aged widow, Fraulein Schneider (Holly Sargent), calls off her engagement to the Jewish Schultz (Joshua Milton) because of her terror of the Nazis. Sargent's singing starts off a little shakily, but she recovers quickly. The only changes that creep into the life of Fraulein Kost, deftly portrayed by Holley Stewart...