Word: raphaels
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...then there are the requisite Shepard characters. There is Jake (Chad Raphael), the Violent Drifter, who has just beaten his wife, Flighty But Passionate Beth (Heather Gunn), so mercilessly that he thinks he has killed her. Their respective families run to their aid. On Jake's side there's his Loyal But Timid brother Frankie (Daniel Hurewitz), his Embittered sister Sally (Diane Paulus), and his Oedipally Overnurturing Mother Lorraine (Susan Schwartz). Their counterparts in Beth's family are her Vengeful brother Mike (Sam Sifton), her Death-Obsessed Hunter father Baylor (Jon Tolins), and her Fearful And Self-Deluding mother...
...only thing that mars these otherwise solid performances is the actors' tendency to adopt a certain gesture or mannerism and repeat it over and over, as if Director Fred Pletcher had told his cast that nervous tics make characters more human. As a result, Raphael slicks his hair back, Hurewitz stammers like James Stewart, Paulus taps her foot, Bader walks around with her hands folded in her lap, and Tolins picks the wax out of his ear with his pinky and bellows, "Hehhehhehheh," like Jackie Gleason snapping at Audrey Meadows. All this becomes annoying quickly...
Farce makes such weighty points through belly-aching humor, a point director Chad Raphael well understands. His stagings are often brilliantly choreographed, bringing out the full chaotic energy of the work. The nightclub entertainment scene metamorphoses into a very credible three-ring circus complete with a strong man in a leopard skin (Ken), scantily-clad female (Lisa Lindley), fat lady (Eileen), can-can dancer (Ted), and Elvis impersonator (Donal Logue)--a deliriously wild spectacle that is one of this show's unforgettable moments. In this scene, Raphael also reminds us of Orton's message that we are all guests...
...most part, Raphael elicits terrific performances from his no-holds-barred cast. Becker, Ocko, and Galland are all wonderfully loony tune and daffy in their roles, hamming it up to the hilt yet without excess. And Lindley, Logue and Linus Gelber are solid in their supporting roles as Erpingham sidekicks. The two best performances are those of Zelman and Gunn. In particular, Zelman plays Kenny with a hilarious bravado that energizes the entire show. It is in his scenes that The Erpingham Camp shifts into full farce flight...
...architecture. Benjamin West (1738-1820), born in Springfield, Pa., to Quaker parents, was the first major American painter to make a career in Europe; he succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as the second president of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. West might be known as the American Raphael, but this praise was as excessive as Lord Byron's dismissal of him: "the flattering, feeble dotard, West,/ Europe's worst dauber, and poor Britain's best . . ." He knew how to cater to Europeans' expectation that he, as an American, would be a cultural Natty Bumppo; when he went to Rome...