Word: redfords
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Director Paul Redford has ingeniously underscored most of the show with subtle percussion music, wood blocks, wind chimes and drums that unite the play and make credible the passing of 16 years and the revelation scene in the fifth act. John Krosnick, however, is occasionally heavy-handed with his drumsticks...
...show's first three acts are brilliant, the blocking simple and elegant and the acting convincing. The first three acts are a sad tale, "best for winter." In the fourth act, the play metamorphoses into a springtime world of romance and comedy: Redford's interpretation of this act is fit only for the Ziegfeld follies. He has included kick lines, scat numbers and Three Stooges slapstick falls. These numbers are endless and the act almost succeeds in ruining an otherwise brilliant production...
...Redford has bizarrely chosen the '20s as the setting for this play, a decision chiefly noticeable in the first three acts by the costumes of the performers. In the fourth act, the time setting of the production returns with a vengeance, as peasants do flapper numbers to Louis Armstrong tapes...
...first three acts, Redford works with a simple set consisting of a narrow, straight-back throne set on a raised platform. His blocking of each scene subtly underscores the action as it develops in the play...
...Grace Shobet's courageous Paulina, and the scenes between Shohet and Clemenson are the best in the play. Shohet outshines Kim Bendheim (Hermione), who is distractingly nervous in the opening scene but rallies to embody virtue, as Shakespeare intended. Bendheim is particularly strong in her trial scene, where Redford's blocking is also at its best--simply but effectively showing the relative virtues of the characters. Hermione stands on a small box above all her accusers; with their backs to the audience...