Word: robin
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...opens with the imminent marriage of Arnolphe (Eric Oleson), an arrogant country squire and "raving paranoid." Obsessed with a fear of being ridiculed in his choice of a wife, Arnolphe has carefully planned his marriage over many years. He took charge of a young peasant girl, Agnes (Katherine Robin), and raised her just as he wished--innocent and stupid, a girl who thinks "children are begotten through the ear." Now that she's reached marriageable age, he's brought her to a secluded manor near his home to keep her chaste in the last days before their marriage...
...middle of the play, Arnolphe forces Agnes to read a book of maxims about marriage, her schooling in wifery. Instead of having Robin read the ditties as the script calls for, Sagal sends in a troupe of "Maxim Players" (Jennifer Litt, Will Provost, Fiona Tingley, and Manson Yew) who proceed to act out eleven of them. Sagal turns a potentially boring segment into an amusing vaudeville skit. Other scenes like this punctuate the show, keeping the action fastpaced and the energy level high...
...comic timing as well as an irresistible variety of goofy facial expressions. But Oleson's tour-de-force performance really takes off in the serious parts. He manages to make Arnolphe's psychosis accessible to the audience, creating sympathy and pulling off these serious scenes with a skill Robin and Jeff Rossman (who plays Horace, Agnes' lover) lack...
Since Oleson commands the stage with his tremendous stage presence, less is required of the supporting cast. Robin and Rossman have a strong sense of comic timing, but they don't fully convey the simple innocence and sincerity their characters possess. Only part of the problem lies in the translation which turns Moliere's verse into heroic couplets...
...Round robin action was finished up during day two--with less pleasing results for the Crimson sailors. Harvard was outraced by MIT, Connecticut College, and Boston University...