Word: shadbolt
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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MISCASTING MARS TWO important roles. David Schrag as head jailer ("and assistant tormentor") Wilfrid Shadbolt valiantly stumbles and smirks his way through his path of comic relief, but the darkly cherubic actor simply looks too young to be taken seriously. A suitor of Phoebe and a conspirator with Point, his adolescent countenance distracts the audience from an otherwise entertaining effort. French as Elsie suffers from a corresponding problem; more than any of the other non-students in the show, French is just too old for her part of "a maid of 17." Possessing the production's finest voice...
...eyed, one is a dwarf, and one has been classified as a homosexual. Many of the stragglers are brought in by neighborhood youngsters who have heard about the Milsters' cat colony. The cats' names are chosen eclectically: Nanki-Po, Twiggy, Dick Deadeye, Pigpen, Anastasia, Violetta, Wilfred Shadbolt, Don Alhambra del Bolero and Mad Ludwig...
...sturdy core of talented principals proves Yeomen's most valuable asset. Foremost among them is a new face: freshman Erica Zabusky. As Phoebe Meryll, who pines for the condemned Colonel Fairfax while fighting off the advances of his repulsive jailer Wilfred Shadbolt, Zabusky steals every scene she plays. She admirably avoids a problem that bogs down several of the other players: she is at ease and unselfconscious with Gilbert's archaic ods-bodkins-laced dialogue that so easily calls clumsy attention to itself. Her pure, clear mezzo-soprano enchants and, although her flirting with Colonel Fairfax gets her nowhere with...
...Neill's greatest weakness, though, comes in his own characterization of jailer Wilfred Shadbolt. The performance call unwarranted attention to itself from the moment the lights go up. The script of the operetta opens with Phoebe at the spinning wheel singing alone; this Yeomen begins with O'Neill clattering across the stage and mugging at the audience, all to no apparent purpose...