Word: slapsticker
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Still it is slapstick in the face of the abyss and one cannot ignore the callousness Shakespeare rather crudely intended. And it is in this aspect that the production manages to overcome the weaknesses in the play itself. Peter Stein has directed with a great deal of thought; and in some respects, he has presented the show as a series of miniatures complete in themselves, maintaining a flow while allowing each scene with its own vacillating emotions. The elaborate denouement, always the bane of this play, and most often done as some sort of grand processional, is handled masterfully, Stein...
...time, with Ringo Starr as a misfit caveman and sultry Barbara Bach as his Stone Age Circe? Why not, indeed? Writers Gottlieb and DeLuca have risen-no, lowered themselves-to the challenge. Instead of screaming at prehistoric monsters, the audience squeams at a ragtag parade of sight gags and slapstick. And has a wonderful time...
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Slapstick relies entirely on people taking unexpected tumbles, and musical comedy--like slapstick--creates its own sensibilities. Almost anything can fly in a musical if the songs are good, the dancing snappy, and the jokes, if not hilarious, at least well-timed. The willing suspension of disbelief that lies at the heart of the theater can become practically cryogenic under the spell of all that glitter. Complete strangers start singing in harmony, villains start tapdancing--no one will bat an eye if it's snappy enough. A.W.O.L. has all of the elements required...
Ultimately, the staging of the overture illustrates director David Carmen's fundamental assumption that continually bogs down an otherwise delightful production, that if the audience isn't kept constantly amused by broad gestures and incessant slapstick, it will become bored and confused. It's an unfortunate approach to take: surely the Agassiz Theater crowd is capable of picking up the wedding-cake suggestion and content to listen to the overture undistracted. But from start to finish, this is a Patience for the impatient...
Kaplan has made a game stab at filling the space. He had meticulously choreographed a procession of clever unsurprising slapstick turns, solemnly executed by actors who signal the coming of a collision, pratfall or somersault the way a five-year-old holds his nose before diving off a high board. Rather than using the company's limitations and giving us a slopping, ingratiating evening, the director offers us a museum piece--slapstick embalmed...