Word: staging
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...enacted, the VAT will tax the values added to all goods at each stage of the production and sales process. Every time a manufacturer or entrepreneur raises the price of a product, the government will tax this added value at a rate of 10 percent. Without the VAT, Ernest and Julio Gallo sell their Pinot Chardonnay to a wine distributor for $18 a case. But this tax will force the Gallo Bros. to raise the price of their wine to $20, to cover the $2 they will have to pay the government. The wine distributor then sells the Pinot Chardonnay...
...second character to enter is a ner'd (Drew Weinstein)--also not in the Aristophanes version--who says he's going to close the show, he simply cannot permit it to be performed on a stage at Harvard. Why? Who is this cliched creature anyway, and what in this tame, already-too-long play could he possibly be objecting to, except for its poor blocking, missed cues and amateurish deliveries? Your interests are piqued; you figure the play will get more bawdy as the evening goes on. It doesn...
...play picks up a bit when the men come on stage. Two members of the chorus of old men, Pinocles (Alan Ruof) and Mastocles (Ray Bertolino), put some expression into their voices, but their parades around the stage seem foolish. Smith, as Kinesias, brings energy to his role, but too often he delivers his lines in singsong yells rather than with the distress of a man in dire need of sexual gratification...
...humdrum tedium nearly everyone else seems to have mastered, and his squadron of guards whisper to each other every time they're supposed to move three steps to the right or left. In fact, nearly all the blocking in the play consists of simple pacing up and down the stage. Two steps to the left, deliver a line, four steps to the right, deliver another line, and poof--instant play...
...PROBLEM WITH Lysistrata is that it's just not ready. The rewritten script, while something of an affront to Aristophanes, could work, given time and proper direction. There's talent on that Winthrop stage, but it has not yet been polished into a presentable production. The actors all have their lines down; now it's time to start working on delivery and blocking. Perhaps they should go back into rehearsal and open again in April...