Pericles: The Island Hopper

Pericles, Prince of Tyre, sort of by William Shakespeare, at Theatre for a New Audience (“TFANA”), Polonsky Shakespeare Center

I haven’t seen Pericles, Prince of Tyre in decades, and when I saw the Michael Greif production downtown at the Public in the nineties, I enjoyed it as a lark.  Perhaps because of the old-fashioned theatrical effects they used, like a rumbling sheet of metal for thunder…ah the good old days.

This time around it’s directed by Trevor Nunn, whose credentials are pretty darned good.  And yet…. perhaps too good.  Pericles must surely be Shakespeare’s oddest and even most doubtful play.  Certainly it’s doubtful that Shakespeare had a hand in the first “half.”  Occasionally the verse sounds like Shakespeare — the second half of the play, for instance, flows much better than the first.  The first, however, is rather like a jiggly early black-and-white film being rolled manually.  It moves in starts and stops, so the story jumps and starts as well.

Don’t get me wrong.  This production has quite a few good points.  I’m guessing that the play’s the thing that gets my goat.  It has old stories linked together only by Pericles, with no call to think the stories are from the same eon.  Most importantly, if I captained or owned a ship and I saw Pericles coming, I’d ban him from my boat.  The man is bad luck.

The focus of the stark set was a striking bronze disk at the back of the stage.  While it reminded us of the poorly used bright disk used to blind the audience in last year’s Antigone [http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/search/label/Antigone] at BAM, this one was used to much better effect.  The bronze disk looked battered, then patterned, then glowed around the edges, then opened at center, sometimes into a doorway, large or small, sometimes to appear a porthole to view the play’s storms at sea.  All sorts of worlds and images live behind the bronze disc, including one that allows old Gower the storyteller to materialize, seemingly a ghost in another dimension, by stepping into our dimension and onto the stage. Raphael Nash Thompson’s practiced voice booms out telling the tale from days gone by, an old tale, of Prince Pericles.  Often he sings it — there’s a lot of singing in this production, and it is very fine.  Gower is amused and amusing although at times pushing the lesser language a bit too hard.

  

The next to enter the thrust stage is Pericles, Prince of Tyre, as depicted by Christian Camargo.  Full disclosure:  I am not a fan of Mr. Camargo.  I find him superficial, line-driven instead of character driven.  In short, I typically do not believe him to be the character he purports to be.  His performance as Pericles was not atypical.

The cast of Pericles at TFANA (Photo: Richard Termine)

Pericles is a foolish young prince, ready to follow in the footsteps of other foolish princes who vie for the hand of a king’s daughter in Antioch.  This is the story with a shocking riddle.  Since it’s perfectly clear what the answer to the riddle is, and only Pericles has solved it, one wonders if the other princes were too afraid to say it out loud.  Their skulls, perched on poles seen through that wonderful portal at the back of the stage, are a clear warning to any princes who want the king’s daughter.  The King of Antioch, in a rather operatic performance by Earl Baker Jr., isn’t willing to give up his daughter to marriage, since he is committing incest with her.  His daughter, nicely played by Sam Morales, is not as enamored of her father as he is of her, so earns a bit of sympathy.  But not from Pericles.  The scenes in Antioch set the tone of the play in which royals are clothed richly, but the style is dependent on the character.  The King of Antioch is in a billowing and shiny fabric in a rich jewel tone.  His daughter is in a translucent version. Costume designer Constance Hoffman does a fine job differentiating the island nations in dressing the characters. 

The last particular person we meet in Antioch is Thaliard, whom the peevish King orders to find and kill Pericles for guessing the riddle and becoming a threat to the king’s standing in the world.  Reputation, reputation.  Thaliard is marvelously played by Oberon K.A. Adjepong, who reappears in Tyre without achieving his goal.

The scenes in Tyre are perhaps the dullest with the most tangled language.  Here is where we cannot blame the actors or director but rather the sloppy transmission of the play through the ages.  Philip Casnoff as Helicanus is stuffy and pompous and rather monotonous, so I was never really sure if he was loyal to Pericles or not.  Pericles and Helicanus decide the safest thing for the former to do is to travel until Antiochus gets tired of chasing him or, preferably, dies.  This is not merely to protect Pericles’ life — Antiochus is not above making war against Tyre in order to punish Pericles, based upon an alleged slight.  To avoid involving his kingdom in his troubles, Pericles loads his ships and travels.

The beautifully designed theatre allows for many entrances so the actors in famine-devastated Tarsus crawl moaning onto the stage from the rear of the house.  Will Swenson is very effective here as Cleon, Governor of Tarsus, although he often relies too heavily on his beautiful voice.  As his wife Dionyza, Nina Hellman goes from grateful to villainous through the course of the play and excels at both (and then takes a turn as an unrecognizable Goddess Diana).  Pericles’ arrival with food for the starving nation makes him a beloved hero in Tarsus, but he continues his travels.

Pericles’ first shipwreck lands him alone on the beach at Pentapolis, where apparently the people are very nice and generous.  In a tedious scene, three fishermen talk about nothing on the beach until the bedraggled shipwreck victim comes upon them.  They help him to enter a jousting contest for the favor of the King of Pentapolis, Simonides, who is warmly and wittily played by John Rothman.  The various young men jousting are also vying for the affection of the king’s daughter, Thaisa, a lovely young woman who is as kind as her father, played by Gia Crovatin.  In his battered armor and torn clothes, Pericles (still utterly charmless as he is still played by Mr. Camargo) wins her heart, the king approves, and the couple is married.  It is in Pentapolis that Pericles learns of the death of his father, whom we did not meet when we were in Tyre, so he must take upon himself the yoke of leadership.  He and his now pregnant wife Thaisa head back to Tyre.  Which, alas, must be accomplished by boat.

 

Christian Camargo, Gia Crovatin.  (Photo:  Henry Grossman)

The second storm at sea is enacted onstage by actors swinging on ropes, and Thaisa screaming as her time comes near.  She is accompanied by her servant Lychorida, well played by Patrice Johnson Chevannes.  Thaisa’s child is born healthy, but the mother apparently dies in childbirth.  Thaisa’s body is placed with ritual, jewels, and gold into a coffin and sent overboard as the sailors try to save the ship.  Pericles names his daughter Marina and lands next back at Tarsus, where he leaves the upbringing of his now motherless daughter to his old friends Cleon and Dionyza.  They are delighted to take in the beautiful child, particularly since Dionyza has her own daughter and can bring them up together.  Pericles leaves his wife’s old nurse Lychorida with his daughter and goes off to Tyre.

Meanwhile, on another island nation, Ephesus, a coffin washes ashore and is brought to the local lord, Cerimon, who is a physician.  Earl Baker Jr. reappears in this much less showy role, and does very nice work as he inhabits this primitive physician.  Cerimon discovers that the body in the coffin is not dead after all.  Thaisa, believing her husband and daughter dead in a shipwreck, goes off with Cerimon to the temple of Diana where she will live her life as a votaress of that order.  

As in The Winter’s Tale, 16 years pass so that the baby will be a young woman for the second half of the play.  Marina, still in Ephesus with Dionyza and Cleon, has grown to be perfect and beautiful and virtuous.  Marina’s nurse Lychorida has died, leaving her alone with Cleon and Dionyza, whose daughter, while sweet, is a clod next to Marina, which is demonstrated onstage as the dear friends dance together – Sam Morales reappears in the silent role of Dionyza’s daughter, and is delightful.  All the boys fall for Marina, so Dionyza decides she must die.  She calls upon Leonine (well played by Zachary Infante), a servant who clearly is infatuated with Marina, to kill the girl.  He fails, and pirates come and take her away to Mytelene, where they sell her to a bawd, who is hilariously played by Patrice Johnson Chevannes. 

Earl Baker Jr., Christian Camargo, Lilly Englert, Gia Crovatin, and Raphael Nash thompson.  (Photo: Henry Grossman) 

Lilly Englert plays Marina.  I’ve seen her work before and enjoyed it, but this time I just could not fall for her virtuous Marina.  Physically she was all she should be, fearful, proud, disdainful.  But Ms. Englert could not convince me that this girl could convert the pander and the customers to just sit and listen to her talk or sing or dance.   Tough role, Marina.

Meanwhile back in Tarsus, Cleon berates his wife but can do nothing as they all believe Marina is dead.  When Pericles returns for his grown daughter, he is shown her gravestone.  Devastated, he vows to never change his clothes, cut his hair, or bathe and goes off in another ship, this time with his buddy Helicanus.  They arrive in Mytelene, and the converted Governor hopes that Marina can convince the man to speak, eat, live again.  Marina sings with a friend, gets no response, talks to him, touches him.  She gets a response to that, and it is rage.  They discover themselves to one another and all is well — this scene should be magical, and while Mr. Camargo is a bit more believable than usual, the scene falls flat and feels forced.  Pericles is transformed to a man who must take revenge on his old friend Cleon, but first must make a sacrifice to Diana, which means going to Ephesus, where, you guessed it, the father and daughter are reunited with Thaisa. 

At last, it’s almost over.

Director Nunn has cast a threesome of divergent actors as the threesomes that appear in the many locales of the play:  In Tyre, they are three unnamed lords, in Pentapolis three unnamed fishermen, and the three reappear in Ephesus and Mytelene individually.  These actors include one of my favorites at TFANA, John Keating, another who is not my favorite Zachary Infante, and a third with whom I am not yet familiar, Ian Lassiter.  Each one does his best work when not part of a threesome — Keating funny and touching as the pander in Mytelene, Infante very good as the reluctant murderer in Tarsus, and Lassiter grown to a three-dimensional human as the converted Governor Lysimachus in Mytelene. Keating is fine in all his roles, clearly the most experienced Shakespearean actor of the three.

Robert Jones’ scenic design is marvelous, in concert with Stephen Strawbridge’s lighting design.  Fights by J. Allen Suddeth were rather disappointing, but the choreography by Brian Brooks was pleasing, as were music and songs by Shaun Davey.  The evening begins with music, string instruments and percussion, all very well done by Pigpen Theatre Co., with John Blevins, Philip Varricchio, and Jessica Wang beautifully accompanying the action of the play from the mezzanine level of the theatre.

All in all, a pretty good production of a difficult and rather nonsensical play.  The designers, director, and performers all used the space of the Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage to its fullest extent and did their best with a “mouldy tale.”*  If you’ve seen Pericles, you needn’t see it again.  If you haven’t, this production at TFANA may be worth your time, if you’ve got 2 ¾ hours to spare. 

  

*Ben Jonson on Pericles, “Ode to Himself” (1631)

~ Molly Matera, signing off....not to re-read Pericles.

Much Ado About Something

The something is a breezy production of Much Ado About Nothing by Theatre For a New Audience.  Last winter I saw TFANA’s Arin Arbus-directed production of The Taming of the Shrew  with Maggie Siff as Kate.  This year the same director pairs Maggie Siff as Beatrice with the marvelous Jonathan Cake as Benedick. 

TFANA makes excellent use of the space at the Duke Theatre on 42^nd Street.  Again they create multiple playing levels by using the catwalk above the two-stepped stage, plus a tree for climbing and hiding.  As if that weren’t enough, there’s an extra variable level: a swing for Beatrice, Benedick, then both to rise and fall on.  This clever, compact scenic design by Riccardo Hernandez is both warm and practical, as is the lighting design by Donald Holder.  Director Arbus set the play in Italy before World War I, so the men’s costuming is fairly modern while the women are still in the confining clothing of the prewar period, illustrating the difference in levels of social freedom accorded to each sex, which feeds the Don John subplot that casts doubt on Hero’s chastity.  That said, the costuming by Constance Hoffman is less than exciting, but the hair is fabulous.

Any production of Much Ado must find the balance between the light and dark of its two storylines, since the lightness of the primary romance between the juvenile and the ingénue is darkened by the evil machinations of Don John.  Claudio and Hero are such dull creatures that they couldn’t carry a standard romance, so Shakespeare threw in the classical “chaste-maid-falsely-accused” plot to keep it moving.  Unfortunately for a modern audience this plot causes some issues; for instance, we cannot understand why Margaret does not speak up immediately upon recognizing her own actions falsely ascribed to Hero as the bride is falsely accused at the church.  But not to worry.  Beatrice and Benedick elucidate all while falling more deeply in love. 

Cake and Siff are good partners, their sprightly badinage a challenge and a delight to classical actors.  Reluctant lovers Beatrice & Benedick are the ancestors of every good romantic team in theatre and film — think Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby, Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in, well, anything.  Maggie Siff is having a fine time as Beatrice, but is not having quite as much fun as Jonathan Cake is having with Benedick — he’s having such a lark that he almost sweats his beard off.  Seeing this production makes me think of Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 film, that of the spectacularly funny opening credits, and the magical connection between Branagh and then-wife Emma Thompson as Benedick and Beatrice.  They were magnificent because of the sparks each created in the other.  Siff and Cake are good, but the magic doesn’t quite happen. 

Photo by Richard Perry (c) 2013 New York Times

I recall that Michelle Beck’s performance as Celia in the Bridge Project’s As You Like It was uneven, and here, too, she sometimes overcomes the character Hero as written, then other times succumbs to the blandness, as most actors do.  Her occasional flashes of anger at her accuser are most welcome.  Matthew Amendt’s Claudio is childishly enthusiastic, then jealous, and his work at the tomb of his bride is moving, but his Claudio has less depth than Ms. Beck’s Hero.

Graham Winton is a vulnerable Don Pedro, and his proposal to Beatrice is quite touching, her rejection even more painful.  John Keating, not unusually, plays two opposite roles and both quite well, the priest and Verges.

Robert Langdon Lloyd does heartfelt work as Leonato, father of Hero. It’s always good to see Peter Maloney, here twice blessed as Leonato’s brother Antonio and the Sexton.  John Christopher Jones’ Dogberry stumbled over the English language with veracity and vigor.

Denis Butkus and Paul Niebanck work well together as Conrade and Borachio respectively, the followers of the villainous Don John, who is played with a quirky intensity by Saxon Palmer.

Kate MacCluggage is quite entertaining as the overly friendly Margaret.  Elizabeth Meadows Rouse as her pal Ursula is rather amateurish — she seems to be playing a stock character, in common with the other tertiary characters such as Balthazar and the Watch.

.  Cake as Benedick and Siff as Beatrice.  Photo (c) 2013 by Gerry Goodstein

The company is charming and energetic and the audience is happy to spend a few hours with them.  Arin Arbus’ leading actors did fine work together, always returning to the witty and swell repartee of Beatrice and Benedick.  This Much Ado About Nothing is a cleverly pleasant evening in the theatre and runs through April 6th.

~ Molly Matera, signing off once I’ve ordered the DVD of the Branagh film.

Shakespeare in Frontierville

A rip-roaring production of The Taming of The Shrew opened this weekend at the Duke Theatre on 42^nd Street.  Theatre for a New Audience brings us back to the old west to experience a rollicking, jolly, remarkably American production of Shakespeare’s controversial comedy.

(c) Theatre for a New Audience

Director Arin Arbus reins in the 16^th century European setting to the 19^th century western frontier.  The scene is familiar, warm brown wood flooring and walls, beams going every which way on doors, shutters, a balcony.  The two-storied set by by Donyale Werle is classical in style, yet like “Frontiersville” in nature.  Anita Yavich’s costumes wrap natural hues around the company, appearing at once timeless and settled in the wild west.  As the audience enters a plinking piano played throughout by Jonathan Mastro is comfortingly reminiscent of saloon scenes from movie westerns.  Michael Friedman’s music combines traditional western “cowboy” music with Italian opera of the period, the latter in a particularly hilarious sequence when disguised Hortensio attempts to teach Bianca to sing. 

Lighting by Marcus Doshi is atmospheric, with footlights surrounding the stage, candles hanging from above. “Effects”of the sun and moon are as they would have been created by a 19^th century company.  Doug Elkins’ choreography works with the geography and the characters.

Director Arbus has chosen to maintain the blatant theatricality of the often-omitted Christopher Sly sub-plot, making Sly the town drunk tossed out of the saloon, where he can be wittily played upon by the local “lord” and a traveling theatrical troupe.  It’s a fine conceit, with Sly occasionally interrupting the proceedings, reminding us this is a play within a play we’re watching, and that everyone is someone other than who they profess to be.

Said play within the play takes place in 16^th Century Padua, where Baptista (Robert Langdon Lloyd) has two daughters: The elder is called Kate the Curst, while the younger, Bianca, is wooed by gentlemen old and young.  Baptista will not allow his younger daughter to be courted until his elder is wed, so Bianca’s suitors — Hortensio (a preening, stuttering, Saxon Palmer), Gremio (John Christopher Jones plays the traditional pantaloon with sympathy and humor), and the newly arrived Lucentio (Denis Butkus) — need someone to marry Kate.  Enter Petruchio, who has come to wive it wealthily in Padua while doing a great deal of slapstick. 

Maggie Siff as Kate and Andy Grotelueschen as Petruchio (C) 2012 Henry Grossman

Lucentio and his servant Tranio exchange clothing (and pseudo-identities) onstage, each revealing long-johns.  John Keating as the devious servant Tranio, however, is taller than Lucentio, so he spends the play strutting, posing, and conspiring in pants that are too short for him.  Kathryn Saffell is an amusing and intelligent Bianca, one moment a pouting victim, the next a flirt, and finally a veritable shrew herself.  The happily ubiquitous John Pankow is excellent as Grumio, conspiratorial servant to Petruchio and his partner in slapstick.

In this production, the titular Kate was clearly a tomboy just a few years ago.  She is now rangy and tough and no-nonsense.  It is perfectly clear only fools or liars come to court, for they really only want her soft and feminine little sister.  This Kate is an unrepresented, disrespected woman that weaker men wish to repress.  She’s funny, she’s sharp, she’s a little scary:  I half expected her to draw a derringer — or maybe a bullwhip.  She is personified perfectly by Maggie Siff.  In most of Shakespeare’s plays, the witty, wordsmithing woman is silenced after her marriage.  Not so Kate.  Once she is “tamed,” she has a long speech instructing women how to deal with their men, and thereby how to live in the world.  It’s not a swell world, but it’s the only one they’ve got.  The men in Kate’s world are dainty, where she is dauntless.  It takes a wild fellow named Petruchio to choose a highly imaginative method of wooing in order to tame.  This bold and bawdy man is played rather like a rich rancher’s son, but not a bad guy — a Cartwright, perhaps.  He’ll work his land, but he’s used to having money and wants it.  Andy Grotelueschen is a charming, tough yet thoughtful Petruchio, whose bravado can be seen to fade in face of his Kate.  After tempests are tossed about, quiet negotiations between this pair become surprisingly sweet love scenes you would not have imagined could appear in this play.

Andy Grotelueschen and Maggie Siff in TFANA's "The Taming of the Shrew"  (c) 2012 Gerry Goodstein

Theatre For A New Audience has brought together a fine, highly skilled company of players. There was really only one actor who seemed apart from the rest, not for lack of enthusiasm.

Shakespeare is quite at home in the American west, having toured through its mining towns, from tents to shanties to young cities, in dance halls, saloons and bona fide theatres — or the open air.  Ms. Arbus has set this production just where The Taming of the Shrew belongs.  The play runs at the Duke until April 21.  If you’re in town, go.  If you’re not, come visit.  (www.tfana.org)

Broken Hearts Bleed Black

Theatre for a New Audience’s scintillating production of John Ford’s 1620-something tragedy, The Broken Heart, is at the Duke on 42^nd Street through March 4th.  It was my first encounter with the Duke Theatre and I was impressed.  It’s a black box, configured as a thrust with many opportunities for entrances and exits to and within the space, and affording a controlled lighting scheme.  Seating wraps around three sides with comfy chairs at center.  The Broken Heart is a three-hour play but I barely noticed — those are good chairs, not to mention a riveting production. 

Shakespeare wrote bawdily in Elizabethan England.  John Ford followed a decade or so later in the 1620s, writing in the Caroline era (that is, during the reign of Charles I).  Shakespeare’s bawdy being frowned upon, Mr. Ford wrote abstemiously of the same lusts, lies, and naughtiness, but not as well. Not many plays by John Ford are extant and The Broken Heart is considered one of his best.  And it is a good tale, with love and chastity, lust, ravishment, and revenge.  People in John Ford plays were upright, uptight, and sure of their moral strength, even though The Broken Heart takes place in ancient Sparta.  They do not lack the stuff of bawdy.  They’re passionate, they just are extraordinarily repressed, so when their passions explode, they implode at the same time, and there’s bound to be blood.

The actors at Theatre for a New Audience have the chops to rise above a less than lyrical script and make it sing in some places, stumble a bit in others. What stands out is the fine, fine acting.  This cast is highly skilled and handles choreography, song, and some difficult language with aplomb.

Particularly:

As the first Broken Heart, Annika Boras does an astounding job as Penthea, betrothed to Orgilus but married off to a wealthy older man by her twin brother, Ithocles.  Ms. Boras has a stillness in her well-bred misery for the first half of the play; then, as Penthea starves herself, she gets almost giddy. Finally she runs mad in a scene that is truly powerful with an artist of Ms. Boras’ magnitude.  She is compelling every moment she’s onstage.

As the second Broken Heart, Jacob Fishel pulls us along in his love, hate, and vengeance as Orgilus.  His betrothed is married to a suspicious and cruel man, Bassanes.  Orgilus intends to leave Sparta to protect Penthea and himself from Bassanes’ irrational jealousy.  Alas, he does not truly do this, but rather disguises himself in plain sight.  (I didn’t say all the plot points worked; it’s an absurd convention used in drama as well as comedy, that the closest people in a person’s life don’t recognize him when he dresses differently and tosses on an Irish lilt in ancient Sparta).  Mr. Fishel, however, is engaging, witty, passionate, and articulate in this role.  Orgilus is the deviously driving force in the play, and he’s driven by anger.  He finally has the power to heal or kill, and chooses the easier way.

The third Broken Heart is the nasty Ithocles himself, when he discovers love unrequited, and suddenly pities his tormented sister.  Very nice work by Saxon Palmer in this role, allowing us to hate him, then pity him, to the point of forgetting that this is a drama, not a romance (that is, all will not be well).

The prize for most surprising Broken Heart goes to the Princess of Sparta, Calantha, played by Bianca Amato.  I warmed to Ms. Amato as the play progressed – a chilly and correct princess in black, she developed surprising passions, all the way to her final whirling in white in a truly creepy scene.  Hers is the Broken Heart of the title, since hers is the death directly caused by her broken heart.  Ms. Amato has a powerful voice, noble bearing, then a smile that makes her character come alive. 

John Keating did fine work as Armostes, counselor of the court; then he headed off to a different place somewhere between Marty Feldman and Harpo Marx to become comic relief as the wild-haired Phulas, servant to mean Bassanes.  Amyclas, King of Sparta was well played by Philip Goodwin, to the point that we worry for Sparta when he dies.  Truly, the whole company was first rate.

The setting of the play by Antje Ellermann is singular in a series of whites and grays.  Its two levels, steps, ladders, hidden rooms and alcoves are all a delight to play on.  The lonely banquet scenes start with color then the fruit grows moldy.  Without being intrusive, the settings were clever and effective as was the lighting design by Marcus Doshi.  There will be blood in a play of this type – a revenger’s play.  But even in this, director Selina Cartmell had to surprise us.  This was a black-and-white production and remained so.  Red appears black in black-and-white photography, and so the flowing blood was black in Sparta.  This production is Ms. Cartmell’s American debut, and she is most welcome.

Costume design by Susan Hilferty is marvelous, simple, practical, and sometimes quite beautiful.  Choreography by Annie-B Parson is probably not Spartan, but she creates smooth and graceful ritual, beautifully executed by all.  It is part of the drama of the final scenes, allowing for momentary freezes in a well-staged build.  Composer David Van Tieghem provided lovely melodies for the sweet voice of Margaret Loesser Robinson, who played two very different characters.  Another musician opened the evening on an instrument that made magical sounds when induced by Molly Yeh, who wanders like a melodic line through the action of the play.

John Ford could not have escaped seeing Shakespeare’s plays.  Some of his own plays were performed by The King’s Men. Unfortunately, well-structured as the play is (Ford did study law, after all), what Ford did not learn from the Bard was how to use verse.  Shakespeare’s verse instructs his actors how to play the scenes and the characters.  The verse shapes the performances and the play, an aid to the actors.  John Ford is a dramatist, but no poet.  His speeches do not build, but harangue. They are obstacles the actors must overcome.  There are too many one-note characters in this play who were enhanced by the actors performing them, digging deep for more notes to make a progression, perhaps even a harmony.  Mr. Ford could have used some drawing lessons to learn a thing or two about shading. 

Luckily, good actors can make a lesser play soar.  This was a fine production, imaginatively and strongly guided by Selina Cartmell, and acted almost to perfection by the company. Whatever the flaws of this 17^th century play, I highly recommend you get to the Duke on 42^nd Street to see it before March 4^th.

~ Molly Matera, signing off to read some early 17^th century verse, but not Mr. Ford’s.