5.29.11
This is an Archival Site
There is now a new Rogovoy Report home
5.18.11
Weekend Preview May 19-24
Bob Dylan tributes, Deborah Voigt, Tom Paxton, Bill Kirchen, John Kirk and Trish Miller
5.18.11
Celebrating Bob Dylan's 70th Birthday in Style
Paying tribute to the greatest rock songwriter ever
5.17.11
FILM REVIEW: In a Better World and Of Gods and Men
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.17.11
'LIKE' The Rogovoy Report on Facebook
Click 'LIKE' to Receive Facebook feeds from The Rogovoy Report
5.12.11
Deborah Voigt Headlines Mahaiwe Gala
Opera star to sing arias, show tunes on Saturday, May 21
5.15.11
Famed Spiritual Teacher to Speak on Nonviolence
Mother Maya in free talk at Sruti Yoga in Great Barrington, Mass., on Friday May 20 at 7pm
5.12.11
Special Effects Wizard to Be Honored by Film Festival
Doug Trumbull to be Feted by BIFF
5.11.11
Weekend Preview May 12-16
Cultural Highlights of the Berkshire Weekend
6.4.09
Talk about a small world
Elaine and I grew up together, but only just recently met....
5.8.11
Berkshire Living to Cease Publication
A Farewell from Publisher Michael Zivyak
5.8.11
twiGs Branches Out
Lenox boutique launches new e-tail site
5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy
|
[THEATER REVIEW] Rough Crossing at Shakespeare & Company
6.21.07
SHAKESPEARE & COMPANY
ROUGH CROSSING by Tom Stoppard
Founder's Theatre
Through Sept. 2, 2007
Review by SETH ROGOVOY, editor-in-chief and critic-at-large of BERKSHIRE LIVING MAGAZINE
(Lenox, Mass.) -- Occasionally Shakespeare & Company goes off book, so to speak, and tackles non-Shakespearean work (actually, more than occasionally, and even more than occasionally this summer).
When the company does, it's often a welcome break.
And this summer, they could not have chosen better than to assay ROUGH CROSSING, a farce by Tom Stoppard, adapted from Ferenc Molnar’s Play at the Castle and P.G. Wodehouse’s The Play’s the Thing, but as is evident from both titles, solidly grounded in or influenced by Shakespeare himself.
Shakespearean allusions abound in Stoppard's script -- as well as borrowings from Gilbert & Sullivan, who cast a dark shadow over the entire proceedings -- which is given a riotously funny realization by director Kevin G. Coleman and the cream of the crop of Shakespeare & Company's comic actors, including Elizabeth Aspenlieder, Jason Asprey, Bill Barclay, Jonathan Croy, Malcolm Ingram, and LeRoy McClain.
Set in the 1930s, with lyrics by Stoppard and music by Andre Previn, the hilarious, repartee-filled farce gets underway aboard The SS Italian Castle, an ocean liner bound for New York from Southampton, and tells the story of a musical comedy team who must come up with an ending for their newest show before their ship docks. However, the aging and randy starlet, Natasha, played with lascivious delight by Aspenlieder, gets caught by her ‘love-struck’ French piano player boyfriend, Adam, in a compromising position with her much older co-star, Ivor, played with perfect haughtiness by Malcolm Ingram. Adam’s heartbreak causes the sudden onset of an extremely comical speech impediment.
The plot thickens when the playwrights/collaborators Turai and Gal, played with perfect comic timing by the duo of Croy and Asprey, have to concoct an elaborate scheme to keep Adam on the ship and finish the musical. Weaving (literally) in and out of the story is the cabin steward Dvornichek, played with comic wisdom by newcomer LeRoy McClain.
But the plot is not really the point here, as it rarely is in farce. Rather, it's the sheer pleasure in the comedy, the pratfalls, the acting, the songs, and finally, Stoppard's witty script, which is given all due respect, that makes this ROUGH CROSSING not only smooth, but essential theatergoing.
|
...sites that work