Monday,
May 07, 2007
"Enchanted April":
The
ANNOTICO Report
I
swear, my Headline does Not vary much from what was
written in the Review below.
"The play
opens with Lotty Wilton and Rose Arnott
independently discovering an advertisement for a wisteria-garlanded
castle-for-rent in
So in a sentence,
here's what happens: Four women all feel bad, they all go on vacation together,
and then they all feel better. Chekov it's not, but what the heck, it's spring! "
"Enchanted
April": A book adapted into a play, then made into a movie, and now
enjoying a resurgence of sorts back on the stage. It refuses to go away, mostly
because so many people agree it's just such good, harmless fun to have around.
Theater
review:
Get
away with "Enchanted April" at Strollers
By
Scott Topper
Monday,
May,7 2007
Al Italia!
If you don't have
one of your own, Strollers Theatre brings you close enough with its new production
of "Enchanted April" at the Bartell Theatre. (in
A book adapted
into a play, then made into a movie, and now enjoying a resurgence of sorts
back on the stage, "Enchanted April" refuses to go away, mostly
because so many people agree it's just such good, harmless fun to have around.
The play opens
with Lotty Wilton and Rose Arnott
independently discovering an advertisement for a wisteria-garlanded
castle-for-rent in
So in a sentence,
here's what happens: Four women all feel bad, they all go on vacation together,
and then they all feel better. Chekov it's not, but what the heck, it's spring!
The dispensable
plot is propped up by perfunctory back-stories, and it doesn't much matter.
It's simply about these four women, or more precisely, the four actresses who
play them. Fortunately, they are each delightful and a pleasure to watch.
Miranda McClenaghan is the torrent of oxygenated blood coursing
through the production's heart. As Lotty Wilton, she
marshals the other women and catalyses their reawakening with her infectious
optimism. She is the de facto mother of the group, driven by her unerring
compassion, and her optimistic "visions" of a better future. McClenaghan has a giddy, peripatetic energy, and brings
real joy to the role. If the show lacked all other pleasures it would still be
good fun to spend a few hours watching her talk about anything.
Erin Baal plays
Rose Arnott, Lotty's
haunted companion. She is gray, repressed and sad, and a good foil to McClenaghan's exuberance. Her character is mostly
constrained and secondary, but when she finally warms and allows herself to
smile, it is like watching a mound of snow melt and finding a tree underneath.
You feel as relieved as her character is meant to.
As Ms. Graves,
Gloria Meyer is the grand dame of the group. Noble, ancient, ossified, she is
meant to manifest physically what the others are experiencing emotionally.
Meyer has a stern and beautiful face and controls the pacing whenever she is on
stage. She is confident and comfortable, and makes disliking her character good
fun.
Finally, there is
Lady Caroline Bramble. Played by Karen Moeller, she is manipulative, aloof and
truly sad. The worst thing that can be said about her performance is that she
is obviously much too good of an actress for this kind of play.
The production is
very enjoyable, but certainly has its faults. The serious moments almost
entirely fall flat, a problem that starts with the script and is exacerbated by
bad pacing. The one truly powerful moment, when Rose finally declares (to no
one's surprise) that she had a miscarriage two years before, roars like a
beautiful wild beast, and then quickly and quietly slinks a way to giggle with
the rest of the audience at the remaining silly delights.
In good
high-school English manner, the play is littered with "meaningful"
character names and a symbolic structure swung so hard it feels like you're
being whacked on the head with an acacia stick. And then there are the
husbands, posturing and artificial, who drag the play to a near halt with their
presence.
Apparently, the
director believed that the best way to communicate the tedium of these women's
lives is to make their menfolk actually slow,
posturing and tedious. The play is too light for that sort of thing, and even
though the characters are mostly written as the embodiment of common
stereotypes, each character must have something uniquely real and interesting
about them. There's nothing else to hold on to.
But this is
simply a show about a vacation and should be appreciated as such. It's an
opportunity to leave your life behind for a few hours, find yourself washed up
on an Italian beach, perfumed by wisteria and far from home, and to fall in
love again.
"Enchanted
April" runs at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and 4 and 8 p.m.
Saturdays through May 26. It is at the Bartell Theatre,
Everyone
should have one a friend who is so
ebullient, so bubbly and so irrepressibly full of life that despite your
stubborn dedication to remain mired in your own tired and dull despair, you are
swept away, back into the sunshine.
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ANNOTICO Reports Can be Viewed and are Fully Archived
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