Monday, May 07, 2007

"Enchanted April": Four Miserable Women Rent Castle in Italy; Feel Better :) :)

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 Italy. Their home lives are stultified by the weight of grief or lack of imagination. It's raining, it has been raining, and it threatens to rain for the rest of their piecemeal lives. They find two more unhappy women to share the expenses, and they're off.

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

 

Wisconsin State Journal

Madison, WI

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 Madison, Wisconsin).

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 Italy. Their home lives are stultified by the weight of grief or lack of imagination. It's raining, it has been raining, and it threatens to rain for the rest of their piecemeal lives. They find two more unhappy women to share the expenses, and they're off.

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, 113 E. Mifflin St. Call 661-9696, ext. 2.

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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