Antony & Cleopatra

Sad is good: St. Louis Shakespeare scores
with Antony and Cleopatra.
A powerful play receives a near-perfect production.

Through modern eyes, it's easy to view Shakespeare's tragedy Antony and Cleopatra as nothing more than a midlife crisis: He has abandoned home, family and duty for the ultimate trophy wife and a bitchin' loft with a spectacular view of the river — but that's comedy, not tragedy. In the current St. Louis Shakespeare production, the notes set up the story as a tale of two "sensualists" who can't resist each other, leading to their mutual destruction. Which is all well and good, but as the only character with a backstory, it is Antony who must provide the tragedy: His death must be painful for all, or else everything rings hollow. Robin Weatherall's direction is careful to show that Antony possesses a nobility of spirit that is dimmed, then restored, but not saved.

by Paul Friswold, RFT

 

When we meet him, Antony is living a dream. Surrounded by soft luxuries, suffused in golden light, his Egypt is a paradise. On the opposite side of the stage, we see austere Rome: Upright columns, stark white light and right angles of marble contrast with Egypt's gentle inclines and muted palette. Rome is duty, politics — business, as personified in Caesar. William Roth's Caesar is a cold bureaucrat, snapping off lines with the manner of a man who has many other things to do and say today. He's a chief executive who chafes more than rages at Antony's peccadilloes. Indeed, he ticks off Antony's failings in the same detached manner that he lists pirate rebellions and a recent civil uprising. They, like Antony, are inefficient, bad for business, bad for Rome and, hence, bad for Caesar. The suggested solution to Antony and Caesar's falling-out — Antony's marriage to Caesar's sister — suits him because it's expedient, politically sound and good for business.

As Caesar reflects Rome, so Cleopatra mirrors Egypt. Missy Miller plays Cleopatra as a purring, soft-bodied sybarite. Twice she turns a man in on himself, cooing and petting him into tractable muscle to do her bidding. Her seductive curves become steeled muscles of her own when she needs them, however. Cleopatra beats a messenger savagely, losing a sandal in her fury to get one last kick in as her servants pull her off the hapless soul. Her response to this same messenger's subsequent flattery is a gradual softening — she yields first grudgingly, then guardedly, then gleefully, eventually glowing with the certainty that Antony's new bride is tallow to her incandescent flame.

But it is incumbent upon Antony to carry the story's tragedy, and Kevin Beyer is magnificent in the role. Beyer has a leonine quality in his carriage and voice, the latter a sonorous, rich thing that burnishes each line. An old soldier far removed from duty, even in decadent Egypt there is evidence of Antony's slumbering power. Beyer gives him a host of little gestures that mark him in stark contrast to Caesar's ruthless efficiency. The way he lightly bounces his palms on his knees to signal the end of his audience with Caesar (an unpleasant necessity discharged), the cavalier flip of an emptied wine bowl (clearly not the first he's drained): These movements mark Antony as a man of action, an old lion content for the moment to laze in the sun — but with one great fight left in him.

A clever bit of stagecraft reveals in subtle fashion Antony's power. After Enobarbus (Richard Lewis, excellent throughout) has abandoned him, Antony stands on the Roman half of the stage, fully aware of how he has hurt his former lord and friend. As Enobarbus rails against himself, an armed and armored Antony stands in the shadows of the Egypt half, a presence that looms across the sea and in the mind of both his shamed lieutenant and the audience.

Beyer matches the majesty of this silent moment in his death scene; with a wild look in his eye he falls on his sword — is it regret? Realization of everything lost? Relief? Beyer's anguished face is eloquent, as is the silence he allows before continuing with his speech.

The production's only real failing was an occasional muddiness that obscured the dialogue. Whether it was an unfortunate characteristic of the room or a technical error, the murkiness was intermittent. It would come suddenly, then just as suddenly clear up, and all would be right — gloriously right — again.

 

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Troilus and Cressida

St. Louis Shakespeare relied on strong chemistry and powerful performances to carry their production of Troilus and Cressida. [...]

Brendan Allred was passionate and connected as Troilus and shared an undeniable chemistry between Rory Lipede as Cressida. The two expressed an ownership and understanding of the many layers that lie within Shakespeare’s intricate storytelling. The young performers expressed extreme maturity with respect to their craft as they used their emotions to provide the audience with what felt like subtitles for the prose.

Donna Weinsting also shines as Pandarus, Cressida’s elderly aunt. The comic relief provided by Khnemu Menu-Ra as the indifferent warrior Achillies and Charlie Barron as Thersities were worth mentioning as well.

The production has themes and ideas extremely similar to other Shakespeare works. But Troilus and Cressida is a welcome slice of variety from the common and safe productions that many associate with Shakespeare.

By Kenya Vaughn, KDHX Radio

 

Chances are you've never seen a performance of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. Why not? For starters, it requires a huge cast — enough men to portray the Greek and Trojan armies, plus assorted women and servants. Then there's the ricochet style — one minute bawdy, the next romantic — slapstick humor mixed with tragedy in an amalgamation of characters and conflicts. In this St. Louis Shakespeare production, Director Donna Northcott faces these challenges head-on, winning many battles with the behemoth text in the struggle to present the story clearly.

The first challenge is the romance of the title characters. Troilus (Brendan Allred) and Cressida (Rory Lipede) are echoes of Romeo and Juliet, aided here by Pandarus (Donna Weinsting) instead of the Nurse. Pandarus is written as a male role — gender-switching makes the character more yenta than pimp, but it works. Allred and Lipede bring genuine giddiness to their love scene, and when these war-crossed lovers are torn apart — Cressida is "traded" by her father for a Trojan prisoner of war and must go live with the Greeks — their distress is heart-rending. But it's unclear why Troilus doesn't fight to keep Cressida with him. After all, they're already at war over one woman; his brother Paris is the one who stole Helen from Menelaus. [...]

The second challenge is creating the two armies. Northcott cast the roles well and costume designer Michele Friedman Siler provides leather armor that shows off the buff bods of most of the actors. On the Trojan side, standouts include Jake Bantel as Paris, Ben Ritchie as Aeneas and Jim Butz as the noble Hector. Butz's clear delivery and intense engagement are models the entire cast should emulate. In the Greek camp, Cameron Ulrich is outstanding as Ajax — his Bluto-like performance earns the production's second-biggest laugh (the biggest comes when Charlie Barron, as Thersites, imitates Ajax).

The final challenge is creating realistic battle scenes, and here fight choreographer Robert A. McPherson has done excellent work. The cast is well-rehearsed and the fights are exciting and realistic. [...]

By Deanna Jent, Riverfront Times

 

It takes guts to open Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida" - not exactly in the Bard's Top 10 - on a holiday weekend. St. Louis Shakespeare, which opened "Troilus" on Friday night, has guts. The company deserves credit for the undertaking.

Top honors go to Ben Ritchie's calm, clear Aeneas, and Jim Butz's handsomely realized Hector. Brendan Allred brought great passion and a fine physique to Troilus. The role of Pandarus got a gender reassignment; Donna Weinsting carried it off nicely. Roger Erb, resembling Jack Sparrow, was appropriately evil as Diomedes. Director Donna Northcott generally managed her forces well. Strengths included Patrick Huber's handsome, practical unit set. Michelle Friedman Siler's costumes offered lots of beefcake, with enough six-packs for a frat party.

By Sarah Bryan Miller, St Louis Post Dispatch

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Much Ado About Nothing

Director Carolyne Hood makes "Much Ado," Shakespeare's comedy of overhearing, into a physical delight. Actors deftly roll around the stage, curling up or stretching out to hide in unlikely places around designer Patrick Huber's pretty set. A clothesline presents especially funny opportunities.

Two sets of lovers - clever Benedick and Beatrice (John Wolbers and Suki Peters), the Tracy and Hepburn of Messina, and Claudio and Hero (Nathan Holbert and Hannah Emerson), babes in the woods - belong together. They face obstacles, mainly because they make plans according to scraps of information they've picked up, some true and some false.

Hood's smart, athletic staging really pulls you into the silly action. Even as you're laughing, you want to run up on stage, grab the actors by the shoulders and force them to talk to each other.

By Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

 

Director Carolyne Hood invests the evening with inventive touches. Even before the first word is spoken, the production sets a rousing tone with the return of the troops. Early in Act One, as that "plain-dealing villain" Don John enters from the wings, he brusquely pushes aside a scene changer who's moving a bench. It's a delicious nonverbal bit, as character-defining as that moment early in Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train when Robert Walker bursts a child's balloon with his cigarette.

The front half of the story is highlighted by the verbal sparring between the caustic Beatrice (Suki Peters) and the heroic-if-dense Benedick (John Wolbers). Hood finds clever ways to stage the two scenes in which these reluctant lovers are deceived into believing that each is the object of the other's affections. Act One races along breezily, providing a cool antidote to a hot, humid night.

By Dennis Brown, Riverfront Times

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Metamorphoses

With a luminous new production of "Metamorphoses" to open its 2006-07 season, St. Louis Shakespeare keeps faith with its highest ambitions, if not exactly with its own name.

"Metamorphoses" is not by William Shakespeare. (In fact, SLS has long included one non-Shakespeare play each season.) But like the plays of Shakespeare, "Metamorphoses" reaches into its audience's hearts and minds to make us recognize things that we already know.

Yes, it tells a story - actually, quite a few stories. The play is based on "Metamorphoses" by the Roman poet Ovid - truly, a best seller for centuries.

And why not? Ovid had great material, the Greco-Roman myths of transformation. In one story, a woman turns into a bird; in another, a man changes everything he touches to solid gold.

With their imaginative energy, these myths provide concrete ways to talk about human feelings - love, greed, anger, everything - that defy reason.

Mary Zimmerman, a brilliant Chicago writer and director, realized those are the subjects of the theater, too. She created the play "Metamorphoses" with a touch of genius: She put a pool on stage.
The actors move in and out of water, recognized by many cultures as an agent of transformation (think of baptism). It gives "Metamorphoses" a dreamy, almost hallucinatory quality.

It also makes it very difficult to stage. But the SLS production, directed by Milt Zoth, meets the technical challenges without any apparent effort. Credit goes to production manager Jim Davis, scenic designer Patrick Huber and costume designer Teresa Doggett. Her beautiful costumes evoke Grecian drapery with quick-dry modern fabrics.

The stories are easy to follow because the language is familiar. For example, when Midas asks a god to give him the golden touch, he's warned, "That's a really, really bad idea." Nobody could miss the point.

Narrated by members of the acting ensemble, the stories explore a wide range of moods. The tale of Apollo's son Phaeton, who wants to drive his father's car (the sun), turns into a comic riff on spoiled rich kids. On the other hand, the story of Myrrha, punished by the love goddess Aphrodite, is really horrific.

Myrrha holds a big white fan over her chest; the goddess, standing behind her, snaps the fan around - and it's blood-red. It's the very image of first love, instantaneous and irrational.
These potent visual images, even more than language,-deliver the myths in all their power; like dreams, they are coherent at a level deeper than words.

Zoth and the choreographer, Cindy Duggan, stage these moments so vividly that they resonate like icons - wet, human icons embodied by members of the ensemble. The actors - William Alverson, Sarah Armstrong, Marissa Barbeau, Khnemu-Menu Ra, William Roth, Laura Sexauer, Stephanie Strohman, Lauren Summers, Tyler Vickers and David Wassilak - play their multiple roles in an approachable, uncontrived style.

One word of caution: Greek mythology deals with the whole range of human behavior and desire. It's not all girls running after golden apples. There's nothing vulgar about "Metamorphoses," but it's not for children.

By Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

 

The Roman poet Ovid's tales of magical shape-changing that he called Metamorphoses have undergone their own metamorphosis at the brilliant hands of Mary Zimmerman. She has taken these brief stories and both dramatized and theatricalized them, making them charming, funny, sad, and terrifying. The mournful tale of the drowned sailor and his distraught wife who are changed into sea birds becomes almost a dance-drama in the well-shaped movements of the actors. The story of the day Phaeton got to drive Dad's car is told in contemporary and hilarious language by the young man while lying on his analyst's couch.

In Metamorphoses, that couch floats on water. The whole production takes place in and around a pool. That works well for the story of the drowned sailor and his wife, and it makes Phaeton look like the spoiled rich kid he is, luxuriating in his pool. But the water does fascinating things with the story of the girl who develops an incestuous passion for her father, and even with the familiar tale of Midas and his golden touch.

St. Louis Shakespeare has installed a real pool – and not just a kid's wading pool, either – in the Grandel Theatre, where they're performing Metamorphoses. There's a sky – a painted backdrop – and a heaven above it for various gods. Scene designer Patrick Huber and production manager Jim Davis have done themselves proud on what can't have been the largest budget in St. Louis theatre. Teresa Doggett's costumes combine lovely Roman draping with amusing modern touches. Jim Dolan's lighting helps create some handsome and frightening moments, and Robin Weatherall's sound design, as always, enriches the whole production.

[...] David Wassilak has metamorphosed from a flinty Jesse James to a regal Midas, trapped in his unfortunate good fortune. Stephanie Strohman always looks lovely and acts with more skill and conviction every time I see her. Lauren Summers terrifies you and breaks your heart as the incestuous daughter, with equal pain emanating from Sarah Armstrong as her too-helpful nurse, and William Roth is in top form as the father and in other roles. Khnemu Menu-Ra gets the attitude and the laughs as Phaeton. Tyler Vickers get laughs too as a shy god from the sticks, Marissa Barbeau gives substance to Orpheus' ill-fated bride Eurydice, Laura Sexauer is an Aphrodite not to be trifled with, and William Alverson, whose speaking voice could use more range, finds an amusing niche as a singing Phoebus Apollo.

St. Louis Shakespeare's delightful production of Metamorphoses continues through Sunday afternoon [July 30, 2006] at the Grandel Theatre. Tickets are at MetroTix, 534-1111.

By Bob Wilcox, KDHX Radio

 See last season's reviews