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Disclaimer:
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Peer Reviews
Women
of Will Entire contents are copyright © 2008 Cory Vaughn. All rights reserved.
I have a favorite apocryphal story about William Shakespeare. It holds that Big Willie used to go to taverns and try to pick up the local pretty boys, and when they inevitably shot him down, he would go home and have his revenge upon them by modeling the most God-awful, boring roles in his plays after them. Thus, the story concludes, was born Romeo, Orlando, Lysander, Demetrius, Basanio, Proteus, and many others, all cut from the same bland and colorless swatch of cloth. Well, God only knows if that story is true, but it is certainly entertaining. Look over that list, however, and you'll note that for our sake, Shakespeare gave each of these brainless little putzes a much stronger partner or foil of the opposite gender (sometimes playing the same gender within the plays themselves). However he accomplished it, Shakespeare was better at writing women's roles than any ten subsequent male playwrights putting their heads together. I would have thought, therefore, that an evening of scenes and speeches devoted to the women of Shakespeare's plays would play much better than it did. I am sorry to say, however, that Looking for Lilith's production of Women of Will plays less like a montage than a mish-mash, more cacophonous than kaleidoscopic, like one of those revues of classroom assignments that the high school drama class puts together to entertain at the PTA meeting. There are some well-chosen scenes and almost all of the characters chosen are good matches for the four fine actresses who divvy up the duties of playing them all, but, as is often the case with a piece of this kind, a little goes a long way, and a lot tends to bleed together and feel repetitive. I had no idea just how similar the plots and gender-bending conceits of As You Like It and Twelfth Night were until now, when I see them both onstage, one practically a carbon copy of the other! The problem here seems to be a glut of ambition. As tempting as it undoubtedly must have been to include every great Shakespearean female in the mix, there's simply too much, and poor Kathi E.B. Ellis, the director, doesn't seem to know quite what to do with it all, nor does the audience (if you want to dignify this particular group of unresponsive zombies by calling them that) know quite how to digest it. Despite the Cliff's Notes-style synopses the company generously provides, the scenes remain painfully out of context, and even though they attempt at times to string together two or three scenes from the same play to form something resembling that play's narrative arc, there is no real continuity. Often it's difficult even to tell, from the scenes chosen, which are the comedies and which are the tragedies! There's not much to look at, just four actresses in unflattering tight black costumes, to which bits and pieces of period costumes (by Denise Marie Watkins) are added and changed to "suggest" different characters, on two small platform stages, one of which is barely visible to the audience and is poorly lit. This is my second review in a row of a performance at the Rudyard Kipling, which is long on ambiance but short on flexibility for the needs of theatre; I remain convinced from my first review there that it is a much better setting for music than theatre, although the user may also be to blame in this case; Le Petomane at least had the good sense to keep to the one central stage, where everyone could see them. There is also not much in the way of transitions; we simply watch them changing costume pieces while accompanied by admittedly pretty music, and indulging in the occasional irrelevant dance breaks that are obviously meant to be artistic (they're not; they only drag it out longer) or reciting fragments of dialogue from plays that, for one reason or another, just don't fit. Fortunately, they have kept the language completely faithful to Shakespeare. I was grateful that the arcane majesty of both the prose and the poetry survived intact and still fell delightfully on the ear, even if ever-so-slightly diminished out of context. I must give credit where it is due, and much of the credit is due the four-woman cast of Trina Fischer, Kelly McNerney, Shannon Woolley (all previously unknown to me), and Carolyn Purcell (so good in Pandora's Stop Kiss just a few weeks ago). The performances are uniformly excellent; Purcell and Fischer are particularly fun to watch and seemed to have most of the showiest roles between them, although McNerney also scores major points as Juliet's Nurse and a borderline psychotic Ophelia. Company Artistic Director Woolley, I'm afraid, got rather the short end of the stick here, although I was impressed with the force of her Katherine of Aragon (from Henry VIII) and the way her Phoebe rode joyfully rough-shod over the other characters and indeed the (metaphorical) scenery during the As You Like It segment. This was my first experience with Looking For Lilith, and it turns out that this is the first play they've produced that wasn't also created by them (or one of the first, anyway; I've heard two different versions of this story). Although Women of Will is, on the whole, a decidedly mixed bag, they piqued my interest just enough that I'd like to come back and reassess them when they perform one of their own works. I also must thank them for providing me a rare glimpse at some of the less-performed works, particularly the Histories. I would have liked to see this capable cast tackle some of the more controversial plays, such as Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, King Lear, and Troilus and Cressida, in which the female characters are painted in a rather unflattering light, and I would love to see Fischer's Miranda from Tempest, but the play is already filled to the brim with all the scene and character shifts that can be safely digested in one evening. Women of Will still has some real potential. It's not bad, just misguided, undercooked, not quite ripe yet. With a little re-evaluation and re-focusing, it could be much better. For the time being, it stands as a very interesting misfire, really; neither a complete and utter Tragedie nor a particularly funny Comedie.
Women of Will Starring: Trina Fischer, Kelly McNerney, Carolyn Purcell, Shannon Woolley. Looking for Lilith Theatre Company Remaining Performances: November 6-8, at 7:30
pm, and November 8 at 2 pm
Posted Nov. 4, 2008
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