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BACKSTAGE WEST /
DRAMA-LOGUE
Ten feet tall on stilts, Rob Crites weaves without mishap through
the pre-show crowd on the sidewalk while downing an occasional fiery blast from one of the
flaming torches he juggles. These Sacred fools are cool and anything can happen.
And it does in this boldly imaginative play by Robert Previto Esq. The playwright (also a
New York lawyer) is in town to witness the world premiere of his lengthily titled play, as
directed by the Sacred Fools' Jonathan Goldstein. Previto's play is allegorical,
metaphorical, somewhat metaphysical, and a labyrinthine honeycomb of allusions--literary,
literal, mythical and theatrical. It's clear that Previto loves the language of
Shakespeare and Shelley, using it with such glee that he sometimes can't help breaking
into verse.
The house of world-famed "fictionist" Dr. Artemus is
hidden deep in Germany's Black Forest (shades of the Brothers Grimm) , so presumably it is
Hansel and Gretel sleeping there at the doctor's door. But never mind that--they have
nothing to do with the story. Peter Falco's canny, tenebrous lighting send a chill as it
frames the doctor's brooding face in an upstairs window. The spooky, twitchy-faced woman
in black who opens the door (Jessica Thompson) isn't a witch, though she's a ringer for
Young Frankenstein's Frau Bluecher. The eager young pilgrim seeking admittance to the
doctor's shrine is the well known explorer Dr. Morgan Mead (Daintry Jensen) an amalgam of,
let's say, Margaret Mead (if portrayed by Jodie Foster or a young Jane Fonda), Alice in
Wonderland, Dorothy in Oz, Amelia Earheart, Shirley MacLaine, the Woman Warrior, etc. She
is in fact the Ultimate Woman: She is Eve! And this is the playwright's homage to her. But
out of his fictionist's head, the doctor, poor wretch, has created Leah (Amy Bryson), who
is no longer content with being mere fiction and demands to be the doctor's real live
woman. She wants to come out of "The Loop" of his imagination. The doc
thinks this is a bad idea, and Leah gets nasty. If Morgan is Eve, Leah is now Lillith. The
creature becomes her creator's nemesis. But not before a lot of things happen. While Leah
wants out of the Loop, Morgan wants in. Clever as she is fearless, she indeed gets in and
finds herself in Atlantis in the company of a cheeky jester, Knick-Knack the Paddy Whacker
(a kinetic Brad Friedman, who juggles several balls as he speaks in rhyme). The Atlantean
court he serves is headed by an addled king and bossy little queen (Alexander Yannis
Stephano and Michelle Philippe), whose petulant prince (Martin Yu) falls for Morgan. She
bests him in a duel and slays a ferocious dragon with a whale of a tail (Aldrich Allen).
So it goes in this phantasmagoric excursion into terra incognita. Morgan manages to
emerge from Atlantis' deluge, though not unscathed (amusing visual effects here), and
since Artemus is a good guy at heart, he sees to it that virtue triumphs over evil, more
or less.
We have gone too long without acknowledging that the professorially authoritative,
egg-bald Adam Bitterman fits impressively into his role as the fictionist as if it were
tailor-made for him, which maybe it was. And his pal, Dean Alfred Hochler (Danny Kon),
with his spats, goatee and accent, evokes early hypnotist Dr. Mesmer and certain Dracula
moments.
David Oliver Holcomb has created a setting, complete with "The Loop", which is
both functional and cosmological. Costumes by Nicole Lee Thomas are most colorful as
worn by Atlantean royalty. Original Score is by Peter Nissen and sound by Wav Magic.
-Polly Warfield,
©1998 Backstage West/DramaLogue
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