In the preview publicity for this season's Reichhold Center for the Arts offerings, director David Edgecombe touted the programs on tap as "appealing and applicable to our community's cultural diversity." He voiced the hope that "everyone would attend at least one performance they normally wouldn't," adding that "trying something different could be delightful."
With Chuck Mangione, the Dominican Waitukubuli dancers and the Puerto Rican Symphony out of the way, it's time to put that challenge to a tougher test: a triple one-night stand this weekend of "Shakespearean" plays – two of them well-known works by the Bard and the third, a collaborative effort by two of his contemporaries.
Inexplicably, the first up, to be performed Friday, is the "heavy," the classic tragedy "Othello." Saturday will bring the comedy "Twelfth Night," and Sunday will see the performance of "The Roaring Girl," also a comedy, quite a feminist one for 400 years ago at that.
The last time the Reichhold Center offered a series of three related programs in three successive nights was two seasons ago, with "Piano Madness," featuring Caribbean jazz artists drawing on their French, Hispanic and African influences in greatly varying contemporary genres. The music all three nights was outstanding. It would be a kindness to say that the attendance, especially the first night, was sparse.
To encourage attendance this weekend by young people, and probably their parents, community donors have provided for more than 300 free tickets to be made available to public school students.
For them, and for anyone else not innately enamored of Shakespeare, here's the good news: Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, the Staunton, Virginia-based company bringing this all to St. Thomas, has a track record of presenting a "fresh, energetic approach to Shakespeare."
Of course, one must ponder what sort of traveling troupe would promote itself as representing a "stale, lackluster approach" to old Will, or any other playwright. However, the media critics seem to be on Shenandoah's side. In the case of "Othello" as mounted in 1994, a Chicago Sun-Times reviewer wrote that the actors were all dressed in sneakers, black shirts and flowing trousers and performed with no set changes, no special-effects lighting and no intermission. What they did, faithful to Shakespeare's play, he said, was act superbly in a "no-frills, high-energy, low-fat" production.
"We do it with the lights on," Shenandoah marketing director Victoria Joyce says. "We re-create the original stage environment Shakespeare himself worked in. The group also incorporates a great deal of audience participation — often engaging an audience member in a role."
Shenandoah Shakespeare Express is the touring branch of the overall company, located in a small city in the Appalachian foothills of western Virginia, not far from the West Virginia border. The troupe is presenting this particular trio of plays around the country under the umbrella title of the Charm Your Tongue Tour.
The CYTT troupe, according to booking director Bill Gordon, comprises 11 actors, "each playing multiple roles in each of the three plays." Their appearance at the Reichhold is not part of a Caribbean tour, he says, "though we'd like to see these performances start the ball rolling in that direction."
Gordon says he met Edgecombe last January at an Association of Performing Arts Presenters national conference in New York. "It took several months of negotiation to finally ink the deal," Gordon says, with plans laid for the company to fly to St. Thomas following a tour of southern Florida.
The plots, in brief
For those who have thus-far avoided or long-forgotten English Literature 101 and who haven't seen the various film versions (a British production of "Twelfth Night" as recently as 1996), here are synopses of Shakespeare's tragedy and comedy:
In "Othello," subtitled "The Moor of Venice," the play opens with the young and distinctly Caucasian Desdemona, a senator's daughter, having eloped with the Moorish and definitely dark-skinned general Othello. Interestingly, the men who set about to undo this union while Othello is busy trying to win a war are motivated more by political and sexual passions than by racism. Roderigo, enamored of Desdemona, is consumed by jealousy. Iago wants revenge because Othello passed him over in choosing a second-in-command, Cassio. Iago's treachery leads to an unhappy ending for one and all – but you knew that already, because this play is a tragedy.
From "Othello" come these well-known words: "Who steals my purse steals trash … but he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed.." Also in the play is reference to "one that loved not wisely but too well" and a description of jealousy as "the green-eyed monster."
"Twelfth Night" starts out with the tragic straits of one young woman who believes her twin brother has drowned in a boating accident and another, a wealthy countess, vowing to mourn the death of her brother in a cloistered life for seven years. But the play quicky becomes a comedy of mistaken identities, misdirected passions, high humor and low tricks. The twin, Viola, resolves to disguise herself as a boy and take up work in the service of the Duke Orsino, who is determined to woo the countess, Olivia, by sending his new lackey as emissary. Naturally, Viola, disguised as Cesario, falls madly in love with Orsino, and, of course, Viola's brother Sebastian shows up eventually – but you knew that already, because this play is a comedy.
One of the most familiar lines of "Twelfth Night" is this one: "… some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."
Before getting into the story line of "The Roaring Girl," a word about the playwrights, Thomas Dekker (1572-1632) and Thomas Middleton (1580-1627). Scholars have pretty much agreed that they were not only contemporaries of Will Shakespeare (1564-1616) but also birds of a Bardian feather in the first decade of the 1600s.
"Bartlett's Familiar Quotations" cites for comparison a line from Shakespeare's "Richard III" – "So wise so young, they say, do never live long," and one from Middleton's "The Phoenix" – "A little too wise, they say, do ne'er live long." And in Shakespeare's "As You Like It," one finds "All the world's stage, and all the men and women merely players," compared to Middleton's line from "A Game of Chess"– "The world's a stage on which all the parts are played."
Written in 1611, "The Roaring Girl," subtitled "Or Moll Cutpurse," takes its name from the term of the times "roaring boys," which referred to the "riotous gallants" of London with a penchant for getting into fights. The title character is a local rowdy house habitue who dresses in pants, talks tough, smokes a pipe, sings lusty songs and has no interest in getting married and settling down.
Moll was based upon one Mary Frith, whose notorious exploits tested the patience of proper English society and often brought her before a magistrate. Dekker and Middleton, clearly in her court, created a loose and episodic play that serves mainly to showcase Moll's talents as she sings, fights, rescues a pal from the clutches of the law; and moves with equal ease among the gentry and the low-lifes. The play conveys not only her actions but also her thoughts and feelings about social inequities. Literary critics agree that few other comic female roles of the era are its equal.
Curtain time each night is 8 p.m. Tickets a
re $22 in the covered section and $18 in the open air for each play. The free student tickets are available by arrangement.
For reservations by charge card and for further information, call the Reichhold box office, 693-1559. Ticket outlets in addition to the box office are the University of the Virgin Islands bookstore, Parrot Fish Music, Modern Music (Havensight), and Krystal and Gifts Galore on St. Thomas, and Connections on St. John.
