|
Regional Reviews: St. Louis Or, Also see Richard's review of The Winslow Boy
In that analogy, John Wolbers and Nicole Angeli are the precocious kids. Perhaps Rachel Tibbets (caught between them, as a spy-turned-playwright) is the water, getting thrown every which way. And all three are on stage in Liz Duffy Adams' 100-minute (ish) comedy from 2010. But the analogy isn't perfect: Mr. Wolbers and Ms. Angeli are rarely on stage together, so their 'splash fight' is almost entirely ad hominem. And there's no denying Ms. Tibbets stirs things up nicely on her own. Or, may be a romantic assassination caper, drenched in the sexual wackiness of The Rocky Horror Show. "Or" it may be a 17th century romp about the exuberant return of British theater, after the Puritans were forced out. (Apparently they fled by ship to some godforsaken western colony or other.) Or it may be all these things. Ms. Tibbetts is Aphra Behn, a British spy in 1666, locked up in one of her own country's debtors' prisons at the outset (in spite of her derring-do for King Charles II). Beautiful and smart, she charms her way into the king's arms, and into the burgeoning, reborn world of the stage—after the Puritans, plague, and the Pope. But even more remarkable are the two performers racing around Ms. Tibbetts, in mad orbits, destined to collide with a bang, sooner or later. With the modulating support of director Ellie Schwetye, Mr. Wolbers plays all the male roles and Ms. Angeli the female ones—though one audience member gets to choose a name out of a jar each night, for an additional role. Based on which name is pulled out of the jar, one or the other is assigned the craziest role of all. On the night I attended, Mr. Wolbers burned up the stage like Graham Chapman in drag, on (metaphorical) roller skates. Which is not to say Ms. Angeli couldn't do the exact same thing, out of her own box of crazy crayons. Both performers wear insane wigs and outfits—Mr. Wolbers as the king, and Ms. Angeli as Nell Gwynne, the original Orange Girl—and the colors that come flooding out of their souls are at least as bold and brash as anything they happen to be wearing. Their comical sense of wild sexual liberation puts our own 1960s and '70s to shame. There are other roles for these two, a deadly ex-lover from the world of spies and a cranky maid-servant, to name just two. And I found myself doing multiple crazy head-turns when some of the costume changes were accomplished surprisingly fast, in this nearly 100-minute comedy. Throughout, Ms. Tibbets is fiercely rational, and beautiful and seductive. I almost hate to tell you that it's a "verse comedy," even though that's perfectly suited to the setting, because we always think of verse as demanding too much attention. But here it's played with in a modern context, and occasionally (purposely) fumbled for even more humorous effect, in the hands of mere mortals. Through February 27, 2015, at The Chapel (6238 Alexander, just south of Washington University). For more information visit www.slightlyoff.org. Performance Ensemble Production Ensemble
|
