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Show I'm' V, ' Thursday, April 1, 1982 The Newspaper 'Shrew' needed more time ' 'Hi, I'm Bob SkanterI used to be Park City 's Building Inspector. Nowadays, in my frequent travels across state lines, I find people often don 't recognize me. That's why I carry American Excess. It gets me into the fastest cars and the finest hosoitals. " I S s ' 4yA& -teste Hfm ' I : t ! i V i in V T l v: ' " 1.:-. J j r ' " I II ' II t 1 11 II '' ' '''si 1 I ' ', ' I lf ' ' ' liiMiSiiiiii VtXri t Don t leave We do logos, letterheads, envelopes, en-velopes, . business cards, brochures, flyers, advertising, posters, typesetting, design rewpaper 419 Main Street Park City 649-9014 llllli American Excess town without it. 4 by Rick Brough The Shakespearean comedy, come-dy, "Taming of the Shrew" looked more like a tragedy last week in its production by the Intermountain Actors Ensemble. The tragedy was not the audience's, although they certainly had a rough time of it. It was Ron Burnett's. IAE's resident director has dreamed of doing Shakespeare Shakes-peare in Park City. And he is not, I suspect, satisfied with the realization of his dream. "Shrew" is a woeful production pro-duction because it shows all the signs of being underpre-pared. underpre-pared. Burnett's small cast has certainly mastered the first challenge of any Shakespearean play. They deliver his thickly eloquent language with facility and clarity, and over the play's length of two hours, 20 minutes, the players rarely fumble the difficult dialogue. The problem is that they never get to the second stage, learning how to deliver de-liver those lines with some life, or magic or music. The play probably needed two or three months of solid work from the Ensemble, but instead it came closely upon the heels of their production of "Chapter Two". It also appears as if the Ensemble's acting resources were stretched, as it borrowed players from "Chapter Two", featured one spectacular spec-tacular case of miscasting (more on that later) and even utilized director Burnett Bur-nett in a double role. Anthony Leger plays Pe-truchio, Pe-truchio, the roving fortune-hunter fortune-hunter who is willing to take on Kate, a shrewish maid in Padua, for the sake of the dowry she brings in marriage. mar-riage. But he fails to solve the problem in playing Petruchio how do you stay interesting when the character charac-ter is always "up" and perpetually boastful? Leger becomes as wearying weary-ing as a cheerleader. His energy is loud and incessant. But it isn't likeable enough to make us enjoy his scheming. In last winter's one-actor, "Zoo Story", Leger gave a masterful performance his disturbed character wound tighter and tighter until finally he busted a spring. But in "Shrew", you can't see if Leger is reaching for different levels. He's always using the same tone, whether flattering flatter-ing Kate, ordering her about gratuitously, or preening over his triumph at the end of the play. Maybe IAE has discovered a way to update the play for feminist sensibilities. sensi-bilities. Petruchio becomes such a braying, self-satisfied stud that when he orders "C'mon and kiss me, Kate", you're hoping she'll knee him a good one in the clutch. Petruchio comes on too strong and cruel, partly because Anne Burnett's Kate is not bitchy enough and you can't understand why she's being tamed so harshly. In her early scenes, you know For the special occasions when flowers don't do enough ... "Say It with Dope" Don't find us ... we'll find you Call 649-9361. P.C. SEED & WEED "When you care enough UN OLD WEST V DINING EHPERlBJ FRIED SALAD?!? Fresh veggies battered & deep fried Only one of the unique loods served daily! (try ribs, chicken or steak on the side) 368 Main SI. I f ,V7'l x " Even a servant (Sue Griffiths) has the upper hand (Anne Burnett) in IAE's production. she is considered wild because be-cause makeup has given her two rosy cheeks to match her temper. But there's little of the smoldering volcano about her. She seems merely irritable. And there's not much difference in tone later on when her new husband starves her into submission. Her exasperated concessions conces-sions to her husband are well played, though, (and win her a lot of sympathy to boot) and in the final scene, she strikes a nice balance as the dutiful, but still tough, wife. Burnett also gives us the one moment in the play that is truly unique. When she first spots Petruchio, she recognizes a worthy opponent, oppo-nent, and her expression is so avidly hungry you understand under-stand for the first time why "eating" is a sexual euphemism. euphe-mism. In the supporting cast, Rai French lends his usual whimsical pomposity to the role of Baptiste Minola, the father who will not marry off his much-sought daughter Bianca, until the older daughter Kate is hitched. French is effective, but he gives us no new wrinkles in his performance. And he might do something to distinguish distin-guish Minola from his other role of Christopher Sly, a drunkard in the play's prologue pro-logue who watches the "Shrew" staged by a group of traveling players. Some of the better laughs in the play are unintentional, as Mike Hamill plays one of Bianca's suitors with his Larry Gatlin accent. It's not Hamill's fault he is a supporting sup-porting player with some potential for leads, and he handles a drunk scene nicely towards the end of the play. Blame Burnett for giving him such an obviously wrong part. (Or was there no one else available?) The director's casting of Mike Draper, though, was as good as Hamill's casting was awful. Draper's specialty is timidity verging on terror. to smoke the very best. " 649-1570 I ' i h h '" His portrayal isn't polished acting, but it's awfully appealing because he gives the Shakespearean language a delivery all his own, not the cliched oratorical shouting. In his first good scene, dressed in drag and presented pre-sented to Christopher Sly as his wife, he alternates between be-tween dutiful smiles and his frantic effort to escape from Aly's amorous arms. Later, playing another role as a servant, he announces Petru-chio's Petru-chio's bedraggled wedding train and his description of it, made with a dubious, out-of-breath formality, gives us the humorous sense of the speech, even though we might not totally understand under-stand the words. A critic once wrote that Shakespearean fools made stupidity look like it was a result of enchantment. Draper Dra-per gives us a little of that, as does Tim Morris as a woozy-looking woozy-looking servant. Van Berre as Lucentio, one of Bianca's suitors, has a wonderful snooty, aristocratic aristocra-tic voice, but he doesn't use its potential, except in the final scene, when he is becoming discontented with his new wife, and his voice rises to a little strangulated shriek of irritation in one line. ... . Susan Griffiths plays a ' male role ' as Petruchio's ' servant Grumio (perhaps Burnett liked the irony of reversing the traditional Shakespearean males-as-female tradition) . And she is relaxed enough to bring some wry humour out of the part. Davis French as a servant, Tranio, has the right voice, but gives a desultory performance. per-formance. Denna Wright is memorably slothful as an insubordinate pregnant wife. Also in the cast, Dick Mitchell, Randy Sheya, and Kerri Maxfield are competent, compe-tent, but leave no particular impression. Director Ron Burnett and the cast have dreamed up Alvar exhibit to open in Salt Lake Alvar Sunol Monoz-Ra-mox, known only as Alvar, is a noted Spanish artist who will exhibit his prints and large colorful oil canvases at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts April 5 to May 9. A reception re-ception to honor him will be held Monday, April 5 from 3 to 5 p.m. The public is in-. in-. vited and admission is free. Alvar's textural works include big peasant figures, which float in the air toward a dream world. Among his most successful accomplishments accomplish-ments are compositions with several figures, which he combines with still lifes, landscaps, and ornamental patterns. Alvar was born in the coastal town of Montgat near Barcelona in 1935. His art career began early. He liked school books not because of what they said, but because of the clean white margins of the pages on which he could draw. By age 12 he was Batik class A batik class taught by Park City's Holly Rom is scheduled to begin Wednesday, Wednes-day, April 7. The course will meet every Wednesday from noon to 1:30 p.m. for four weeks. Cost for the batik course is $30 for Kimball Art Center members and $36 for non-members. non-members. Students must purchase their own fabric, but dyes and wax will be provided. For further information, over the tamed Shrew some nice bits of business to enliven the play. But the farcical romantic fights in the film fall flat. The actors have spoken of the exhaus-tiveness, exhaus-tiveness, or the kind of towel-snapping buoyancy that would make the Petruchio Petru-chio Kate conflicts funny. Maybe the best timing comes in a scene where Hamill the lute-player, and Berre, the Latin instructor, vie for Bianca's attention- Hamill constantly breaks into his rival's conjugated verbs with a cheery, "My instrument's tuned, milady!" mi-lady!" Ironically, despite his burdens bur-dens as director, Burnett gives one of the more delightful performances. As an aged suitor, Gremio, he brings laughs with his wheedling mannerisms; and he is properly indignant as the old businessman caught up in one of the film's many incidents of mistaken identity. iden-tity. Burnett hasn't time to do much, but, unlike the other actors, he found an eccentricity and used it to bring his characters to life. This review is a bit like kicking the play when it's already down. Shakespeare is still regarded by many people as cultural spinach, and this is reflected in the scant attendanceone , source said about, 10 to 20. people total came to the first two nights. Perhaps, for the sake of promoting culture in Park City, I should turn a blind eye to fault, as Petruchio does with Kate. I might say that the play contains scintillating scintil-lating poetry instead of monotonous recitation, or that it presents hilarious slapstick, and not halfhearted half-hearted hijinks weighed down by performances that needed more time. But the problems in "Taming of the Shrew" are such that the obvious cannot be concealed. "Shrew" runs April 1-3 at the Prospector Square Theatre. painting in oils. At age 17, he was accepted at the Escuela Superior de Belles Arts in Barcelona. Before graduating from the Bellas Artes, he was given his first one-man show in Barcelona in 1957. During his military service he managed to continue painting paint-ing and sumitted one of his works to the Institute Fran-cais Fran-cais in Barcelona, which sponsored an annual painting paint-ing competition. He won first prize, consisting of a springtime spring-time study trip to Paris. He enjoyed two successful one-man shows in northern Spain before leaving for Paris, where he eventually settled for 10 years. Since his first one-man show in Paris at the Galerie Drouant in 1963 he has exhibited there regularly as well as showing his work throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. Besides oil painting, he enjoys drawings, sculpture, and original graphics. In 1978 a retrospective exhibition exhibi-tion of his lithographs was held by the Musee Hyacinthe Rigaud in Perpignan, France. Alvar is now busier than ever; nevertheless, he finds time to work in other mediums such as bronze sculpture, aquatints, pastel drawings, and ceramic bas-reliefs. bas-reliefs. Today he lives a few miles from his birthplace with his wife and three children in a house he built on a hill overlooking the sea. |