Written in 1603, Othello is one of Shakespeare’s famous tragedies and the messages of deceit, racism, sexism, jealousy and revenge haven’t lost their sting. Othello is a dark skinned Moor and a powerful military general who falls in love with and weds Desdemona, a white woman. The marriage taps the hatred and envy of Iago, Othello’s close military confidant. It’s Iago’s escalating and furtive dishonesty that is the eventual ruin of Othello. The deep emotional conflict between Othello and Iago is echoed by the backdrop of the battlefield where war is a constant. Edwards consulted with West Point officers directly across the river from the Boscobel stage and realistically assimilated today’s military behavior into the play. Battalion guttural shouts of “Hooah!” and “Yes sir!” come from actors wearing headsets and dressed in camouflaged uniforms while brandishing genuine looking semi-automatic weapons and aggressively drawn pistols as if they stepped right out of CSI.

OTHELLO – Leopold Lowe

Kurt Rhoads is brilliant as the lying and treacherous Iago. Rhoads’ pacing is masterful as he deftly draws us in by initially portraying a cautious man who has nothing to hide. As he elicits our skepticism and finally divulges his calculating and evil plan, the irony is blatant: while we recognize how vile Iago is, the characters don’t really see it until the end. Rhoads’ swagger and his Green Beret style cap and sunglasses suggest a crass and dangerous bully oozing from his every pore. By the end of the play Rhoads has us seething at him and his destructive motive of revenge.

Equally adept is the talented Leopold Loew as Othello. Loew superbly crafts Othello’s incremental metamorphoses from a happy, loving man to one who has fallen into a jealous and deranged frenzy. Lowe is sublime as he nears the slippery edge of the black hole of hate. Susannah Millonzi’s Desdemona captivates us with a keen, buoyant innocence, a stark contrast to the social deterioration around her. When her exuberance is stripped away, Millonzi conveys a deep and passionate sense of loss without being overly dramatic. Millonzi and Nance Williamson, who plays Iago’s abused wife, Emilia, create a stunningly magnetic interconnection on stage as they each become transformed in their views of men. Williamson is a faithful and wonderful conduit here for Shakespeare’s words on women’s rights: “Tis not a year or two shows us a man: They are all but stomachs, and we all but food;…” Jason O’Connell is the frantic and beleaguered Roderigo who loves Desdemona in vain and offers up a truly lost soul enslaved to Iago’s heinous bidding. Stephen Paul Johnson is Brabantio, Desdemonia’s father whose rage at his daughter’s bi-racial marriage is potent.

OTHELLO – Kurt Rhoads, Leopold Lowe

The famous singer and actor Paul Robeson played Othello when it came to Broadway in the 1940s, a time when this country was still rampantly racist. Perhaps it was with this in mind that Edwards, in creating the drunken party scene in the barracks, has Rhoads singing Ol Man River — the popular Showboat song about oppressed African Americans -  a song that was sung by Robeson throughout his performing career. It makes a compelling parody as does the contemporary social relevance of this production.

The HVSF 2014 season also includes Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona, directed by Eric Tucker and The Liar directed by Russell Treyz, (both previously reviewed in Roll Magazine). All three plays will be presented through August 31.
For 28 seasons the festival has been performed in a beautiful, castle-like open-air theater tent on the grounds of historic Boscobel House and Gardens in Garrison, using the spectacular view of the Hudson River as a theatrical backdrop.

For more information call the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival office at 845–809-5750, or visit  hvshakespeare.org​

featured image; Leopold Lowe, Susannah Millonzi​
All photos by William Marsh

Abby Luby is a writer/journalist based in Westchester County. www​.abbylu​.com

The story is straight forward. Dorante,  a young man arrives in 17th century Paris and woos two young women by concocting grandiose tales. Dorante is played by Jason O’Connell, who brilliantly portrays the outwardly charming storyteller feeding his inner addiction to lie. O’Connell’s Dorante is forgivable as a pathological liar because he weaves such incredulous tales that we crave the indulgence for a good story and are swept up in believing him. Dorante’s servant is Cliton, played by a steadfast Michael Borrelli, the straight man who conversely can only tell the truth. Borrelli deftly gives us a solid unassuming character whose credible innocence we come to rely upon as a stable point of reference: when Cliton speaks his truths, it somehow releases the mounting tension of Dorante’s lies. Dorante informs Cliton that “When someone’s got a juicy tale to dish, I have to add some sauce, respice the fish.”

The men meet the alluring young ladies; Clarice, played by the superb comedienne Gabra Zackman, and Lucrece, blithely played by Katie Hartke, who despite her cunning and intuitive skepticism for men, falls for Dorante lies and all. The women’s similar sounding names is the entrée to a comedic feast of mistaken identities and adds to the already fertile ground of rampant duplicity.

New to HVSF is Max Hunter, adept as the high-strung Alcippe, to whom Clarice is secretly betrothed and who is Dorante’s friend. Hunter’s histrionics and palpitating anger is frenetically hilarious (think the maniacal Harvey Korman as Hedley Lamarr in Blazing Saddles). Unknowingly, an enrapt Alicppe listens to Dorante’s extravagant romantic fantasy inspired by his infatuation with Clarice. It is a tale that quickly escalates into wild, fictional burlesque replete with “luminescent spume.” When Alcippe realizes that Dorante is smitten with Clarice, he becomes fiercely jealous and forces Dorante to a duel. Dorante pretends to reach for his sword but his words are his true weapon. He slips into an energetic, high pitched sportscaster character and belts out a play-by-play sword fight which is totally imaginary. Alcippe never doubts that the fight isn’t real and, like us, he is along for the ride with Dorante as the driver.

L-R: Michael Borrelli, Gabra Zackman, Jason OConnell.

Throughout the play O’Connell glibly intones snippets of impersonations: he slips mid sentence into Jack Nicholson in the Shining or instantly conjures Anthony Hopkins madly uttering “Clarice” from the Silence of Lambs. By the second and final act Dorante’s imaginary well of fabrications has run dry and O’Connell’s sublime body language of wrenching angst leaves no doubt he is desperately reaching deep into “his inner multiplex” for a new scenario.

Bawdy, scatological, lascivious, the characters’ let loose their beasty alter egos that poke fun at sexual relationships: Dorante parades like a rooster, Alcippe breaks into fierce barking awaiting Clarice’s response of soulful baying. Delightful puns and double entendre bubble up throughout: Dorante sees his new love interest as a clam and claims “You may be a bivalve, but you’re my valve.” The blundering but somehow loveable Geronte, Dorante’s father, is astutely played by Stephen Paul Johnson and Maggie McDowell, with miraculous swiftness, jockeys back and forth between two roles of very identical but diabolically different twin sisters, as servants to Clarice and Lucrece.

Director Russell Treyz,  whose past HVSF productions include The 39 Steps and All’s Well That Ends Well, says in his program notes that Ives has called The Liar a “translaptation” — a combination of translation and adaptation. A grandiose opening  uses the brassy sound track from one of the Superman movies to accompany the gallantry redolent of the Three Musketeers. Treyz includes several “freeze-frame” moments for actors’ asides to confide in the audience, giving us the inside scoop. Charlotte Palmer-Lane’s swashbuckling costumes for the men and low cut necklines and ballooning dresses for the women marvelously hint at parody, especially the flouncy, long curled bouffants. Ken Goldstein designed the stage props, a surprising number of pieces for the usual minimalist HVSF set, but they worked well, appearing heavy but light enough to moved around and easily reconfigured for the next scene.

The HVSF 2014 season also includes Shakespeare’s Othello directed by Associate Artistic Director Christopher V. Edwards and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, directed by Eric Tucker, and previously reviewed in Roll Magazine. All three plays will be presented through August  31.

For 28 seasons the festival has performed in a beautiful, castle-like open-air theater tent on the grounds of historic Boscobel House and Gardens in Garrison, using the spectacular view of the Hudson River as a theatrical backdrop. For more information call the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival office at 845–809-5750, or visit www.hvshakespeare.org

Featured image, L-R: Michael Borrelli, Jason O’Connell. All photos by William Marsh.

Abby Luby is a writer/journalist based in Westchester County. www​.abbylu​.com

Keenly directed by HVSF newcomer Eric Tucker, Two Gents is a straightforward plot about how true friendship is swept away by wacky romance where love is not only blind but renders one totally off the wall. This early Shakespeare play leaves plenty of wiggle room for Tucker who pulls out all the creative stops. Think over the top, kitschy Italian angst and you have a romping cast that cavorts with uproarious panache. The Felliniesque spectacle of wildly vivacious hand gestures and Godfather body language is blithely contrasted by the two young, lovelorn couples. Valentine is played by Ethan Saks whose stage presence is electrifying as the young man smitten by Silvia. With apt poignancy Saks splendidly serves up the play’s most famous lines when Valentine is banished from Milan and from Silvia. (Some may recall these magical words from the film “Shakespeare in Love” when Gwyneth Paltrow, dressed as a man auditioning for a part, emotionally recites these words to Joseph Fiennes who portrays Shakespeare). “What light is light, if Silvia be not seen? What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?” Andy Rindlisbach deftly plays Valentine’s friend Proteus who betrays his friend when he vies for Silvia, expertly switching gears from cool headedness to crazed infatuation. Magan Wiles is brilliantly expressive as Julia, Proteus’ shunned lover and Susannah Millonzi is the perfect feisty, seductively pouting Silvia.

Kurt Rhoads and Rex O’Reilly: photo by William Marsh

But it’s the crazed and zany supporting characters in Two Gents that careen like random satellites whose orbits cast a sardonic light on human frailty. Seasoned HVSF veterans Nance Williamson and Kurt Rhoads are edgy characters punching out titillating and hilarious social commentary — the kind you can’t get enough of. Williamson plays Lucetta, Julia’s waiting woman, costumed in brassy couture — think Gina Lollobrigida or Sophia Loren — tucking black cigarettes in her blouse as she mocks Julia for her vacillating love for Proteus. Rhoads is Proteus’ servant Launce whose dog Crab (yes a real English Bulldog, stage name Rex O’Reilly) keeps us giddy with expectations that at any moment, the canine might disobey Rhoads and go astray — which happens a few times when both man and dog veer off to interact with the audience. Launce epitomizes the Shakespearean rascal and clown who has unrequited love for Crab and can forgive the dog any and all bad habits, a simple, deep affection very unlike that of the young, flighty lovesick couples.

Tucker recasts Valentine’s male page Speed as Valentine’s sister, a geeky, bespectacled, braided smart aleck superbly played by Jennifer Johnson. Leopold Lowe as Silvia’s father, the Duke of Milan, gives us mannerisms wonderfully redolent of the gangster type (think James Cagney). The outlaws who capture Valentine are a bawdy, gun-licking motley mix of slavic raunch. Choreographer Alexandra Beller’s driving disco dance sequences to Andy Rindlisbach (Proteus) original music has us itching to pop out of our seats and join in, which easily happens at the end of the play. The staging is brilliantly minimal and transparent allowing for subtle, symbolic expressions. Actors transform from characters to living sculptural forms, some unmistakably Roman fountains where mouths are water spouts and statues becomes a nuanced cliché on Italian tourist hot spots. With supporting actors as stage props, in one seamless scene Valentine, Proteus, Julia and Silvia are gracefully transported to a bed that morphs into a floating gondola and then a picnic scene.

The HVSF 2014 season also includes Shakespeare’s Othello directed by Associate Artistic Director Christopher V. Edwards and David Ives’s hilarious adaptation of Pierre Corneille’s The Liar directed by veteran Russell Treyz. All three plays will be presented through August  31. For 28 seasons the festival has performed in a beautiful, castle-like open-air theater tent on the grounds of historic Boscobel House and Gardens in Garrison, using the spectacular view of the Hudson River as a theatrical backdrop.

Featured image: Ethan Saks, Susannah Millonzi, Andy Rindlisbach and Magan Wiles:
Photo by William Marsh

For more information: call the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival office at 845–809-5750, or visit www.hvshakespeare.org

Abby Luby is a writer/journalist based in Westchester County. www​.abbylu​.com

The concert, “The Music of Astor Piazolla and Beyond,” featured special guest pianist Donal Fox. He and Beiser played a wide range of musical selections — from jazz to tango, experimental to classical, with original works and arrangements by Fox.

Beiser’s opening solo was “Just Ancient Loops,” a work composed by Michael Harrison for and dedicated to Beiser. A complex but accessible piece, Beiser accompanies herself on pre-recorded tracks that multiply exponentially to 22 cello parts, ascending to a final, symphony of cellos. Beiser prefaced the work by explaining that Harrison’s work was inspired by ancient Greek music, Indian ragas, minimalism, among others. The 25-minute opus guided us through a surge of diverse themes, from mellow, harmonic drones to frenzied syncopations, like a river flow of exhilarating, rushes of white water changing to dark, slow pools. Beiser’s dramatic stage presence coupled with Harrison’s seductive sonorities was a sensorial smorgasbord. Speedy pizzicatos blurred the cellist’s fingers while full, resonate chords drawn from sustained bows quieted Beiser to close her eyes in deep concentration. Rocking and swaying with her cello, stiletto heels tapping, eyebrows flaring, Beiser engaged with her instrument like with a partner in a provocative dance.

In the soulful and tempestuous “Mariel” by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov, Beiser’s florid, arpeggiated string crossings created pre-recorded pedal points like a satin lining showing off a gleaming, melodic gem. She leaned into thick, sustained notes with lush vibratos contrasted with spicy, bow bouncing spiccatos.

Donal Fox. Photo Lou Jones.

Donal Fox matched Beiser’s virtuosity in a seamless compilation of Bach, a Piazolla Tango, jazz improvisations. His flashy, keyboard technique was impressive and his calibrated sensitivity to Beiser’s temperament made for the perfect musical duo who exchanged many intense, dialogues of sound.

Much has been written about Beiser, and for good reason. She has taken the cello into the 21st century, harnessing a plethora of new sounds to perform the work of today’s contemporary composers. Her vast discography, released on the Sony Classical, Nonesuch, Koch (now E1), Innova, and Cantaloupe Music labels, includes five solo albums and many studio recordings and film music collaborations. Her 2010 album Provenance topped the classical and world music charts on both Amazon and iTunes. Beiser has been the featured soloist on several film soundtracks including M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening, Denzel Washington’s The Great Debaters, Edward Zwick’s Blood Diamond, and Rupert Sanders’ Snow White and the Huntsman. Raised on a kibbutz in the Galilee Mountains in Israel by her French mother and Argentinean father. Beiser is a graduate of Yale University and her teachers included Aldo Parisot, Uzi Weizel, Alexander Schneider, and Isaac Stern. She was the founding cellist of the new music ensemble, the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Her NPR Tiny Desk Concert features a captivating performance of Harrison’s Just Ancient Loops  and Golizjov’s Mariel.

Maya Beiser. Photo by Jim Allen

Beiser is a featured soloist on the soundtrack by James Newton Howard for M. Night Shyamalan’s science fiction film After Earth, starring Jaden and Will Smith, which is in wide release this summer. Her recording of David Lang’s World To Come IV from her album, World To Come, is featured in the new Italian film La Grande Bellezza.

More on Maya Beiser go to www.mayabeiser.com/
For more about Bard’s SummerScape Festival go to SummerScape

Abby Luby, author of the recently published e-​​​​book Nuclear Romance, has been in the field of communications for over 20 years and a journalist just over 10. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Communications/​​Music from Indiana University and attended the High School of Music and Art in New York City. She is a freelance journalist for The New York Daily News, a regularly featured art critic for the Stamford Advocate/​​Greenwich Time and for the past five years has written for The Hudson Valley Table, a quarterly food magazine. Ms. Luby has contributed several articles on art events, gallery openings and artists in the Hudson Valley region to Roll Magazine. www​.abbylu​.com

L to R Lily Narbonne, Stephen Paul Johnson, Angela Janus, Michael Borrelli, Kyle Nunn

The night this reviewer was at Boscobel, there were as many children as adults in the audience—and the appeal was universal. Director Christopher Edwards has perfected the balance between dialogue and highly skilled, choreographed wrestling and sword fights. Kudos to Fight Director Brad Lemons for well-calibrated, edgy jousts—sublime dances of dexterity, each sword-wielding brawl eliciting spontaneous applause.

Taylor Walsh, in his HVSF debut, is perfectly cast as the young  D’Artagnon. Walsh is light on his feet and manages to fly through the air like a weightless gymnast. His D’Artagnon is brash but gracefully klutzy — he has the young women in the audience swooning and the older ones projecting a dose of maternal angst. Ludwig, (who just authored the wonderful How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare) added the character Sabine as D’Artagnon’s younger sister, played by Angela Janas, who is terrifically goofy, especially when she breaks from her tomboy role into her libidinous hankering for Aramis, played by the dashing Kyle Nunn.

Taylor Walsh

Ryan Quinn, as D’Artagnon’s father and mentor, engages his son in a final lesson of combat as the play opens. The two men flip around the stage in a skirmish replete with groans and grunts; Quinn adroitly holds the father-son tension as he teaches his son how to defend himself while tearfully sending him off to become a Musketeer. Quinn, in another role (he miraculously jockeys five additional roles in the play), gives us a death scene right out of Monty Python. Flailing around just before his final collapse, Quinn is the human re-enactment of a pop-culture trailer, segueing between Michael Jackson’s dance moves from Beat It, Dorothy’s ‘dream’ lines from the Wizard of Oz to uttering  “Rosebud” from the famous film Citizen Kane.

L to R Kyle Nunn, Mark Couchot

Scoring high on hilarity is Michael Borelli as the pouting King Louis XIII, given to carefree cart wheels, brandishing a Bronx accent that drifts into valley girl lingo.  Borelli perfectly executes effeminate gestures while he prances around in period high heels, twirling an umbrella, often breaking the faux erudition by tugging on his wedgie. His best line: “Oh God. I love being King!” Chiara Motley perfectly portrays the king’s flighty Queen Anne and Mark Couchot is both villainous and daffy as Count de Rochefort.

Michael Borrelli

Stephen Paul Johnson is perfect as the nasty Cardinal Richelieu, wielding his evil power and who conspires to rule France; his demise at the end is heartily cheered. Musketeer Porthos is convincingly played by Charlie Francis Murphy, who is both Richelieu’s serious adversary and cocky swordsman. Thrown into a battle of soldiers armed with rifles, the ambivalent Porthos questions the validity  of religious-based war, asking if Christians were really killing each other over “how much Latin they can use in church?” The message of the church strong-arming the state can’t be overlooked.

L to R Mark Couchot — Lily Narbonne

Daniel Morgan Shelley soulfully plays Athos, the more somber of the three Musketeers and whose back story of lost love gives him pause to opine on how love really means the death of hope.  Eleanor Handley as Milady, Richelieu’s heinous, sassy co-conspirator, offers up a clever and sexy evil temptress. At the end, Milady meets her match at the hand of Sabine in a dazzling fight where both women masterfully clash, sword against sword. Lily Narbonne is the sweet Constance Bonacieux, who nicely sustains a wholesome innocence and is well matched to Walsh’s D’Artagnan.

L to R Charlie Francis Murphy – Kyle Nunn

Sound Designer William Neal expertly chooses recorded, programmatic music that announces  various scenes and moods throughout the show. Highlighting post intermission, Edwards has the full cast rocking the stage in a foot-stomping rendition  of Kiss by Prince, (“you don’t have to be beautiful…..you don’t have to be rich…..to be my girl”)  — a favorite that encourages one to clap and sing along.

The energy of this show is contagious and elicits frequent bursts of applause, especially for the super real sword swinging, incredible hand to hand combat and hard knock tumbles—captivating both kids and adults. A warning to those kids (of any age) who sit in front: you may suddenly find actors, in character, affably landing nearby or briefly falling in your lap to merely joke around. These impromptu, live-theater exchanges are priceless.

This is  one of three plays in the HVSF’s 27th season, the other two are King Lear, directed by  the festival’s Founding Artistic Director, Terrence O’Brien, and All’s Well That Ends Well directed by Russell Treyz. The season runs through the September 1, 2013.

All photos by William Marsh

Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival
HVSF Info and Tickets
Box Office: 845–265-9575.

Abby Luby, author of the recently published e-​​​​book Nuclear Romance, has been in the field of communications for over 20 years and a journalist just over 10. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Communications/​​Music from Indiana University and attended the High School of Music and Art in New York City. She is a freelance journalist for The New York Daily News, a regularly featured art critic for the Stamford Advocate/​​Greenwich Time and for the past five years has written for The Hudson Valley Table, a quarterly food magazine. Ms. Luby has contributed several articles on art events, gallery openings and artists in the Hudson Valley region to Roll Magazine. www​.abbylu​.com

Taking a deep, reverent bow to Stravinsky is the 24th annual season of the Bard Music Festival, which is part of SummerScape 2013 at Bard’s glorious Hudson River campus. (July 5 — August 18). “Stravinsky and His World” is a powerhouse of performances beefed up by a varietal trove of masterful offerings: a smorgasbord of eleven concerts, film, drama, pre-concert lectures, panel discussions and expert commentary. These programs are spaced over two weekends in August entitled “The 20th Century’s Most Celebrated Composer” and “The Classical Heritage.” They include a wide chronological span of music by Stravinsky and by his contemporaries.

Igor Stravinksy, 1913
Credit: Foto Gershel, Paris/Paul Sacher Foundation

Leon Botstein Talks about Igor Stravinsky and the 24th Bard Music Festival from The Fisher Center on Vimeo.

Launching the season and celebrating the centenary of The Rite of Spring is A Rite, a new dance-theater piece co-commissioned by SummerScape and conceived, directed, and choreographed by Bill T. Jones, Anne Bogart and Janet Wong. Set to the music of The Rite of Spring, the two performances are on Saturday, July 6th and Sunday, July 7th and will grace the stage at the silvery, Frank Gehry designed Fisher Center, which celebrates its tenth anniversary this year.

“A Rite” The Rite of Spring. Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and SITI Company Members.Photo credit: Paul B. Goode

“A Rite” The Rite of Spring. Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and SITI Company Members.Photo credit: Paul B. Goode

“A Rite” The Rite of Spring. Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and SITI Company Members.Photo credit: Paul B. Goode

Stravinsky unleashed a new language of sound, inspiring not only generations of composers and choreographers, but also writers and artists. Bard’s all encompassing ode to Stravinsky will include the opera Oresteia by Stravinsky’s compatriot Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). This production at the Fisher Center is the first time this towering work will be staged in its entirety outside of Russia since its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1895. The five performances will take place on July 26, 28, 31, August 2, 4 and will feature the festival’s resident American Symphony Orchestra with music director Leon Botstein. Botstein leads concert performances of three of Stravinsky’s own operatic works: Mavra (August 11), and a pairing of Oedipus Rex and Perséphone (August 18).

Another first for “Stravinsky and His World” is the world première of The Master and Margarita (1937) after the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, Stravinsky’s contemporary. Bulgakov’s satirical vision of the Soviet Union under Stalin was so acute that the novel was suppressed until 1967. The internationally renowned Hungarian film and theater director János Szasz will apply his opulent theatrical vision to this new stage adaptation of Bulgakov’s beloved novel, now justly regarded as one of the great masterpieces of the 20th century. The play will be presented in ten performances between July 11 and 21.

Master and Margarita
Photo credit: Courtesy of Bulgakov House, Moscow, enhanced by Carol Zaloom

“Between Traditions: Stravinsky’s Legacy and Russian Émigré Cinema,” Bard’s film festival, highlights the composer’s substantial influence on 20th century cinema in two overlapping parts: a retrospective of Russian émigré filmmaking and a series of films directly influenced by the composer’s work. Opening the film festival on July 12 in the Ottaway Film Center is The Red Shoes (1948). Some of the silent films are being shown for the first time in the United States. The second phase of the festival begins with one of the defining films of the 1920’s, Marcel L’Herbier’s L’inhumaine (1924), which includes a scene depicting the famous riot in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées at the premiere of Le Sacre du Printemps. Other films that reflect Stravinsky’s work are by such known directors as Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette. The film festival ends with Orpheus, La Belle Noiseuse and Three Homerics on August 3rd.

In the Bard tradition of astute academia, “Stravinsky and His World”, offers three thought-provoking panel discussions and a series of informative pre-concert talks (free to ticket holders). The last of these will be presented by this year’s Bard Scholar-in-Residence, Tamara Levitz, Professor of Musicology at UCLA.

The Bard Summerscape Spiegeltent

This season, A World of Delight dwells within the Bard Spiegeltent and runs throughout Summerscape 2013, from July 5 – August 18. It’s the perfect place to kick back after an absorbing performance and soak up the atmosphere of Bard’s authentic Belgian “mirror tent” and its line up of live music, cabaret artists, and spectacular circus acts, including many old favorites. This season also features a new house band to enjoy with plenty of excellent food and drink.

For more information on SummerScape 2013, The Bard Music Festival
and “Stravinsky and His World” click here. SummerScape

For Bard SummerScape ticket information call the Fisher Center box office: 845–758-7900

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“King Lear” is a bear of a play: intense, brooding, laden with raw, human rage fueled by a driving lust for power. But it’s also about age discrimination, a theme that strongly resonates with us. The corrupt, younger characters seek to weaken the aged Lear, discounting his wisdom and belittling his very ability to rule based on the presumed limitations of being old. Even Lear himself holds a similar attitude about age. In Act I, he himself sets us up when he says “shake all cares and business from our age; Conferring them on younger strengths, while we Unburthen’d crawl toward death.” Lear’s daughters inflict suffering on Lear and violently torture the elderly Gloucester, an extreme case of elder abuse.

HVSF actor Stephen Paul Johnson is brilliant as Lear and holds us tightly in his dramatic grip, sweeping us along his spiraling journey down to insanity. Taking on Lear is no easy task, but Johnson easily assumes the very essence of the character. Highly skilled, he masterfully modifies vocal inflections and body language as he incrementally moves to a deeper rung of madness.

Richard Ercole is commanding as the elderly Earl of Gloucester who mirrors Lear in his own downfall brought about by his bastard son, Edmund. Ercole makes us live Gloucester’s agony as he is lied to, accused of treason and tortured. He is strongly persuasive in portraying the earl’s freefall from nobility to that of an outcast. Ryan Quinn as Edmund, intermittently confides directly to the audience of his scheme to kill both Gloucester and his true son, Edgar. Quinn is appealingly personable, almost like the bank robber we want to get away; we like him despite his being shady and deceitful.

Equally strong performances by the HVSF troupe make this production powerful. Jason O’Connell as the king’s very loyal confidant, Earl of Kent, is wholly convincing as the wronged friend after Lear banishes him from the court for speaking out about the dishonestly of the king’s two elder daughters. O’Connell easily switches roles from erudite earl to the disguised, lowly peasant “Caius,” playfully trying out different speech accents until he settles on one that completes his cover. Perfectly cast as Lear’s jester is Wesley Mann. Interjecting doses of advice masked as double talk and puns, Mann fluidly angles his body in and around the rigid stance of the other characters, a floating, comic relief on the tidal wave of tragedy.

L to R; Eleanor Handley, Chiara Motley. Photo by William Marsh

Chiara Motley is the very mean-spirited, stoic Goneril, Lear’s eldest daughter, who wants a world free of elders holding power; she stops at nothing to defame her father. Motley’s Goneril is calculating and we get her — she’s like a silken garment lined with sand paper as she feeds her father sweet, flowery words of love he wants to hear, words that quickly dissipate to those of harsh scorn and destruction. Regan, Lear’s second daughter  is played by a confidant Eleanor Handley who deftly exacts Regan’s cruelty and rudeness, turning us against her. Jessica Frey plays Cordelia, Lear’s youngest daughter who truly loves her father but who refuses to flatter him with platitudes. Frey effectively taps into Cordelia’s goodness and honesty, one of the few, hopeful, positive tones that fade as the corruption progresses.

L to R; Jessica Frey, Stephen Paul Johnson. Photo by William Marsh

L to R; Jessica Frey, Stephen Paul Johnson. Photo by William Marsh

Charlie Francis Murphy is Edgar, Gloucester’s elder son, who adroitly modulates to the role of  Poor Tom to keep his real identity a secret. Murphy consistently holds the dramatic tension of the pretense of being a friend to the blinded Gloucester, teasing us while babbling the truth.

The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival production of “King Lear” is directed by HVSF Founding Artistic Director Terrence O’Brien. This dark play is a sparsely staged performance that lets us focus on the words as charged, verbal conduits that lead us to a tragic place of man’s immorality. The stark soundtrack is primarily percussive, the lighting uncomplicated and there is a brief, dance interlude, minimal enough to keep us on track. O’Brien tells us in his program notes that special effects for “King Lear” would never “be as powerful as the emotions of the actors on stage.” In O’Brien’s hands  “King Lear” is an exquisite, rich performance that honors the timeless and powerful words of Shakespeare.

This is  one of three plays in the HVSF’s 27th season, the other two are All’s Well that Ends Well, directed by Russell Treyz, and Ken Ludwig’s adaptation of The Three Musketeers directed by Associate Artistic Director Christopher V. Edwards. The season runs through the September 1, 2013.

Featured image; L to R, Wesley Mann, Stephen Paul Johnson. Photo by William Marsh.

Hudson Valley Shakespeare
Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival/Tickets
Box Office: 845–265-9575.

Abby Luby, author of the recently published e-​​​​book Nuclear Romance, has been in the field of communications for over 20 years and a journalist just over 10. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Communications/​​Music from Indiana University and attended the High School of Music and Art in New York City. She is a freelance journalist for The New York Daily News, a regularly featured art critic for the Stamford Advocate/​​Greenwich Time and for the past five years has written for The Hudson Valley Table, a quarterly food magazine. Ms. Luby has contributed several articles on art events, gallery openings and artists in the Hudson Valley region to Roll Magazine. www​.abbylu​.com

A little background on this play: Shakespeare had already written Hamlet and Twelfth Night and although All’s Well That Ends Well is considered a romantic comedy, it seems the bard took a stylistic detour and gave us a play less amorous and more prosaic. Although a romantic pursuit drives the play, looming bigger are the ironies and inconsistencies of the world seen more clearly by the wiser and more visionary characters, but ignored by those who are small minded and self serving.

Director Russell Treyz, who superbly directed last season’s The 39 Steps, tells us that he purposely cast All’s Well in Elizabethan tradition of men playing women’s roles. The one exception is Helena, played by the only woman in the cast, Jessica Frey. All the actors play multiple roles except for three characters: Helena, her love interest Bertram, played by Dan Tracy and Parolles, played by Jason O’Connell. Helena, Bertram and Parolles are on a mission to better their lives. Helena pursues Bertram to be her husband, Bertram seeks his fortune and Parolles wants worldly recognition at any cost. O’Connell adroitly portrays Parolles as shallow and unscrupulous. Frey deftly serves up a woman who clearly sees the trajectory of her plan to wed Bertram and gain higher societal status no matter what road blocks he throws in her path. Tracy as Bertram is entirely convincing as a young, frivolous liar, who shuns Helena by rushing off to war—the male practice of fleeing intimacy for the battlefront with one’s brotherly comrades is not lost on us or on Helena, who vies to survive in a male-dominated world and, in this case, a male-dominated stage.

All’s Well — Left to right: Wesley Mann-Jeff Gonzalez-Dan Tracy
Richard Ercole and Jessica Frey

Originally the play was written without any songs or music, but Treyz chose to serenade us before the play with a medley of songs including the foot stomping, Mo-Town Chain of Fools, a sultry rendition of Love Me Do, capped off with You Can’t Always Get What You Want,—songs heralding the thematic bent of unrequited love and the desire for high rank and fortune.

Unlike Shakespeare’s leading ladies who flirt lasciviously with their lovers, Helena hardly speaks to Bertram in the course of the play. Frey crisply executes Helena’s wit, however, when she verbally spars with Parolles about how to fight to save one’s virginity with “warlike resistance” —a dishy setup for the play’s litany of charged metaphors for love, war and fealty.

Dan Matisa, in a gender-switch role as the countess is so totally convincing that he endears us to him much like the beefy Margaret Dumont in the Marx Brothers films or Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire. As Bertram’s mother, Matisa physically looms over Tracy, diminishing her son both visually and psychologically, sternly intoning a strong voice of reason. Matisa’s affectations are perfect —the swooning clasp of hand to head, his forlorn, wispy sighs, his haughty prance embellished by his trailing headdress.

All’s Well-Dan Matisa

Wesley Mann juggles three, distinctly different characters: a clown, a lord and an old widow —each transformation captivating enough to harness our credibility. At the end of the play when the clown and lord have a verbal duel, Mann wears the clown costume on one side of his body and the lord’s on the other, twisting and turning, instantly modulating his voice for a quick paced dialogue, a tour de force of live, special effects. The hilarity is as raucous and entertaining as is the scene of galloping horses where the actors’ morph into half-man-half horse centaurs whose fancy footwork bring the steeds to life.

Jeff Gonzalez masterly shifts from a French lord to the German female role of Diana, the character who, at Helena’s request, bed-tricks Bertram with a beguiling, coquettish accent that expertly matches Gonzalez’s persuasive, feminine body language. The erudite Richard Ercole is the sickly King of France whose aches and pains make us wince, and whose recovery gives us the welcomed, strong voice of authority to lecture Bertram on his feckless rejection of Helena.

All’s Well-Richard Ercole and Jessica Frey

The actors assume various roles with great alacrity and the rush of role changes swirl around the three, static characters. But the Shakespearean shape-shifting comes to a stop in a bold moment of candor redolent of the Dance of the Seven Veils whose purpose is to ultimately reveal the naked truth of who we really are. In one brief, poignant soliloquy, O’Connell sheds his bravado as Parolles, is humbled for deceiving his comrades and brings us to his defining moment where he embraces who he is— “simply the thing I am shall make me live.” The audience bears witness to Parolles final realization and to the play’s underlying message: there are other parts of ourselves who we strive to be and outwardly present to others, but in the end, we must come to grips with our real, true selves.

The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival’s production of All’s Well That Ends Well is a performance that makes you want to run back and read the bard’s words, instilling his grand ability to tease, delight and invite us in for jovial, philosophical reflection.

This is one of three plays in the HVSF’s 27th season, the other two are King Lear, directed by the festival’s Founding Artistic Director, Terrence O’Brien, and Ken Ludwig’s adaptation of The Three Musketeers directed by Associate Artistic Director Christopher V. Edwards. The season runs through the September 1, 2013.

Featured Image: All’s Well That Ends Well: Jessica Frey and Dan Tracy
All photos by William Marsh

Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival
Buy Tickets online
Box Office: 845–265-9575.

Abby Luby, author of the recently published e-​​​​book Nuclear Romance, has been in the field of communications for over 20 years and a journalist just over 10. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Communications/​​Music from Indiana University and attended the High School of Music and Art in New York City. She is a freelance journalist for The New York Daily News, a regularly featured art critic for the Stamford Advocate/​​Greenwich Time and for the past five years has written for The Hudson Valley Table, a quarterly food magazine. Ms. Luby has contributed several articles on art events, gallery openings and artists in the Hudson Valley region to Roll Magazine. www​.abbylu​.com