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A CurtainUp Review

Tonight at 8:30 (Series B)

Series A Below is some background on Series B based on this reviewer's experience with Coward and advance press materials. Please check back next week for more detailed impressions of the performances and staging

Ann Reinking's "8:30" trio opens with one of the collection's best known and most popular, "Red Peppers", and closes with its least known, "Star Chamber." Even people who are familiar with the various rotations of the plays think of the lot as totaling nine. There are, in fact, ten and this "missing tenth" play is here used as the finale. Set in an empty theater during the board meeting of a theatrical charity, it was written to star Gertrude Lawrence as the larger-than-life stage star Xenia James (played at WTF by Deborah Rush) and Noël Coward as Johnny Bolton (Bill Irwin at WTF), a standup comedian who was characterized as a bore. After taking on the presidency of the Actors' Orphanage, Coward felt that he had inadvertently satirised people he esteemed highly and with nine other plays providing an abundance of riches, he dropped this play from the rotating cycle. The idea of a home for destitute actresses, called Garrick Haven in "Star Chamber", resurfaced later in Waitig In the Wings (recently revived on Broadway and giving plum roles to some of our more distinguished theatrical senior citizens).

Appearing in these three plays marks a new direction for Fool Moon (and also as performer in and director of Scapin).

A speech by Xenia in "Shadow Play" was quoted by critic Kenneth Tynan to illustrate his belief that Harold Pinter's much admired concision of language owed much to Coward: "Small talk, a lot of small talk with other thoughts going on behind." Yet, Coward himself had little use for the new playwrights like Pinter whose arrival marked for a period of his declining popularity.

TONIGHT AT 8:30 (Series B)
"Red Peppers", "Shadow Play" and "Star Chamber"
by Noël Coward
Directed and choreographed by Ann Reinking
For Program A Review & Production Notes, go here
FeaturingCharlotte d'Ambroise, Joan Copeland, Christopher Fitzgerald, Rick Holmes, Bill Irwin, Terrence Mann, Deborah Rush, Barbara Sims, Rachael Warren; also Cherl Lynn Bowers, Daisy, Logan Marshall-Greene, Kathleen McCafferty, Christian Maurice, Jimmi Simpson, Elisabeth Waterston
Set Design: Allen Moyer
Lighting Design: Rui Rita
Costume Design: Linda Cho
Sound Design: Kurt B. Kellenberger
Musical director: James Sampliner
Orchestrations: Larry Moore
Choreography, "We Were Dancing, Sandra L. Burton
Williamstown Theatre Festival
Adams Memorial Theatre, 1000 Main Street, Williamstown, MA (413/597-3400)
http://www.wtfestival.org
6/16/2000-7/022000; 6/23 opening


Reviewed by Elyse Sommer

broadwaynewyork.com


The Broadway Theatre Archive


©Copyright, Elyse Sommer, CurtainUp.
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