Reviews 2002
Reviews 2002
✭✭✩✩✩
written by Francis Beaumont, directed by Greg Porter
Squeeze-box Theatre, Khrome, Toronto
December 5-15, 2002
Those who think metatheatre is new or that writing plays about plays began with Pirandello need to be reminded of "The Knight of the Burning Pestle" (1607) by Shakespeare's once more popular contemporary Francis Beaumont. In it a wealthy grocer and his wife attend a play but object to the subject matter. They demand instead the adventure play of the title until the bullied troupe decides to mingle its own play with the grocer's. Besides that, the couple wants their apprentice Rafe to play the lead role. Their constant commentary and interference shatter the stage illusion while fiction and reality, actor and audience, ultimately merge in a celebration of comedy.
In 1990 the Stratford Festival had such success with this gem they brought it back the next year. It is certainly ripe for another production, though perhaps not in the guise on offer by the year-old Squeeze-Box Theatre. In response to sudden defection of personnel, director Greg Porter has had to abridge the play's five acts so drastically that little more than a plot outline remains in its 80 minutes with many of the best scenes and speeches omitted.
Porter's concept of relocating the action to a cabaret-cum-karaoke bar is suitable for a no-budget production but would work better if more clearly established. The wildly variable results get by more on enthusiasm than polish. When things click it's rather like Monty Python does Shakespeare. When they don't it's like skit night at the dorm.
There are bright spots. Sophia Zoe is hilarious throughout as the stridently conservative Grocer's Wife. As Rafe, Jeff Orchard, the most Cleesean of the troupe, has a comic death scene to end all death scenes. Ann-Marie B. Zammit delivers a super version of "R-E-S-P-E-C-T". And Porter as actor lends the proceedings a much-needed sense of decorum.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2002-10-21.
Photo: Jeff Orchard. ©2007 Roots Theatre.
2002-12-12
The Knight of the Burning Pestle