Reviews 2005
Reviews 2005
✭✭✭✭✩
by Carlo Goldoni, translated and directed by John Van Burek
Pleiades Theatre, Artword Theatre, Toronto
November 23-December 11, 2005
Pleiades Theatre is currently presenting the English-language premiere of The Amorous Servant (La serva amorosa), a play from 1752 by Carlo Goldoni, Italy’s master of comedy. John Van Burek’s translation and direction reveal fascinating work that moves beyond traditional commedia dell’arte to embrace greater realism. This delightful production should help to end its unjust neglect.
In Corallina, the servant of the title, Goldoni has created female character who represents all the virtues that men of the period thought women lacked. She is brighter, braver, more steadfast and more honorable than anyone in the play. Christine Brubaker makes Corallina endearingly real, fully capturing her combination of spunk, sensitivity and desire for justice. Corallina’s task is to reconcile the semi-senile Don Ottavio (played with abandon by Jerry Franken) with Florindo (Nicolas Van Burek in a nicely understated performance), the son he has cast out on orders from his domineering second wife Beatrice (Nikki Pascetta, delectable as a cartoonish villainess). Beatrice meanwhile wants Ottavio to make a will so that she and her idiot son Lelio (Richard Zeppieri as a hilarious macho manqué) will inherit everything. Michael Gianfrancesco’s design ingeniously portrays a world of artifice and mutability.
Corallina says it’s time for revenge against those who speak ill of women. Kudos to Pleiades for letting us meet her.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2005-12-01.
Photo: Christine Brubaker and Nicolas Van Burek.
2005-12-01
The Amorous Servant