Reviews 2016
Reviews 2016
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by Luigi Pirandello, adapted and directed by Douglas Beattie
Touchmark Theatre, Bentley’s Inn, Stratford rm #107
April 22-24, 2016
Cici: “I don’t know who I am from one moment to the next”
With Masquerade, Touchmark Theatre has produced its first site-specific play. The play is an hour-long comedy written by Luigi Pirandello eight years before his best-know work Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921). The entire action is set in an hotel room and for that purpose Touchmark has obtained permission to use a suite at Bentley’s Inn in downtown Stratford. There is enough in the room to seat an audience of 15 audience members, but that number is so small that the five-show run sold out quickly, particularly since one of the stars is none other than Walt Wingfield himself, Rod Beattie.
The original Italian title of the play is Cecè, the nickname of the main character Cesare Vivoli. In director Douglas Beattie’s adaptation the name has been changed to Cici (pronounced CHEE-chee), likely because audiences will be more familiar with that as a name (e.g., golfer Chi-Chi Rodríguez). Douglas Beattie has also updated the time of the play to the present and has cleverly worked in the use of cellphones. Otherwise, the location remains in Rome and once you step into the very modern room at Bentley’s, you can easily imagine that you have some been transported to the Eternal City.
While Douglas Beattie’s new title Masquerade recalls Pirandello’s famous collection of plays called Maschere Nude (Naked Masks), the play could equally well have named after Aretha Franklin’s 1985 song “Who’s Zoomin’ Who?” since that’s the question we ask ourselves all through the action.
The central character is Cici (Stephen Sparks), a suave but shameless politician and playboy. He has found himself in a bit of trouble with Nada (Diana Cofini), the most famous escort in Rome. Cici wanted to show himself off in front of his fellow convention delegates by having Nada, an old friend of his, drive him about in her car. He didn’t realize the shrewd businesswoman would charge him for her time and had to pay her with two IOUs. Now he has concocted a scheme to get the IOUs back. An old friend the commendatore Carlo Squatriglia (Rod Beattie), whose life he once saved, owes him a favour and as repayment, Cici wants him to convince Nada that Cici has no money and cannot repay her or anyone else. In only one hour the plot twists and turns so that we eventually wonder how much of a “friend” Cici is to anyone. Cici makes the archetypal Pirandellian remark, “I don’t know who I am from one moment to the next”, and we know this is no exaggeration. Cici may be so used to lying that he has lost sight of what “truth” is.
All three roles have been well cast and it’s especially a treat to see Rod Beattie playing a character unconnected with the seven Wingfield plays for which he is so famous. Stephen Sparks conveys the general untrustworthiness that lurks behind Cici’s good-looking exterior and resonant, reassuring voice. In fact, it’s when his character is playing at being the most sympathetic that we begin to wonder what his real agenda is. We are not the only ones because Diana Cofini’s Nada, as ravishing as she is said to be, has such a rapport with Cici that she can tell his tone of sincerity may mean just the opposite. Cofini plays Nada as a strong, self-assured businesswoman who knows men too well to be duped by them.
Rod Beattie, as one might expect, is hilarious as the one-eyed commendatore Squatriglia. Why Pirandello makes him one-eyed is a bit of a mystery unless it is to signal symbolically that Squatriglia is as deficient in insight as in external vision. Unlike Walt Wingfield who can narrate his stories with wry hindsight, the naive Squatriglia is immersed in interpersonal negotiations that he doesn’t quite understand. Our laughter increases the more the poor man, the most sympathetic of the three, is toyed with by the other two.
As a director, Douglas Beattie makes excellent use of the suite at Bentley’s Inn that has a second room upstairs, thus providing the acting area with two exits. As can happen with site-specific shows, the fun of the show in increased by our close proximity to the actors.
The play may be clever but slight but it still deals in one of Pirandello’s main themes of the conflict of reality and fiction. The question throughout the action is which of the two, Cici’s fiction as presented by Squatriglia or Nada’s own experienced reality will dominate. Masquerade is a great experiment for Touchmark and one I hope it pursues with other lesser-known plays in the future.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photos: Rod Beattie, Stephen Sparks and Diana Cofini. ©2016 Douglas Beattie.
For tickets, visit www.bentleysbarinn.com.
2016-04-24
Masquerade