Thursday, January 17,2008
Share
Arthur, the Boy Who Would be King
Theater Review
Many have reworked the tale of Arthur and his Round Table. In Arthur, the Boy Who Would be King (at
Sunset Playhouse through Jan. 27), James DeVita combines a number of
myths surrounding Arthur’s origins and life and succeeds in painting a
rather human portrait of the legendary leader—a person just as capable
of folly and dejection as the next man. What he doesn’t dwell on enough
is the moral dilemma that faces Arthur when his own lofty sense of
justice and the machinery through which it’s dispensed returns to haunt
him.
The story begins with a world-weary and embittered Arthur fighting a losing battle. Merlin appears, grizzled but decidedly chirpy, and with a rather conspicuous wave of his staff transports Arthur back into his past. We see Merlin seek out a safe and anonymous refuge for baby Arthur when his father is overthrown. As he grows, so does his sense of justice, and by the time he extracts Excalibur from the enchanted stone, his moral fiber exceeds his physical stature. Arthur marries his childhood love, Guinevere, and the two share a comfortable marital bliss until Lancelot appears and sweeps both king and queen off their feet. Enter Morgana, Arthur’s half-sister, who evolves from a waspish little girl to a full-bodied viper nestled in the trusting bosom of the royal court. Combining the equally corrosive arts of dark magic and female sorcery, she sows the seeds of doubt among Arthur’s knights until he is held ransom by his own lofty beliefs. The play refreshingly counters the phrase “frailty thy name is woman” with “folly and blind-sightedness thy name is man.” The performance itself was somewhat lackluster on opening night, the English accent tripping up seasoned actors and fledglings alike. The perceptible awkwardness of the cast and their accents may iron itself out over the course of its run. The venomous Morgana (played by Vicki Spaulding) was one of the highlights of the play; Arthur’s affable foster father was another.
J. Michael Desper’s set was also rather lackluster. Nonetheless, what appeared to be grooved cardboard or plastic fashioned into the crenelated walls of a medieval castle served its purpose, making any set changes unnecessary. And the audience, made up of children and adults in more or less equal measure, seemed bent on overlooking any awkwardness or blemishes in the production. I on the other hand was caught in a moral quandary no less burdensome than Arthur’s: how to season my criticism of the performance with due acknowledgment of the youth of much of its cast.
The story begins with a world-weary and embittered Arthur fighting a losing battle. Merlin appears, grizzled but decidedly chirpy, and with a rather conspicuous wave of his staff transports Arthur back into his past. We see Merlin seek out a safe and anonymous refuge for baby Arthur when his father is overthrown. As he grows, so does his sense of justice, and by the time he extracts Excalibur from the enchanted stone, his moral fiber exceeds his physical stature. Arthur marries his childhood love, Guinevere, and the two share a comfortable marital bliss until Lancelot appears and sweeps both king and queen off their feet. Enter Morgana, Arthur’s half-sister, who evolves from a waspish little girl to a full-bodied viper nestled in the trusting bosom of the royal court. Combining the equally corrosive arts of dark magic and female sorcery, she sows the seeds of doubt among Arthur’s knights until he is held ransom by his own lofty beliefs. The play refreshingly counters the phrase “frailty thy name is woman” with “folly and blind-sightedness thy name is man.” The performance itself was somewhat lackluster on opening night, the English accent tripping up seasoned actors and fledglings alike. The perceptible awkwardness of the cast and their accents may iron itself out over the course of its run. The venomous Morgana (played by Vicki Spaulding) was one of the highlights of the play; Arthur’s affable foster father was another.
J. Michael Desper’s set was also rather lackluster. Nonetheless, what appeared to be grooved cardboard or plastic fashioned into the crenelated walls of a medieval castle served its purpose, making any set changes unnecessary. And the audience, made up of children and adults in more or less equal measure, seemed bent on overlooking any awkwardness or blemishes in the production. I on the other hand was caught in a moral quandary no less burdensome than Arthur’s: how to season my criticism of the performance with due acknowledgment of the youth of much of its cast.
Also in Theater:
..Search Shepherd Express
- Thu
20 - Fri
21 - Sat
22 - Sun
23 - Mon
24 - Tue
25 - Wed
26
Search in Events
2008-11-20 7:30pm
Comedy
Live! Interactive! Improv Comedy For the Whole Family!
Bring the kids, bring Grandma, heck, even bring the dog! Come see the longest running comedy Show in Milwaukee.
Location: Central Milwaukee
Quantum of Solace is the future of cinema, a movie whose splashiest scenes are tailored to the dimension of big screens. It opens with the camera zooming like a cruise missile, skimming the surface of the sea as it hurtles toward the Italian coast. There,
Besotted by the cinema of silence and early talking pictures, Guy Maddin also finds humor in old movies-or perhaps the humor lies more in the distance between our experience of the world and the gestures of an antique art form. In My Winnipeg, the Canadia
For most of us, bossa nova is the distinctive sound of Brazil. The music was born in the late 1950s, conceived in large part by Antonio Carlos Jobim. From early on, American jazz musicians parked themselves within the idiom, sensing an affinity between th
California's Sound Tribe Sector 9 claims that instrumental music can reflect the tension of the times. In fact, the five-man collective considers its dense Eno-esque swirl of pulsing live and electronic sounds a means of "conversation" between band and li
The local restaurant Barossa, named after the Australian wine region of the same name, quietly closed its doors several months ago. With that closure came the loss of a very distinguished wine list and a menu that borrowed ingredients from all over the wo
The biggest local restaurant news of 2008 would have to be Adam Siegel’s James Beard Award as Best Chef of the Midwest. Siegel is chef de cuisine at Bartolotta’s Lake Park Bistro, as well as at Bacchus. Lake Park Bistro brings a very French fe
Says You
Free Classifieds
Free Coupons
Win Cage Fighting Tickets
..Search Shepherd Express
