Page 16 HIGH GEAR September 1980

ENTERTAINMENT

At the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival

"Charley's Aunt"

Still alive and kicking

By R. Woodward

The old lady is far from dead. First performed in 1892, Charley's Aunt is the most popular and most famous comedy ever written around a character in drag: (It is often said to have been performed more frequently than any other play besides Hamlet.) The current production at the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival proves that a cast of energetic pros can still get a lot of fresh entertainment from the script.

Limping Henry becomes

front runner

By R. Woodward Those who saw the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival's production of Henry IV during the first week of its engagement owe it to themselves to go back and see it again. It has improved so much that it seems like a different show.

Having seen that the production was not coming together as it should. Vincent Dowling has taken over the direction itself, replaced some of the cast members, and held new rehearsals.

Vastly improved is the show's pacing. Without cutting many lines Dowling has managed to make the show run more than a half hour shorter.

Besides being livelier, the show is also much funnier now. Henry IV is a serious study of ways that different individuals assume or reject social respon-

downstage with his back turned towards the audience as the king begins speaking. The movement is such that the audience sees and focuses more and more on the prince's face as he responds more and more to his father's words. The scene ends with the prince tearfully embracing his father with his face towards the audience rather than the king's face towards the audience as it was during the first week.

Dowling has found a graceful way to let the actor's emotion build and Waites responds by providing the production with its single most moving moment.

Waites effectively solves what is the chief problem faced by an actor playing Hal keeping him from seeming glib and smug. (Early in the play Hal tells the audience that he hangs around with low companions so he will sibility, but it is one of the least look that much better when he discards them, that the sun seems more lovely after being obscured by a bunch of dirty, diseased clouds.)

somber and least gloomy plays ever written. It is crammed full of vivid and colorful characters whose foibles are viewed in a humorous light. Dowling shows once again that he has sharp eyes for where Shakespeare put the laughs and that he knows the most effective ways of getting them across.

The entire cast is acting with more self-assurance.

Particularly gratifying is the improvement in the performance of Thomas Waites as Prince Hal, the heir apparent to the throne. Waites, whose clear, sharp voice seems perfectly suited for overcoming the difficult acoustics of Lakewood Civic Auditorium, looks the part and gives it everything he's got. With some help from Dowling's direction he has gotten over his initial uncertainties about how to focus his energies in this part and is now making a huge contribution to giving the play emotional balance.

Especially effective now is the play's key scene in which Hal's father, the king, reprimands him severely for his low companions and loose ways. Dowling has changed the positioning of the two characters on the stage. The scene begins with the king more upstage and the prince more

Hal as played by Waites is a more appealing character than he often is someone who seems genuinely concerned about finding himself rather than seeming to be someone who has already found himself and is manipulating everybody for the political exercise.

Bernard Kates as King Henry IV gets across very effectively how the king is being consumed by the strain of his position, and, what is more difficult actingwise, convinces the audience of the extraordinary efforts at discipline and self control that is causing the strain. Impressing upon the audience the king's commanding royal presence is a certain firmness and a certain sense of total authority in Kates' acting. Without neglecting any emotional nuances, Kates makes clear that Henry is the steadfast center of things.

Henry has become the king by usurping the throne from his. weak cousin whose murder he is at least partly responsible for Nobody in the play is depicted as being totally villainous or totally guiltless, What distinguish him. from those who have helped him

to the throne and are now rebelling against him is that he is less impulsive and more decisive, seems to be naturally the best suited for assuming and maintaining responsibility.

The most attractive of Henry's not really villainous opponents is the young warrior Harry Percy, nicknamed Hotspur because of his hot-headed ways. Noticeably without guile or malice, Hotspur bickers and argues with the king, his wife, and his political allies-often for the sheer fun of agitating them. Played by Robert Elliot, his sarcastic attitudes and comments and the ways he savors people's annoyed and angry responses to them provide the play with some of its choicest moments. Combining.great exuberance with close observation, Elliot manages to play the character full blast without any ham. He convincingly gives the character a slight stammer to explain why Hotspur calls himself ill-spoken despite having many of the plays most vivid and memorable lines.

Emery Battis's excellent performance as Sir John Falstaff, Hal's disreputable drinking com-

The plot deals with Jack and Charley, two college chums, who want to invite to lunch two young women. This being the Victorian age, a female chaperone is required, and Donna Lucia, Charley's rich aunt due to arrive from Brazil on a visit is to serve in that capacity. When she wires that she won't be arriving in time for the planned get together, they persuade Lord Fanfourt Babberly, a fellow student, to pass as the aunt. (He just happened to be getting ready to rehearse a part in some amateur theatricals and just happened to have with him the female attire.)

The play is very well constructed and moves so easily from one comic situation to another that you can easily forpanion (probably Shakespeares give its author Brandon Thomas most famous comedy character), for having been so relentless in is getting a lot more laughs than trying to keep everything perit was the first week -mainly fectly innocent. because Falstaff no longer (Says Thomas in the stage seems like someone trying to instructions, "The essential thing cheer up passengers aboard the to bear in mind when he is impersinking Titanic. Battis gives the sonating 'The Aunt' is that Lord character a realistic interpretaFancourt has 'never acted in his tion, carefully detailed and carelife before.' or worn women's fully proportioned, not exaggerclothes. He still walks, talks and ating his grossness and his varmoves like a man, and never ious failings. His Falstaff is jolly attempts to 'act the woman.' No and amusing without any effeminate female impersonation obvious tricks or commandeerbusiness.") ing the audiences attention. His Falstaff insinuates himself into the audiences awareness by continually inviting the closest scrutiny of his words and actions.

Nowadays the joke is on Brandon Thomas. Having Aunty seem manly is not quite the same jest after you've seen The Killing of Sister George.

Director Vincent Dowling has Henry IV is a long and complex impressed upon the cast that play and much of the way that the even if the script is smoothly writproduction now firmly holds the ten and even if much of the busiaudiences attention from beginness if now familiar nothing in ning to end is due to the efforts of the script should be taken for the excellent supporting cast. granted. In this fast paced proDowling has replaced some duction the cast performs with members of the supporting cast vigor and conviction. and has greatly helped to increase the energy level of others. Nobody's part is limited to merely providing transitions or exposition.

Lord Fancourt Babberly (John Q. Brure) posing as the rich aunt of a friend tries to cope with the unexpected enthusiasm, at an otherw Aunt. This production is at the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival eserved and pompous cortièma • ¿Ropert Filonaloun...Charley » through the end of September. See ..........

John Q. Bruce as Lord Fancourt Babberly not only gets the laughs but also makes his character's sentimental moments unusually effective.

Bruce seems to lack the razor sharp edge and ruthless efficiency needed for pure farce. Fortunately Charley's Aunt is not pure farce, but is, rather, a quaint comedy that happens to be more potent than quaint comedies usually are. Bruce, who has mastered the trick of radiating sincerity from beneath a veneer of gawky amiability, never loses his hold on the audience.

Especially effective is.the scene between Fancourt and Ela Delahay, the young women he has fallen in love with, who thinks that she is confiding in a nice old lady and tells of being in love with him. The forthright acting of Bruce and of Lori Bezahler who plays Ela make the scene genuinely touching. They keep their emoting from being maudin while keeping the underlying ing to be a mere mechanical jest of the scene from ever seemcontrivance.

As Stephen Spettigue, the gentleman who is gung-ho about

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