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commissioned by Eliza
beth I, who hadn’t had
enough of the Fat Man
in Henry IV, Parts I
and 2. Here, Falstaff is
that most sympathetic
of con men: the one
who’s beaten at his
own game.
Hoping to access
their husbands’ purses,
he woos Kith Mistress
Page and Mistress Ford.
They revenge them
selves on his duplicity
by arranging a ren
dezvous at which he is
threatened with discov
ery, reveals his cow
ardice and is punished
for a pleasure he never
got close to enjoying.
Thus slight scenario,
which the Bard Kirrowed from commedia
dell’arte, needs a lot of comic invention to ,
keep things interesting. In Lillian Garrett-
Groag’s production, the comedy starts with the
costumes by Deborah Dryden, which manage
to be at once faithful to the period, over-the-
top, beautiful and ridiculous. Thus lavishly
dressed, a large cast of eccentrics indulges in
every comic trick in the book.
The most fey is Slender (Jeff Cummings),
a rich young man who has no idea what to
do when left alone with his wife-to-be.
Having seen Cummings as the romantic Bas-
sanio in Merchant and the eroticized Paris in
Troilus, one marvels not only at his versatility
but at the commitment of stage actors to
resist typecasting.
But the standout in a crowd of whimsical
characters is Richard Howard as the jealous
Mr. Ford. This exquisite actor instills his slap
stick with a nuanced paranoia on the theme of
cuckoldry. The play ends with an explosion of
fairies, real and imagined, that pays tribute to
Victorian children’s Nx>ks.
hose three Shakespeare plays are performed
on the open-air Elizabethan stage, the orig
inal of the festival’s three houses. The Tem
pest is performed in the 600-seat Bowmer The
atre, named for the company’s founder, Angus
Bowmer.
This means more scenery. Set designer
William Bloodgood and lighting designer
Robert Peterson make the most of their oppor
tunity, creating undulating fields of pastels and
giving Prospero’s island an otherworldly feel.
The inspiration to cast a woman as Pros-
pero— the role generally regarded as Shake
speare’s farewell self-portrait— is clearly an idea
whose time has come. (Vanessa Redgrave
recently played the part in London.)
Unfortunately,
director Penny
Metropoulos has con
ceived of the all-power
ful magician along Zen
lines without any Hong
Kong action influence
to spice things up. This
Prospero is in touch
with her own and
everyone else’s feelings,
given to earth tones
and benign beyond
belief.
What does work
are her scenes with
Ariel (Christopher
Jean), who’s the per
fect willowy comple
ment to her earth
mother groundedness.
Prospero’s evil brother
is here an evil sister
(Linda Alper), who shares the family trait of
being overly earnest.
L
ast but not least, Fuddy Meets is one of the
final plays that will grace the 140-seat Black
Swan, the most intimate of the festival’s three
venues. (In March 2002, a brand-new, 300-seat
theater will replace it.) This surreal comedy by
David Lindsay-Abaire about a family of criminals
and lunatics is staged by James Edmondson as a
breakneck series of blackout sketches.
Protagonist Claire (Judith-Marie Bergan)
wakes each day unable to remember anything
about her life; each day, husband Richard (John
Pribyl) tells her only what he wants her to
know. Teen-age son Kenny (Gregory Lining-
ton) is a dope-smoking slacker; poststroke
mother Gertie (Catherine Coulson) has trouble
talking. ( Fuddy Meers is her version of “fun
house mirrors.’’) The so-called Limping Man
(Richard Elmore), who dis
turbs their daily routine by
kidnapping Claire, is a muti
lated man: One ear melted in
a fire, he’s got an equally
mean lisp, limp and temper.
Although there’s noth
ing explicitly gay about
Lindsay-Aba ire’s script,
everything aKiut this two-
husband family is decidedly
queer. On second viewing,
this technically flawless
production of a brilliant
text revealed surprising lev
els of meaning.
Fuddy Meers is a
metaphor for those particu
lar filters (or blinders) we
all go through life trying to
see through (or past). The play is about con
sciousness: the denial we’re forced to live in
and the pandemonium and chaos that can
accompany the healing process.
Sound familiar? Most people will recog
nize the bizarre levels of secrecy and miscom
prehension inherent to family life. JH
y
y
p
1 0 0 . 7 W lU a to e r te V a lie v
Q oeer , Q ueer
E rin B lackw ell , editor of Girlfriends magazine,
also writes theater reviews for San Francisco
Frontiers.
W o i p
i t 9.'30
•
am
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