THEATRE REVIEW:
“THE HUNCHBACK OF
NOTRE DAME” at the Lamb’s Players Theatre & “THE TEMPEST” on the beach in
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A beauty, a
beast and a sorcerer. Treachery and
revenge. Two disparate classics, with
surprising elements in common.
Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre
Dame.” Both are getting a fresh
perspective in
At Lamb’s
Players Theatre, there’s a 1995 edition of Hugo’s 1830 historical romance, set
in fifteenth century
Director Robert
Smyth has given it all its due. But
both play and production tend toward the overly portentous and
melodramatic. The thing of beauty here
is Esmeralda, the soulful gypsy girl, sweetly played by Sara Tobin. The beast is, of course, Quasimodo, the
deformed and deafened bell-ringer, whose love and loyalty know no bounds. David Heath is wonderful in the role, a
great, sad, hulking but agile monstrosity who doesn’t know his own strength --
of body or of heart.
The sorcerer
here is Dom Frollo, the villain of the piece.
Archdeacon of Notre Dame cathedral, he was once an upright priest, but
he has become bewitched by the gypsy.
In his obsession he turns to the realm of alchemy and the occult. This aspect of his character is hazy in the
play. And Frollo’s anguish at not being
able to have Esmeralda for his own, is portrayed by Paul Eggington as a series
of knuckle-biting poses.
Also
reiterative is the portrayal of Maria, played by Kerry Meads as a scowling,
bitter, clenched-tooth Madame Defarge of the gypsies. An interesting addition is the music of Deborah Gilmour Smyth,
which, though lovely at times, is also cloying at others, pounding home the ten
commandments, and the inference that most of them get broken during the course
of the evening. Why the gypsies sing in
Spanish is a mystery to me.
Some of
director Smyth’s stage pictures are outstanding, especially his use of the cast
as gargoyles, hanging from Michael Wood’s ladder-like set. Tim and Nathan
Peirson have done wonderful work with makeup and lighting, and the costumes are
quite colorful. But the first act is
slow in pace and exposition. Things
pick up in the second act, but the archdeacon gets off a lot easier here than
in the original.
True to the
original in many ways, is a rather daring production of “The Tempest,” a
shipwreck story staged on the beach outside the Hotel Del. What a magnificently apt setting, and
director Sean Thomas Murray makes marvelous use of his surroundings.
He creates
extraordinary, unforgettable images.
Like the fleet-footed Ariel, fairly flying across the sand. And the beastly Caliban, surveying the
landscape from atop a huge clump of rocks, silhouetted against the sea. And before the proceedings begin, there is
Linda Castro’s Prospero, majestic with billowy sleeves and a knee-length braid,
deftly doing T’ai Chi on the beach, graceful, elegant, hypnotic. That is basically how she plays the role,
more magical than magisterial. But the
competing elements made it difficult to display emotional nuance, and not all
the actors were able to rise to the vocal demands of the occasion. But this production is a sight to be seen, a
multi-sensory pleasure to experience.
Shakespeare al fresco. Simply
delicious.
I'm Pat Launer,
KPBS radio.
©1995 Patté Productions Inc.