THE SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS. To 20 October.
Hornchurch.
THE SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS
by Carlo Goldoni adapted by John Halstead and Kenneth Parrot from a translation by Carol Murphy.
Queen’s Theatre To 20 October 2007.
Tue-Sat 8pm Mat 11, 20 Oct 2.30pm.
Audio-described 20 Oct 2.30pm.
BSL Signed 17 Oct.
Captioned 10 Oct.
Runs 2hr 30min One interval.
TICKETS: 01708 443333.
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 October.
Get off the stage, Brightiff!
“As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop, Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop,” was Robert Browning’s view of the city that brought flooding to a fine art. This best-known of Carlo Goldoni’s numerous 18th-century Venetian comedies, has plentiful mirth about follies.
It’s the ingenious story of a Harlequin figure, Truffaldino. Starving and impoverished, he decides to earn two dinners and a pair of salaries by working for two masters (one of whom’s a mistress).
There’s a story of love and mistakings around his escapades, but the heart of the piece is the trickery Truffaldino produces, always living on his wits as he tries to serve both employers dinner simultaneously, or mixes up two sets of clothing from inconveniently identical trunks.
And there is a pair of fumbling oldsters thrown in for good measure; comic parents born to be bamboozled. Greed and pride rule them as love rules the young and Truffaldino rules the stage. It all makes for the love and merriment Browning identified as part of the city.
There are patches at Hornchurch which recall the musty old ways with translating such pieces; a kind of coy, sheltered sense of what’s rather jolly. It affects Stuart Organ’s parsimonious Pantalone at moments and even more the pedantic old Lombardi who engages in self-signing, mirthless ‘This Is Funny’ acting at times.
But the evening gets going when Richard Brightiff’s Truffaldino leaves the stage and begins playing off the audience. You can almost feel the auditorium loosen up and laughter burst out. Brightiff establishes a comic command that continues in a range of asides, expressions of exasperation and flashes of energetic ingenuity.
Bob Carlton’s not above some politely pleasant passages of direction, but there’s a fair dosage of inspired lunacy too, including a substitute Pavarotti - Philip Reed singing magnificently as a hand mops his brow with white scarf or straightens a drooping moustache.
And designer Rodney Ford’s magnificent Venetian cityscape converts speedily between locations with its doors and sliding floor-sections. But it is, rightly, Brightiff’s show, onstage or off.
Truffaldino: Richard Brightiff.
Brighella: Simon Jessop.
Beatrice: Hayley J Langwith.
Clarice/Waitress: Maria Lawson.
Florindo: Jonathan Markwood.
Smeraldina: Jane Milligan.
Pantalone: Stuart Organ.
Silvio: Philip Reed.
Doctor Lombardi: Steve Simmonds.
Director: Bob Carlton.
Designer: Rodney Ford.
Lighting: Matthew Eagland.
Musical arrangements: Carol Sloman.
Fight director: Malcolm Ranson.
2007-10-04 17:15:51