Review: "The Masque of Night" Proves One of The Bard's Most Well-Known Plays Is Not Past Its Dancing Days

 The Masque of Night: A Romeo and Juliet Cabaret

Music Direction by Flavio Gaete 

Directed by Janina Picard and Craig Bacon

Presented by New Place Players at Casa Clara

218 East 25th Street, Manhattan, NYC

March 8-10, 2024

Front left: Libby Lindsey and Maximilian Macdonald. Photo courtesy of Kampfire PR
How to infuse the most well-known of well-known Shakespeare plays with new energy, making the age-old story of star-crossed lovers as fresh and captivating as it was when the audience first encountered it (probably in high school)? The New Place Players’ The Masque of Night, a cabaret of songs (some Elizabethan, mostly contemporary) interspersed with Romeo and Juliet’s most iconic set-pieces, does just that. Running a little over an hour, the production draws on its multi-talented cast to deliver some of the play’s titular characters’ most memorable lines as well as sing, dance, and play instruments.

Maximilian Macdonald’s Romeo was the star of the show, embodying the youthful excitement and exuberance of the character to such an extent that he could win over even the most jaded cynic. He worked the small, intimate Casa Clara venue to great effect, engaging the audience as he moved throughout the space. Libby Lindsey as Juliet was especially strong in the tragic scenes in the latter parts of the production, and the chemistry between the young lovers was palpable and winning.

Relying on the audience’s prior knowledge of the play’s conflicts and the intricacies of the misfires at the end that lead to the double suicide, the production ran the risk of confusion. Focusing its action solely on Romeo and Juliet, however, whom we know are doomed even if we forget some of the finer details, was effective in allowing the audience to fully engage with these characters. In the end, buying into their love story is all that really matters for the production to be a success.
Photo courtesy of Kampfire PR
Given how streamlined the text is, certain choices were a bit puzzling. Why, for example, leave in Romeo’s obviously racially loaded line that Juliet is like a “rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear”? It is hard to see this as anything other than denigrating blackness when delivered in the context of an all-white cast. Equally, some of the song choices jarred. While it makes sense to turn to Shakespeare’s Sonnets for love lyrics, the use of Sonnet 20 during the wedding night was surprising. The most bluntly homoerotic of the sonnets to a fair youth, in Sonnet 20 the speaker laments his inability to consummate his relationship with the youth because he is “pricked out for women’s pleasure.” Certainly, neither the play nor this production gives any indication that the wedding night is anything other than wholly satisfactory.

Regardless of these choices, the production, with its strong acting and excellent musical performances, was a resounding success. The rain audibly beating down on the roof of Casa Clara, while something that obviously cannot be planned, only enhanced the cozy intimacy of the space and of course the tragedy of the play’s conclusion.

-Stephanie Pietros

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: "How To Eat an Orange" Cuts into the Life of an Argentine Artist and Activist

Image
How To Eat an Orange Written by Catherine Filloux Based on the writing of Claudia Bernardi Directed by Elena Araoz Presented by La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club at The Downstairs at La MaMa 66 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYC May 30-June 16, 2024 Paula Pizzi. Photo by Steven Pisano How To Eat an Orange , making its world premiere at La MaMa, does in fact include a real orange as a prop, and its multifarious symbolizations–evoking at different points cultural specificity, family history, matriarchal inheritance, and even a skull–are representative of the play's boundary-blurring, non-linear presentation of memory. The memories in question belong to visual artist, educator, and activist Claudia Bernardi , who lived through several years of her native Argentina's military junta, which held power from 1976 to 1983, before departing her country and eventually settling in the United States. How To Eat an Orange , from Catherine Filloux, a French Algerian American award-winning playwright,...
Read more

Review: The Immersive "American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams" Takes Audiences on a Marvelously Crafted Journey

Image
American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams Written by Tennessee Williams Directed by Jim Niesen Presented by the Irondale Ensemble Project at The Space at Irondale 85 South Oxford St., Brooklyn, NYC October 27-November 26, 2023 Shadenia Savid in Moony's Kids Don't Cry . Photo by Natasha Rotondaro In 1948, Tennessee Williams published American Blues , a collection of five one-act plays, and a remarkable new production of this collection by Brooklyn's Irondale shows that these works have lost none of their power to both entertain and challenge audiences in the intervening three-quarters of a century. Comprising plays written in the decade between 1936 and 1946 - Moony's Kids Don't Cry (1936); The Dark Room (1939); The Case of the Crushed Petunias (1941); The Long Stay Cut Short, or, the Unsatisfactory Supper (1946); and Ten Blocks on the Camino Real (1946) - American Blues represents the second part of Irondale's American Century, the first install...
Read more

Review: From Child Pose to Stand(ing) Up: "Yoga with Jillian" and "Penguin in Your Ear" at the Women in Theatre Festival

Image
Yoga with Jillian Written by Lia Romeo Directed by Andrew W. Smith Presented by Project Y Theatre and Richard Jordan Productions in association with The Pleasance June 2-17, 2023 Penguin in Your Ear Written and performed by Eliza Bent Directed by Jess Barbagallo June 10, 2023 Part of the Women in Theatre Festival , presented by Project Y Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres Michole Biancosino. Photo courtesy of Project Y Theatre This June, Project Y Theatre Company presents the eighth annual installment of its Women in Theatre Festival (WIT), which showcases new work by women and maintains "more than 50% female representation of all artists involved." This year, the festival includes a lobby installation project, titled In the Betweens , from scenic designer Chen-Wei Liao, through which audience members pass on their way into the theater proper. One first chooses first between "light" and "dark" rooms and then moves into "the gardens" before re...
Read more