But for the most part, Kimball does well by Shakespeare, and Shakespeare’s poem. Does the production do well by Kimball? There, unfortunately, the news is not so good. The problems begin with Director Sarah Denhardt’s conception of the title role. Lucrece is, in Shakespeare’s text (and Kimball’s) a woman of supreme grace, dignity, nobility and modesty. She must possess such gravity that her rape could bring down a government. Rosen’s Lucrece is silly and giggly, wrestling with her handmaidens and leaping on Collatinus to give him a smooch when he arrives with the Prince. Of course, the rape of any woman is a monstrous felony and a personal tragedy. But to bring about the destruction of the Kingdom, Lucrece’s rape must be comparable, say, to the rape of Burma’s heroic freedom fighter and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi at the hands of SLORC thugs. Rosen’s childish portrayal – clearly a Director’s decision – makes it almost impossible to fully apprehend the impact of Tarquin’s crime.
Even more egregious, though not as consequential, was Denhardt’s decision to cast a man in the role of Lucrece’s handmaiden Augusta. Anderson camped the role up considerably, and unnecessarily, as Kimball’s script has a good deal of natural wit. There was not a single thing about Augusta’s character which suggested that she should be played by a man, and Denhardt compounded the problem by doubling the actors playing the handmaidens in the two-sided role of Janus. Kimball’s intention was to have the two-faced god radiate alternate masculine and feminine energies. Anderson, wearing Augusta’s dress and glitter slippers, couldn’t handle his part of the bargain. Indeed, I spoke to some theatergoers who did not have the advantage of having a copy of Kimball’s script in hand; they didn’t realize that Anderson and Wood were playing the role of Janus. They thought they were seeing Augusta and Maia, acting strangely.
Finally, Smith, a good actor, was miscast as Tarquin. Tarquin must engender our hate, fear and disgust. He must be self-indulgent and intimidating. Smith, a slight man with a scholarly cast to him, seemed too fundamentally decent for the indecencies ascribed to his character.
In commissioning an original script from a Shakespeare poem, and putting it on under such difficult and frantic circumstances, the Washington Shakespeare Company has done an audacious thing. They have been rewarded with a fine script. Unfortunately, at least in my opinion, they have not been rewarded with an equally fine production.
Shakespeare’s ‘The Rape of Lucrece’ runs Thursdays through Sundays until March 11 at the Clark Street Playhouse, 601 South Clark Street, Arlington (Crystal City) VA. Evening shows are at 8pm; Saturday and Sunday matinees are at 2pm. Tickets: $25 – $35; Saturday matinees are always pay-what-you-can. To order; call 800 494-TIXS or online.
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