Summary
Under Paul Frellick's direction, David Henderson's memorable Iago hoodwinks Roderigo (David McClutchey), a gullible businessman, and provokes the bewildered Brabantio (Tom Marriott), Desdemona's father, in a crisp opening sequence. But as the first act unfolded, the usually sure-footed Gil Faison seemed too tentative in his first scenes as the title character. In this he wasn't alone: Regional newcomer Miranda Kahn seemed even more indirect as Desdemona, his new bride, before a couple of veteran actors went up on their lines in the council scene at the end of Act 1. Sputtering scenes followed sharp ones through the early passages. A tight fight sequence in which Ryan Brock's good Cassio loses his reputation in a drunken brawl preceded Iago and Othello's first cat-andmouse episode, which seriously dragged at its beginning. But, alone on stage, Henderson and Faison made a mid-scene course correction, establishing the pace and dramatic tension that served the show until its end.
There's a sense of that - sometimes poignant, sometimes pointed - in Raleigh Ensemble Players' current production of DISTRACTED. In Lisa Loomer's domestic drama/ comedy, a young mother and father grow increasingly agitated about their son's possibly clinical levels of anxiety and distractibility in grade school - while they remain largely oblivious to just how debilitating these forces have become in their own lives. In family scenes and exchanges with the neighbors, we get the sinking feeling early on that the drowned are attempting to diagnose the drowning - that is, when we're not privately benchmarking our own frenzied lives against the far-too-familiar pace reflected on stage.The professional and domestic juggling act that actor Betsy Henderson's central character is already challenged by becomes more destabilized as her son's difficulties increase. On the deliberately broken pavement of Loomer's script, Henderson's mom has the "just-between-us" vibe of a robust confidant in a one-person show - which the script reveals at one point that the playwright was considering. She shortcuts the narrative, asking other actors to pinch-hit in a supposed jam to play offstage characters, while other supporting characters ostensibly break in mid-line for their underlying "actor" characters to protest a doctor's conclusion about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or medications like Ritalin and Adderall in particular.See the full content of this document
Extract
Larger Than Life
Larger than life
An exuberant Hello, Dolly!, plus Othello in Chapel Hill and Distracted in RaleighNorth Carolina Theatre's production of HELLO, DOLLY! is one of the big "show must go on" stories of this past season. With mere days until the opening, much-hyped star Cybill Shepherd was sidelined with an injury, necessitating a last-minute replacement by Broadway veteran Jacquelyn Piro Donovan. Thankfully, Donovan ably fills the role...See the full content of this document
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