Silence

From: "will stackman" profwlll@yahoo.com

Subject: Quicktake - "Silence" by Moira Buffini

Date: Fri, Jan 20, 11:53 PM

Quicktake on SILENCE

     When London playwright Moira Buffini penned "Silence" in 1999, she probably didn't consider that this dark comedy about medieval times, roughly based on historical personages and events, would have even more resonance only eight years later. The script, which won the Washburn Prize, was inspired by the unease over the approaching millennium, but its freewheeling gender-politics, odd anachronistic attitudes, religious and political unrest now seems prophetic. Rendered as a chase and set in the mythic Dark Ages, a small cast of six raises some big questions about power, religion, and loyalty.

    The heroine of this mini-saga is Ymma of Normandy, played by luminous Marianna Bassham, seen last fall as Ophelia for the ASP. Her nemesis is Lewis Wheeler's Anglo-Saxon king, Ethelred, labeled by history as the Unready, whose bullying petulance and religious mania turns lethal as the action progresses. The King marries this princess, exiled from Normandy by her brother, to his ally, Silence of Cumbria, a small northwestern kingdom, created by the dissolution of Northumbria around 866 AD. Lord Silence, played by Emily Sproch, is not the boy he seems to be, and therein hangs the tale. Silence and Ymma flee north towards his homeland after Ethelred decides to marry the lady himself for his own salvation -- her mother was a saint. Ymma also has a powerful effect on the King's enforcer, Eadric Longshaft, a rough warrior played by IRNE winner Christopher Michael Brophy, who played the Thane for the New Rep's educational tour last spring. The ensemble is rounded out by IRNE winner Anne Gottlieb, seen this fall as the lead in "The Women" at Speakeasy, as Ymma's companion, Agnes, and B.U.'s Michael Hayes as Roger, a conflicted Catholic priest who attempts to instruct Silence, who's a pagan, in the faith despite his own urges.

     This three-act drama takes the cast from Dover to Kent through the midlands to the north, through a mythic landscape played on an impressive unit set by Cristina Todesco, constructed by Wooden Kiwi, expertly lit by Christopher Ostrom. IRNE winner Frances Nelson McSherry's period costumes complete the picture, while providing a subtle commentary on the action. Director Rick Lombardo, at the top of his form, has also provided an impressive original sound design. The play, which raises such universal questions as Father Roger's "Is God going to destroy us? And if he is, is he wrong?" could stand on its own, but the New Rep's impressive production values help sweep the audience along to the evening's ironic conclusion.

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"Silence" by Moira Buffini", Jan. 17 - Feb. 11

New Repertory Theatre at Arsenal Center for the Arts

321 Arsenal, Watertown / 617 - 923 - 8487
New Rep