PERSEPHONE

From: "will stackman" profwlll@yahoo.com

Subject: Quicktake - "Persephone" by Noah Haidle

Date: Wed, April 11, 10:44 PM

Quicktake on PERSEPHONE

     The world premiere of Noah Haidle's "Persephone", read last spring as part of the HTC's Breaking Ground series owes its success as much to the author's cleverness and Nicholas Martin's apt direction as to a stunning performance by Melinda Lopez as the statue of Demeter, the main character in the piece. Through voice and very limited movement, Lopez creates a witty and believable Earth-mother, mightily dismayed by the world from which she cannot look away. The second half of the play, set in a Manhattan park circa 2007, is full of Durang-like non-sequitor and urban violence, the first in a sculptors studio in 1507 Florence; both handsome designs by David Korins.

    All the various parts in the piece are played by a trio of actors, led off by Jeremiah Kissel, who appears as the sculptor's patron in Act 1, plus a laid-back harpist and a starving mouse. The sculptor, Guiseppe, is done by Seth Fisher; his model is Mimi Lieber. Each actor then plays innumerable walkons with Kissel memorable as a art-loving Rat in Act 2. Their reappearence in various guises underscores human--and animal--transience against Demeter eternal marble form. The play is full of surprizes, many of them unpleasant, but overall, it comes off as a rather dystopian and fantastic tragicomedy. Haidle has revived a species of drama not seen much since immediately after WWII and previously in the '20s. Let's hope he doesn't become "the next big thing." This summer, Company One will be mounting his "Mr. Marmalade" which made quite a splash for Roundabout in 2005.

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"Persephone" by Noah Haidle, Mar. 30 - May 6

Huntington Theatre Co. at BCA Wimberley

527 Tremont, (617) 266 - 0800
HTC