Valhalla

From: "will stackman" profwlll@yahoo.com

Subject: Quicktake - "Valhalla" by Paul Rudnick

Date: Sun, Apr 22, 2007 9:41 PM

Quicktake on VALHALLA

     Paul Rudnick is perhaps best known to the general theatre-goer as the author of "I Hate Hamlet". Several of his more overtly gay-themed plays has attracted notice. But "Valhalla", a sprawling attempt to weave the tale of mad Ludwig of Bavaria, whose monuments to history (late 19th Century) are the fairty-tale castle which inspired the one at Disneyland and funding Wagner's Opera House at Bayreuth with the career of a ne'er-do-well, James Avery from East Texas during the '30s, is a misshapen farce burdened with a two and one-half hour script with about one hour's too many "laugh-riot" one-liners

     The play doesn't create much sympathy for any of its characters, who number almost two dozen leaving the two leads, Ludwig (Brian Quint) and James (Jon Ferreria) focused on themelves and their pursuit of ineffable "beauty." The only semi-rounded character is IRNE winner Christopher Michael Brophy, as Henry Lee Stafford, James' sexually confused friend. The rest of the six actor ensemble includes Theater Coop veteran Maureen Adduci, who plays mostly Ludwig's mother but ends the show as tour leader, Natalie Kippelbaum, Elisa MacDonald who plays most of the princesses and Henry's wife whom James seduces (of course) and co-director Rick Park who plays Ludwig's various functionaries.

    The cast tries hard--often to little avail--but when a character is onstage for only a few minutes and the actor has to exit swiftly to make the next costume change, there's no much hope for more than a superficial sketch. Seth Bodie's costume assembly does the job but has a certain dress-up quality. Co-director David J. Miller's set is a bland unit with one end of the Black Box indicating Bavaria, the other Texas, neither particularly distinguished. The action thus has a lot in common with a tennis match. Jeff Adelberg's lighting helps and Walter Eduardo provides all the cuts from Wagner selected by Reinhold Mahler. But a play never really emerges.

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"Valhalla" by Paul Rudnick, Apr.

Zeitgeist Stage Co. at BCA Black Box

539 Tremont, (617) 933 - 8600


Zeitgeist