[NEohioPAL] Review of "Scapin" at Ohio Shakespeare Festival

[Bob Abelman]

OSF’s hilarious ‘Scapin’ finds the play amidst the playfulness



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics



Molière's 347-year-old commedia dell’arte-inspired farce, “Scapin the Schemer,” has been often translated and tailored to modern times and tastes.  



One of its most notable adaptations is by professional clown and Oberlin College alum Bill Irwin and playwright Mark O’Donnell, whose acclaimed pratfall-filled production premiered at New York’s Roundabout Theatre Company in 1997.  



One of its most recent adaptations is by Ohio Shakespeare Festival artistic director Terry Burgler, whose production is currently being performed by the Akron-based OSF under his ambidextrous direction.  



Burgler keeps the piece period, playful and pruned to a manageable two-hour two acts.  And it embraces all that is lightning fast and broadly physical in a 17th century art form that offers highly predictable and recognizable stock characters – the hopeless lovers, the sad misanthrope, the elderly miser – engaged in highly comedic domestic conflicts in desperate need of outrageous resolution.  



But this production never loses sight of or its grip on these characters’ passions and what they want most out of life. And so it generates laughter that is a satisfying response rather than an automatic reflex.   



For more of this article, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/bob_abelman/
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