Reviewed
by Judy Richter
It's hard to dispel notions of romantic love. You'd think that after so many centuries of civilization, people would realize that it takes more than attraction and sighs to sustain a healthy, long-lasting relationship. Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 1775 "The Rivals," being staged by American Conservatory Theater, is an example of how little many of us have learned over the centuries.
Set
in Bath, England, the play focuses on young lovers, most notably Captain Jack
Absolute (Anthony Fusco), who loves the wealthy Lydia Languish (Renˆ© Augesen), and Lydia's cousin Julia (Stacy
Ross), who loves
Jack's friend Faulkland (Gregory Wallace). Two other men -- country bumpkin Bob Acres (Dan
Hiatt) and
Irishman Sir Lucius O'Trigger (Andy Murray) -- also pine for Lydia, making them rivals to
Jack. Jack also is a rival to himself, for he has courted Lydia in the guise of
Ensign Beverly, a virtuous but impoverished soldier. Lydia is taken by the idea
of such a man who would love her even though she would lose her fortune by
marrying him. Mistaken identities abound, creating humor.
Jack
and Julia are eminently sensible, but not anyone else. The emotional Faulkland
frets constantly about whether Julia loves him, interpreting her every action
as an indication that she doesn't. Joining the list of well-meaning but
somewhat delusional characters are Lydia's aunt, Mrs. Malaprop (Jill Tanner), who fancies herself an
intellectual but whose misuse of the English vocabulary is so extensive that
such mistakes such as "he is the very pineapple of politeness" and
"like an allegory on the Nile" are known as malapropisms. Jack's
father, Sir Anthony Absolute (Charles Dean), thinks he's a caring father, but his actions
speak otherwise.
Director
Lillian Groag emphasizes
the artifices that Sheridan so thoroughly reveals, and she has a superb cast to
work with. All of the actors have the comic skills to expose their characters'
pretensions and silliness by allowing the characters to take themselves seriously
without directly becoming silly themselves. Dan Hiatt, one of the Bay Area's most
skilled physical comic actors, is especially hilarious when Bob Acres changes
from his rough-hewn country apparel to a foppish pink outfit that he thinks is
the height of fashion.
Costume
designer Beaver Bauer abets the characters' comic aspects with such outfits as well as Mrs.
Malaprop's colorful but outlandish gowns, topped by a reddish wig with waggling
butterflies (hair and makeup by Jeanna Hurd). Donald Eastman's set design is both simple and
ingenious, featuring two facing crescents of townhouses with an obelisk with
the name Sheridan upstage center. Facilitating quick scene changes, the
downstage sections of the crescents swing open, and short platforms slide in to
become rooms in various houses. Nancy Schertler's lighting and Jack Rodriguez's sound, featuring appropriate
music (a feature of Groag-directed plays), add to the overall high quality of
this delightful production.
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