{"id":3695,"date":"2014-09-22T06:50:27","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T10:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=3695"},"modified":"2015-01-03T06:53:00","modified_gmt":"2015-01-03T11:53:00","slug":"powerful-theater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=3695","title":{"rendered":"Powerful Theater"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Antony<\/a>

Nicole Ari Parker and Esau Pritchett in Antony & Cleopatra (photo: nj.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

Last week we saw McCarter Theatre\u2019s production of Antony & Cleopatra<\/a><\/em>, directed by Emily Mann. It stars Esau Pritchett (who gave such a moving performance last year in August Wilson\u2019s Fences<\/em>), Nicole Ari Parker (Showtime\u2019s Soul Food<\/em>), and a strong supporting cast. Their performances, combined with a single stripped-down set for fast scene changes, gorgeous Cleopatra-wear, and an unexpected percussion accompaniment perfect in every beat add up to a whole greater than the parts.<\/p>\n

This is the play about which some say, if all Shakespeare\u2019s plays but one were lost, save this one, because it has passionate love (and a Romeo and Juliet<\/em>-style ending), war, betrayal, tragedy, and Romans. Even some humor. It\u2019s hard to judge the play itself, as its four-hour run-time was substantially cut, as so often happens, but the resulting production is fast-paced and emotionally rich. And this play is not often produced, so here\u2019s your chance! Through October 5.<\/p>\n

\"Wittenberg,<\/a>

Erin Partin, Anthony Marble, and Jordan Coughtry in Wittenberg (photo: STNJ)<\/p><\/div>\n

There\u2019s only one more week to catch The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey\u2019s production of Wittenberg<\/a><\/em> by David Davalos. Directed by Joseph Discher, this highly entertaining play set in 1517 at the eponymous university and town stars Jordan Coughtry as Prince Hamlet, a student, Mark Dold and Anthony Marble as Hamlet\u2019s professors, the ideologically opposed Martin Luther and John Faustus, and wonderful Erin Partin as whatever lady is needed onstage at the moment.<\/p>\n

Witty and fast-moving\u2014great body language from Marble (Faustus), who is a would-be 16th c. rock star\u2014it has modern touches that aren\u2019t intrusive and numerous Hamlet references and puns. Faust\u2019s office\u2014Room 2B. If you\u2019ve never seen a tennis match on stage, this is how it\u2019s done, a nice metaphor for the lobbing back and forth of Hamlet\u2019s budding worldview by Luther (God\u2019s will) and Faustus (a man decides his own fate). Again, perfect set and costumes. We admired Erin Partin\u2019s recent performance as Ariel in The Tempest<\/em>, and a local review correctly noted about this performance that she plays each of her characters “with such veracity” that it seems multiple women are in the cast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week we saw McCarter Theatre\u2019s production of Antony & Cleopatra, directed by Emily Mann. It stars Esau Pritchett (who gave such a moving performance last year in August Wilson\u2019s Fences), Nicole Ari Parker (Showtime\u2019s Soul Food), and a strong … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Powerful Theater","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[269,104,147],"tags":[197],"class_list":["post-3695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actor","category-the-morgue","category-theater","tag-shakespeare"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-XB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3696,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3695\/revisions\/3696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}