{"id":4648,"date":"2015-07-27T07:22:15","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T11:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4648"},"modified":"2015-08-18T07:35:18","modified_gmt":"2015-08-18T11:35:18","slug":"weekend-double-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4648","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Double-Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Guardsman<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Jon

Jon Barker & Victoria Mack in STNJ’s The Guardsman<\/p><\/div>\n

The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey<\/a> (STNJ) continues its 2015 season\u2014a celebration of Bonnie J. Monte\u2019s 25th season as artistic director\u2014with another play about actors, this one The Guardsman<\/em>, by Hungarian playwright Ferenc Moln\u00e1r. In it, a young actor begins to suspect his wife is tiring of him and pretends to be a member of the Royal Guard\u2014he can do wigs and costumes after all\u2014to see whether she\u2019ll be tempted. At the end, it seems he\u2019s learned more about himself than he has about her constancy.<\/p>\n

The play has many laugh-out-loud moments as the actor struggles to maintain two personas at the same time. Should he be flattered that the actress seems attracted to the dashing guardsman, or offended? He\u2019s both, alternatingly. Talented company regular Jon Barker conveys every bit of this confusion with his expressive body language. Victoria Mack as his wife plays a more opaque character, and in the talk-back at the end, the audience was divided about whether she saw through his disguise. Brent Harris was excellent as the Critic, who is the foil to both actors\u2019 longings.<\/p>\n

The play has been mounted several times in English, and is usually played as romantic farce, but Monte believes its frivolous exterior has obscured darker messages at its heart. To pursue this line of thought, she obtained a new literal translation by the playwright\u2019s great-grandson and used that for her adaptation. She found it has \u201can extraordinary provocative, ground-breaking, heart-breaking, and disturbing inner core\u201d that provokes gales of laughter at the same time it \u201cquestions identity, reality, perception and what it takes to validate our existence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Love\u2019s Labour\u2019s Lost<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

On Sunday, we saw Shakespeare\u2019s Love\u2019s Labour\u2019s Lost<\/em>, one of his many comedies about romantic confusion, this year\u2019s outdoor stage production by the STNJ. Excellent comedic performances by the entire cast. I had both my sun and rain umbrellas with me, though the threatened rain never materialized. These productions are always a highlight of the summer, and the cast manages not to faint in the heat, despite their elaborate costumes and the play\u2019s lively staging, including running up the stairs of the amphitheater at the College of St. Elizabeth.<\/p>\n

\"outdoor

Set for the outdoor production of Love’s Labour’s Lost, STNJ<\/p><\/div>\n

Coming Up Next<\/span> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yesterday was the last performance for both these plays, a successful continuance of this anniversary season. Next up: Shaw\u2019s Misalliance<\/em>, August 5 \u2013 30, in which Shaw \u201cgleefully exposes and dismantles the idiosyncrasies of the British classes and their various \u2018family values.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, some critics believe The Guardsman<\/em> inspired Harold Pinter\u2019s The Lover<\/em>, whose similar plot likewise melds comedy and drama and has been played both ways. STNJ will have a reading of The Lover<\/em> on Monday evening, August 17, to explore those possibilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Guardsman The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey (STNJ) continues its 2015 season\u2014a celebration of Bonnie J. Monte\u2019s 25th season as artistic director\u2014with another play about actors, this one The Guardsman, by Hungarian playwright Ferenc Moln\u00e1r. In it, a young … 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":"Weekend Double-Play - Shakespeare Theatre of NJ Continues its Superb Season!","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":[269,272,359,394,104,147],"tags":[197],"class_list":["post-4648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actor","category-comedy","category-review","category-romance","category-the-morgue","category-theater","tag-shakespeare"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1cY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4648","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=4648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4651,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4648\/revisions\/4651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}