Celebrating the Spooky Holiday with Shakespeare & Poe

By Guest Blogger, Bradford Wason. Brad is the Founder and Director of 23rd & 5th Design Group and currently works with DMG Marketing in Greenville. He is also on the faculty of Delaware College of Art & Design, and is an ardent Wilmington Arts & Culture supporter.

DSF's actors add the appropriate "flair" to
the macabre tales by Shakespeare & Poe.

As fall fast approaches, the nights grow colder, and with it we enter the Halloween season. Traditionally, Halloween means ghosts and ghouls, masks and candy, or hayrides. But if you're looking to experience an intimate evening in the dark side of theatre, the Delaware Shakespeare Festival (DSF) has all the mirth and matter you'll need this season. Ghosts, spirits, witches and haunting stories are included, in this mash-up of William Shakespeare plays and poems and short stories of Edgar Allen Poe. This format uniquely blends the two together in one fascinating macabre journey, as narrated by DSF veterans Caroline Crocker (A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Two Gentleman of Verona), Adam Darrow (The Two Gentleman of Verona), James Kassees (A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Two Gentleman of Verona), and a newcomer to DSF, Clare O'Malley.  

After its debut hit in 2012, The Shakespeare/Poe - A Night of Readings from The Dark Side returns, traveling to the gothic halls of Rockwood Mansion, the galleries of the Newark Arts Alliance and the grandeur of the Read House & Gardens in Old New Castle. As DSF Producing Artistic Director David Stradley said, "Our summer Festival audiences come from all over the area; so this year, we decided to share this fun evening in venues throughout New Castle County. I think each will bring its own interesting energy to the night."

I couldn't agree with him more, having thoroughly enjoyed the 30-seat, sold-out performance Saturday night at the Read House. The evening of readings runs just over an hour, which made for a excellent late dinner and conversation to follow.

The readings are compiled and directed by Stradley, who does a masterful job weaving the works into a continuous piece. The evening ebbs and flows, from dramatic delivery by James Kassess in The Fall of the House of Usher (Poe) to the "excited sensations" narrated by Clare O'Malley in The Masque of the Red Death (Poe). Not to be outdone by the dark short stories and poems of Poe, Adam Darrow and Caroline Crocker bring to life the juxtaposition of Poe's The Masque of the Red Death in an excerpt of Macbeth (Shakespeare), Act 3, Scene 4, where the tortured Macbeth is visited by the ghost of Banquo.

I appreciated the narrative notes and short quips added by the cast to lighten the mood and provide background. Although the evening is rooted in macabre storytelling — such as an excerpt from Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, or Poe's The Raven — it provides more humorous moments, such as the Hamlet/Raven Mash-up read by the Ensemble. The audience gave a good chuckle to fill out the room as the evening ended with Caroline Crocker's narration of the Caliban Monologue – Act 3, Scene 2, from The Tempest (Shakespeare).

"Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,

Sounds and sweet aires that give delight and hurt not."

If you're looking to enlighten and indulge your senses, this short, intimate evening by the Delaware Shakespeare Festival is not to be missed! ONLY at www.delshakes.org.

Newark Symphony Orchestra aims high

The Newark Symphony Orchestra played the Double Concerto in E Minor, Opus 88 for clarinet, viola and orchestra with Vincent Marinelli, clarinet and Timothy Schwarz, viola as solosits at the Independence School in Newark on Sunday.  The clarinet and viola exchanged voices easily and their ranges are remarkably complimentary.  Dr. Schwarz and Mr. Marinelli each brought out their solo lines with ease and the result was a wonderfully flowing duo with vivid dynamics and a wide range of tone.  Although the orchestra was sometimes louder than I would have liked, the soloists were heard above the orchestra most of the time, including the beautiful passage in the second movement when Dr. Schwarz’s viola had the top voice of the final cadence.

Maestro Tartaglione has been pushing his orchestra to tackle more and more difficult pieces (as has Dr. Schwarz for the Wilmington Community Orchestra), but this time, the Wagner Ride of the Valkyries was just too much of a challenge for the French horn section, which has worked so hard over the past few years and has had some glorious performances.  But in Sunday’s concert, the Overture to Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber had some horn passages which suffered from tuning issues and insecure attacks, although the orchestra in general had a steady performance with a very strong cello section and a great solo clarinet part played by Michelle Webb.

The other three Wagner preludes came off well.  Laura Grass’s solo entrances on trumpet was beautifully controlled and quite effective in the Rienzi Overture – her quiet entries and well-controlled crescendos deserved applause -  and the horns sounded good as they did in Siegfried’s Rhine Journey.  The Meistersinger Overture was a triumph for trumpet, horn, trombones and tuba, although the drums and percussion resound in the hall at the Independence School, so perhaps they could have brought it down a notch.

The concert was quite moving and having the musicians strive for a higher level of playing has paid off in the vast improvements they have made under Maestro Tartaglione.  But shouldn’t the director include at least one easier piece in every concert?

 

See www.newarksymphony.org

Fun and Farce with DTC's Lend Me a Tenor

Jonathan Silver and Sarah Litzsinger

 Delaware Theatre Company follows its darkly comic season opener Any Given Monday with the decidedly lighter comedy of Ken Ludwig's Lend Me a Tenor, a show business farce packed with slapstick comedy and more actors than the stage has seen since last season's South Pacific. The larger cast isn't the only thing Tenor has in common with DTC's fabulous South Pacific production -- the two productions share three major-league talented actors, with John Plumpis, Jonathan Silver and Sarah Litzsinger returning to Wilmington stage.

Under the direction of Bud Martin (who, as Executive Director of DTC and stage director of the biggest shows of the last couple of seasons, deserves more than a little credit for bringing the Theatre to its impressive new level), Lend Me a Tenor is an old-fashioned comedy of errors (and triumphs), filled with sexy humor and absurd misunderstandings. Some of the comedy is dark, including the use of a "dead" body as a prop, and some may come off as a bit dated, but the laughter is pretty much non-stop.

Howie Brown, Marcia Hepps, Eileen Cella

Tenor is the story of a young opera company assistant named Max (Silver) who has taken on the duty of handling world-renowned Italian Tenor Tito Merelli (Plumpis) as he arrives for a special performance in 1930s Cleveland. Max is in love with the General Manager's daughter, Maggie (Eileen Cella), who has a crush on Tito and craves a wild romance before she settles down. Max tries to keep the General Manager, Saunders (Tony Braithwaite) calm as they await Tito's late arrival. When he finally shows up, he's accompanied by his fiery-tempered wife, Maria (Tracie Higgins), who finds Maggie in a closet of the luxury suite and, sick of his philandering, leaves him. This sets of a wild chain reaction, as Tito becomes despondent and falls into a deep sleep from an accidental double dose of tranquilizers to calm his nerves; when he won't wake up just before showtime, Max assumes he's committed suicide. But this is the kind of comedy where no one stays dead (or without love) for long, and the second act is full of plots, coverups, and mistaken identities, as well as some over-the-top Othello costumes.

While Tenor is not a musical, it has a couple of brief operatic interludes that could easily be lip-synced by the actors. But not here. Both Plumpis and Silver have beautiful voices, making the operatic moments soar even in their brevity. And both are skilled comic actors, matched by the excitable Braithwaite as Saunders and Howie Brown, who also does some singing, as an enthusiastic bellhop.

The women offer plenty of laughs, too, with Litzinger as vampy soprano Diana, Marcia Hepps as the seductive Chairman of the Cleveland Opera Board, and Cella's Maggie alternating between sweetly flirtatious and adorably goofy. As Maria, Higgins commands attention -- from Tito and the audience.

By the end of the escapade, everyone is where they should be, and everyone is happy. But while it's a light and silly play, its themes of perception and hope leave a lasting impression.

Lend Me a Tenor runs through November 3. Visit delawaretheatre.org to purchase tickets.