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You will laugh heartily
when ‘Truffaldino Says No’ in Shotgun’s world
premiere
Charles Kruger
Friday, July 13, 2012
Theatrestorm
Folks have been laughing
at Commedia dell’Arte for half a millenium and we’re
not going to stop now. The stock characters of Commedia —
comic misers, pompous pendants, wily servants, innocent young
lovers, cuckolded husbands with young wives, clever wives of foolish
men — are universal. Opera? Think The Barber of Seville
and The Marriage of Figaro. Classic plays? Think of Shakespeare,
whose comedies draw heavily on the tradition. Modern comedians?
What more perfect comic miser than the great Jack Benny? Or how
about Professor Irwin Corey for a pompous pendant?
Commedia is a mother lode
of comic material, and Ken Slattery knows how to mine it. The
first half of Truffaldino Says No is traditional Commedia,
wonderfully performed by a cast of excellent physical comics under
M. Graham Smith’s expert direction. Laugh you will. Stephen
Buescher as Arlecchino is a joy to behold, a cornucopia of comical
tics and eccentricities, pratfalls and acrobatics. For his day
job, Mr. Buescher serves as Head of Physical Theater at ACT and
here he gives the lie to the foolish adage, “Those who can’t,
teach”. As Arlecchino’s son, Truffaldino, William
Thomas Hodgson is equally amusing, the son cleverly mocking the
father. The other “usual suspects” — the miser
Pantalone, the blow hard El Capitano, the wise Colombina, the
pompous Il Dottore and young lovers Isabella and Flavio —
are all pitch perfect. The sets, the costumes, the masks and the
staging all conspire to bring the tradition to vibrant life.
But something unexpected
happens: as the plot thickens in the traditional manner, Truffaldino
suddenly refuses to play his part. He does not want to repeat
the endless variations of the Commedia for the rest of his life.
He wants to see the world. His explosive “No!” is
completely unexpected and the shocked reactions of the company
are everything one could ask for. Arlecchino’s astonished
disappointment when he realizes his son does not want to follow
in his footsteps is surprisingly moving. The first act ends with
Truffaldino’s announcement that he is off to the new world.
The second act is set in
Venice, California where Truffaldino finds himself living in a
sitcom, “Brighella’s Inn”, in which he is essentially
engaged with modern versions of the Commedia troupe. Complications
ensue and eventually the entire troupe appears, with all the actors
performing double duty as their commedia characters and their
modern counterparts.
The second act modernization
is a clever idea that sounds better than it plays. I think the
playwright missed an opportunity—I would have preferred
to see the implications of Turffaldino’s refusal played
out in his original milieu. As situation comedy, the characters
just aren’t as funny as the originals. Moreover, the moving
dismay of Papa Arlecchino at his son’s “No!”
promised interesting developments that were not delivered.
Still, it is not my place
to review the play that might have been. As it stands, Truffaldino
Says No is a delightful comedy, guaranteed to amuse.
