It's not a copyright abuse for a Mom to copy/paste a student newspaper article onto her blog, as a digital scrapbook, is it? I hope not because I want to share this:
The Man of Mode
The School of English and Theatre Studies’ Winter 2014 MainStage Productions presented a modern remaining of George Etherege’s 1676 comedy, The Man of Mode, influenced by John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club. photo by Stacey Aspinall.
The School of English and Theatre Studies’ Winter 2014 Mainstage Production of The Man of Mode underwhelmed, but represented a step in the right direction.
Campus theatre-lovers have few major theatrical occasions to anticipate. They have the directing class, or “409,” festival in the Fall semester; the annual Curtain Call musical; the “Ensemble Festival” in the Winter; and the Mainstage Production every Fall and Winter semester, directed and designed by theatre professors and built and performed by students for course credit. Mainstage Productions often feature large casts and ambitious designs. They are, presumably, meant to be the best the theatre program has to offer.
Last semester’s 1984: Room 101 was an embarrassment technically, politically, and aesthetically. Turandot, in Winter 2013, took far too much time to deliver far too few laughs. And the Fall 2013 production of If We Were Birds featured a stunning design by Professor Pat Flood that, unfortunately, outshone the lackluster performances.
Despite this spotty track record, I was excited for The Man of Mode. The script, the cast, and the central directorial conceit – namely, the decision to set George Etherege’s 1676 comedy in director John Hughes’ the world of The Breakfast Club – all suggested that this show would be a welcome improvement. The Man of Mode tells the story of the scoundrel Dorimant (Gordon Harper), who falls in love with the resistant Harriet (Felicity Campbell), but first must shake off his ex-girlfriend, Mrs. Loveit (Kennedy Thompson), and his current mistress, Belinda (Maya Stein), with the help of the chatty Mr. Medley (Jake Fulton) and the clueless Sir Fopling Flutter (Danielle Fernandes).
It sounded like fun, more than one could say for 1984, Turandot, or If We Were Birds. And it was fun. The music was fun. The dancing was fun. The Day-Glo, eighties-kitsch design – for which the crew and the wonderful Pat Flood must be commended – was fun. And a number of very fun performances carried the show for its lengthy duration. Thompson gave the third compelling performance of her first year as the beleaguered Mrs. Loveit, delivering the antiquated dialogue with clarity, variety, and great comic timing. Marc Quintaneiro and Rebecca Kelly played older characters with focus and precision. And Ariel Slack played the daffy Lady Townley with laudable conviction.
Thompson and Slack specifically impressed with performances as loud and tacky as the décor. Unfortunately, not all of the cast could out-act the scenery, and often the central action was the least interesting thing on stage. The major performances, with the notable exception of Thompson, were undistinguished. Harper, Fernandes, and Citron (who featured in the subplot) performed competently enough, but they have all done better. Fulton failed to live up to the comic potential he displayed in last semester’s 409 Festival, barreling through his lines in a monotone, and Campbell was a decidedly bland romantic lead. Director Scott Duchesne’s method for enlivening a flat scene seemed to be to invent some peripheral amusement to distract the audience, often involving the stoned Lady Townley.
It is telling that the biggest laughs went to Ben Williams, whose character had a negligible influence on the plot and who did little more than saunter on and off stage in a pair of voluminous bell-bottoms and a wig. Regrettably, despite all the engaging marginalia, one could not help noticing the central action and that it was so often dull. Like the early scene where Dorimant and Medley perched in swivel chairs to swap lifeless exposition, the scenes without any background activity tended to droop.
John Hughes never seemed to have trouble with exposition. He may be most remembered for his affectionate vision, but his best movies (think of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) are so effective because they are so precisely styled, so efficiently choreographed. By uniting style and substance, they imbue even the chore of exposition with pizzazz. The Man of Modemay have had some style, but it had too little substance. In its nifty design, its standout performances, and its sense of fun, it represented a step forward for The School of English and Theatre Studies, but campus theatre-lovers continue to go unsatisfied.
Later Edit:
With Kennedy and Zach both working at the pork plant this summer, but working in different areas, they didn't always have the same breaks and would meet different people. Zach mentioned casually to someone that he and his girlfriend, Kennedy, would be doing something or other, and the guy replied, "That's not the Kennedy who goes to Guelph, is it?"
Zach replied, "Uh, yeah."
"And was she the one who got those amazing reviews for the play she was in?"
"Uh, yeah."
"She must be really good, eh?" This guy then explained that, as he will be starting at the U of Guelph in September, he has been reading all the archived school papers online and was impressed by what he had learned about this Kennedy person.
Of course.
