Sarasota Jewel Box

By T.E. Kalem

Minutes away from the Gulf of Mexico, on the manicured grounds of the Ringling Museums sits a theater unique in all of North America. The Asolo (pronounced Ahs-olo) is an 18th century Italian wooden court theater, transported board by board in 1951 from the Old World to the New. Elegant, intimate, enchanting, with a triple tier of embossed balconies, the Asolo was the great Duse's home theater, and playgoers of a bygone day included Chopin, George Sand and Robert Browning.

During the past few years, under enterprising and dedicated leadership, Asolo has achieved full professional status. Unlike most U.S. regional theaters, Asolo operates on a genuine rotating-repertory basis, and with 94% of its 322 seats sold for the season, the only problem for a Sarasota visitor is how to get in. Some current offerings:

Going Ape by Nick Hall. Five doors do not a Feydeau farce make. But in this world premiere, Playwright Nick Hall, 30, must be credited with the right source of inspiration. One wishes he had stuck more tenaciously to the great French farceur and depended less on college humor and parodies of old '40s movies. However, Going Ape is truly zany. The hero, Rupert Yaeggi (Dennis Michaels), is a kind of Candide in reverse. He has decided that this is the worst of all possible worlds, and he has opted to commit suicide.

This proves to be no easy matter. For one thing, Rupert is constantly attended by a delectable nurse, Miss Deaton (Pamela Lewis), to whose charms he seems immune but to whose weird logic he succumbs. No suicide till the plumber comes to fix the hot water, she tells him. But he doesn't intend to scald himself to death, he argues. Non sequitur follows non sequitur. A trio of international jewel thieves arrives, but they also do quick-change sequences as Indian priests, complete with cobra and waxwork replicas of Captain Blood, Buffalo Bill and Marie Antoinette. As may be guessed, a good deal of this is just plain silly, but the wackiness is infectious, and at play's end Rupert is too pooped to take his own life.

The New York Idea by Langdon Mitchell. Though this comedy of manners was first presented in 1906, it is by no means spavined with age. It is the genre itself that has disappeared. We have grown accustomed to situation comedy, sight-and-gag comedy and black comedy. But the last instance of a social comedy based on an assured upper class was probably Clare Boothe Luce's The Women, and that play is now 40 years old. Essentially, the New York idea is divorce and, slightly more scandalously, the notion that divorced couples can be amiable friends.

Cynthia Karslake (Pamela Lewis) and Vida Phillimore (Barbara Reid) are the gay divorcees. Cynthia has become engaged to the ex-Mr. Phillimore (Kelly Fitzpatrick), and Vida is on the prowl for the ex-Mr. Karslake (Steven Ryan). What ensues is a flirtatious game of verbal Ping Pong and musical beds. The Asolo company is at its stylish best in The New York Idea, but perhaps an extra bow should go to Pamela Lewis as a sportive Cressida of the drawing room and the racing paddock.

Hogan's Goat by William Alfred. This ten-year-old play is part ethnic memory, part ethnic lament. It evokes Irish customs and political power in the Brooklyn of 1890. In a fiery monologue, Matt Stanton (Steven Ryan), a ward boss, describes his immigrant passage across the Atlantic in midwinter. The men and women in the fetid, icy hold were like unhousebroken animals.

In the strangled fury of his pride, Matt learns a new commandment: "Get power. Without it there can be no decency." There is precious little decency in Matt's struggle for power. He steals a mistress away from the mayor, then grabs for his job. But old Mayor Quinn (Ken Costigan) turns out to be as wily as he is corrupt, and he finally kills Matt's political chances.

Melodramatic and sentimental, the play fans simple thoughts into pseudopoetic blather, but the characters, especially those played by Ryan and Costigan, are piercingly true.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.