Review Roundup: PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE at American Players Theatre

American Players Theatre re-imagines PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE, one of Shakespeare's lesser performed works, in an innovative new way. The cast features Cher Desiree Alvarez, Tracy Michelle Arnold, David Daniel, Gavin Lawrence, Juan Rivera Lebron, Cristina Panfilio, Cage Sebastian Pierre, James Ridge, Andrea San Miguel, and Marcus Truschinski, with direction by Eric Tucker.

Let's see what the critics had to say!

Amelia Cook Fontella, The Isthmus: Under the direction of Eric Tucker, this production uses just 10 actors to fill dozens of roles. The small cast is a tremendous team, seamlessly transitioning between characters while keeping them distinct. Tracy Michelle Arnold lets her evil side shine both as the no-good King of Antioch and as Dionyza. As perky Thasia, Andrea San Miguel is simply charming. As she pantomimes watching knights compete for her affection, her reactions are melodramatic, almost cartoon-like, and wonderful to watch. Cristina Panfilio expertly portrays Pericles' daughter Marina. Panfilio performs Shakespeare with perfect diction and delivery. One of the play's highlights is when Marina Reunites with her father, played by James Ridge, who thinks she has died. I fought back tears as the two embraced. This production jumps through place and time. These leaps sometimes feel abrupt, but they work.

Bill Wineke, Channel3000: What Tucker has done with all this is to present it as a farce that somehow encapsulates the underlying dignity of the characters and the morality of the story. Men play the parts of women. Women play the parts of men. Every character ends up being played by differing actors. Tracy Michelle Arnold is not only King Antiochus (she speaks in a Transylvanian Dracula accent) but among other roles, is the bowsprit of Pericles' ship. Juan Rivera Lebron is Pericles in the first act, but James Ridge is Pericles in the second act. Actors are continually emerging from a large sea chest. The whole thing is wild. But it isn't mindless. The story comes through. The story of love and betrayal, success and loss, of anger and reconciliation, all comes through and weirdly enough, becomes somewhat modern. Pericles of Tyre really is worth seeing.

Gwendolyn Rice, GwendolynRice.com: But director Eric Tucker took the myriad challenges in one of the Bard's lesser-performed works and turned them into a spectacular, jaw dropping, hilarious opportunity. With a nimble company of only ten actors, he injects a hearty dose of vaudeville into the dizzying, sometimes uneven story of the extremely unlucky Prince of Tyre. The result is like the Reduced Shakespeare Company meets ComedySportz, meets the Muppet Show... The comic possibilities multiply as actors ad-lib, add in modern references, and generally clown around. This is great news for audiences, who were laughing hysterically on opening night.

Lindsay Christians, The Cap Times: Tucker's staging at APT of Shakespeare's challenging 1603 epic has a similar energetic spirit, aided by Andrew Boyce's marvelous, free-form scenic design and Michael A. Peterson's openly exposed lighting.With the machinations of theater magic laid bare and lots of silliness, the classically-trained company seems to have used the parody "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" as a training regimen. Tucker's aesthetic mashes up fairy tales, film sets and playing dress-up in the basement with clothes from the thrift store. The result is a grand, dreamlike story that never loses a sense of pell-mell glee.

Mike Fischer, Journal Sentinel: True to a play that begins and is repeatedly interrupted by a narrator urging us to use our imaginations, Tucker's solution involves traveling through time as well as space. As an evil monarch sleeping with a daughter, Tracy Michelle Arnold channels her inner Rosa Klebb (or Irina Spalko, or whichever evil Russian villainess you choose), assisted by Marcus Truschinski in the first of his night's turns as a villain... Scenes in which members of this splendid quartet realize what they share are best in play; they ring true even when the plot does not. Marina could be speaking of any of the Bard's romances when admitting that telling her improbable history "would seem like lies." But tell it Panfilio and this ensemble do, in a brave production that thinks big, daring the craziest dreams to live.

Photo: americanplayers.org

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