Machiavelli: Try And Talk Your Way Out Of This One

Promotional material for Machiavelli tells us Richard Vetere wrote the play in commedia style.And while that may be so, it doesn't mean that Evan Bergman directed it in the same fashion.The friction between Niccolo Machiavelli and the ruling Medici family of Florence is but spilled caffellatte compared with bloody conflict between the text and the production, and the poor actors are left defenseless on the pointy side of the daggers, seeming to have been instructed to play broad stock characters, typical of commedia dell'arte, while being staged naturalistically in a realistic setting.There were no survivors.

Not that Vetere is completely blameless for this sluggish attempt to present the story of Machiavelli's rise from near-execution to high public office to exile as something similar to the court comedies he would pen.His plodding script lacks wit or any kind of empathy, but it might have stood a chance if Bergman's blocking weren't so static. 

The actors are reduced to playing roles that can all be summed up in one word:Chip Phillips as Giuliano de' Medici is pompous, Jason Howard as Lorenzo de' Medici is bloodthirsty, Lex Woutas as the soldier Alfonso is emotionless, Stephanie Janssen as Machiavelli's daughter Baccina is girlish and Liza Vann as his wife Marietta is…I'll use two words for her…very loud.The exception is James Wetzel, unassuming in the title role, who underplays his verbal manipulations to the point where the chemistry with his showier colleagues resembles something out of a special Renaissance Italy episode of The Bob Newhart Show. 

Set in both a prison courtyard and the patio of a country home, the physical production is very effective, with splendid work by Michael Bevins (costumes) and Maruti Evans (set and lights).How unfortunate that this story of a silver-tongued thinker is better seen and not heard. 

Photos by Joan Marcus:Top:James Wetzel and Liza Vann

Bottom:Jason Howard and Stephanie Janssen

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