THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 19, 1996 TAG: 9609190040
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Theater Review
SOURCE: BY MONTAGUE GAMMON III, SPECIAL TO THE DAILY BREAK
LENGTH: 65 lines
THE GENERIC Theater has begun its season with ``La Bete,'' a lush piece featuring lovely costumes, an attractive set and razor-sharp perfor-mances.
The show could be called impressive, unforgettable, challenging, intelligent, thoughtful and striking. The script is also sprinkled with passages that are pedantic, preachy and verbose.
Any play, featuring a half-hour monologue, will not easily be forgotten. When the actor delivering such a speech maintains energy, consistency and an endless string of comic mannerisms, the achievement is close to monumental.
Yet once those mannerisms have been recycled for the fourth or fifth time, and once the character's self-absorption and peculiarities have been stated, reiterated, confirmed and indelibly and eternally impressed upon the audience, one does not expect the passage to continue for 10 more minutes.
This is apparently, but for the translation of an opera libretto, playwright David Hinson's first published play script. Editing benefits any author's early works, but this writing is an impressive achievement, even when it does run on more than a little.
The time is 1654, the place an estate in France. Elomire (Wally Doyle) is in charge of a theatrical troupe under the patronage of Prince Conti (John Anderson). As the play opens, Elomire and his aide, Bejart (Jay Lockamy), are discussing the prince's command that they add the vain, affected street entertainer Valere (Mark S. Woodard) to their company.
Valere enters and proceeds to hold forth, uninterruptedly and almost interminably, about all his wondrous talents and achievements. Woodard really does make the speech an impeccably delivered tour de force of clowning, but eventually one's ``eyes begin to glaze,'' to quote the script.
Elomire wants nothing to do with him. Bejart maintains that they must comply with the prince's command, out of economic necessity. Prince Conti rules that Elomire's work has begun to grow stale and that Valere's collaboration should revive the troupe.
Elomire holds firm, his inflexibility revealing that his ego is as large as Valere's.
Director Becky Williams has coaxed crystal-clear performances from her actors, particularly from Anderson, Doyle, Lockamy, Woodard and Victoria Blake, who plays Elomire's buxom teen-age maid.
Anderson's minutely detailed acting is absolutely impeccable, and Doyle reaches comic pinnacles with just a few words and a glance. Lockamy is firmly in control as the voice of reason. Blake turns in a familiarly deft comic performance, touched with a charming note of sentiment.
Woodard finally gets to show that he can play subtlety as well as flamboyance.
The set and costumes, by Hank Sparks and Celia Burnett respectively, are as finely designed and executed as anything that is likely to grace local stages.
``La Bete'' is hardly a simple comedy, or even a simple tragicomedy. If it occasionally spends time rehashing aesthetic debate instead of presenting dramatic dialogue, or debates issues that are old hat to some viewers and of no import to others, it still has ample intellectual and entertainment values. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
WANT TO GO?
What: ``La Bete,'' by David Hinson
When: 8 p.m. today through Saturday, Sept. 26 to 28 and Oct. 3 to
5; 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 29 and Oct. 6
Where: Generic Theater, 912 W. 21st St., Norfolk
Tickets: $15, $12 for subscribers
Call: 441-2160 by CNB