Reviewing theater is rough.
All those years in Critics? School, memorizing phrases like “it?s a must-see,” only to be upstaged by an amateur, who said in a few words what I need at least 350 to cover: “It was like the movie ?It?s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World? but in real life!”
The chuckling fellow who sat behind me at the Mobtown Players ? debut of Carlo Goldoni?s comedy”The Servant of Two Masters” got it right. Like the ?60s gag-and-pratfall-fest that brought Spencer Tracy and the Three Stooges to the same screen, “The Servant of Two Masters” is an manic mesh of misfit pairings, as a bevy of female actors takes on male roles, paralleling a storyline that involves a woman disguised as her dead brother in an attempt to find her lover and to reclaim a lost fortune.
Playing a parody of those Old World Sicilian characters who appear in “The Godfather,” Mandy Dalton is thoroughly convincing as the patriarch Pantalone, right down to the oiled hair, pants-hiked-up-to-his(her)-armpits and a “thazzah-spicy-ah-meatbaw!” Italian accent. The actress? background as a professional clown with Ringling Brothers and Cirque du Soleil serve her in good stead … though one may surmise all the actors spent time in clown school given all the falling, flailing and frivolity that flashes by in the play?s two-and-a-half-hour running time.
And running is the operative word, as there?s considerable action on stage, particularly in pint-sized package Ashly Fishell. She plays Truffaldino, the scheming servant who hopes to double his ducats while multiplying masters. Fishell, a sprite whose moves are a tribute to Vaudeville and whose facial contortions are reminiscent of Jim Carrey?s, is the Silly String that pulls all the story lines together by the play?s end, which is not unlike a Shakespearean comedy as Kevin Brotzman?s Silvio character declares, “Let?s everybody get married!” One character even notes, “All?s well that end?s well.”
But the Bard is quickly cast aside as the show concludes more like an episode of “Keystone Kops,” with the entire cast chasing Truffaldino from one side of the theater to the other to the frenetic strains of “Flight of the Bumblebee.”
In between, there?s lots of lying, postal violations, attempted suicides, attempted homicides (involving a spear, a battle ax, a scythe and a machine gun), chewed-up Twinkies, a lesson in table-setting feng shui and swordplay akin to 5-year-olds going at it with croquet mallets.
IF YOU GO
“The Servant of Two Masters”
» Venue: The Mobtown Theater at Meadow Mill, 3600 Clipper Mill Road
» Times: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through March 16
» Tickets: $12 general admission, $10 students and seniors
» More info: 410-467-3057
