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Tuesday, January 30, 2007

The Silent Concerto

Now more than ever, because of this race, I'm seeing theater left and right. But I would sooner lose than see another show as unfinished and irregularly acted in as The Silent Concerto. I'm rarely harsh on new work, but when a play throws in references to Beckett and Lorca simply as a means of covering up its own clumsiness, I lose patience. Perhaps if the performers were better, I wouldn't be so down on Alejandro Morales' script or Scott Ebersold's direction, but this evening left me with very little to leave the theater with. I was counting on Fringe darling Susan Louise O'Connor to liven things up, but she's reduced to a few bland one-liners, and entangled with two very misguided actors, one of whom (Julian Stekevych) should win the award for most stereotypes in a character.

His performance, like the play, is very much a gloss, and leaves the audience in absolute apathy for everything that happens to him. That the show doesn't make much sense either, well, that's just icing on the mud cake. And I don't mean that in a good way.

[Read on]

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