I don’t know exactly where to start here, it’s a tough play to write about. If I am lucky, this will write itself!
Let’s try this, from the director’s notes to the play from the incomparable Laura Gordon: “Ring Round the Moon is a play that I find difficult to classify. It’s a comedy. It’s a romance. It contains farcical elements, yet it’s not a farce.” I will quibble with this last bit…although a few definitions require horseplay for a farce (and I will maintain that there is a bit here), most don’t, like this one from Merriam-Webster: a light dramatic composition marked by broadly satirical comedy and improbable plot. So my first review statement, we have ourselves a farce here of grand proportions and I loved every moment of it, in no small part as the result of Gordon’s direction!!!
And I have no idea how Gordon managed to put this on stage. It contains 12 major characters with speaking roles, dozens of entries and exits, as she mentioned any number of characters taking on an alias or two, any number of costume changes, relationship changes, falsehoods and exposures, and one hard put upon actor who had to play twin brothers! I saw it! I admired it! I laughed out loud! Heartily. But even now I am having a hard time remembering every morsel of the action. Yet, it moved and swirled with seemingly no effort…well except our hard put upon actor! Brava!!!
Now, on to the twins! Twin brothers, Hugo and Frederic are of course somewhat competitive with one another in a typical sibling competitive way. And physically, they are identical twins and quite handsome, in a Nate Burger sort of way if you catch my drift. But their personalities are vastly different, Hugo being brash and direct and a bit diabolical, while Frederic is more reserved, maybe a bit introverted, and certainly a respectful young man. They are rich…well as many of the characters here are. And Nate Burger plays both men…very very well. But with their different mannerisms and vocal inflections, I have no idea how he keeps them straight, evokes the correct personality and vocal inflections, or for that matter, how he remembers all of his lines. But he does have a body double of sorts…one Nick Farasey who plays one twin or the other when they need to be seen off in the distance or somewhere about in the next room. But for us the audience, it’s look out, Burger just entered stage left, who is it to be, Hugo or Frederic??
One of the other standouts (no I am not belittling anyone here) is Barbara Kingsley, as Madame Desmortes, the aunt of two intrepid twins. Despite being confined to a wheelchair, she isn’t above partaking in a bit of hi-jinks and subterfuge by manipulating the various guests and principals for her own amusement and a result where all ends well!
Others who amused above and beyond, Laura Rook as Diana Messerman who is in love with Hugo, I can’t imagine why, but is engaged to Frederic who is marriageable as her plan B. And Phoebe Gonzalez is amazing as ballet dancer Isabelle. Gonzalez easily and believably morphs from a giddy dancer for hire to becoming a bit resistant as Hugo’s pawn, to finally despair as too many things go awry?? Or they just become too fluid to manage?
But the farce here isn’t restricted to the aristocrats on view or the impersonators they bring to the fore, but to the servants. David Daniel takes a hilarious turn as, in the cast list, a crumbling butler, and Elizabeth Reese has mastered the dramatic eye roll as Capulet, Madame Desmortes, ‘faded’ companion!
Ring Round The Moon was adapted by Christopher Fry in 1950 from Jean Anouilh’s Invitation to the Castle from 1947 (which is described in the literature as a satirical play). But I still hold that in Fry’s hands it is a farce!!
Again, sorry that I am so late into the season, there are only two dates left. But info and tickets can be found here!! Play is just over three hours including two 15 minute intermissions.
