Word: mosca
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This production of The Alchemist is one of the few Harvard productions that have grown out of academic work. Mark Mosca, who directed it, took English 125 "Elizabethanand Jacobean Dramatists," and went to the Harvard Dramatic Club with a proposal to do Jonson's masterpiece, Bartholomew Fair, Bartholomew Fair is not nearly as well-known as The Alchemist, and is much more difficult to stage, to the HDC chose the sure-fire-alternative. The HDC has been rewarded with packed houses, but settled for an evening with no surprises for anyone--with a good cast, perceptive direction, and an appreclative...
...Alchemist runs smoothly, on an elegant set whose only drawback is that it's such a good suggestion of serious occult mystery that you almost forget how much of a con game The Alchemist is. Mosca's direction is quick, sure, and creative, though the first act only smolders. The Alchemist isn't the kind of cosmically reconciling play that Shakespeare's best comedies are, but it offers its own kind of delights. Most of them come through in this production...
...major characters, the ones for whom Shaw wrote, are Mark Mosca and Bonnie Brewster here and they both live up to every expectation of Shaw's. The roles demand a lot of nuance from their actors--facial expressions and the slightest gestures must be just right--and both are admirable. Mosca has a certain half-smile that he can turn into a scowl as easily as a self-congratulatory smirk. Although his rages somehow seem more passionate than Napoleon probably was, the whole play seems to support that kind of style. After all, Shaw needed to build a rapport between...
Bonnie Brewster is a match for Mosca's bravado. The way the strange lady shifts the burden of guilt to Napoleon demands a sort of subtle feminine guile that just doesn't come through in Shaw's words, something impossible to describe really. That's one of the attractions of the play--it's almost as if Shaw were testing the acting abilities of his two favorite performers; whoever acted better would convince the audience that he or she had won in this battle of the minds...
...With her select words so ingeniously misapplied without being mispronounced," Maggie Brenner enriches the absurdity of Mrs. Malaprop's character and language through controlled inflection and frenzied movements. Playing opposite Brenner, Mark Mosca is grotesquely amusing as Anthony Absolute. Buttressed by strong stage presence, he limps around, bursts into fits of rage and screws up his face like David Fry. The character of Captain Absolute is cold and obnoxious, and Richard Bangs's performance does not add any warmth to the part. Bangs often seems to be just reading his lines. Sir Lucius O'Trigger is a stock Irish figure...