Word: shadbolt
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Phoebe Meryll (Anna Blair '98) loves Colonel Fairfax (Joel Derfner '95), but he's in jail and is about to get the ax. Luckily, the head jailer Wilfred Shadbolt (Martin Lebwohl '96) loves Phoebe. With the help of her father, Sergeant Meryll (Bob Grady), and her sparkling eyes and sparkling other things, Phoebe swipes the cell key from Shadbolt. But, thinking he'll be executed soon. Fairfax suddenly decides to marry someone, anyone, in order to prevent his estate from going to a greedy and conniving relative. Sergeant Meryll sets Fairfax free and orchestrates a totally unbelievable switcheroo which involves...
...second act the plot unravels: Fairfax gets Elsie, and poor Point gets a mouthful of dust, despite his "pretty, pretty wit." Phoebe's father gets together with the Dame Carruthers (played very well by Katherine Bryant), and Shadbolt is left with nothing. As we would expect, loose ends are drawn and tied into a neat how and after over 2 1/2 hours, with few moments of truly good performance, we are grateful...
MISCASTING MARS TWO important roles. David Schrag as head jailer ("and assistant tormentor") Wilfrid Shadbolt valiantly stumbles and smirks his way through his path of comic relief, but the darkly cherubic actor simply looks too young to be taken seriously. A suitor of Phoebe and a conspirator with Point, his adolescent countenance distracts the audience from an otherwise entertaining effort. French as Elsie suffers from a corresponding problem; more than any of the other non-students in the show, French is just too old for her part of "a maid of 17." Possessing the production's finest voice...
...eyed, one is a dwarf, and one has been classified as a homosexual. Many of the stragglers are brought in by neighborhood youngsters who have heard about the Milsters' cat colony. The cats' names are chosen eclectically: Nanki-Po, Twiggy, Dick Deadeye, Pigpen, Anastasia, Violetta, Wilfred Shadbolt, Don Alhambra del Bolero and Mad Ludwig...
...Neill's greatest weakness, though, comes in his own characterization of jailer Wilfred Shadbolt. The performance call unwarranted attention to itself from the moment the lights go up. The script of the operetta opens with Phoebe at the spinning wheel singing alone; this Yeomen begins with O'Neill clattering across the stage and mugging at the audience, all to no apparent purpose...