Reader Reviews
Scapino (The Trickster) (Chichester Festival Theatre, Chichester)
Back to Show Details| Score | Comment | Date |
 | not moliere at all but not entirely without merit. why didn't the director write his own play? - 81.86.106.82) | 03 Aug 05 |
| One point and that's for Richard McCabe as Scapino. There is nothing else remotely good about this production. Con art maybe but Emperor's new clothes certainly. Just because a director has a reputation does not mean that his take on a particular play has to be tolerated. Purcarete takes Western European classic comic theatre and culture and imposes a grim unfunny eastern European presentation. Moliere is fast witty and funny (usually). Southampton Nuffield's School for Wives was wise witty wonderful and in a moderntimes setting. They knew how to do it and do it well. Admittedly Jeremy Sams is known for his leaden translations viz Goldoni's Coffee House for Chichester a couple of years ago but there were a few good lines left until flattened by Purcarete. The male young lovers were grotesques, large and fat and bald and little. The girls were sluttish. The set was a warzone covered in nutty slack. Save me from Eastern Europeans and give me entertainment. Moliere knew how to entertain. Purcarete is aversion therapy with his stark silly-serious student-drama, reminiscent of the Bristol Young Vic of the 1970s. - 193.118.206.221) | 10 Jun 05 |
