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Tis Pity She’s A Whore
by John Ford
Directed by Robert Hankins
Produced by Red Tape Theatre Company
At St. Peter’s Church
621 W. Belmont
Chicago, IL
Call 773-347-1035, tickets $15
Mondays thru Wednesdays at 7 PM
Running time 2 hrs, 25 min with intermission
Through December 14, 2005
Poor diction dooms Tis Pity She’s A Whore
Doing a 17th Century English tragedy is a tall order and John Ford’s Tis Pity She’s A Whore’s investigation of incest, revenge and murder would tax most theatre troupes to the maximum. This is the case here as Red Tape Theatre Company made several bad decisions with this show.
One, mounting this wordy 17th Century piece with its Shakespearian-style verse takes classically trained actors with excellent elocution, pronunciation and projection. Two, the venue, a high ceiling gym possesses horrible acoustics rendering most performers inaudible. Third, the poor lighting and the expansive gym floor was much too large as it necessitated clumsy full trotted entrances and exits.
Ford’s play was simply over the skill level of this troupe. My problem (and others mentioned this also) was that I could not understand the actors for a variety of reason, all of which rendered this show a disaster.
The woman in the show spoke much too fast and ran their words together. They also dropped the last syllable of the line-ending phrases. Many spoke too softly showing a lack of projection (volume). Each woman had a sameness of pitch, tone and speech rhythm that together with the rapid running together of phrases made their dialogue incomprehensible. I just couldn’t understand most of their speeches. Brandi Holtz rattled off her speeches so fast; I had no idea what she was saying.
The men were just as bad. Only Shay Ames was understandable until near the end of the show when he so over played his scenes that he mumbled his way through the ending. The man with the full beard mumbled so quickly that I wasn’t sure if he was speaking English? The inarticulate players together with bad acoustics and a much too large set lead to a theatrically horrible experience. A show can’t survive when actors speak words with no emphasis, no pauses, no change of tone or pitch and no articulation and little diction. Add a rapid pace and the show drones on until boredom turn into irritation.
I can’t tell you what this show is about because I couldn’t understand 95% of the dialogue. You would think that someone would have noticed these overwhelming flaws before opening night. I do not want to be mean spirited but sometimes blunt, brutal truth is the best remedy. I hope so.
Not Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Chicago Stage Talk Radio Show
November 28, 2005
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