Ames Adamson (Photo: Jerry Talia
The capacity opening night audience at the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey responded with well deserved enthusiasm to George Bernard Shaw's Misalliance.Although my own experience with this brilliantly witty farcical comedy includes a memory of a very fine Roundabout Theater production in the early 1980s, I know that I wasn't quite prepared to laugh so unashamedly aloud as I did watching this first-rate company go through their humorously executed pretentions and paces under the direction of STNJ's Artistic Associate Stephen Brown-Fried. Brown-Fried, who recently earned plaudits as the director of the National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO) production of Clifford Odet's Awake and Sing, has both cornered and captured the rascally heart of this irrevocably clever play.
Though not as popular or oft revived as his Pygmalion or Major Barbara , Misalliance , nevertheless, is populated with Shaw's most paradoxical characters. Their ideas about everything under the sun and their motives insure a physical as well as a verbal workout. There are, however, sporadic lags during the course of almost three hours spent in their company. This is especially true when the talky-testy characters appear to be enjoying the sound of their speechifying to the point of losing their point.
But you will enjoy watching them exercise their rebellious instincts and obstinate natures in the light of the family patriarch, underwear tycoon John Tarleton. And what a blinding light he is, as played by a hilariously bellicose Ames Adamson. His comedic posturing is in full support of the youthful image that he admits he can no longer see in the mirror. A bit paunchy in his spiffy three-piece suit, his stylish mustache, bright blue eyes and ruddy complexion, John continues to see himself as a romantic adventurer but primarily as "a man of ideas.รข€ His ideas, both foolish and formidable, are spewed willy-nilly to all who would listen and even to those who would prefer not to, in and around the confines of the solarium in his country home in Surrey, England.To read the entire review please go to CurtainUp.com
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