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Venus In Furs
Directed and Adapted by Michael Scott-Price
From the novel by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Collective: Unconscious
279 Church St.
212-696-6566
Review by Sandra Bertrand
Take a man and a woman, and you have the promise of sexual attraction. Dress the heroine in a white fur and furnish her with a whip. Now you have the premise for a play.
Firebrand Theory Theater Company's performance of this infamous 19th century novel, whose author's last name inspired the "M" in S&M is certainly an ambitious undertaking. Director Michael Scott-Price stated, "The stage is the perfect medium to see up close what happens when one person follows his human urge and darkest fantasies to the end." A wealthy dilettante, Severin von Kusiemski, played by Jamie Robert Carrillo, persuades Kim Katzberg as Mademoiselle Wanda von Dunajew to reduce him to the role of a donkey. Gregor the slave, as he is now called, will be her unrestricted property and she may do with him as she wishes. A contract is drawn up and the action begins.
This cast works hard to realize the director's intentions. As sometimes happens with novel to theater adaptations, the flood of words can prove too weighty for the chosen medium. The two leads make a willing attempt to surface from this surfeit of language. Mr. Carillo physicalizes his role wherever possible, prostrating himself before his gleeful mistress, while Kim Katzberg takes a more sinuous turn, using her natural litheness and elasticity of expression to show her state of mind.
The program notes inform us that Firebrand Theory Theater Company has dedicated itself to dramatizing the infinite mystery of the extraordinary in the ordinary. Not a bad ambition if you're up to the task, and the director is to be commended for his tenacity. Risk can be a good thing. We should look forward to how Firebrand might take flight with their next production.
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| © copyright 2003 Firebrand Theory Theater
Company. All rights reserved. |
Site Credits: Webonautics |
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