Combining film noir and vaudeville style with O’Neill’s original text, Marco Million$ provides a fast-paced, more or less cohesive evening of entertainment.
Waterwell’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s lesser-known work Marco Millions makes the material fresh and innovative, while bringing in the audience with contemporary references and the removal of a forth wall.
Combining film noir and vaudeville style with O’Neill’s original text (save some ethnic slurs and song and dance numbers), Marco Million$ provides fast-paced, more or less cohesive evening of entertainment. Using no set and 1920s fashion as costume, the troupe creates a world – multiple worlds out of blank space, aided only by excellent music, lighting, and their own ingenuity.
The best moments come from the more subtle touches of humor, such as when Marco and his beloved say good-bye, and the touching scene turns into a remark on teenage sexual frustration.
Marco Million$ is one of the best examples of an ensemble piece I’ve seen in quite a while, with the actors all playing numerous roles and seamlessly slipping into varied relationships with one another. It is also very obvious that all five talented actors are having a ball with this show, and take true delight in the quips and insults they hurl at each other in some scenes.
Marco Million$ takes great pains to point out certain themes in O’Neills original play, such as Marco’s self-absorbed obliviousness of other cultures, or the hyper-capitalism that seems to have fueled his journeys. (The song, “Money”, which consists of no lyrics other than that single word, is more a sledge hammer than a suggestion.) To take the work too seriously would be to demean it, and to applaud would be to ignore the actors’ plea to “just throw money.”
For more info about the show, running through August 26th:
www.waterwell.org
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment