This exuberant, vividly acted production should cement the company’s reputation as a troupe that lovers of classic theater should put on the must-watch list. The cast of “Women Beware Women” is a marvelous combination of veteran stage performers and talented newcomers... who are obviously savoring the chance to romp in the little-tended thickets of Middleton’s thorny dramaturgy.Backstage adds:
Red Bull, which provides the valuable service of exploring seldom-seen classics, has upped the ante with this presentation, with pleasingly superior production values on show. There's live music on David Barber's expansive set, with Clint Ramos' witty costumes illustrating the play's modern edge.Variety, after praising the 'adroit, opulent staging' (by which I'm sure they mean to say they loved my floor) chimes in:
Women Beware Women is proof not just that classic theater is alive, but that it can still be surprising after hundreds of years.
It's all elegantly staged on David Barber's silver two-level setting, which contains plenty of corners for hidden conversations and secret assignations. Such baroque details as a set of painted clouds, a black swagged proscenium curtain, and a gorgeously painted deck contribute an overall sense of decadent chic.That's my floor they're talking about!!!!
It would be easy to get lost in the surface dazzle of Jesse Berger’s whip-smart production: David Barber’s clever set, with its divine deus ex machina; and especially Clint Ramos’s astonishingly luxurious costumes, the most beautifully conceived and executed of any I have seen this year. But the performances pull you back into the play’s strange reality. Nearly the whole cast is excellent, led by Kathryn Meisle as the sexy, conniving Livia.This is Livia at work:
So here's another understatement for you: Red Bull Theater is pretty capable. In fact, they are one of the finest purveyors of classical theatre in New York City. For five years now, they have consistently delivered exciting productions of obscure gems from the English Renaissance, always making bold and innovative choices while never turning "accessibility" into a dirty word...Go see it. Now.
The production is unsurprisingly top-notch. The cast is first rate (and is a true ensemble, which makes it most difficult to single anyone out for praise or criticism), and the design is impeccable. The stage is gorgeously bedecked with three separate levels, all of which are used to great advantage throughout the show. A particularly appropriate detail hangs above the stage. There is a foreboding canopy of clouds from the start of the play, but dead center in the sky is a cloud made out of mattress material. It hovers above the scenes like a baleful god of lust, and is an effectively subtle reminder that, were it not for Bianca's infidelity at the beginning of the action, none of the mess that follows would have happened. And, in a wonderful touch of visual wit, this cloud is broken towards the end by none other than the goddess of marriage.
