The Bacchae - Reviews

To truly appreciate the extraordinary achievement of this production, it is helpful to be aware of the illusory vision of early 20th century symbolists and surrealists. To put life's duality (wishful inner fantasy and outer physical reality) on stage so seamlessly that the audience doesn't know where one starts and the other stops requires both enormous directorial skill and actors who possess polished theatrical techniques.

Starring in this dance of desire are Don Formaneck (who is outstanding as the quaking, milquetoast Don Perlimplin, whose physical body may be catatonic but whose soul is on fire) and Kree Fieldsa (who is sensational as the free-spirited Belisa who dances naked around the stage like an overly excited wood-sprite).

The Don's devoted servant (Karen Kalensky) pushes the frightened bridegroom to fulfill his duties in Spanish society, while Belisa's amoral mother (Debbie McCleod) congratulates her daughter for landing in such a financially rewarding situation.

Throughout this 70-minute fantasy, four omnipresent Duendes (the Spanish equivalent of a Greek chorus) set the tone by reading Lorca's symbolic poetry. Dressed in respectable white suits with colorful vests (suggesting that they are classical jesters with a cosmic view of life), Mark Frankos, Beth Froehlich, Sarah Goldblatt and Josh Nathan, narrate the action, supply the props and establish the atmosphere for the couple's enigmatic affair.

Whether you grasp every detail of Lorca's illusory tale is unimportant. Like a haunting dream or nightmare that is so strong you can’t forget it, what counts is its cumulative effect: dramatically, visually, viscerally and emotionally.

Vox Theatre Website, "What the Butler Saw," December 10, 2006

Spectral, lovely and well-done, Federico Garcia Lorca's Don Perlimplin and His Love for Belisa in the Garden, adapted and directed by David Zinder for Cal Rep and performed in the Studio Theatre, proves that getting a handle on love is like trying to catch a trout bare-handed. You can't.

Zinder does here what I didn't think could be done. He took Garcia Lorca's honeysuckled words and incorporated them into staged movement, conflict and setting. Though abstract, though whimsical – though positively, scrumptiously lovely – the words, especially those spoken by the quarto Duendes, establish a mood in a way that sets never could.

Vicki Paris Goodman, Signal Community Newspaper, December 7, 2006

Ah, the complexities and dangers of passion. A topic playwright Federica Garcia Lorca loved to explore. Place a partially complete Lorca work in the hands of Cal Rep's guest director David Zinder, and behold the fusion of a middle-aged man's awakening, modern youth's superficiality, and an inevitable Shakespeare-esque tragedy.

…Zinder's adaptation manages to take us through a gradual transformation in which the now idealistically smitten Perlimplin plots most cleverly to win his young wife's heart. Never mind that the scheme intends a disastrous result – at least by our standards, if not Perlimplin's. This is one of the things that makes the play so compelling – who is to say what makes, or doesn't make, a startling sacrifice worthwhile.

In avant-garde style, the four characters known as the Duendes (Mark Frankos, Beth Froehlich, Sarah Goldblatt and Josh Nathan) serve a multitude of roles. They mimic, they set the stage, and, when absolutely necessary, they offer explanation. Most of all they lend an ethereal quality…

…Cal Rep's cast excels in every nuanced and uninhibited aspect. Fieldsa's nude scenes in the garden capture their imagination with their enchanting eroticism…she and Formaneck … bring a surprising believability, even chemistry, to their duo.