Amadeus

continued

Malcolm Tulip, who also directs, is a genius for making heavy-trapping costume drama sing and ripple on a small stage. (Gillian Eaton was originally intended to direct this but had to drop out, and some of the credit is probably due to her. They've often collaborated.) The third wonderful character in this production is Emperor Joseph. Loren Bass plays him as a kind of John O'Hurley/J. Peterman in drag, whose charming inattentiveness almost begins to seem like a kind of wisdom of its own in counterpoint to the overheated melodramas taking place in his mucky court.

And then there's the delightful confluence that makes it possible to eat a pre-Amadeus dinner at a restaurant of the same name only a block away. Unless someone writes a play called Arbor Brewing Company, this is not likely to happen again soon.

[Review published June 2007]