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Posted by Mel on 8/5/2008, 7:46 am, in reply to "Re: More praise for " Bach at Leipzig" and Stephen's performance"
69.19.14.22
Another good review from the San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/04/DDCA123RAK.DTL&type=printable
Bach at Leipzig: Comedy. By Itamar Moses. Directed by Art Manke. With Stephen Caffrey, Larry Paulsen, Allen Gilmore, Drew Foster, Paul Vincent O'Connor and Mike Ryan. (Two hours, 25 minutes).
The course of love never does run smoothly at Shakespeare Santa Cruz this summer. That's intentional. Three of the four plays in Marco Barricelli's first season as artistic director of Shakespeare Santa Cruz are complementary treatments of star-crossed true - or at least obsessive - love. The fourth, about men vying for the same job, explores the pitfalls of a love affair with music as well.
The tragically cut off romance of "Romeo and Juliet" alternates with the problematically fulfilled one of "All's Well That Ends Well" in the outdoor Festival Glen. The conflicted lovers of Lanford Wilson's "Burn This" share the indoor stage with the competing musicians of Itamar Moses' "Bach at Leipzig," making good on Barricelli's pledge to add more contemporary American voices to the summer festival mix.
"Bach" is about as contemporary as you can get, the recent career-making hit by a young Berkeley High School graduate whose next play, "Yellowjackets," set in his alma mater, opens Berkeley Rep's season next month. A fleet-footed, quick-witted, brain-teasing farce, it's a joy, the highlight of the two shows I saw Saturday.
Bach doesn't actually appear in Moses' intricate comedy, though Telemann has a walk-on as the rock-idol equivalent of early 18th century Germany. In a construct so cleverly worked out it can't help evoking comparisons to Tom Stoppard, "Bach" is set during the 1722 competition for the prestigious post of organ master at Leipzig, which Bach would occupy for most of the rest of his life. The six ruthlessly and hilariously competing musicians - all named either Johann or Georg - are based on the actual competitors.
Moses combines farcical alacrity with musical and religious insights in an almost thoroughly delightful souffle. In Art Manke's perhaps too artificial staging, the first act turns brittle and sags at times. But he and Stephen Caffrey (as the sympathetic composer Fasch) make that pay off in a tour-de-force disquisition on the art of the fugue that illuminates everything else in the play. The rest is gold-standard farce, amplified by Larry Paulsen's scheming Schott, Allen Gilmore's trickster Lenck, Paul Vincent O'Connor's gullible Kaufmann, Mike Ryan's childish Graupner and Drew Foster's spoiled Steindorff.
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