Christopher Hale in the lead as Agostino Tassi joins the fray at the Ice Factory Festival, as Stolen Chair presents Commedia dell'Artemisia, a masked farce in rhyming couplets, satirizing the controversial rape trial of Italian Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi. As the teenage virtuosa Artemisia tries to escape the clutches of her miserly father, she becomes entwined with Agostino Tassi, a master painter and criminal who would rather screw than woo. Transforming these complex historical figures into commedia stock characters, Stolen Chair irreverently eviscerates history, hypocrisy, romance, and art.
What are they saying ? ...
"...the result of putting genres into an aesthetic supercollider and pressing the trigger...supple, smart...daring."
-- Leonard Jacobs, The Clyde Fitch Report
"[I]t's important that this newly written old-school hit be recognized. That rape could be funny, not tragic, who knew? The producers and writers of Stolen Chair, that's who. With swagger and grace and a man who's ribald, the show woos us and flatters us, we're never appalled...[T]his show's a must see...The only sad part about Commedia Dell' Artemisia is that it's condensed to stay under an hour."
-- Aaron Riccio, PBS New Theater Corps
***Winner of the Pretentious Festival Award for Best Use of Cognitive Dissonance***
"Kiran Rikhye's script is clever...witty...and gives the audience rich food for thought. The company is clearly on the right path."
-- Ishah Janssen-Faith
"[D]izzying and fun...some of the intricate polysyllabic rhymes are especially impressive...Making an audience think about gender politics in the middle of a raucous seduction scene is undeniably an achievement." "The original script, by Kiran Rikhye, is in rhymed couplets and is mostly good enough to sound like a Wilbur translation of the master [Moliere]; some of the intricate polysyllabic rhymes are especially impressive. The staging is dizzying and fun...Commedia Dell'Artemisia makes some salient points about violence against women and society's culpability thereto. Making an audience think about gender politics in the middle of a raucous seduction scene is undeniably an achievement. The show also manages more direct satire in its final scene, a perversion of justice disguised as a trial that quickly devolves into a media circus of the sort we can all recognize.
-- Martin Denton, NYtheatre.com
What are they saying ? ...
"...the result of putting genres into an aesthetic supercollider and pressing the trigger...supple, smart...daring."
-- Leonard Jacobs, The Clyde Fitch Report
"[I]t's important that this newly written old-school hit be recognized. That rape could be funny, not tragic, who knew? The producers and writers of Stolen Chair, that's who. With swagger and grace and a man who's ribald, the show woos us and flatters us, we're never appalled...[T]his show's a must see...The only sad part about Commedia Dell' Artemisia is that it's condensed to stay under an hour."
-- Aaron Riccio, PBS New Theater Corps
***Winner of the Pretentious Festival Award for Best Use of Cognitive Dissonance***
"Kiran Rikhye's script is clever...witty...and gives the audience rich food for thought. The company is clearly on the right path."
-- Ishah Janssen-Faith
"[D]izzying and fun...some of the intricate polysyllabic rhymes are especially impressive...Making an audience think about gender politics in the middle of a raucous seduction scene is undeniably an achievement." "The original script, by Kiran Rikhye, is in rhymed couplets and is mostly good enough to sound like a Wilbur translation of the master [Moliere]; some of the intricate polysyllabic rhymes are especially impressive. The staging is dizzying and fun...Commedia Dell'Artemisia makes some salient points about violence against women and society's culpability thereto. Making an audience think about gender politics in the middle of a raucous seduction scene is undeniably an achievement. The show also manages more direct satire in its final scene, a perversion of justice disguised as a trial that quickly devolves into a media circus of the sort we can all recognize.
-- Martin Denton, NYtheatre.com