 |
| Ruby Lynn Reyner, Herve Villechaize, Donald Forrest, Penelope Windust. |
ELIZABETH I [Comedy/Biographical/England/Period/Politics] A: Paul Foster; D: John-Michael Tebelak; S: Robert Anton; C: Susan Tsu; L: Roger Morgan; M: David Sheridan Spangler; P: Edgar Lansbury, Stuart Duncan, and Joseph Beruh; T: Lyceum Theatre; 4/5/72-4/8/72 (5)
 |
| Herve Villechaize, Penelope Windust, (rear) Jeanette Lanids, Jeff Chandler. |
A confusing attempt to
suggest a performance of a revisionist play about Queen Elizabeth I by a
traveling company of Elizabethan actors working on a trestle stage. The plot
veers from scenes concerning the actors and their world to sections of the play-within-the-play.
A far more respected play about the Virgin Queen, Robert Bolt’s Vivat! Vivat! Regina, was produced the
same season, starring Eileen Atkins.
This “repellent . . .
mishmash” was “ill-written, ill-composed, ill-directed, ill-designed, and
ill-costumed,” wrote Brendan Gill. It required another director “to make order
out of chaos,” added Clive Barnes. Michael Smith defended the work for its “lively
humor, . . . [and] verbal exuberance.” However, the opinion of critics like
Douglas Watt (“a kind of apotheosis of the amateur spirit”) and Martin
Gottfried (“a disaster”) prevailed. Among the actors who eventually gained
recognition were Penelope Windust and Herve Villechaize (of TV’s “Fantasy Island”).