The School For Scandal

Play (1777)
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan

With Lydia Barnett-Mulligan (Lady Teazle, Snake); Gabriel Graetz (Crabtree, Sir Peter Teazle), Sarah Newhouse (Lady Sneerwell); Omar Robinson (Charles Surface), Rebecca Schneebaum (Maria, et al), Richard Snee (Sir Oliver Surface, Backbite), Bobbie Steinbach (Mrs. Candour, Moses), Michael Underhill (Joseph Surface, Stanley)

The plot is way too involved to outline, but suffice it to say that two grown brothers are not really what they seem. The noble-looking one, Joseph Surface (Michael Underhill), is involved with Maria (Rebecca Schneebaum) who, in turn, really wants to be with Charles Surface (Omar Robinson). A whole group of busybodies is involved in the intrigues directed to Joseph and Charles including Sir Peter Teazle (Gabriel Graetz) and Lady Teazle (Lydia Barnett-Mulligan), and the gang of unsuitables including Lady Sneerwell (Sarah Newhouse) and Snake (Lydia Barnett-Mulligan) who want to make life difficult for everyone.

It’s a lot of fun.

This production, directed by the distinguished actress, Paula Plum, bears all the indication of her deftly dramatic acting technique. The production, though fairly long at two and a half hours, is consistently entertaining and well-acted throughout. Plum gives this not very profound but fun work its run for the money with all sorts of appropriate histrionics.

As well, Steve Barkhimer, the noted Boston-area actor and playwright who has performed in scads of Actors’ Shakespeare Project productions often as a comedic presence, has provided a wonderfully fun adaptation of the script.

Here, everyone seems to be having a good time. The case of eight players doubles up quite a bit, but nothing gets overly confusing.

Sarah Newhouse, a wonderful long-time ASP star – I vividly remember her Cordelia in the great ASP production of King Lear starring Alvin Epstein – as Lady Sneerwell, is perfectly sinister and small-minded, a perfect complement to Lydia Barnett-Mulligan’s Snake in conceiving the social manipulations that ensue. As well, Barnett-Mulligan as Lady Teazle is additionally great – so out of the box and off the wall, vivid and hysterically funny.

It’s great to see such a full roster of great ASP actors here.

Omar Robinson (Charles Surface) is a great ne’er do well who turns out to be not as ne’er as one would expect. Richard Snee is a combined pleasure as Sir Oliver Surface and Backbite, plus probably a few other things. Bobbie Steinbach, both as Mrs. Candour and Moses, does a great double turn, and Gabriel Graetz holds down Sir Peter Teazle and Crabtree with aplomb.

As the superficially wonderful Joseph Surface, Michael Underhill is appropriately saccharine and ingratiating. Rebecca Schneebaum, as Maria, etc, is direct and forthright.

Because Sheridan is not Shakespeare, one has to remember that his elongated plot is not, like The Bard’s, going to be embellished either with great poetry or a lot of philosophical insight. It’s fun, it’s bawdy, it has a nice message overall, but, apart from its entertainment value and curiosity as a play of a certain genre in a certain era, it’s got its limitations.

That said, this production is lively and wonderful and exhibits many great talents all around.

Costumes and hair are distinctively interesting, appropriate to the era but a bit caricaturish, as though ordered in by the great visual satirist of the era, William Hogarth.

The space at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center is used beautifully for this show, placing the audience on risers across the full length of a stage which stretches broadly in front. The set is relatively simple but effective and the selection of the space itself is quite brilliant – as one looks up at the Baroque embellishments on the upper walls and the ceilings one realizes how deftly it was chosen for this show.

– BADMan