New Centerstage Review Up

Here’s a fun one: Pulp Fiction as told in Shakespearean verse. Well, only sometimes in verse, but always in olde tyme language, which makes for some great moments of recognition when the audience hears an infamous Tarantino line translated into Jacobean vocabulary. Here’s an excerpt of my play review:

Zagoren’s Vincenzio has a good amount of John Travolta’s take on the character, but he adds a wonderful hangdog quality that bounces off King’s angry Julius well. Christopher Kidder’s direction is fast-paced, and the production finds a rhythm that suits both the prince of pop culture and the true Bard.

You can read the rest of the review here. It definitely needs to be shorter, and do we need the whole offstage rape scene? I think we do not.

But otherwise, it’s a good romp. Tarantino’s films are talky anyway, so moving this to the stage didn’t lose much in visual terms. And then there are the little touches: The guy doing Butch’s dad has Christopher Walken’s cadence down pat. Pumpkin, the guy who robs the diner with his girlfriend, wears a Hawaiian shirt–with leather laces down the middle, just like men’s blouses of old.

It’s fun. Grab a drink (looks like you can have them in the theater), settle in for the first half, and frankly, skip out on the second half to make your own bard-inspired mischief.

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