Staunton News Leader, VA
March 17 2005

Royals take hilarious romp across stage

By Charles Culbertson

If You Go:
what: ‘A King and No King’
when: Intermittently through March 27. Call for times.
where: Blackfriars Playhouse
tickets and more info: 851-1733 or box office, 35 S. New Street.

If you’ve never heard of “A King and No King,” now playing at the
Blackfriars Playhouse, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Written in
1611 by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, it hasn’t enjoyed the
unremitting publicity or in-depth assessment lavished upon even the
most obscure of William Shakespeare’s works.
On the other hand, if you’ve not yet seen “A King and No King,”
you’ve got plenty to be ashamed of — particularly for denying
yourself an amusing evening in the company of a good story, top-notch
staging and 11 of Shenandoah Shakespeare’s most talented actors.

“A King and No King” is the third and final entry in S2’s Actor’s
Renaissance Season, in which the actors, according to the cast list,
“produce exciting, unhinged, flying-by-the-seat-of-their-pants
entertainment.” How they manage to do this without central direction
escapes me, but they do, and “A King and No King” is a fine example
of such stage magic.

The story in a nutshell: The king of Iberia (Abrades) defeats and
captures the king of Armenia (Tigranes) after many years of war.
Abrades tells Tigranes that his ransom is “to take my only sister to
thy wife,” not knowing that his only sister — Panthea — has, in his
long absence, grown into a beautiful young woman.

When the kings see Panthea, they fall in love with her. Arbaces, her
brother, is torn with guilt over his incestuous feelings, and is
ready to resign himself to breaking one of society’s strongest taboos
when all is made right.

Eric Schoen is earnest and compelling as Arbaces, although he
sometimes speaks his lines a little too quickly for the ear to catch.
He and Thadd McQuade, who portrays Tigranes, play well off each
other, and each seems to have an excellent grasp of his character and
the moral dilemmas into which he is thrust.

Someone at Shenandoah Shakespeare obviously thinks that slapping the
most outlandish costume imaginable on John Harrell is funny, because
they do it in play after play after play. And they’re right. The
get-up Harrell wears as the cowardly braggart, Bessus, elicits
guffaws nearly every time he walks on stage, and what makes it even
more funny is that he wears the costume with a certain haughty pride
— sort of like a 6-year-old who thinks he looks good in cowboy
boots, underwear and a towel for a cape.

But as far as hilarity is concerned, the costume takes a distant back
seat to Harrell’s actual portrayal of the army captain whose greatest
military feat is using his feet to get away from threatening
situations. At one point he has received so many duel challenges that
he boasts he makes a profit by selling the paper they are written on
to grocers. Harrell steals the show in this over-the-top,
Falstaff-like role.

Sarah Fallon is elegant and sexy as Panthea, and Miriam Donald as
Spaconia convinces you that Tigranes is an idiot for ever having
looked at another woman in the first place. David Loar, James Keegan,
Jessica Dunton, Doreen Bechtol, Jason Guy and Rene Thornton Jr. flesh
out the cast of “A King and No King.”

In addition, the musical interludes that lace “A King and No King”
are as creative and entertaining as the play, and highlight the
cast’s wide range of talent and knack for comedy. It appears everyone
is having fun and — as a consequence — so will you.