"La Serva" Bodes Well for "Hunchback"
by Brad Warren
I have three problems with opera: It's stuffy and expensive, the acting usually looks like gesticulating fenceposts, and the characters themselves are often so pompous and inflated that it's hard to find a reason to care what happens to them.
In other words, why go broke to see what Congress and the evening news bring us every day for free? Remember, opera-goers often shell out close to a hundred bucks to see this dreck.
For twelve bucks, John Lawler and Ben Rankin have pulled off a rare and wonderful exception, making the hilarious "La Serva Padrona" available for ordinary eat-on-the-cheap audiences at Freehold, Capitol Hill's distinguished little conservatory theater. Clear and very funny acting, good singing and a story line that even in Italian brought big laughs from the little crowd marked a step in the right direction for an art form that takes a fanatic - or a snorting suit - to love.
All right - that was uncalled for. Sorry. Still, for such a costly art form you'd think most of it would be more fun. Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's brilliant little yarn with music, written 360 years ago to fit between the acts of his serious operas, was a hit from the start. Which proves there must be a sensible bone or two somewhere near most opera lovers' ears. Must be the funny bone.
Which comes to my final peeve. Anyone who can do structural damage to a building with his or her voice ought to have to carry a concealed weapon permit. And the way some of them sound, we might as well talk about muzzle velocity - as in, how fast can you strap that thing on and shut the guy up? - instead of vocal range.
None of that in this show. These singers aren't just loud enough to hear, they sound good. And they sound that way even in the midst of some wild physical comedy and contortions that would crunch most ordinary voices down to little squeaky things you want to step on.
At press time, "La Serva Padrona" is closing, but it bodes well for this producing team. Lawyer, who last directed "The Collected Words of Billy the Kid," has just gone to California to hone his craft in graduate school, but word has it he'll be back.
Rankin stays on. It's a good bet his Halloween presentation of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," at St. Mark's Cathedral, will make good on a few bucks shelled out at the door.
Brad Warren is a playwright and journalist who lives in Seattle.
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Contents on this page were published in the October/November, 1993 edition of the Washington Free
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