I just got back from watching Robert Cuccioli and Beth Leavel perform in Bernard Shaw's Village Wooing at the House of the Redeemer.
The venue is one of New York City's great indoor spaces, and has been used recently for other theatrical productions, including Moliere's Tartuffe. While Village Wooing is not nearly as famous as that play, it is a comic gem that provides great roles for two talented actors.
Director David Staller decided that those actors--who play characters Shaw simply labeled as "A" and "Z"--need not be a man and a woman. Generally a male actor plays A while a female is Z, but tomorrow night promises a bit of a role reversal with Karen Ziemba and Tom Hewitt performing as A and Z in the same play at the same venue.
And why must the couple be mixed genders? Saturday, Cuccioli and Hewitt will be performing together, and Sunday will bring a matinee with Leavel and Ziemba. Minimal changes to the text are necessary, since Shaw's comedy is about different classes and different approaches to life, but is not necessarily reliant on gendered types.
Sadly, Gingold Theatrical Group will not be producing a full Shaw production this year, so this weekend's elaborate staged readings (featuring piano accompaniment by Jono Mainelli) will have to tide us over until the company puts on Saint Joan next year.
