Results tagged “peterpryor”

Walking into the Wilma Theater's transformed auditorium, draped in white fabric with cardboard chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, all drawn aside and covered in artificial cobwebs, it's impossible not to feel completely immersed in the world of Peter Shaffer's , thanks equally to set designer Robert Pyzocha, costume designer Janus Stefanowicz, and lighting designer Jerold R. Forsyth. Soon enough, you'll discover that it's intentional: you feel a part of the play because you are. Antonio Salieri (Dean Nolen) will be addressing you this evening, invoking you, his visitors from the future, to bear witness to this, his final night. It's only fitting that you should be attending on his whims from within his decrepit home.

Roald Dahl is, hands-down, one of my favorite writers. And not just because he wrote . Thirteen years later, I found I didn't remember much of it, so sitting through the Arden's staged adaptation was like a delightful refresher course.

The premise is simple and nothing new: a man, taken into custody for reasons he's not aware of. He is taken to a secret jail and interrogated, tortured even, by two police officers of a totalitarian state that seems like it could be Soviet but might not be. When he won't—can't?—speak, his only living brother, "special" in all the politically correct ways of speaking, is questioned too, used to bait the man who still doesn't understand how he could have been brought to that cell.