Date: Fri 25-Jul-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

Bartholomew-Town-Players

Full Text:

`Bartholomew Fair' Running Two More Weekends-

Players Continue An Unexpected Success

BY SHANNON HICKS

The Town Players of Newtown have always been willing to take chances with its

summer productions. When other local theatres are satisfied with the usual

schtick, musicals or faces, Town Players have taken on the likes of

Shakespeare - something out of the ordinary - at least once a season in past

years, with mixed results.

Even the company's season opener this year, J.B. Priestley's When We Are

Married , was an unusual choice. A play that is not commonly performed, the

Players took it on and saw positive results.

Now in the midst of its second presentation of the season, the Town Players

have been playing to nearly-full houses, even a number of repeat attendees,

and hearing very positive remarks for its latest undertaking: Ben Jonson's

Bartholomew Fair . Performances continue for two more weekends.

The title refers to a traditional one-day event, St. Bartholomew's Fair, which

was held annually in London for centuries. Written by Jonson in 1614, the play

has a very narrow plot line. According to the Oxford Companion To English

Literature (fourth edition), "the plot ... is very slight, [and] presents,

with much humor and drollery, if somewhat coarsely, the scenes of a London

holiday fair, with its ballad-singers, stall-keepers, bullies, bawds, and

cut-purses."

Jonson was a British poet and literary critic in addition to playwright. His

better-known works include Volpone (1605-06), Epicoene: or, The Silent Woman

(1609), and The Alchemist (1610). But, says Ruth Anne Baumgartner, director of

Newtown's Bartholomew Fayre (as it was originally written), is the warmest of

Jonson's works.

"It is the most festive, and I think most human of his works," Ms Baumgartner

said this week. "It is a warmer drama than his earlier works."

Ms Baumgartner, an educator at Fairfield University, specializes in

Elizabethan Jacobean. She has worked with the Town Players on a number of

productions for years, including the directing duties last summer for the

Players' production of Shakespeare's Knight of the Burning Pestle .

While Shakespeare, like most writers, was consumed with creating complex

characters, Jonson chose instead to show the "vices and foibles of the human

race," said Ms Baumgartner.

One reason Bartholomew Fair is not taken on by many theatre companies is its

length. Two hour plays, even with an intermission, can sometimes lose an

audience's interest. Bartholomew Fair runs nearly 3« hours.

"It can be hard to keep an audience's attention," admits Brett Galotta, who

plays a young thief named Edgworth. Miss Galotta, a Newtown resident,

graduated from Connecticut Conservatory in New Milford this past spring. She

has been acting seriously since the seventh grade, and dabbled in the

directing field during the past two years.

"This play has a large cast, and everyone has a huge part. There really are no

small parts in the show. There is a lot of dancing and singing, and there is a

puppet show within the play, as well."

"The show moves quite well," concurred Ms Baumgartner. "About half an hour

into it, the audience is comfortable with the language and are getting the

jokes."

A production of a larger scale than most plays call for, Bartholomew Fair is

comprised of 27 actors, plus seven puppets.

"This play is not usually done, for a number of reasons," Ms Baumgartner said.

"For one, Jonson wrote it very topically. There are a lot of references to

specific time-related events. We chose to cut a lot of that out; the other

route would have been to have footnotes [in the program].

"Also, the company required is so large," she continued. "Many companies

cannot afford to fill this cast, or they just don't have the players.

"This is an amazing thing, really. We have actors around here who just love to

perform; they're not professionals. They're breezing right through it."

Another reason this play is not presented much is because audiences are

unfamiliar with it, and its playwright. While Shakespeare was becoming a giant

of his time, Jonson and his works fell into relative obscurity. Jonson is only

recently being rediscovered.

So years from now, when Bartholomew Fair has been done time and again by

everyone else, it will have become old hat for the Town Players. And by then,

the Players will have rediscovered someone else.

Audiences have two more weekends to catch the antics at Bartholomew Fair .

Performances continue through August 2, on Friday and Saturday at 8:30 pm.

Tickets are $10 each; call the theatre at 270-9144. The Little Theatre is on

Orchard Hill Road.