Date: Fri 05-Jul-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Illustration: C

Quick Words:

Town-Players-Pestle-Knight

Full Text:

(prev of "Knight of the Burning Pestle" @Town Players w/ NHS students, 7/5/96)

NHS Students Juggled Theatre Into Their Workloads

(with photo)

By June April

Blend the star-crossed lovers of Romeo and Juliet with the gallant Don

Quixote's questings, add in the talents of Newtown's finest actors and mix

well under the talented mind of director Ruth Anne Baumgartner and voila! - an

evening of joyous entertainment. The entertainment in question is Francis

Beaumont's play, The Knight of the Burning Pestle , a production which will

open July 12 at Newtown's Little Theatre. The Town Players will comprise the

cast.

Five of the Little Theatre's cast are "jugglers" from Newtown High School. Not

jugglers in the traditional sense of the word, but until late last week these

bright and multiply-involved students were keeping final exams, sports, music

and play rehearsals all active at the same time.

Andrea Tarka, Chris Bassett, Jill Swiatowicz, Kathleen Mooney and Nick Perrone

are close friends. They attended auditions for Knight of the Burning Pestle

together. All were chosen for the production.

"It was just terrific," marveled Ms Baumgartner. "They all had musical theatre

experience and filled all the parts perfectly." The director went on to

explain that each actor's role has been broadened.

"Unlike other theatre," Ms Baumgartner pointed out, "Jacobean acting involves

greater use of the hands. You could say it's a more expansive acting style."

It can now be officially said that four of the student actors are Newtown High

graduates; Chris Bassett is a junior. All five were in the NHS spring

production of The King and I .

Even with his multiple vocal and musical gifts, Nick Perrone - who played

three roles, including the "whipper," in King and I - looks to become a

surgeon. He was the 1996 recipient of the Xerox Award in Humanities and Social

Science, as well as the Rotary Youth Leadership Award.

The "artistic call" has been heard by the other four actors, however: musical

theatre will be a minor in college for Kathleen Mooney; musical composition

interests Chris Bassett; singing and dancing are first loves for Jill

Swiatowicz, who plays a boy in Knight who "singeths and danceths"; and Andrea

Tarka will major in puppetry at the University of Connecticut.

Francis Beaumont, author of Knight of the Burning Pestle , was William

Shakespeare's contemporary. In fact, they both died in 1627, within a month of

one another.

Principally known for his writing with humorist and satirist John Fletcher,

Beaumont was of the British upper class. He wrote erotic poetry and, like "the

Bard," he too had a barb to his writing, lampooning his society.

"[ Knight ] is one of the funniest plays written," observed Ms Baumgartner,

"and there is no play quite like it." Baumgartner describes Knight of the

Burning Pestle as a romantic comedy, episodic in nature.

"It's actually a play within a play," she noted, "and I fell in love with it

when I first read it in graduate school. Knight of the Burning Pestle was

performed about fifteen years ago at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven. Music

was especially written for it by the "notorious P.D.Q. Bach."

A play within a play, Knight of the Burning Pestle depicts what happens when a

wealthy and powerful grocer and his wife go to see a play and find it

unsatisfactory. They decide to simultaneously put on their own play about a

knight in shining armor. What follows is a collision of chaos and comedy.

"This is actually a `metadrama,'" Ms Baumgartner offered. "It describes drama

and the nature of theatre. It's rather literary and intellectual."

Pausing, the director added, "And it's really bawdy."

The Little Theatre is on Orchard Hill Road in Newtown. Knight of the Burning

Pestle opens July 12, continues through August 3, and will be presented Friday

and Saturday evenings at 8 pm. Contact the theatre at 270-0144.