Playwright: Anne Ludlum
At: Stockyards Theatre Project at the Midway Majestic Theater, 5722 W. 63rd
Phone: (773) 788-1035; $15
Runs through: Sept 11
The DelSarte acting technique, popular throughout the 19th century, linked physical expression to emotions in a systematic approach based on 'scientific' principles. In the arena-sized playhouses of its time, the effect resembled natural movement, but the scrutiny afforded by electric lighting and later, the movie camera, reduced it to the artificial posturing that has made melodrama a target of ridicule to this day.
Miss Fanny Kemble, her family comprising one of England's most renowned theatrical dynasties, addresses her visitors (us) in the intimate auditorium of her New York apartment—recounting how she retired at the height of her career to marry Pierce Butler, a wealthy American plantation-owner, and how her first-hand observations of slavery spurred her to speak out against it, even if her public outcry meant her husband divorcing her after declaring her an unfit mother for their two daughters. Lori Adams' delivery reflects the mannerisms associated with Kemble's classical training. Far from diminishing her character's credibility, however, they lend her testimony a conviction, almost a grandeur, alleviated by flashes of sly humor—a combination immediately commanding our attention and ultimately winning our respect.
Author Anne Ludlum doesn't attempt to cover her subject's entire life (though the one-woman show's brief—75 minutes—running time leaves us wishing she had), but instead focuses on the superstar's progression from artist to housewife to social activist. And while the opinions of Kemble's opponents are aired only as our narrator deems fit, her adversaries emerge as no more evil than their environment encourages them to be. Nor are the slaves, as portrayed by Adams with a fine command of island dialects and an eye to distinct and individualized personalities, ever allowed to slip into caricature.
Shame The Devil—its title drawn from an admonition directed at children to 'tell the truth and shame the devil'—marks the inauguration of the Majestic Midway Theatre, a site whose proximity to its namesake airport makes for some aural interference (hardly noticeable to audiences accustomed to dramatic action accompanied by passing El trains). But the ambient noise is more than redeemed by the superlative craftsmanship rendered manifest in this Stockyards Project production.