The Robber Bridegroom

  • Post author:
  • Reading time:4 mins read

The Robber Bridegroom

 Laura Pels Theatre, NYC, March 20, 2016

Reviewed by Elizabeth Ahlfors for Cabaret Scenes

Steven Pasquale (c) and cast. Photo: Joan Marcus

Jamie Lockhart in The Robber Bridegroom is the devil-may-care leader of a rip-roaring troupe of 18th-century backwater bandits causing mayhem through the backwater countryside of Mississippi. At the Laura Pels Theatre, Steven Pasquale (The Bridges of Madison County) plays Jamie with a juicy mix of humor and sex appeal. He pulls it off with ease, a stylish gentleman by day but, in darkness, he smears his face with berry juice and slings a hat low over his eyes for some criminal nocturnal activities. Day or night, Jamie still wows the ladies and impresses the men.

Directed by Alex Timbers (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) with 90 minutes of nonstop goofiness, the woods come alive. Exaggerated mythic characters named Goat, villainous Little Harp and Big Harp (a bossy disembodied head), and a flirty raven, are all up to no good or just having good-natured fun. A simple plot emerges when wealthy plantation owner, Clement Musgrove (Lance Roberts), is spotted wandering through the Natchez Trace with a pouch of coins.
online pharmacy https://www.dino-dds.com/wp-content/themes/twentyseventeen/inc/new/singulair.html no prescription drugstore

Little Harp (Andrew Durand) tries to rob him, but Jamie has his own upcoming plans for Musgrove’s money and he stops Little Harp. Musgrove gets his money back.

The grateful landowner invites Jamie to Sunday dinner to meet (and maybe fall in love and marry) his young daughter Rosamund (Ahna O’Reilly). Jamie also meets Musgrove’s second wife, Salome, played with over-the-top sexual energy by Leslie Kritzer. Salome has selfish plans of her own and gets the local nitwit Goat (Greg Hildreth) to help, but her plans go awry, leading to physical high jinks in the Mississippi woods.

online pharmacy no prescription

Kritzer’s Salome comes close to stealing the show, chewing the scenery and playing to the audience.
online pharmacy https://www.dino-dds.com/wp-content/themes/twentyseventeen/inc/new/desyrel.html no prescription drugstore

The lovely O’Reilly’s Rosamund is part sweet ingénue, part charming manipulator, and vocally delights with the tender “Sleepy Man.” Yet leader of this pack is Pasquale’s charismatic portrayal of Jamie, with a commanding voice that defines his anthem “Steal with Style.”

The Robber Bridegroom is based on a fairy tale novella by Eudora Welty. Adding a score that is infectious if not exactly enduring is Robert Waldman’s bluegrass music with book and lyrics by Alfred Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy), driving the story. Starting with “Once Upon the Natchez Trace,” all the folks watch each other perform with a country string band of fiddles, banjos, guitars, mandolins and occasional piano, backing the rhythmic, foot-stomping choreography by Connor Gallagher.

The play was produced on Broadway in 1975 featuring Patti LuPone and Kevin Kline. It had a slightly longer run in 1976 with Barry Bostwick. This Roundabout Theatre Company’s off-Broadway production is the first major New York revival.

Donyale Werle designed a folksy cluttered set with wooden beams soaring into the rafters like the inside of the barn, and hanging turkeys, birds and various props fill the detailed space. Window lights flickering through the woods were designed by Jake DeGroot and Jeff Croiter.  The fetching cast, in costumes by Emily Rebholz, move about—lively, spirited and all-around over-the-top.

online pharmacy no prescription

And, folks – “That’s exactly how it happened/Once upon the Natchez Trace.”

Elizabeth Ahlfors

Born and raised in New York, Elizabeth graduated from NYU with a degree in Journalism. She has lived in various cities and countries and now is back in NYC. She has written magazine articles and published three books: A Housewife’s Guide to Women’s Liberation, Twelve American Women, and Heroines of ’76 (for children). A great love was always music and theater—in the audience, not performing. A Philadelphia correspondent for Theatre.com and InTheatre Magazine, she has reviewed theater and cabaret for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia City News. She writes for Cabaret Scenes and other cabaret/theater sites. She is a judge for Nightlife Awards and a voting member of Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle.