World Premiere Adaptation!
The Rover
by Aphra Behn
Directed and Adapted by Josh Costello
- 01/06/05 ARTICLE: OC Metro
- 01/24/05 REVIEW: Northern Lights
- 01/27/05 REVIEW: Back Stage West
- 01/28/05 REVIEW: O.C. Register
- 02/03/05 REVIEW: O.C. Weekly
- More Press on The Chance
THEATER ARTICLE
New Year's Theater
by Christopher Trela, OC Metro
January 6, 2005
The Rover is a bawdy 17th century romp by Aphra Behn, the English language's first professional woman writer. The play, which was the talk of London when it first opened, has been boldly re-imagined and adapted by Josh Costello in this world premiere staging at The Chance in Anaheim. It's an audacious new take on a classic story about a young girl who uses her wits and imagination to escape her fate, defeat her rivals, and win a hard-fought battle of love.
Hellena, the young heroine of The Rover, escapes not just her situation, but also the gender roles imposed on her by a patriarchal society. Aphra Behn did this in real life through her writing, and she has Hellena do it by dressing up in carnival costumes and by disguising herself as a boy. To take this idea a step further, Costello - who also directs his adaptation - has Hellena, and all the other characters, played by present-day teenage girls play-acting together in their bedroom during a sleepover. By acting out the story - playing women and men, imagining what it's like to be in love, to be an adult, to deal with violence and forgiveness and loss - the girls escape their own preconceptions and limitations and discover for themselves what love is all about.
The tiny Chance Theater presented some impressive productions in 2004, and The Rover looks to continue that track record. For tickets, call (714) 777-3033.
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THEATER REVIEW
Feminist Tale of Imagination Straddles Centuries
by Anne-Margret Bellavoine, Northern Lights
January 24, 2005
Far and few between were the early feminine writers, and Aphra Behn is credited as the first professional female writer four centuries ago. Josh Costello's adaptation modernizes the setting, with four contemporary teenage girls acting out fantasies at a sleepover, yet retaining the original language as they don their various personalities.
In a patriarchal society which severely restricted women's options, imagination and fantasy were the only escape, both for Behn and her characters. Thus Florinda (Alex Bueno), Belville/Angelica (Emily Clark), Hellena (Vanessa Martinez) and Wilmore (Barbara Suiter) rummage through a dress-up trunk to transform themselves into romantic heroes and heroines, with the help also of assorted plush animal friends.
The secret lives of adolescent girls differs probably little in deep substance in our 21st century as it did in the 17th. As they shed their child personalities and try on potential adult ones, girls explore their future roles, with the scary world of love and sexuality beginning to dawn as their hormones explode, revealing new interests.
When the safe world of childhood shatters, the insecurities of changing bodies and new relationships with the other sex cause the conflicts which express themselves in deep ambiguity. Never far from a tender maiden's head and heart is a dashing young man who will ravish her and sweep her into his powerful arms. Real men are far too dangerous, and a make-believe world is a safe escape valve to act out fantastic scenarios in the safety of the home and mind.
Bursting with energy and creativity, the girls stage their yarn with reckless abandon as they give in to their raw feelings. Quick mood changes and prickliness are the realm of young maidens. The foursome play out these whims with the safety of celluloid nudity, à la Barbie and Ken, but, egad, fantasy often becomes threateningly real when the mood turns sensual.
Bueno, Clark, Martinez and Suiter never let the energy falter as they modulate their wildly fluctuating emotions in a humorous mode punctuated with nods to contemporary hip-hop culture.
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THEATER REVIEW
The Rover
by Melinda Schuppman, Back Stage West
January 26, 2005
A teenage girls' slumber party is one of the least likely places to find Restoration drama, but director Josh Costello's adaptation of Aphra Behn's The Rover finds its voice again in Orange County. Behn, noted as one of England's first female dramatists, was a witty albeit bawdy storyteller like many of her contemporaries. Her tale concerns a pair of sisters, one bound for a nunnery and one betrothed to a wealthy but elderly nobleman. The twists and turns are fairly typical, involving the usual mistaken identities, masquerades, and double entendres. Costello's work excels in his use of the young girls, whose budding interest in courtship and sex takes centerstage.
Hellena (Vanessa Martinez), the younger sister to Florinda (Alex Bueno), has been listening while her sister and friends (Barbara Suiter, Emily Clark) whisper about boys and the mysteries of romance. She taunts them into acting out the story of Behn's seafaring rover and his lusty connivances after the women he encounters. As they progress through the story, their awakening desires and sexual posturing bring new insights into their own burgeoning feelings.
One of the silliest but most effective conceits is to have the girls use stuffed animals and Barbie dolls to represent collateral characters. They rouse the audience to laughter more than once as Ken and Barbie act out an amusing striptease or a big fluffy dog gesticulates with nuanced motions. This largely collegiate-aged quartet manages to be both worldly and unsophisticated, and it comes off very well.
Masako Tobaru's lighting is effective, as her combination of subdued and key lights change moods. Costello might be faulted for overtly excessive posturing, but, in the context of teenagers, it comes off as an endearing enthusiasm. Jeremy Golden's large double-decker bunk bed is a successful bit of set design, allowing varied pairings of the cast. Kudos, too, for Christopher Villa's fight direction, as the characters wield umbrellas, canes, and toy swords in well-choreographed skirmishes. Adaptations can be successful or clunkers, as many directors have found, but this one is inventive and pleasurable, showcasing Behn's sharp wit and Costello's inspired imagination.
"The Rover," presented by the Chance Theater Repertory Company at the Chance Theater, 5552 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim. Sat. 4 pm, Sun. 6 pm. Jan. 22-Feb. 20. (714) 777-3033.
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THEATER REVIEW EXCERPTS
'The Rover'
by Eric Marchese, Orange County Register
January 28, 2005
"Costello gets the ball rolling in an endearing, fanciful manner: Along the lines of The Fantasticks, a trunk in the sisters' bedroom contains all manner of costumes, hats, wraps, boas and even masks - and soon, the four are enacting Behn's tale of romantic intrigue."
"As the plot grows more complex, Costello keeps things whimsical, his actors skillfully portraying a wide variety of characters using everything at hand, from stuffed animals to Barbie and Ken dolls - then, Costello preserves the darker tone of the final act, as various characters seek to avenge romantic betrayals."
The Rover runs in repertory with the theater's mainstage musical Closer Than Ever, which plays Thursdays-Sundays at the Chance.
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THEATER REVIEW
Pillow Talk
by Joel Beers, O.C. Weekly
February 3, 2005
Teenage girls in pajamas. Dogs. Cross-dressing. Naked cowboys. Teenage girls in pajamas.
Finally, theater for the rest of us.
Well, not quite. Josh Costello’s ingenious spin on Aphra Behn’s Restoration Comedy The Rover is anything but sleazy or lowbrow. It’s actually quite innocent. Charming even.
Damn.
While most adaptors contemporize an old play through dressing everyone in Old Navy garb or littering the stage with rubber chickens, sideways Red Sox caps and ham-fisted pop-culture references, Costello actually trusts the script to support his vision.
While that vision isn’t exactly revolutionary—imagination is yummy!—the way Costello relates the story—through a quirky game of charades that slowly evolves into a metaphor on how imagination can (everyone clasp hands) bring people together—results in one of the cleverest and most well-intentioned plays glimpsed from this small, stinking corner of hell in some time.
We’re at a slumber party. Repeatedly denied entry into the whispering clique of three older girls who’d rather talk about boys than creativity, Hellena tosses a copy of the book she’s reading into the middle of the sister-circle. That finally gets their attention. She coerces her sister, Florinda (okay, maybe Costello could have changed these chicks’ names), into acting out what she’s reading, with the other girls reluctantly following.
Using stuffed animals for older characters, Barbie and Ken dolls to enact the steamier portions, and clothes yanked from a laundry basket to change their identities, the girls stage Behn’s play. Initially, they seem embarrassed, rolling their eyes and mockingly mouthing the stilted language. As the play proceeds, their self-referential irony strikingly shifts, and they are swept up in the high romance and low goofiness of the comedy.
It’s a cute, charming (okay, that’s twice now; never again) effort that could easily have pitched into disaster. Restoration Comedies always feature convoluted storylines and trunkloads of characters. Using four actors to tell that story adds confusion. But Costello’s highly talented and incredibly enthusiastic cast—Alex Bueno, Emily Clark, Vanessa Martinez and Barbara Suiter—provide an esprit de corps that infuses the 90-minute play with an energy too seldom experienced on local stages.
With so much theater so self-important and posturingly pompous, it’s refreshing to see something intentionally light that still manages to make a keen point about how imagination can heal as much as it can distract. Maybe the meds kicked in at the right moment, but by play’s end, The Rover made this salty dog feel downright warm and fuzzy.
Damn.
THE ROVER AT THE CHANCE THEATER, 5552 E. LA PALMA AVE., ANAHEIM HILLS, (714) 777-3033. SAT., 4 P.M.; SUN., 6 P.M. THROUGH FEB. 20. $17-$20.
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