Production History: 1995, Berkeley Rep

"For me it's a kind of soft revolutionary play,'with sex, class and money as its central concerns. It's a play about trying to sustain your position or aspiring to get out of your class any way you can. It's about manipulation, finally, and the struggle to get out of a trap."
-Director Mark Wing-Davies (interview with Steven Winn)-

The Berkeley Rep production added contemporary touches to the 18th-century setting, relishing lively anarchronisms including an electric guitar.

Aimwell: Gregory Wallace
Archer: Dave Rasner
Mrs. Sullen: Diana LaMar
Dorinda: Julie Eccles
Boniface: Charles Dean
Cherry: Della MacDougall
Scrub: Geoff Hoyle
Sullen: Brian Keith Russell
Lady Bountiful: Joy Carlin
Gibbet: Kelvin Han Yee
Freeman: Victor Talmadge

Director: Mark Wing-Davey
Scenic Designer: Hildegard Bechtler
Lighting Designer: Michael Chybowski


Review Excerpts

Lynn Carey, “’Stratagem’ Spiced with a Few Odd Quirks” (Contra Costa Times 8 Sept 1995)
Anachronistic touches include a Coke machine, use of latex, the occasional glance at a wristwatch instead of a fob. "There’s also the little-known shower scene," Wing-Davey said with an impish expression. "And there may be the odd fluorescent sock."
Wing-Davey is not trying to hit audiences over the head with comparisons of England in the 1950s when the country was recovering from war and England in the 1700s, when the country was recovering from the Puritans. "I'm not approaching it in a dogmatic way. I'm interested in corresponding touches."

Marie Coates, "Beaux Ideal" (SFWeekly 20 Sept 1995)
Pre-show publicity to the contrary, there are no heaps of rotting fruit or mounds of steaming horse manure in the Berkeley Repertory Theatre intended to re-create the stench of Restoration England, the setting of George Farquhar's The Beaux' Stratagem. Director Mark Wing-Davey has settled for a few apples and squash (I think), tastefully tucked under the lip of the stage, along with wispy clumps of hay scattered here and there.

Erika Milvy, “Berkeley Rep Restores Cool to Comedy” (The Press Democrat 17 Sept 1995)
This interpretation of the Restoration comedy by George Farquhar features performers in period costume, putting on airs appropriate to 18th-century aristocracy, but ever so often they leak behaviors and appearances that are ever so modern.
Whether a character is wooing his mistress with an electric guitar or taking a lusty ride atop a gyrating washing machine, this is no starched and stuffy production. Aided and abetted by the music of the Flying Lizards, a new wave band of the late ’70s, ‘The Beaux’ Stratagem’ is a beautifully strategized blending of high and low comedy.
Beginning with a techno-pop cover of the Motown classic "Money – that’s what I want" on a sleek white stage resembling a modern art museum […] the play offers a wink and nod at its dated material.

Mrs. Sullen oozes sexuality as she mounts her pillow or engages in activity that would never do in her day. While he keep the action set in its original time period, Wing-Davies is clearly providing 20th-century direction.
The women are seen perched on a chamber pot, or else they charge an conventionally manly sword fight, offering Lucille Ball style assistance (leaping on and wrapping one’s legs around the bad guy) or fighting with swords themselves.


Reviews
"Beaux Ideal," Mari Coates, SFWeekly
"A Bouquet for Berkeley Rep's 'Beaux'," Robert Hurwitt, SFGate
"Smells Like Old Times," Steven Winn, SFGate
"Stratagem for Success," Steven Winn, SFGate


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